Charollais sheep seen as 'breed of the future' - Stuff.co.nz
The couple have two properties, the 1100ha home farm at Bideford and another 530ha block at Pongaroa. In addition, they have two leased blocks near Masterton they use for finishing stock and a 50ha block across the road for cropping. They run 7500 romney-texel ewes, 5000 on the home farm where they have put 1500 five- and six-year-old ewes to the charollais, with the rest going to Wairere tufguys to breed replacements for both farms. They also calve 200 two-year-old heifers a year and have 450 angus-hereford cows on the two farms. "I always wanted to go farming and when I left school I did shepherding and stock managing work before the opportunity to lease here came up. "I didn't study agriculture or go to university, I didn't even get School Cert, I just went into... With a base flock of romney-texels, Kilmister says they were looking for "that extra bit of grunt to put onto those and get more lambs off Mum", and they believe they have found it in the charollais. Last year they killed a crop of lambs sired by 20 charollais-cross ram lambs bought at auction in March of that year. Source: www.stuff.co.nz
