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Hyundai Country Calendar - Season 61 Episode 13 - Class Act
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00:05Proudly celebrating 60 years of rural New Zealand.
00:10Chunday Country Calendar.
00:15Twelve years after our first visit, we return to a King Country station.
00:21You know, these farms, you can't run them yourself.
00:24It's everything to have a good team.
00:26Oh, he's a pretty good boss.
00:28Mecca's real good, he's got lots of knowledge.
00:30Nice.
00:31Yeah, I'll be keeping a good eye on Archie.
00:33Someone's got her.
00:34Another 50,000, you'll be going quite well.
00:5421 years has ticked over and I guess, yeah, I still enjoy what I'm doing.
01:01You know, every year you've got different challenges, different things come along and it keeps it exciting.
01:09When Alan McDonald started managing Te Thbarua Station in the King Country two decades ago, he was a young fella.
01:17Still trying to be.
01:21Bit of time's ticked by, I didn't think that would happen, but anyway, it's happened.
01:25As long as it keeps happening for a while, I'll be happy.
01:31Alan is known to everyone as Mickey.
01:35At the 1800 hectare Te Thbarua Station, they fatten sheep and beef.
01:40The station's owned by Pamu, the state owned enterprise formerly called Land Corp.
01:47Being a caretaker for a corporation, you've got a sense of responsibility to do things well and make things good
01:54all the time.
01:57Country calendar first met Mickey in 2014.
02:03Ten years ago, Mickey sold his own farm so that he could lease a bigger place.
02:07The farm he leased was right here, Te Thbarua Station, which at the time was privately owned.
02:13He knew its potential, which is why he chose it.
02:16Having shorn around the area, sort of for 23 years or so, we used to come down this way sharing
02:21stock and very good stock, very healthy.
02:25Strong country, you know, and you get good weights out of your stock, so that appealed to me.
02:31I ended up in the chattels with Land Corp when they purchased it and carried on and worked for them.
02:36I never imagined being a manager, but it can't be all bad.
02:42I'm probably not what you'd say the ideal Land Corp manager is, but just a matter of getting used to
02:47delegating people
02:48to doing the jobs you like to do best is probably the hardest thing for me, but it's growing on
02:53me.
02:54These days, Mickey runs Te Thbarua with a staff of three, including head shepherd Marie Gibbard.
03:00Morning.
03:01Morning.
03:01Hey, if you can go up for me and grab those 9.40 lambs that you weighed up the other
03:07day.
03:07Yeah.
03:08That'd be good. First truck's at nine, so we'll get them dirty cleaned and load them up.
03:12Sweet. Sounds good.
03:13Awesome. Thank you.
03:17I've been here for about a year and a half. I like the location, really. The further out of town,
03:24the better.
03:28Get up, Dawn. Get up, Dawn.
03:31My most favourite thing about shrimp beef is actually locations. You can pretty much go anywhere, the beautiful scenery, all
03:38that.
03:38Yeah, it's a pretty cool life, really.
03:42Get inside. Get inside.
03:45The goal has always been farming for my life and making my way up the ladder, really.
03:51Maybe even hopefully one day lease or own. That'd be pretty good.
03:59Get down, Dawn.
04:02You know, these farms, you can't run them yourself. You need a good team right behind you and you surround
04:07yourself with good people.
04:13It's great having a boss that's open-minded and always enjoys trying out new things.
04:19You do well for one part of the season and the next season you're already thinking how you can do
04:23better.
04:24And I really like working with someone like that.
04:28While I think I'm a simple bloke, sometimes I'm not as simple as I think I am.
04:34But she's sort of got the measure of me.
04:37She knows when I've got pressure on me, knows how to take that pressure from me and take a bit
04:41off my shoulders.
04:42So, it's pretty cool. Yeah.
04:49To train the staff, it's just a constant thing, really.
04:54It's creating them opportunities, giving them confidence and letting them have a go.
05:05My parents are dairy farmers and I thought a bit about dairy, but as soon as I sort of started
05:10working with my uncle on his sheep and beef property in Taipei, yeah, I just wanted to go that way.
05:15Yeah.
05:17Seventeen-year-old Archie Davidson is the newest member of Mickey's team.
