February 27th, 2010As you may be aware, the current business relationship between Rodway Park and Sarnia Deer, has come to its conclusion. The contract was always for 5 years and has been finished on very amicable terms. Bob Atkinson is very happy with the management of Andy & Rachael Mitchell and thanked the directors of Rodway Park for their work over the last five years. Rodway Park will continue to run sales, offering their own stags and hinds to the industry.
The farm is in great heart, especially compared to two years ago - grass health has improved dramatically and weeds have been kept to a minimum. Run under their usual commercial routine, the young stags are looking good and continue to improve year on year.
December 15th, 2009
I have just been berated by my sister in Iraq for not updating our webpage since 2006 - however, that is only this page!!
So much has happened - it has been three years since this page was attended to - our daughter Caitie was born on May 1, 2007 and at 2 and a half is very much her own person, loves going on the bike so Mummy can go thistle grubbing (!) and knows her farm animals, pasture species, etc. She is a delight.
In 2008 we also survived the huge Drought that affected much of New Zealand. Unfortunately we were in one of the hardest hit areas and it was a very long 11.5 months from when we started feeding baleage out in November 2007 to the day we didn' t have to do a feed-out run in early November 2008. We went through 1,000 bales of baleage, 100 tonnes of peas and maize and sold all of our MA ewes. It was not a fun time, but we survived. Communities pulling together and some fantastic support from our friends and clients made the difference.
Now in late 2009, the drought is not forgotten but the farm is looking a picture, and the hinds seem to have doubly bounced back with only 2 dries in the MA hinds this year and an exceptionally early fawning. The younger stock and young stags have taken a little more time to catch up after the conditions they lived through. Bob Atkinson visited the farm in the middle of the drought to help remove the spiker hard antler and he reckoned the place looked like the surface of the moon and it was an experience he would never forget.
Better weather conditions and things like deer sales to focus on now. We continue to endeavour to innovate with our sales information. This year we have spoken to around 450 deer farmers updating our mailing list, and everyone who wants it will be getting a copy of the catalogue and our CD. Also, with our maiden hind sale in February, we are enclosing the catalogue for that with the stag sale one to let clients know what we are offering.
I will now have to do better to keep this section more up to date than once every three years!!!
Best wishes to all who read this for the upcoming festive season, and for a prosperous New Year in 2010.
November 25th, 2006
Where exactly have the last six months, or half a year gone. Velvet competition and stag walk time are upon us again.
This year especially we are very pleased to be selling three year stags, having had a winter on the swedes they are all moulted and most are breaking into their tops. The two year olds are very late this year and it would be very hard to make a call on sale selections for some time yet. We are very excited about the offering of three year old stags we have this year, the first and only offering of naturally mated Sherlock sons (Sherlock died after his first roar and we have only very limited semen in the bank), and Sarnia Park's Heath, sadly killed after his first roar as well. The progeny from these and the other sires are looking very promising this year.
As, it seems, with most of New Zealand this spring, we have had a pretty tough time - through lack of rain and windless sunshine, rather than too cold or too wet. The spring flush has never arrived and we are managing the grass rather than trying to control it, as we normally are at this time of year. However, the stock seem to be in good health and the first fawns are running around with Mum already which is a good sign.
A trip to the UK in early June for Rachael to visit family was an interesting deer experience with a visit to Furzeland Park in Devon. It was amazing to see where the Furzeland bloodlines came from and to see the historical "deer stuff" there like Romulus' antlers and Magnolia, a hind brought up with Marigold (no teeth, mainly lives on love and digestive biscuits!)
On a personal note, life has been a little more hectic than usual for Andrew this season as we are expecting our own baby, rather than just the usual animal ones, at the end of April, so there has been less 'sharing' of the farm burden between the two of us, although there are still the same amount of jobs needing doing.
May 30th, 2006
A great Autumn has seen us go into the winter months with more feed in front of us than normal. We are very pleased with the progress of the weaners, with our top stags weighing 84 kgs and hinds between 72 and 74.5. For pure English stock this represents good progress.
We are now busy with the usual maintenance jobs that seem to dominate this time of the year. Gates & fences are all getting a spruce up and the farm will have the electric fence system reticulated in preparation for break feeding the sale stags during July/August on the swede crops.
