September 10, 2026 • 8 mins
Nigel Woodhead talks about changing his break feeding routine towards the end of winter in order to free up lambing covers.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome back to the muster.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
We're away to South Otago now between Barclutha and Milton
where we catch up with Nigel Woodhead, 2017 FMG Young
Farmer of the Year, and he's up on this hilltops
this afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
G'day, Nig.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, afternoon, Andy.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
You're battling the elements as well as the cold.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yeah, yeah, excuse my voice. I'm still coughing and spluttering
a bit. I'm on the up, though, like I'm on
the way out of it. But, yeah, and, yeah, it's
a reasonable sort of day. We haven't had any moisture yet,
which is positive, and a bit of a breeze to
dry the place out. So, yeah, we'll take it.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Overall, then, you're not looking too back because down in
Southland it's pretty wet.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Ah, we're wet. Yeah, no, no, we're wet. Like, it
just sort of seems like every time you get a
breezy day and it dries the surface out, there's another
four or five mils of rain to turn it back
to slop again. So, yeah, we have had more than
our fair share of rain, and, yeah, we're definitely wet.
All the puddles are still full and things. Like, we've
(01:13):
sort of shuffled some cattle around last week, took one
wee mob of bulls off their fodder beat, and they've
just been, got them in a wee block just feeding
them baleage, trying to keep them off paddocks as long
as possible. And then our bigger mob of bulls have
just got their last break of fodder beat today. And
(01:33):
then tomorrow we'll put them on their bull rotation blocks
and that'll be that. So that's because it was so wet.
This time last week, if we'd put bulls on paddocks,
we would have absolutely trashed those paddocks. So yeah, just
trying to sneak through. And I always want to... I
try and make sure we don't get, you know, we
(01:56):
get through until the sort of 1st of October before
we start on that second rotation of the bull block. So,
you know, bull block covers are all right, but they're
probably not quite where I wanted them. So we sort
of just try and hold cattle on crop paddocks as
long as possible until we can, yeah, so that we can, yeah,
(02:17):
I think we'll be able to, what are we now, the, 10th, 11th, yeah,
we'll be able to get three weeks out of the
first rotation so we can get to October before we
start the second one, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
How did this August compare to the last two that
you've had?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Oh, not even on the same scale. Like, the last
two Augusts have been not too bad. This year's one
was pretty tough, actually. Like, we usually get 10 nice
warm days in August somewhere, you know, sort of a week,
a week. It's usually a string of a week at some,
and we get quite a bit of growth and we're good,
but this year was quite tough, just cold and wet.
(02:54):
And like I say, we're doing all right for feed,
but if we'd had a half-by-reasonable August, we would have
had feed coming out of our ears. So managed to
sneak through all right.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Even though the season's been slow to date then, you
sound pretty confident that you can get through, likes of
into October then?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yeah, I mean, well, it's too late now. Look, everything's
spread out pretty much. We put a ram crane on
10 days into mating and try and sort of split
everything roughly in half. And I think I had 1,200
twins in the first car, 1,100 or something, and 150
in the next one. So, you know, the idea of
(03:34):
the ram crane is so that we can hold a
percentage of our ewes behind the wire for another week
and keep covers, but It's not much of a percentage
this year. It hasn't made much of a difference at all. But, yeah,
so they're still behind the wire. So, yeah, pretty much
everything apart from a couple of unusual stock now. So
we've just got to keep our fingers crossed, really. And
(03:57):
I've got Urea ordered, so just wait for a nice
fine day and wait for the helicopters to catch up,
and then we'll get some Urea on most of the farm, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
What about bearings? No different to other seasons, Nige?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I think we've had two. So, yes, it's different, and
different in a good way. Actually, three, because a hogger
had a bearing out the other day, too. So, yeah,
we've had three bearings, and the two and the ewes
were quite early on, so I just dog-tuckered them, and
then this hogger, by the time I found her, she
(04:31):
was past it, so she went to the dogs, too. So, yeah,
usually I try and fix them and get a lamb
out of them and then kill the ewes, but... we're
on 0% survival, so that's not a very good stat,
but we've only had three of them, so it's not
too bad.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
How common is it to get Barrington hoggarts?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I get the odd one. Just the odd one here
and there, but not big numbers. I really try and
stack feed in front of the hoggarts and keep the
feed up to them, and I reckon the worst thing
you can do for a hoggart is underfeed them, so
I just feed them as much as I can eat
and but it seems to look after them all right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
It's a kind of a damned if you do, damned
if you don't scenario when you're trying to put the
bearing back in.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I mean, if it lives, when you get a lamb,
all well and good.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
But the flip side is, if you get a chance, well, yeah,
a bit of tucker for the freezer for the dogs.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, well, like I say, we try and put as
many bearings back in, or try and put all the
bearings back in, and we usually have a pretty good
survival rate. I follow my home penicillin, and I always
carry MediCam, it's a painkiller with me now, and um
any yeah pretty much all the bearings i'll do i'll
give them a painkiller and that i reckon makes a
big difference um you know just just help them feel
(05:48):
a bit more comfortable and yeah then you know those
bearing use will just go to the freezer use and
um keep an eye on them when you're cruising around
at lambing time and make sure they lamb all right
and then you know they'll get killed with freezer use
in december so um Yeah, like, you know, usually you
have reasonable survival and, you know, every lamb's a prisoner
(06:09):
around here, so try and get as many lambs alive
on the ground as you can.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Well, every lamb's a prisoner because the money's pretty good
as well. Oh, yes. It's a no-brainer.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
No, no, no-brainer, you know, you're right. So, and, you know,
we've got a position to be in talking about, you know,
we have to keep every lamb alive because they're going
to be worth hopefully 200 bucks instead of it wasn't
that long ago. We had to keep every lamb alive
because if we didn't, we're on the verge of going broke.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, that's quite a pragmatic approach around it, but pretty
relevant for a lot of people as well. I mean,
you talk about on-farm inflation, which was pretty peak after COVID-19,
and it's something that's reared up again lately.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
But it's good this year anyway. A lot of people
paying tax.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, no, no. It's good. I've said it plenty of times.