05:21He's recently arrived after a year's training on Pamu's new cadet apprenticeship scheme.
05:28Archie was on the first intake of that and they spend time on different Pamu farms, dairy and livestock farm
05:35sheep and beef.
05:36Stand. Stand. Stand.
05:42I like working with the team. Mickey's real good. He's got lots of knowledge and so does Marie. Everyone has
05:47something to teach me, so it's really cool. Yeah.
05:52When Country Calendar was last year, Te Wharua Station was fattening bulls.
05:57In here, you need to keep your wits about you. No one wants to mess with half a tonne of
06:02angry bull.
06:07Twelve years later, the bulls are gone, replaced by heifers.
06:12We struggle to carry the bigger animals in the winter on our pastures with them being so heavy, so we've
06:18sort of opted to go down to a lighter sort of a footprint for our winters.
06:23So now we've just taken these hundred kilo heifer calves.
06:28Pamu dairy farms are keeping their best female calves for milking.
06:33The rest and the male bobby calves are sent here for raising his beef cattle.
06:39Historically, bobbies have been killed and discarded.
06:42But Pamu has introduced a nationwide plan to stop killing bobby calves on its farms by 2030.
06:49I think it's a good thing. I've never liked the bobby calf system, how it's worked over the years.
06:54It's definitely got better. It's got a better look about it, but I think it's a very good thing, you
06:58know.
07:20Mickey McDonald, manager of Te Wharau Station, is a former shearing champion, and was still competing in his 50s.
07:28Mickey McDonald, manager of Te Wharau Station, is a former shearing champion, and was still competing in his 50s.
07:30If I stopped shearing, I felt like the time was right. My body was still good, nothing was worn out
07:36or broken,
07:37and I didn't want to be broken down as I'd become an older person.
07:44I still miss it to this day. I always get that inkling that you could go back shearing,
07:48and I do half a day shearing somewhere, and I think, nah, I think I've done the right thing.
07:57Mickey watches with an expert's eye.
08:02In 1994, he was the world individual shearing champion.
08:08Oh, well, I've won a few things, and did a few world records, and yeah, definitely pretty good.
08:15The highlight of my wins is 94 world champs. That was my best win by far.
08:20Mickey was up against the legendary David Fagan.
08:25To beat him at his peak in 94, in Wales, that was real special. Yeah, yeah, great moment.
08:36Right, if you get it out here like this, Archie.
08:38These days, Mickey makes an ideal tutor for the youngest member of staff, Archie Davidson.
08:44This is the most difficult part here, dropping down.
08:50I'll leave it there and then finish it off from there, Archie.
08:57That's it. That's good.
08:59Just shuffle forward a little bit.
09:02Got it there.
09:03Yep.
09:07Nice slow blow.
09:10That's it.
09:12Nice.
09:13Keep it on the skin.
09:17Beautiful.
09:19That's good.
09:23To his staff, Mickey's more than just a boss.
09:28Archie, for instance, he is like a family member, like a son.
09:31So now and again, we have father discussions, and we have boss discussions, and then we have mate discussions.
09:37So he hits all those roles pretty well.
09:40I mean, there's someone else's son or daughter.
09:43So, you know, you want them home safe and look after them as well.
09:47Looks good, Archie.
09:52Another 50,000, you'll be going quite well.
10:05Shepherd Anita Kendrick is the most experienced member of Mickey's team.
10:12I've been here just over 15 years now.
10:15It's definitely ended up a bit of part of the furniture.
10:18But yeah, it's a pretty awesome farm to work on.
10:32It's been a few years since Mickey gave Anita advice.
10:37Oh, he's a pretty good boss. Yep.
10:40He's usually joking around about something most of the time.
10:43And yeah, he's sort of similar to me.
10:46Been here a long time and seen a lot of different things on the farm.
10:49Lots of different changes.
10:51Leave it. Check.
10:52Just six months into Anita's time as a shepherd at Te Wharua, fate dealt her an unexpected blow.
11:02Anita lost the use of her legs in a farm accident.
11:05Two and a half years ago, she was working on another property on her day off.
11:09She was going up a steep hill when she rolled a four-wheeler farm bike.