It will be hind sale time before we know it. With the industry starting to take a turn for the better in all circles it will be critical to have a positive round of sales. This year for the first time we will be offering a limited selection of weaner hinds alongside our second draft of Capital and stud breeding hinds.
Take the time to have a look at our new sire stags. During the lead in to the mating season this year we added to significant new sires in Arundel and Rasputin. These were acquired to replace Alfred and Tullaigh Mohr who went hunting this year.
December 17th, 2005
It has been an interesting year - a milder winter than last year - 8 severe frosts as opposed to 50 the previous year and then after a very wet and kind early spring a "rain-free" spring in November and early December. Very hard to grow grass for the young stock on our pumice soils with these conditions.
This year has seen the combining of the Rodway Park and Sarnia Park deer, at Rodway Park. I think I speak for all of us, when I say, we have really enjoyed working together and endeavouring to get the best out of the combined genetics. Through combining the stud operations, we are able, in 2006, to offer solely three year stags for auction in January, a move that farmers seem to be receiving warmly. We are also very excited about the new bloodlines we are able to offer up in the stags this year, for example:
Banks's sons - every one of his first drop has been catalogued for sale, probably a first for the industry
Endsleigh (now at Stanfield's Bushey Park), Pure Woburn, first offering of three year sons on the market.We also have some very exciting genetics available in the yearling hinds this year - Achilles, Banks's sons, Awesome, Legs.
Andrew & I are still working hard at knocking the farm into shape, but apart from the obligatory poplar trees falling over perfectly good fences and the need for pasture regeneration we feel we are slowly getting there.
February 1st, 2005
The stag sale season has been and gone for another year. In keeping with the state of the industry pricing was similar to last year. This year saw us offer our first line up of deer in conjunction with Sarnia - a highlight being the first draft of Banks' daughters for sale as yearlings. The top price was for a Banks' ex Taylor hind - $6,000 this was the top price for a yearling hind in NZ this season. She will start her breeding life at Kelly Oaks, Rotorua. We wish them and her well.
We are now feeling like we are back in the Wairarapa, no rain for three weeks and the place is a dust bowl. Rain is promised for tomorrow, so here's hoping! Tagging is getting well under way now and we seem to be heading for a great fawning percentage.
December 20th 2004
As I write this it is only 5 days to Christmas, I find it hard to believe another year has raced by. We hope that you and your families have a happy and safe Christmas and a more prosperous New Year.
Some very exciting news for the stud is the new relationship with Bob Atkinson and Sarnia Park. For the first time, Sarnia deer will be offered for sale at auction, in conjunction with our Jauary 6th, 2005 sale. Bob has some unique and very well bred animals at Sarnia Park and we are pleased to be working with Bob and his deer. Watch out for more exciting developments, and the younger sires that we will be managed at Rodway, like Achilles.
We have now been at Rotorua for well over a year and we are gearing up for our second stag and yearling hind sale. The animals are looking great this year, now settled into the new property and doing their best to grow despite a mixed bag over the year in the weather department and the current season (let's not call it summer) that NZ is having.
2004 has been a very busy year at Rodway, carrying on the tidy up begun in 2003, and getting things like thistle spraying carried out so that we didn't have to farm 25% of the property in thistles as we did last year! Fawning has come forward by 3-4 weeks, so much so that we are considering tagging between Christmas and New Year. With the Miskin family arriving from the UK on New Year's Day for 3-6 weeks, January will be busy!
May 22nd 2004
Apologies for the length of time taken to update this page. We have been almost as busy as in the velvet season - all the usual business involved with fawns and weaning, mating and then the continued tidy up of the farm. Fences are getting brought up to standard, to the extent that we can actually keep even the goats in most of the paddocks without mass escapes. However, this all takes time.
Fawning went well this year, no interference with the hinds and no fawning troubles. We only found 3 dead fawns but having not scanned can not say for certain that this was the total. Scanning this year will allow us to see the full picture this fawning season. We have some great fawns on the ground - Sherlock, who sadly passed away, has left us with a limited number of very well bred progeny, who we will be watching with anticipation. Asterix, a new sire, is coming through very nicely and we are very keen to see how his offspring progress.
