The Muster- James Edgar: Snow Compounds Issues

James Edgar says snow has just made this another notorious October weather-wise.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let this interview brought to you by Agris into South Branches.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
In Lawnville, Gord Cromwell, Milton.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
And ranfully dropped by your local Agriss into South Branch
today pretty much. Stephen Fleming at Second Slip that is
Cold Chisel on a Wednesday afternoon. You're listening to the
must We're away to Moer Flat Necks, catching up with
James Egger Sheep Beef and Venison Farmer up that way.
Jane's good afternoon. How things looking over your way?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, we've got blue sky yet today Andy, and the
sun's out what I wouldn't call it is warm, But anyway,
I suppose that's the start because we and I've got
pair on, so so things are looking up slowly.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
I guess how long did you lose power for?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
We only got al on last night later on last night,
so well, I guess. Popping on a side note, actually,
I see they got one hundred thousand for the Mere
Relief Fund. And without advocating too much, but I'd like
to see when the last of the pair goes on,
maybe some pizza and beers shouted for those linemen, because
I bet they've had a bit of chaos on and yeah,

(01:07):
I don't think I mind my taxpayers money, shouting a
few few pizzas and a bit of beer for the
linesman after they finished their their hard work. Well, I know,
especially when we live here, like it's quite isolating when
we lose pair, and yeah, she's sort of getting your
own bubble and worry about your own set of circumstances
and worrying about your own stock and freezers and velvet
and you know, well we're chasing around trying to fix

(01:31):
all the pair up today. But yeah, we had power
lines sliding in the middle of the road for probably
five days. And yeah, it was at least four or
five down round the round the district. So no, I
know those guys have been been working hard. And I
see this, Well, I've got the pair on now, but
we have a couple of pair poles have got quite

(01:52):
big leans from where the power lines have obviously pulled
them halfway over. So I'm guessing that we've got pair now.
But the last of the fixing isn't isn't done yet,
Like there's going to be a secondary repair job, you know,
tidying it up afterwards. But anyway, shout out to the linesmen. Yeah,
I appreciate the hard work and everyone that's been involved
in the emergency response. We had Joseph Murney Colden, so

(02:15):
I was impressed with that. Was actually the end of
a long day cutting branches off off fences, and you know,
I was a bit puffed actually, but yeah, I was good.
Good to see Joseph, and yeah, like those guys have
done a lot of keys and probably kept the communication up.
So yeah, no, thanks to everyone's hard work.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
But you have had snow to contend with as well.
We had those snow flurries falling Gore on Monday night.
But you guys got a proper dump, didn't you.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, I know we got we got proper snow. We
had about two inches probably the place here and up
the top farm we must have probably had six. Yeah.
The great irony of the thing was about the only
time the last two months we haven't had the wind.
Because the snow comes straight down in big flakes, sort
of like the winter, and no wind at all. It
was almost nice, not even contained with winds. Yeah, no,

(03:05):
it's just been a bit of a bat of the spring.
It's now definitely worse than last year for us personally.
The pasture covers. Yeah, please do paniced earlier, I guess,
and we were front filling it. But yeah, now we're
starting to yes, going to take some real farming to

(03:26):
try and keep everything going. I guess you've always said
that anyone can farm in a good year, but you
certainly find out your top blokes in the in a
bad year. And yeah, she's becoming fairly testing.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
I guess even mother nature. She's a great leveler all round,
no matter what your farming ability is though.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Oh absolutely, yep, yeah, yeah, we're just well, just with
the grass growth now. It's actually probably the main problem though. Well,
you know, we've got a pair on now and the
season's going to sort of been what it's going to be. Actually,
lemon doesn't look too bad. We've got feeling at the stage,
not that we've gotailing up here, but yeah, certainly that
grasscover when you lose it like that, you know, heading

(04:06):
into November when we really should be picking up your
top growth rates the whole year, and you know, it's
just hasn't happened yet. For Tiger South.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
It's a better balance as well as what you can
get done on the farm as well. James about planning
out the day, just not getting a heading heading yourself
at the moment, I suppose.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, yeah, well, not much changes for us, even though
we're still next priority jobs are sort of well tailing
to be honest, because there's some big lambs round, but
we left the tails on some of our bigger lambs
down at Riverside, So anything that's really forward will probably
just leave the tails on, because yeah, it's easy enough.
I don't like counting the tails off those really big lambs.

