Buying and Selling Sheep by Claudia


I traveled to New Zealand at the beginning of this month to learn about agriculture and sustainability.  Today we stopped at the Canterbury Livestock Auction to learn more about how farmers sell off their mobs (flocks) and how they buy new sheep. A few terms to note throughout this are: hogget (a sheep between 1-2 years of age), mutton (a mature sheep between 2-3 years of age), store (when sheep/cows aren't ready to go to the market or slaughter house),  and prime (when the sheep or cow is ready to go to the market or slaughter house). Some farmers just focus on buying store cattle or lambs from the auction and raise them until they are old enough to be considered prime animals. A farmer that I talked to this morning was only looking for store lambs around 20-35kgs (44-77 lbs) so that he could feed them and make a profit. When they are ready, he will He would then bring them back in 2-3 months time.  They will be a little more conditioned, weighing in around 45-65kg’s (99 -143lbs). 

The auctions process for selling sheep starts with prime sheep and goes down in age ending with stored lambs. They normally sell over 180,000 lambs per year. I asked a farmer about his process for bringing his sheep into the auction and he said he brings his animals the night before so that they can get weighed and sorted by weight, age and what farm they come from. The auction that we went to today was the first one since the holidays, and the prices have dropped since then. That could have been due to the fact that none of the regions of the Canterbury Plains have had a severe drought so there is not a reason for farmers to bring any livestock into the auction. Before the Christmas holiday, a farmer I spoke to said that sheep went for a minimum of $170 (NZD) and $108 (USD). Today I heard a few prices called out $121 NZD ($77 USD) and $136 NZD ($87 USD).

Walking around the auction you can see farmers stay in contact with stock agents to talk prices during the auction. You can see them on the phone or writing something down on a little piece of paper. Overall I was able to see the information that we learned in class come to life.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our Journey Ends by Francesca

Image
                                                                      Our Journey Ends Group Photo outside of the Lincoln University Library                                    And so our journey in New Zealand comes to an end … or does it? Throughout this past month, we have all learned and grown so much. As Dr. Griffiths and Susan warned us back in December, we will not be coming back home the same person we were when we left. Of course, we are returning a little tanner (or sunburned for some) and a lot of us with tattoos or piercings, but it’s not just a physical change. Not only have we learned more about agriculture and sustainability but we have also learned so much about ourselves. Each farmer left us with life lessons and messages that really resonated with us. One of the farmers, Scott McFadden, who we even recommended write a book to house all his inspirational messages, reminded us to “make each day a good day, have a good laugh because you gotta keep yourself going.” And tha
Read more

Today I met Hamish Marr by Erin

Image
Today, we had the pleasure of meeting a farmer named Hamish Marr. Hamish owns and  operates Longfield Marr Farms Ltd. along with his father, Graham Marr, his brother, Stuart Marr, and their families. Hamish and his brother are the fifth generation of the Marr family to operate the farm. Hamish does not believe his children have any interest in continuing the family farm, but he says he has other relatives who would.  Hamish is a very kind man, whose passion for farming is unmistakable. Throughout our visit,  several questions were asked about his farm and he was very eager to answer every single  one. The University of Delaware Study Abroad program has been visiting his farm for so many  years, that he even provided us with a sheet of facts about his farm upon arrival. This sheet included the breakdown of crops on the farm, why he farms the way he does, a bit about his family, and where he’d like to be in the future. Hamish stressed that in order to be successful as a farmer,  you have
Read more

The HUNT

Image
  One of the ways we start each program is with a scavenger hunt designed to take students to places they might want to visit while we are here - local restaurants, the post office, the classroom, the bus stop, the pharmacy, the grocery store, the urgent care, the police station, and more. The trek to town and back is about 2 miles! So Lilly and Jess (our Program Assistants) put the teams together and explained the rules: 1.     Members of each team had to stay connected in some way the entire time they searched for  the 18 locations on the hunt 2.      They had to creatively document (photo or video) that they made it to each location on the hunt 3.      They had to learn enough about each other to introduce them to the rest of the group at the last stop (the faculty directors’ residence)   Despite a few eye rolls (at the staying connected rule), off they went. It took them about an hour and a half but they rolled back in laughing and sharing and with some really creative
Read more