We needed this past 12 months. We needed it. We
had four losses in a row, and we haven't actually
sat down with the accountant and had a decent nut out,
but he did some back-of-the-envelope numbers for us here a
while ago and said, oh, don't panic about your tax bill.
(07:14):
If you've got any to pay, it won't be much,
but there's some pretty big losses to carry forward from
the last few years. So we really needed last year's
profit just to get back on the even keel. And
if we don't pay any tax... which it sounds like
we won't pay much, then that essentially means the last
four or five years were broken even. So it is good,
(07:39):
you're right, but at the same time, we needed it
as a business because things were getting a bit tough. So,
you know, we said it last year, you know, one
year's great, you know, one good financial year's good, but
if you can stack two or three of them on
top of each other, you really make some progress and
it feels like it sounds like anyway that there's going
to be another reasonable one, so... Hopefully, like you say,
(08:03):
we can have another reasonable year. I don't like paying
tax any more than the next guy, but if you're
paying tax, you're making money, so we'll just pay tax
if we need to.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Good on you, Nige. Get that cold under control. We'll
catch up with you again. All the best over the
next couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Good man. Thanks, Andy.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Nigel Woodhead in South Otago between Balclutha and Milton being
very pragmatic and positive as well as we head into
spring properly down here. Mark Kelly's up next out of
Newstalk ZV. Producer up that way talking a bit of sport.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
The Waz. Big game tomorrow. Mr Saturday Night.
Welcome back to the muster.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
We're away to South Otago now between Barclutha and Milton
where we catch up with Nigel Woodhead, 2017 FMG Young
Farmer of the Year, and he's up on this hilltops
this afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
G'day, Nig.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, afternoon, Andy.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
You're battling the elements as well as the cold.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yeah, yeah, excuse my voice. I'm still coughing and spluttering
a bit. I'm on the up, though, like I'm on
the way out of it. But, yeah, and, yeah, it's
a reasonable sort of day. We haven't had any moisture yet,
which is positive, and a bit of a breeze to
dry the place out. So, yeah, we'll take it.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Overall, then, you're not looking too back because down in
Southland it's pretty wet.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Ah, we're wet. Yeah, no, no, we're wet. Like, it
just sort of seems like every time you get a
breezy day and it dries the surface out, there's another
four or five mils of rain to turn it back
to slop again. So, yeah, we have had more than
our fair share of rain, and, yeah, we're definitely wet.
All the puddles are still full and things. Like, we've
(01:13):
sort of shuffled some cattle around last week, took one
wee mob of bulls off their fodder beat, and they've
just been, got them in a wee block just feeding
them baleage, trying to keep them off paddocks as long
as possible. And then our bigger mob of bulls have
just got their last break of fodder beat today. And
(01:33):
then tomorrow we'll put them on their bull rotation blocks
and that'll be that. So that's because it was so wet.
This time last week, if we'd put bulls on paddocks,
we would have absolutely trashed those paddocks. So yeah, just
trying to sneak through. And I always want to... I
try and make sure we don't get, you know, we
(01:56):
get through until the sort of 1st of October before
we start on that second rotation of the bull block. So,
you know, bull block covers are all right, but they're
probably not quite where I wanted them. So we sort
of just try and hold cattle on crop paddocks as
long as possible until we can, yeah, so that we can, yeah,
(02:17):
I think we'll be able to, what are we now, the, 10th, 11th, yeah,
we'll be able to get three weeks out of the
first rotation so we can get to October before we
start the second one, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
How did this August compare to the last two that
you've had?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Oh, not even on the same scale. Like, the last
two Augusts have been not too bad. This year's one
was pretty tough, actually. Like, we usually get 10 nice
warm days in August somewhere, you know, sort of a week,
a week. It's usually a string of a week at some,
and we get quite a bit of growth and we're good,
but this year was quite tough, just cold and wet.
