to a weakening exchange rate. The latest trade deficit, merchandise and invisibles, was $26 billion, the highest per capita in the OECD. In 2002 the NZ dollar was buying only $US0.42, versus $US0.57 today. The first five years of the twenty first century were good for sheep farming and all exporters. A lower exchange rate is the easiest way to make the export sector more profitable, and to rebalance the New Zealand dollar to what it is actually earning in the global economy.

is in a mess, and the mess will get worse before it gets better. The previous government’s economic management was woke and weak. Takers were favoured over makers.

The world has been on a borrowing binge. Now it’s having a hangover. Media in New Zealand are focused on those who have their hands out for more money, rather than on who is making the money, generating export income and improving the standard of living. Undermining farming has become spectator sport for lobby groups and politicians.

How do we sheep farmers turn this situation around? This financial year is a rebound. Farm gate prices for lamb mutton and wool are up, and staying up. But not enough to cope with a 32% increase in farm costs over the past three years. To add to the huge financial downturn, parts of New Zealand have been plagued by difficult climatic conditions, from too dry to too wet. But sheep farmers have shown impressive resilience to maintain productivity over the past two years.

Most Deep South Wairere clients had lambing in 2024 within 5% of last year’s.

The founder, Chris Mulvaney, retired in December. Chris brought the monitoring of Body Condition Score to New Zealand. As a veterinarian he led Central Vets at Alexandra for years, doing huge hours of work and travel as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. He soon became more interested in driving farm productivity and profit. He studied the scientific literature for research trials, and conducted his own trials too.

Some of his pearls of wisdom:

• The BCS of ewes drives the productivity of the flock. The optimum BCS is score 3. Focus on lifting ewes below score 3, and restricting those above score 3.
• Most issues with productivity are fixed by better nutrition, providing that sheep genetics are not limiting.
  • Manage ewes to be score 3 every day of the year.
  • When to wean? Three points to consider:
    • Ewes still obviously milking (easy to see big udders)?
    • Ewes in good body condition?
    • Walk across the paddocks with twin ewes and lambs and using a pair of nail scissors easily cut and fill 3 x 20L buckets with lamb finishing feed.  That is the equivalent of 30MJME which the ewe and two lambs need daily.
• Efficient ewes with good nutrition will wean 80% of their live weight at 90 days.
• Ewes should be at peak efficiency at around 70kg when they are BCS 3.
• Given the overhead costs of running a breeding flock, it makes sense to optimise output per ewe.
• Mating hoggets makes financial sense once ewe lambing is consistently above 140%.
• Set your lambing date to real spring pasture growth kicking in three weeks after the start date.  
• The old adage about “sun on a lamb’s back makes it grow faster” is really the effect of sun on pasture, increasing the sugar and energy content.
• I don’t believe “clean water” is that important.  First the rumen is full of “dirty things” including dirt and trillions of bacteria. There have been some trials that providing “clean, fresh water” through a reticulation scheme added value but there was no mention of what effect sub-division made.
• Set stocking is okay if pasture is long enough to photosynthesise efficiently.

• “While the research may show more immune animals have lower FEC’s without significantly compromising weight gain I can’t say I have experienced this phenomenon at farm level anywhere near what I have seen with the genetic selection for tolerance to facial eczema.”

• Worms are far more clever than we are, so we need to learn how to live with them, which means we need to use as many tools as possible to help manage the impact of worms and the development of drench resistance.

This was the third year of trucking rams to Northland to sell, this year near KeriKeri. Northland is a big province, five hours drive from Auckland to Cape Reinga. It’s rewarding for Wairere to supply rams to the keen sheep farmers of the Far North. It’s hard to believe that the average lambing percentage in Northland thirty years ago was 85%. Performance now is at a much higher level. 

We bid adieu to Emma Pettigrew, who has put in four good years at Wairere as data manager (and chief party organiser). She has implemented several initiatives with data management and auction catalogues which have streamlined systems at Wairere. Thank you Emma.

So we now welcome Brooklynn Taylor to the Wairere team as Data Manager. Brooklynn has recently completed a Master of Animal Science degree at Massey. She graduated top of 140 Animal Science students in her year group. We are all impressed at how fast she has picked up the complexities of data management at this busiest time of the year. Brooklynn is adept at a computer, but also relishes the chance to get out to the coal face and be involved in weighing, assessing BCS and visual, and making decisions.

She looks forward to meeting you all as the year unfolds.

I caught up with Tom Hooper, Wool Source commercialisation manager, in early December. Tom had just returned from Europe and the USA, where there is ongoing testing of deconstructed wool as a pigment carrier. There are one or two glitches to overcome, typical of any R and D program. But a medium sized deconstruction manufacturing plant is on schedule to start operating in October 2025. That would use around one percent of NZ’s scoured wool per year. The lessons learned from that plant will be applied to building much larger plants, one at each of the North and South Island scours.

Realistically, it will be at least four years before there is a dramatic lift in the farm gate price of wool. Meantime, take a heap of work out of your sheep farming and go Nudie! 

CE John McWhirter was in Europe in August. He visited a carpet factory in Portugal. He was suprised to find out that an average factory worker in Portugal earned around $NZ 1850 per month. That compares to $NZ 1650 per month in Turkey, $NZ 4000 per month in the UK, $NZ4500 – $NZ 5000 per month in New Zealand. New Zealand wages are too high to compete in the world market. 

John has a number of initiatives to bypass middle men and bring more money for wool back to the farm gate. Wools of New Zealand currently has contracts at $5/kg clean for wool which meets specifications for their carpet brands.

to you all for surviving a challenging year. It is December 31st, and the Wairarapa is enjoying a beautiful summer rain… a fresh start to a much better year in 2025. We are here to make your sheep farming easier and more profitable.

Derek and the Wairere team.