(04:43):
I think it affects them too much personally, and then yeah,
there's lamb drenching and we've got one to be another.
I was actually just talking to Wholly about that this morning.
At winder Crops, we usually spray out about the tenth
to fifteenth of November, but we're certainly considering the current situation.
We might pull them back to say the start of

(05:05):
December before we spray them out, and just maybe put
them a wee bit more area, just because I don't
see the point in spraying out grass and then underfeeding sheep,
so then our lambs get smaller and then we'd get
behind in the season. So yeah, we're just starting now
to put in place and do some thinking around what
we're going to do with the lower covers and how
we're going to change things. I know Cole when he

(05:26):
was up the top farm, he used to plant turnips
and he was doing that at the start of January,
and this theory was there was no point spraying out
grass if he didn't have enough affecting the sheep's milking
and everything else. So yeah, I mean there's certainly different tools.
We've got to change our outlook, I guess. So now
we're going to make sure we stay flexible. I was

(05:47):
actually laughing in the middle of the Paar Cup too,
because yeah, things on farm don't change all that much
because we had to steal velvet and then freeze velvet down.
So yeah, we were sort of in the middle of
the long weekend and I was John in charge, and
the jobs and the farm just carried on. So no,
it's yeah, it's just farming, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
That's one with the positives at the moment though, just
across the sectors, James, is the fact that the red
meat price the price of dairy and it is very
secure at the moment.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
I suppose, yeah it is, and you're still going to
execute to get the kilos out the gate, and that's
the important thing. So sometimes you can be knocked around
with the weather or doing different things, but it's just
about yeah, keeping that in mind. You know. I know
some of the guys here they're talking significantly worse lemmings.
And you know, sometimes if you can try and get
the same kilos out the gate with lease lambs, you

(06:36):
still end up at the same spot. And that's what
you got to think about once you get into it.
Is well, sort of like a bad half a rugby.
I guess Andy are using an analogy. You sort of
got to flush that one and get rid of the
half and change your mindset and then look forward, I guess,
And that's certainly what we're trying to do now. I
board through on the weekend and we got most of
the trees cut off, all the fences because I just like, wow,

(06:59):
when you first get bit of adrenaline, I like to
just get the fences back up and running and just
hock into it. And then we actually gave my sister
down at ol Drive there there. We gave her a
hand on Saturday, and you've got the trees off her
fences and that it was nice, nice, just to get
into it. And then now we're just, yeah, trying to
look forward and work out how this event doesn't impact

(07:21):
their business too much.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
I guess, So what do you do to mistigate that
impact that you have had over the last ten days?

Speaker 2 (07:30):
I guess we're around, we're shuffling stock round. I mean,
then they're going to sell some store stock. We will.
You can sell use lambs all counted, and you'll find
even with low grass covers, if you can get your
stocking rate down low enough, your sheep will still actually
be perfectly fine and they will grow away. Sometimes if
you have done that year, I mean, you might have
to put in the weave of extra lemb crop, or

(07:52):
there's lots of different ways to skin the cat. You know,
we can be quite flexible in our farming systems. Now
we look forward to when the stags get their velvet
cut off, because from there we can sort of lock
them down into some paddocks with rougher grass, and then
we can shuffle the sheep round and put them into
some of the valving peddocks. That's just early enough now,

(08:12):
but that's certainly another ten days and we'll start freeing
up valving peddocks. Which have got good grass, so yeah,
we can shuffle the us and lambs round into there
to eat that grass and they'll let their blocks come
back away again and then they'll probably go back. So no,
there's always things you can do if you actively think
about it.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
James Egger of mar Flat always good to check on
the muster. Thanks you Tom, that's.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Again, thanks thanks that dye, and yeah, I hope everyone
really looks up and you've got to flush the dunny
from the last you know, well what's happened so far
the spring and look forward, so good luck to everyone
out there.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
James Egger from mar Flat. You are listening to the
Muster on Hakkinnui before the end of the Yell and
Matt McCrae on behalf of Beef and Lad New Zealand
but up next from Mount McClain plus more same round
and clue