Words by Sarah Horrocks and Images by Greg Bowker – AngusPRO Magazine 2024
When Tom Sanson and Dr Andrew Cribb took on the lease at Whangara in 2021, they knew they had to make rapid changes to bring the objectives of the stud back to fruition.
Three generations of Lane brothers have farmed Whangara, most recently the late Patrick Lane. Patrick had a big focus on using high-growth American Angus genetics that had carcass quality to boot. However, in more recent years, rightly or wrongly, the reputation of their structure had come into question and change was needed.
Andrew and Tom signed a 20-year lease for the farm, situated between Gisborne and Tolaga Bay, and bought all stud and commercial stock — 270 registered cows, 200 commercial cows and 1000 commercial ewes.
“Purchasing the stock outright gave us full autonomy over the breeding decisions,” Tom says.
The lease incorporates 1100ha of Whangara and there is another 500ha planted in pine trees for carbon credits, which remains in the care of the Lane family trust.
Andrew (a full-time veterinarian) and Tom were relieved to find that the structural issues were nowhere near as bad as they’d been led to believe, so after some hard initial culling, they sorted the issues out within the first two years. All commercial cows were moved on, allowing the stud to grow to 400 females as they brought in more heifer replacements each year.
Because the Lanes had so much growth and carcass weight data in the herd, it allowed Tom (who is integral in the operations side of the farm) room to bring in more material traits without compromising growth.
“We have to be breeding females that will rear a calf in the hill country on their own, as our clients expect them to.”
Whangara is one of the only studs on the East Coast to mate their yearling heifers, which Tom finds hard to get his head around, given the added profitability benefits.
“The evidence there is irrefutable, there’s no maybe in it.”
Tom says that as a stud breeder, he feels he should be leading the industry with his farming practices.
“Patrick had been mating heifers for over 25 years, so we don’t have any calving issues and there’s great fertility there.”
At Whangara the maiden heifers are put through a single round of fixed-time artificial insemination (FTAI) and then go to paddock bulls for a further two cycles.
Conception rates for AI are 50‒60%, with an overall pregnancy rate of 90% in the yearling heifers.
The mixed age (MA) cows are culled pre-mating, removing any females with structural issues, unfavourable data or calf-rearing issues. These are put to a terminal Simmental sire down in Hawke’s Bay on another property.
“Everything that doesn’t get in calf, rear a calf and then get back in calf is culled,” Tom says.
The MA cows also go through a single round of FTAI followed by two cycles with a herd sire. Everything goes through AI except those who have calves less than 45 days prior (caught on the second cycle the previous year).
“Those late females just do two cycles with the bull.”
The MA cows have a higher success rate of 60‒70% with AI, and an overall pregnancy rate of 95%.
All cattle are on the hills all year round, strictly grass fed. The 90ha of flats at the front of the farm give a false impression of its overall kindness, with 70% of the farm steep hill country. Those 90ha are there to grow high octane grasses for 6000‒8000 trade lambs.
In addition to these lambs, the 1000 pre-existing hill country ewes were replaced with 1000 commercial Coopworth ewes. Whangara plans to build this number to 2000.
The main calf drop is late August to mid-September. At pregnancy testing the females are recorded into two-week blocks and later in the year they’re drafted into those mobs for calving, which cuts down unnecessary time in the yards later on. This also allows ease of weighing and tagging at birth ‒ another rarity for East Coast Angus studs.
All calves at Whangara are HD50K tested at birth which increases the accuracy of estimated breeding values and enables parent verification.
“It’s a huge cost for us, but we value that investment.”
All bull calves are retained so they can be scanned and have all data recorded, again for increased accuracies, and anything not being sold is killed from 18 months of age.
“This year’s sale bulls are the first bulls we’ve brought through from conception.”
Tom says the bulls are unrecognisable from pre-2021 and he’s excited at the number of bulls they can offer.
“We want to ensure we’ve got a structurally sound, really consistent line of bulls with good data.”
That was hard to find in 2022, with only 20 bulls put forward for auction. This year they’ve got more than 50 that are suitable.
Tom is adamant that no bull is perfect, yet every bull is a piece of the puzzle. When looking for bulls to use over the Whangara females, docility and structure are paramount and they then look for bulls with those maternal attributes, while keeping growth, carcass and intramuscular fat (IMF) in the mix.
IMF is expected to steadily increase as the older cows are replaced with younger high-performance females.
“We’re having quite a fast turnover of the cows to get those older ones out.”
Mention of the June 25th sale has Tom a bit flustered…
“My partner is due to have a baby on the 20th, so sale day will be busy!”
In the lead up to the sale, the bulls are fed lucerne baleage for six weeks to get them into peak condition but before that they’re on a straight grass system.
Farm Manager Christopher Richardson oversees the day to day at Whangara, with a shepherd and a general hand working alongside him. Tom is on farm for key events such as calving, cow and bull selection, etc, but on a daily basis he is more involved with data recording, marketing and keeping in touch with clients and agents.
“Chris is a key part of our business,” Tom says.
The 20-year lease gave Tom and Andrew, who are 50/50 shareholders in Sanibbs Worldwide Ltd, the scope to initially invest heavily in fencing and fertiliser.
“Putting it in initially meant we’d see maximum return on our investment.”
Fertiliser has been going on heavily, with pH levels at 5.8 on average and low Olsen P.
“We’ve been pouring the P on, but it’s a slow process.”
The farm working expenses are 47% of gross farm income and this has been steadily lifting since Andrew and Tom took over Whangara.
Tom says that over the next five years they plan to grow and improve the stud operation further. When they purchased the stud it was shifting its data records from Angus New Zealand to Angus Australia to become part of the AngusPRO group. Tom says the benefits of shifting have been immense, though he hadn’t understood the political implications back in 2021.
“Without understanding why back in ’21, we were kicked out of the East Coast Angus ward.”
However, it’s been onwards and upwards since then, and the team has been working hard to boost the stud’s profile.
Part of this has been including Whangara sires in Beef + Lamb NZ’s across-breed beef progeny test.
Tom says that for their clients, it’s about not having to spend $20,000 on the top bulls in the catalogue ‒ there should be quality spread right throughout a sale catalogue and you will be able to come to Whangara and buy any bull, knowing you’re buying quality.
Building relationships with clients and ensuring they’re mentored throughout the year ‒ not just before sale day ‒ with their breeding programmes is a key focus, ensuring they retain their old clients and also get some new ones on board with this approach.
“We have invested heavily in marketing, including a new website and a rebrand.”
It seems that Whangara is on track to deliver on promises and truly is “Redefining what’s possible”.