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Tuesday 17th November. Ceri Lewis and Mt Linton Sheep Station. Where do start? I thought that I had a good insight into the scale of the farming operation and Ceri’s achievement, from Dai Jones’s S4C televisionprogram last year. However,what we experienced during our extensive tour of the farm, which is braided by 300km of gradable road, and covers in excess of 32,000 acres, (13,000 Ha+) was difficult to comprehend.
Over a period of four hours we drove continually around different areas of the farm taking in the scale of the operation. Ceri has split the station into separate blocks and delegated responsibility to various managers. This of course encourages competition and allows benchmarking of progress. Each block might hold 6000 ewes with their lambs at foot and one person was expected to be in sole charge of the work for most of the year, but getting collective assistance at dosing, tailing etc. Contractors are also used to shear, and we experienced a gang of men tail docking, orff vaccinating, dosing and ear marking while we were on one of the outlying hills. The speed of the operation was impressive, but some of the techniques used might be called into question under our welfare guidelines in Wales.
An aggressive program of land improvement is carried out on the natural hill country with about 1200 Ha being tackled every year. This involves a two year program of spraying, burning and planting roots undersown with short term grasses before the ground settles down into long term leys. Nearly all the work is done by helicopter. The significant investment allowes around 6000 extra ewes to be kept every 24 months!
Ceri and his genetics manager Hamish Bielski also form a formidable team with regard to the cattle and sheep genetic programs. Mount Linton is increasingly being seen as a key source of quality rams and bulls with clients throughout New Zealand returning on a regular basis. Three ‘Gogs’ were looking around the station with us, and I would not be surprised to see some Mt Linton sheep genetics in North Wales in the near future.
We left Ceri and his family late in the afternoon having had a fantastic insight into a large scale farming operation being run with vision, hard work and top level management.
Just some facts:
Area: 3850Ha Downs, 2450Ha Developed Hill Country, 4715Ha Oversown tussock country, 2050Ha Native Tussok Country, 300 Ha Radiata pine plantations.
Stock numbers wintered 2009: 43,000 Romney, Texel, and Perendale –cross ewes, 11,000 ewe lambs, 1900 Angus cows, and various other calves, bulls, finishing heofers which come to a grand total of 84,340 stock units. (A further 1200 recorded ewes make up the sheep genetics unit which is riun as atotally separate unit)
Sales in2009: 253,000kg of greasy wool, 59,000 finished lambs, 1680 head of cattle, 300 Texel and Suftex rams, and 300 Angus bulls.
Winter feed: 450Ha swedes, 360 Ha turnips as part of the 1st year development on reclaimed hill, and 300 Ha Moata on the second year of development. 1200t silage and 950 big bales of hay.
Dogs: 120 Huntaway and heading dogs requiring 40 carcasses/week as feed
Fencing: 1000km of fencing
Shelterbelts: 60km of planting
Annual Fertiliser: 2750t + lime.
Over a period of four hours we drove continually around different areas of the farm taking in the scale of the operation. Ceri has split the station into separate blocks and delegated responsibility to various managers. This of course encourages competition and allows benchmarking of progress. Each block might hold 6000 ewes with their lambs at foot and one person was expected to be in sole charge of the work for most of the year, but getting collective assistance at dosing, tailing etc. Contractors are also used to shear, and we experienced a gang of men tail docking, orff vaccinating, dosing and ear marking while we were on one of the outlying hills. The speed of the operation was impressive, but some of the techniques used might be called into question under our welfare guidelines in Wales.
An aggressive program of land improvement is carried out on the natural hill country with about 1200 Ha being tackled every year. This involves a two year program of spraying, burning and planting roots undersown with short term grasses before the ground settles down into long term leys. Nearly all the work is done by helicopter. The significant investment allowes around 6000 extra ewes to be kept every 24 months!
Ceri and his genetics manager Hamish Bielski also form a formidable team with regard to the cattle and sheep genetic programs. Mount Linton is increasingly being seen as a key source of quality rams and bulls with clients throughout New Zealand returning on a regular basis. Three ‘Gogs’ were looking around the station with us, and I would not be surprised to see some Mt Linton sheep genetics in North Wales in the near future.
We left Ceri and his family late in the afternoon having had a fantastic insight into a large scale farming operation being run with vision, hard work and top level management.
Just some facts:
Area: 3850Ha Downs, 2450Ha Developed Hill Country, 4715Ha Oversown tussock country, 2050Ha Native Tussok Country, 300 Ha Radiata pine plantations.
Stock numbers wintered 2009: 43,000 Romney, Texel, and Perendale –cross ewes, 11,000 ewe lambs, 1900 Angus cows, and various other calves, bulls, finishing heofers which come to a grand total of 84,340 stock units. (A further 1200 recorded ewes make up the sheep genetics unit which is riun as atotally separate unit)
Sales in2009: 253,000kg of greasy wool, 59,000 finished lambs, 1680 head of cattle, 300 Texel and Suftex rams, and 300 Angus bulls.
Winter feed: 450Ha swedes, 360 Ha turnips as part of the 1st year development on reclaimed hill, and 300 Ha Moata on the second year of development. 1200t silage and 950 big bales of hay.
Dogs: 120 Huntaway and heading dogs requiring 40 carcasses/week as feed
Fencing: 1000km of fencing
Shelterbelts: 60km of planting
Annual Fertiliser: 2750t + lime.
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