11:14I was just going up a track and it was quite rutty and I gave it too much grunt at
11:19the wrong time.
11:20And the bike came over and broke my back.
11:23It soon became clear she wouldn't walk again.
11:26It was a huge blow because Anita had only ever wanted to do one thing, work on a farm.
11:32I suppose it was very much a big question mark.
11:35Hoping that I'd still be able to farm, but the reality, you know, was I don't think I was going
11:41to be able to.
11:42Um, yeah, it was, it took a fair bit of getting my head around, yeah, around it all.
11:51But thanks to the support of everyone on the farm, she's back.
11:55But nah, I do try and give everything a go, yeah.
11:58Dagging and drenching and all that, I miss a lot, yeah.
12:02Quite hard to watch everyone else do it, but yeah, it's just something you've just got to handle, yeah.
12:10Miki told Anita in hospital that he wanted her back on the farm in a new role, part admin, part
12:16farm work.
12:17She was developing as a shepherd and going along really well, you know, and to be cut down like that,
12:22it was pretty hard on the whole crew, you know, just to see one of the team go down.
12:27I think if we'd shut the door on her then that would have destroyed her soul, you know.
12:32So at that point I think it was about giving a person a chance to build again and get going.
12:38Quiet in, quiet in.
12:40With the team around her at the time, you know, they helped her to develop and get back into it.
12:45She's getting her confidence and going along well and, you know, awesome shepherd with it, you know.
12:49Great team of dogs.
12:53I'm incredibly grateful to him that he had the time to help me and also had the belief in me
13:00that I could get through it
13:01and I could be doing, you know, what I was doing. He always believed in me from day one.
13:05Whereas a few people, actually family members, doubted me a little bit so it was good to have his support
13:09and still have it
13:11even though, you know, I couldn't walk and he never stopped believing in me.
13:20Despite the doubters, Anita is still here. Today she's helping Archie train his pup.
13:28Get up nice and close to your sheep and then as soon as the sheep start to walk away from
13:32you, let them go
13:33and then hopefully we can just encourage them around to head them.
13:39While Anita started back after the accident with a hiss and a roar, she's finding it tougher these days.
13:46The body's definitely struggling with full-time work.
13:51Definitely struggling with the long days and also being in the weather 24-7.
13:56It's taking a toll on my body, yep.
14:01I think the passion's still there, it's just a little bit redirected and not quite as intense as it was.
14:10Yep, that's it. Just nice and slow.
14:14If you just come back along the gates there, that's it.
14:18Down bolt. Good boy.
14:21So yeah, nice and slow.
14:22While Anita has had to reduce to part-time,
14:25she still has a lot to teach Archie as he builds up his team of dogs.
14:29Down bolt.
14:32I spent a bit of money on starting my team.
14:36Yeah, they range from five grand for quite a good dog to ten grand.
14:41Down bolt. Down bolt.
14:44Archie reckons Bolt has what it takes.
14:48He's silly, but he's real intelligent.
14:51Yeah, he's good. Just obviously training, but yeah.
14:54No, he's cool. He's my best mate.
14:59Get him bolt. Get him bolt.
15:04Get him bolt. Get him bolt.
15:06Get him bolt. Get him bolt.
15:17Since Country Calendar first visited Te Whārawa Station in the King Country 12 years ago,
15:23one of the biggest changes manager Mickey MacDonald has overseen has been the introduction of the pine forest.
15:35We took out 540 hectares of the hill country, class six and seven, to diversify into trees.
15:45Been a big project over the last few years to get that up and underway and get going.
15:50So yeah, it's quite a big change, one of the biggest changes that we've done.
15:55Pretty interesting. I didn't know much about forestry or anything like that.
15:59It's pretty much of a crash course, but we're getting there.
16:03The steepest slopes are now in pines.
16:06When they were grazed, these hills were earning about $250 a hectare a year.
16:12The return from carbon credits varies with the age of the trees,
16:15but in the best years will now bring in over $3,000 per hectare.
16:21To argue the point that we don't want forestry,
16:24there's no argument really when it comes to a financial decision.
16:27You know, all the farms are driving all the time to lift their production and do things better.
