Projects

Pāmu Farms Mararoa manager Matt Canton reported that the scanning rates in their 4000 hinds – both mixed age and first fawners – had been okay overall in 2017 at 93 and 94 percent respectively. (There had been one failed mating mob among the mixed age hinds, which dragged down their average.)

However the fawn losses were higher than they wanted, especially among their first fawners, which lost 19.5 percent of their fawns, for an overall weaning rate (to hinds mated) of just 74 percent. The mixed age hinds had a 10 percent fawning loss, better but still not great. Canton said they used EID to monitor losses paddock by paddock for seven fawning mobs of mixed-age hinds and found wide variation. The percentage of wet/dry hinds to those scanned pregnant and set stocked ranged from 2.3 percent up to a whopping 15.9 percent. Canton said there was clearly something going on in several paddocks. “If it had been losses during pregnancy, these would have been more evenly spread,” he said.

They plan to repeat the exercise to make year-on-year comparisons to see if there are definitely problem paddocks. He said one possible factor might be paddocks with less natural cover, more man-made hazards (e.g. ditches), less shelter and greater exposure to disturbance. “We need multi-year data to be sure.”  They haven’t done a paddock-by-paddock analysis among the first fawners yet.