(02:54):
And like I say, we're doing all right for feed,
but if we'd had a half-by-reasonable August, we would have
had feed coming out of our ears. So managed to
sneak through all right.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Even though the season's been slow to date then, you
sound pretty confident that you can get through, likes of
into October then?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yeah, I mean, well, it's too late now. Look, everything's
spread out pretty much. We put a ram crane on
10 days into mating and try and sort of split
everything roughly in half. And I think I had 1,200
twins in the first car, 1,100 or something, and 150
in the next one. So, you know, the idea of
(03:34):
the ram crane is so that we can hold a
percentage of our ewes behind the wire for another week
and keep covers, but It's not much of a percentage
this year. It hasn't made much of a difference at all. But, yeah,
so they're still behind the wire. So, yeah, pretty much
everything apart from a couple of unusual stock now. So
we've just got to keep our fingers crossed, really. And
(03:57):
I've got Urea ordered, so just wait for a nice
fine day and wait for the helicopters to catch up,
and then we'll get some Urea on most of the farm, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
What about bearings? No different to other seasons, Nige?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I think we've had two. So, yes, it's different, and
different in a good way. Actually, three, because a hogger
had a bearing out the other day, too. So, yeah,
we've had three bearings, and the two and the ewes
were quite early on, so I just dog-tuckered them, and
then this hogger, by the time I found her, she
(04:31):
was past it, so she went to the dogs, too. So, yeah,
usually I try and fix them and get a lamb
out of them and then kill the ewes, but... we're
on 0% survival, so that's not a very good stat,
but we've only had three of them, so it's not
too bad.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
How common is it to get Barrington hoggarts?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I get the odd one. Just the odd one here
and there, but not big numbers. I really try and
stack feed in front of the hoggarts and keep the
feed up to them, and I reckon the worst thing
you can do for a hoggart is underfeed them, so
I just feed them as much as I can eat
and but it seems to look after them all right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
It's a kind of a damned if you do, damned
if you don't scenario when you're trying to put the
bearing back in.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I mean, if it lives, when you get a lamb,
all well and good.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
But the flip side is, if you get a chance, well, yeah,
a bit of tucker for the freezer for the dogs.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, well, like I say, we try and put as
many bearings back in, or try and put all the
bearings back in, and we usually have a pretty good
survival rate. I follow my home penicillin, and I always
carry MediCam, it's a painkiller with me now, and um
any yeah pretty much all the bearings i'll do i'll
give them a painkiller and that i reckon makes a
big difference um you know just just help them feel
(05:48):
a bit more comfortable and yeah then you know those
bearing use will just go to the freezer use and
um keep an eye on them when you're cruising around
at lambing time and make sure they lamb all right
and then you know they'll get killed with freezer use
in december so um Yeah, like, you know, usually you
have reasonable survival and, you know, every lamb's a prisoner
(06:09):
around here, so try and get as many lambs alive
on the ground as you can.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Well, every lamb's a prisoner because the money's pretty good
as well. Oh, yes. It's a no-brainer.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
No, no, no-brainer, you know, you're right. So, and, you know,
we've got a position to be in talking about, you know,
we have to keep every lamb alive because they're going
to be worth hopefully 200 bucks instead of it wasn't
that long ago. We had to keep every lamb alive
because if we didn't, we're on the verge of going broke.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, that's quite a pragmatic approach around it, but pretty
relevant for a lot of people as well. I mean,
you talk about on-farm inflation, which was pretty peak after COVID-19,
and it's something that's reared up again lately.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
But it's good this year anyway. A lot of people
paying tax.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, no, no. It's good. I've said it plenty of times.
We needed this past 12 months. We needed it. We
had four losses in a row, and we haven't actually
sat down with the accountant and had a decent nut out,
but he did some back-of-the-envelope numbers for us here a
while ago and said, oh, don't panic about your tax bill.
(07:14):
If you've got any to pay, it won't be much,
but there's some pretty big losses to carry forward from
the last few years. So we really needed last year's
profit just to get back on the even keel. And
if we don't pay any tax... which it sounds like
we won't pay much, then that essentially means the last
four or five years were broken even. So it is good,
(07:39):
you're right, but at the same time, we needed it
as a business because things were getting a bit tough. So,
you know, we said it last year, you know, one
year's great, you know, one good financial year's good, but
if you can stack two or three of them on
top of each other, you really make some progress and
it feels like it sounds like anyway that there's going
to be another reasonable one, so... Hopefully, like you say,
(08:03):
we can have another reasonable year. I don't like paying
tax any more than the next guy, but if you're
paying tax, you're making money, so we'll just pay tax
if we need to.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Good on you, Nige. Get that cold under control. We'll
catch up with you again. All the best over the
next couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Good man. Thanks, Andy.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Nigel Woodhead in South Otago between Balclutha and Milton being
very pragmatic and positive as well as we head into
spring properly down here. Mark Kelly's up next out of
Newstalk ZV. Producer up that way talking a bit of sport.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
The Waz. Big game tomorrow. Mr Saturday Night.
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