News

As we progress towards pre-lamb shearing in the coming months, growers need to prepare to minimise VM in the wool they are set to consign. There are two different classes of VM contaminant: most, the likes of hay, manuka leaf, and grass seed, which is relatively easy to remove, washing out of the...

Efficient and easy to use option leaves clients free to find better uses for their capital. PGG Wrightson offers an easy solution for on-farm cashflow: Go-Stock. Since 2016 Go-Stock has put 1.55 million lambs and 240,000 cattle onto New Zealand farms. For farmers operating under Go-Stock, PGG...

Selections focus on FE, worms, marbling and progeny performance This year's annual ram sale season is underway, showing the current strength of the red meat sector. Clients are focused on genetics resilient or resistant to facial eczema and worms. Eating quality is a critical factor in most...

Online livestock sales, which have gained plenty of traction under Covid, look set to go to a new level next month, with an elite Southland Friesian herd set to become the biggest single livestock offering sold so far online. PGG Wrightson Southern South Island Dairy Livestock Manager Mark Cuttance...

The Livestock Report. Listen now. The Country's Rowena Duncum is joined by PGG Wrightson's Canterbury Livestock manager, Grant Nordstrom, to talk about New Zealand's livestock market and the "no-show Show week" in Canterbury. The livestock selling season kicked off with the first on-farm lamb sale...

Pictured in a 150th anniversary blade shearing event in Central Hawke's Bay three years ago. The Canterbury Shears' New Zealand Corriedale Shearing and Woolhandling Championships are safely underway in Christchurch after weeks of planning to run a safe event amid the coronavirus crisis, which caused...

‘‘I used to see the shearers roll up in their Mk II Zephyrs and Holden utes and I used to think ‘gosh I want to be like that too, one day". Our very own wool classer and master woolhandler, Mr Bell. Involved with shearing since the Merino Shears began in Alexandra in 1961. Read the full stuff...

Based in Dunback, Scott Tomlinson farms lambs and bulls. He uses GO-BEEF to help source their two year old bulls in the Autumn and GO-LAMB for winter and summer lambs. Scott says GO-STOCK helps with the flexibility of sourcing stock and having the freed up capital has really helped the development...

Managing a 1600 hectare property with 9300 stock units, Luke started using GO-STOCK through their agent, running Jersey bulls and trading lambs. The lambs put through GO-STOCK are solely for trading and putting them them through the GO-STOCK system has made it easier to free up capital. Hear more...

Callum Stewart joins Mark Leishman on Country TV at the kicking off of the national bulls sales season.

Mark Leishman catches up with Hamish Black at the South Island Fieldays, Kirwee.

Weigh scales and cloud technology have combined to offer a proactive solution to measure and monitor stock on an individual basis, enabling timely decision-making on-farm. “The combined use of Tru-Test hardware coupled with Datamars Livestock cloud software delivers strong benefits for farmers,”...

Calf rearer, Aidan Cowley prefers to rear calves on whole milk. He stores around 40,000 L of colostrum milk, and rears half his calves on it only. But the milk doesn’t last forever, so Aidan must use Calf Milk Replacer (CMR). Following the advice from PGG Wrightson Customer Service Representative...

In autumn, lice populations on cattle increase. This is due to temperature and humidity levels becoming more favourable for lice survival on the animals. Lice populations rise to reach their peak in winter and early spring. In New Zealand, there are two types of lice, a sucking species which pierces...

Successful hogget mating is associated with increased lifetime performance of the ewe. Well managed hogget mating can be a valuable use of extra autumn and spring feed. Sheep reach mature body size as a four tooth, so may still be growing during the first and second pregnancy. Any underfeeding in...

Weaning date is often driven around calf weaner sales with many calves sent directly to sale yards. For those farm systems where significant numbers of calves stay on the property, then the following needs to be considered. In dry summer conditions, feed quality and quantity can become restrictive...

Good management of the ewe flock leading into tupping has significant impacts on next season’s weaning, with potentially an increased number of lambs weaned and heavier weights. The cost of feeding an ewe is fairly constant, but what is often overlooked is the lost production from those ewes with...

Water is a crucial nutrient. It makes up approximately 87 to 88 percent of milk on a volume basis. But how often do we pay care to the quality and quantity of water available to livestock? Water helps animals cool body temperature through saliva, sweat and breathing. Without the cooling effects of...