Goulburn Station owners Allan and Karleigh Small have used Peter Lyons Shearing to harvest the wool on their more than 9000ha sheep and beef high-country property for more than 30 years.
Mr Small said he enjoyed working with the shearing crew, who were often the same people each year.
Finewool was harvested from about 8000 stabilised quarterbred ewes and nearly 200 rams on the station near Moa Creek over 10 consecutive days this month.
About 4500 hoggets including ram lambs would be shorn over four days at the start of next month.
Wool accounted for about a third of the station income, he said.
Mrs Small said under their contract to supply wool to the New Zealand Merino Company, shearers must administer pain relief, before stitching a cut on a sheep.
"We were one of the first sheds to do it."
Goulburn Station was among the first farms The New Zealand Merino Company required pain relief to be given to lambs at tailing time.
Mr Small estimated the pain relief at tailing cost their business about $10,000.
"There is 10,000 lambs and it’s $1 a shot."
The extra cost for pain relief and the staff member to administer it, hit a farmer’s bottom line and no premium was paid but the task ensured they passed their audit and kept their contract. Goulburn Station had been supplying wool to The New Zealand Merino Company for 30 years.
Mr Small was the fourth generation to run Goulburn Station since the Small family bought it in 1950.
His great-grandfather bought it and died in the first year and his grandfather took it on at the age of 18.
Mrs Small said the work included fencing in wild weather.
"He’ll be up there in a screaming blizzard dragging wire around and carting Waratahs."
Their son and two daughters had shown interest in being the fifth generation to work on the station.
"They love it," she said.
Other than buying a couple of sire rams each year to introduce new genetics, they ran a closed flock and breed rams.
A closed flock suited their system, the dry conditions on farm and helped keep the footrot issues at bay for the past 40 years.
They had been working with genetics consulting company neXtgen Agri International in Christchurch to get the most out of their sheep.
A focus of the farm was reducing the flock size and increasing production.
"We’ve had great scanning results," she said.
Mr Small said the highest point on the farm was about 1000m above sea level. Snow was falling when the sheep were scanned in yards "half way up the hill" on August 5.
The average scanning percentage was 161%, a pleasing result considering the lack of rainfall this season.
They had a lambing percentage target of 130%, which would be possible if the weather played ball in spring, he said.
A snowstorm killed about 10% of their lambs in October 2022 .
Ewes with a single lamb grazed higher, tougher blocks and ewes with twin lambs were given preferential feeding in lower blocks.
A public road ran through the station and was used by fishers to access Upper Manorburn Dam.
"Fishing season is a right pain in the arse."
Ewes with a single lamb grazed the roadside.
Merinos were not the best mothers and the noise of a car towing a boat was enough to cause a ewe to run away and lose its lamb.
Consequently, they do not do a lambing beat because any disruption could separate a ewe from her lamb.
He expected the dry conditions and lack of grass would force ewes to walk further to find food this spring.
"That’s when you can get the orphan lambs."
The less distance a ewe had to walk to eat, the less likely she was to mismother, he said.
"Some might argue our sheep are big and take too much feeding for a finewool sheep but I don’t know."
Another talking point was the new Goulburn Station sign on the shearing shed.
Mr Small said his wife bought him the sign for Christmas.
"So I bought her a loading ramp — it worked out brilliantly."
