Words and Images by Sarah Horrocks — AngusPRO Magazine 2025
Henry and Rachel Callaghan are all about farming smarter. Their 1000 ha operation near Fairlie in South Canterbury has been in Henry’s family since 1979, and when they took over from Henry’s parents, Ian and Sonia in 2021, the grunt work and farm development had largely been completed.
“Our gains in the business are being made with genetics and being smart with premiums,” says Rachel.
The farm runs Angus cattle, deer and Romney ewes, but 50% of the annual income comes from arable — rapeseed, barley and wheat are grown for the local market and their home silage.
All the stock is bred and finished on the farm and then goes on to be processed at Silver Fern Farms, of which Henry says they’re proud shareholders.
The 1100 Romney ewe sheep operation is low input and low cost, with half the ewes going to a Suftex terminal sire. All the hoggets are mated and Henry is breeding his own replacements.
“We’re 12-month shearing, we’ve stopped drenching the ewes and we’ve stopped tailing the terminals to reduce the workload.”
Lambing starts in September, with the earlier lambs going out the gate straight off mum in mid-November (16kg CW). The remaining weaned lambs are on red clover over the summer, and Henry doesn’t start killing again until mid-February, to 20kg CW.
The deer are another string to the bow, with Henry running 350 adult hinds, plus the young stock. These are all finished to Silver Fern Farms, too, of course, from September through until May (100kg), and the velvet is seen as a welcomed byproduct — all the spikers have their velvet removed before trucking, and a dozen breeding stags have their velvet removed annually.
On the livestock side of the operation, the cattle are bringing in the lion’s share of the income, and they are also Rachel and Henry’s primary focus, which Rachel says is mostly due to the genetic side of things.
“We’re breeding and finishing so we need to focus on eating quality to get the premiums,” adds Henry.
Last year Henry calved down 210 females (including 30 heifers). The bulls are all sourced from Twin Oaks Angus and have been since 2017.
“We haven’t pulled a calf for five years at least now,” says Henry.
Henry puts this down to buying well balanced bulls that avoid too extreme figures. Calving ease, growth and IMF are the big focusses since all the bulls are used over the heifers in their first season and then go on to be used in the main cow mob.
“My bull choices are made on 90% genetics.”
Henry knows the type he’s going to get and has faith that he would never be sold an unsound bull, so he doesn’t see the need to check their feet.
The two year old bulls are the usual target, but if he misses out on a bull he likes or gets caught short, he will look to buy a yearling in the spring instead.
Over the past few years, Henry has seen their weaning weights lifting, as well as the carcass weights, which is ultimately what pays the bills.
“We put a big emphasis on IMF about ten years ago with high IMF bulls.”
That has now been balanced to add in some more growth and carcass. Henry was one of the first to get his hands on a Paratrooper bull, and they tried doing some artificial insemination in an attempt to better utilise the bull across more of the herd, but Henry and Rachel feel that the whole process overcomplicated things.
“We tried to mate him with the heifers and AI him to 50 cows at the same time but the timing didn’t work very well using fresh semen.”
Rachel says it was a good learning experience.
“In our system, it just didn’t work and I don’t think we needed to do it,” she adds.
All the progress and changes made within the Callaghan’s breeding programme are monitored closely by Roger and Susan at Twin Oaks who visit at least once a year.
“They know our programme, they know us and they know the farm. We are very grateful for this support and knowledge,” says Rachel.
This knowledge allows Twin Oaks to tailor the bull selection and ensure the Callaghans are heading in the right direction. They provide data that outlines all the bull purchases Henry has made in the past and how the subsequent progeny performed at processing, which makes for simple analysis.
The farming diary for the cattle is pretty straightforward, as it is in most cattle operations. The bull goes out with the heifers on November 15 and with the cows on December 4th. From weaning in March, the cows are all up on the steep native hill country, a 200 ha block that differs from the rest of the farm’s ‘sheep before cattle’ rotational grazing policy.
The cows come off the hill in August and go onto Kale for a month to give them a lift before calving and to give the hill country a rest.
The weaners are kept on the lower country from weaning and rotated on grass, followed by oats and then 100 days on fodder beet, from June through to October.
With everything having been weighed in the autumn and the top end identified, that top mob goes straight onto fodder beet for 60 days and is killed in June at 20 months old.
A total of 25 ha of fodder beet is grown for the R1 and R2 cattle and the weaner deer, and kale is grown for the hinds, ewes, heifers and also the cows who are on it for the month of August.
“We push that top end really hard to get them killed early,” says Henry.
Henry has 90% of the finishing cattle gone by October, with the final load just reaching 2 years old at processing.
The replacement heifers are selected on IMF and Rib/Rump fat scanning results, which is proving to provide big progress at processing year on year, and the cow herd is being tidied up a lot. Henry doesn’t know much about genomic testing yet, but his interest is piqued, and he’s keen to look into it for the replacements.
The premiums offered by Silver Fern Farms are largely dictated by IMF, as well as pH and ossification, and there’s an extra 65 cents/kg up for grabs for the Callaghans.
The premium for Angus is 25¢/kg, with another 20¢/kg being 100% Angus (breeder finished and antibiotic free). Then there’s 10¢/kg for meeting the EQ grade for eating quality, that is fat colour, weight, pH, ossification, rib fat and marbling. The last 10¢/kg is given for being NZFAP Plus Gold accredited.
The New Zealand Farm Assurance Programmes (NZFAP and NZFAP Plus) provide confidence and certainty to the millions of consumers world-wide that the meat and wool produced from New Zealand’s sheep, beef and deer farms is authentic, genuine, and safe. Collectively they provide assurances regarding integrity, traceability, animal health and welfare, people, farm and natural resources and biosecurity.
There are “quite a few” hoops to jump through to become accredited, but Rachel is all over the regulations to ensure they qualify. Silver Fern Farms and Imogen Brankin offered great support through the accreditation process.
The Callaghans are hitting all four premiums at least 80% of the time and Henry says that getting 90% on the kill sheet is no surprise.
“The best hit rate is achieved when they’re always growing, for their whole life,” he says.
He adds that if they’re checked, the IMF is quick to fall off.
Everything has to be well documented for NZFAP Plus, and winter feed plans are a requirement, so Henry uses the Resolution Farming App to document everything.
“It makes it simple to keep track of what’s happening.”
Henry is running the cutter on the farm, with full time worker Connor Higgins and Ian still working alongside him. Rachel’s primary role is looking after their three young children — Lily (6), Sophie (4) and George (20 months) — but she finds time to run two Airbnb accommodation options on the property to bring in some extra income, and she takes care of most of the farm paperwork. Rachel also has a bloody good grasp of what’s happening on the farm and tries to get out and give a hand whenever toddler sleep schedules allow it.
Henry and Rachel Callaghan have ticked the right boxes, chosen the right genetics and have good feed management, ensuring they achieve every processing premium available and increasing their bottom line.