16:33I'm the caretaker for the land at this point,
16:35and financially it just makes a better, more balanced farm out of it all.
16:49Six years ago, Mickey faced a major new challenge.
16:52The worms that can infest lambs had become resistant to drench.
17:00They're just multiplying inside them, and then they grow dags,
17:03so they're more prone to fly, and eventually it just kills them.
17:06Everything just catches up with them, so yeah.
17:10For me, it was one of the hardest things with farming that I've ever had to cope with.
17:14The sense of sort of feeling like you'd let the farm down, let the company down, let yourself down,
17:20and yeah, I should have captured more hard data sooner rather than wondering what was going wrong.
17:27You know, just thinking that I could fix it. I didn't think it was as serious as what it was.
17:33So yeah, very hard on mental health and your bottom line.
17:46What we've done is we've lessened the sheep numbers and sold off any of our replacements,
17:52so we didn't have lambs on in the autumn part of the season when the worms are really bad,
17:56spreading their worms around the pasture to make it harder to clean up.
18:00So yeah, and then just for strategic sort of drenching and using the right types of drench to combat it,
18:07so we're starting to win now. We're coming out of it now quite nicely.
18:17One of Anita's regular jobs is keeping an eye on the worm count.
18:22I'm testing to see how many eggs are in each gram of their poo.
18:29I bring the sample home, pop it on the scales,
18:32it goes through another process of some salt water added to it,
18:37through another filter, and then into a system that takes photos of it
18:41and sends it off to experts for them to email through a result for us.
18:46Hey Mickey, it's Anita here.
18:47How you doing?
18:48Good. Hey, just got these test results back.
18:51And yeah, looking pretty good. Still quite low at 210 eggs per gram, so...
18:56That's a good result for the length of time they've gone undrenched, so...
19:01And they're looking bloody good, so...
19:02Obviously everything's working really well, so...
19:05Ah, good. Awesome results. Cool. Sweet as.
19:12How you getting on? Good.
19:13After the challenges of the last decade, Anita is enjoying life with her partner Goody,
19:19who came with two children.
19:23Goody's got an earthworks business and does our digger work on the farm,
19:28so, yeah, ended up bumping into him a few years ago and got chatting and, um, yeah.
19:35I'll do some roasties.
19:37I've got some pork fillets for dinner as well.
19:40Cool.
19:40I think it's sort of been pretty easy, really.
19:43Very easy. We've just, we've clicked and away we went.
19:48Yeah, no, it's just, she's easy to talk to and, yeah.
19:53And Anita is thinking about life beyond Te Wharua.
19:58Plans for the future would ideally to purchase our own block.
20:02Um, just a nice small farm that I can still tick along and still do what I love.
20:08And Goody can still carry on doing what he loves as well.
20:11And, um, yeah, just having our own place to call home would be really, really cool.
20:22Mickey is getting to the stage when retirement is looming
20:25and he'll have to pass the farm to someone else to manage.
20:31I think I'll feel pretty good about it.
20:33You know, it's not going to be something easy to do,
20:35uh, because, you know, that passion that you have for the,
20:39the work you've done and what have you.
20:41But, you know, at the end of the day, it was always,
20:43it's always going to be for someone else and that's the way it is.
20:51I like being busy. I like being active.
20:54I'll have projects and I've got my own, um, property in Pew Pew there
20:58that I'm looking forward to getting up to there at some point
21:00and running that and just working away there and enjoying life,
21:04get to catch up with grandchildren a bit more and, and my children as well.
21:08So, yeah, it should be a good stage of life, I hope.
21:23Yeah, about pastures, uh, you will find that most, uh, most animals eat grass,
21:31so we're very concerned to keep the green outer covering of the earth in good order,
21:34but we're having a lot of trouble.
21:35Uh, there are several things that can go wrong with pastures.
21:39Uh, here, this is a classic example of what we've got here.
21:42Uh, this is not very good pasture at all because it's too damp.
21:47To see the rest of this classic episode and more gems from the past 60 years,
21:52head to TVNZ Plus.
21:55Music
22:11Get in.
22:26Country calendar was proudly brought to you by Hyundai New Zealand.
22:30Music
22:31.
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