On the hind side, we now have all the deer at Rodway, the hinds originally from Kaimai were fawned up there due to a shortage of grass here in the late spring. It is good to have all the stock together - about 400 hinds in 3 mobs, 2 MA and one FF.
Having had a period of 8 weeks with NO rain, we ran into feed shortage and made huge in-roads into our winter feed. However, apart from a few weaners not coping so well, everything is looking good now that the rainfall is back on track!
We will be scanning all of the hinds in the next few weeks so watch this space for an update and the list of hinds for sale from July 1.
21st December, 2003 - Merry Christmas to All
Christmas is fast approaching and with it the necessity to complete the work on the new sales complex in readiness for the 2004 sale on January 5th. The farm is now barely recognisable from the one we purchased in September. New races, fences, sheds and everything been given a good tidy up and the place is now growing grass. Approx 1 tonne of fert has gone on per hectare this year and we have lots of grass but more importantly heaps of CLOVER. The Masterton deer are slowly adjusting to this change!!
All of the stock have taken a hit with the move, but despite this, some of the sire stags have grown great velvet this year. Jim Beam cutting 6.18kg SA2 @ 5 yrs - and a very pretty correct head to boot. As you will see from the sire pages, some good full heads are coming through as well.
The younger stock have done it the hardest, with velvet on the two and three year olds being very late and growth rates back on last years averages by about 10 kgs. The move, combined with the lack of grass at takeover has been hard on them. We have a Pure Warnham spiker, by Banks, who had eight inches of velvet up when we moved and a month later he still had eight inches of velvet up and then started to grow again. Could you have a more graphic example of how the shift affected the stock?
However, we are very happy with the weights prior to the shift, so the genetic ability of these animals, to grow, is not in question. Allowances need to be made for the move.
28th October 2003
With our feet well and truly under the table now, we are getting ourselves into the routine of the new farm. Things like re-building the inside of the existing deer shed, and building a completely new sales shed, along with the non-performance of our main farm pump can be disruptive, but velvetting is well under way and fawning mobs have been decided in readiness for drafting before the end of the month.
The young stock seem to be settling well and, once the new scales are built, will be weighed shortly, however, button drop is nearly finished for the two year olds and there are a good number of spikers showing some very exciting velvet (photos soon).
The digger driver and our outstanding fencer, Kevin Stewart (Masterton) have left with their work complete, and construction will start shortly on the new shed (although not with today's rain!)
Upcoming dates for the diary are as below:
November 20th - 5.30pm - Rotorua Branch members are all welcome to the Rotorua Branch Christmas event at Rodway Park. BYO side plate and alcohol, meat provided by Rodway Park
December 11th, time tba - Bay of Plenty Stag walk - incorporating the local studs who are auctioning animals this year. Watch this space or trade press for further details.
January 5th, 2003 - 11.30pm
RODWAY PARK, ROTORUA, inaugural stag sale. Catalogues will be posted out mid-December to all existing clients of Rodway Park and Kaimai, if you would like to receive a catalogue and don't currently, please contact us.September 2003
Expansion of the enterprise is the topic this month. We are delighted to have joined forces with Kaimai Deer Stud. Maurice and Anne O'Reilly the owners of Kaimai have joined us in a new joint venture under the umbrella of Rodway Park Ltd. The company has purchased a 400 acre property 27 kms South West of Rotorua.
Although the new property hasn't run deer for eight years, it was orignially part of an 800 acre property farmed by the Fraser family. Pieces were then farmed by the Luff family and then laterly by Bryce Herd and his Pampas Ridge Deer Stud.
The property will provide it's challenges with a wide variety of terrain. It is a strong commercial farm, perhaps more ideally suited to a breeding operation and it will provide us with production statistics that will better represent our customers properties. Rodway has, as one of it's founding tenets, the belief that stud animals should be delivered to our customers having been reared in a commercial environment.
We have a grouping of 76 outstanding 2 year old stags to be selected from for our annual auction to be held in January 5th 2004. We may also choose to offer 3 year stags this year and have some promising Woburn and Warnham individuals to select from.
We look forward to welcoming clients of both Rodway and Kaimai to our new property.
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