Deer farmers visit Waimarino

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 4, Issue 6, 8 July 1986, Page 7

Deer farmers visit Waimarino

Forty farmers from Hawkes Bay and Taranaki were in the Waimarino last week looking at local initiatives in deer farming. They three-day visit was organised by the Taihape Deer Farmer's Association and included several farms in the region. The first visit was to Ngamatea Station and then to Kaingaroa, Bill Ballantyne's place just out of Taihape. Then on to Peter Law's and John Bruce's new deer venture near Taihape, and to Frank Taylor's in Lakes Road Ohakune. The final visit was to Ray Wilson's new Karioi deer farm. Frank Taylor's Lakes Road farm was of interest to the visitors partly because of Frank's imported English deer which are more true to type in blood line. These have allowed him to get better velvet, much desired on the Korean market, and to achieve heavier weight. He also uses wapiti bulls crossed with red deer to produce better weight gain than with straight red deer. Frank got into deer farming five years ago and imported English deer two years ago. Since then he has had very promising results. Frank Taylor also farms sheep and cattle and is a market gardener. He is able to use surplus reject carrots as supplementary deer feed which he finds is good economy. Some of the visiting farmers commented that as carrots had high water content a great deal were needed foradequatefeed. However, Frank feels that the deer find the carrots palatable and do not pug them into the ground as do cattle. Frank has 70 acres fenced for deer and is fully stocked with 350 head.