Blake Hemopo

Currently I am employed here on “Springdale farms” for Yo & Hellen Bremmers this is just one of there many farming enterprises they own. I work under their acting manager for the Springdale property “Stuart wright” who has been managing this property for over the last 5 years. It is a 1890 acre block running 4500 breeding ewes & 1200 replacement hoggets scanning just over the mid 170’s ,we also run in conjunction, 60 mixed age cows and mate our 22 R2 heifers, alongside these we have 22 R1 hiefers and at the start of the autumn we get sent up 50 R2 steers from one of our halcombe properties to graze through the winter until the spring feed lifts down there which they then exit back to which ever block needs them were they are then finished off for kill. With our ewes they are set stocked over lambing but come weaning all ewes are on rotation. With our cows they are set stocked through the sheep over the winter and while calving until calf marking which they are then mobbed to bulling numbers and are used for cleaning ranker pastures while still trying to maintain sufficient Tucker for calves as they are starting to forage along with milk supply from dec/jan onwards. My current position consists of 80% stock work & 20% general with great dog work and dog training facilities which is encouraged strongly

While employed here for Brownrigg agriculture I was put in a fast pace & in a very active environment consisting of a larger team of 7-10 staff with James pharazyn being our acting manager of this part of the brownrigg business. (James was also 2nd in charge for their other major agriculture sector overseeing the livestock manager team under Hayden Ashby) so I started at their “CPC” sector “central processing centre under James P, this was brownriggs hub for all lamb arrivals we would process new arrival lambs that had been purchased from all over the country, processing thousands of lambs a day for weeks on end if not months ,these lambs would exit of the arrival truck in their purchased lines, they were then run through the yards counted off truck and straight into the conveyor where they would get a sex check (lifting up the tail to identify male from female) a triple drench ,Coglavax 8 in 1 and when they exited the conveyor they were run through the pratley weigh crate and weighed into specific weight ranges based on livestock managers requests for certain weight bracket lambs for either back grounding weight lambs for their hill country or 38- 39.5kg or 40-43.5kg or 44 plus (just for example) for their finishing platforms crops or new grasses etc all based on managers requests . CPC was also a multi fit team for brownriggs 12 individual run blocks which would help out at a block mangers request wether it be yard work,dagging,dipping,spraying,fence repairs or stock shifts , I myself was privileged enough to get called out for yard work and stock shifts as I had a team of 5 dogs consisting of 2 headers & 3 grunters, this was a great learning experience for myself as I was dealing with big mobs of lambs and fattening bulls so “PRESENCE” more than pressure was more encouraged as we were dealing with 5 wire electrics & 1-3 wire poly wire fences on crop and new grass and having mobs anywhere from 500 - 1800 lambs or a mob of 50 - 70 R2 600kg freisen bulls, so it presented its own challenges at times so was a great learning experience. near the end of my time at brownriggs the the CPC team also assisted with the mouthing team that were called in from Hawke’s Bay veterinary services that brought their own conveyor and went from block to block mouthing 1000’s of lambs a day preventing 2tth cutters which then limited the business in maximising lamb margins ,what this would do is that managers could still keep the young lamb mouths on to then maximise growth and with the cutters they had a week window to exit them so if managers got only a handful on each block by the time we had been to every block the business could make a load up to exit them ,this was also a way for managers to have a another line they mouthed off as “at risk mobs” this gave the blocks another 10-14 day window to put as much weight on these lambs and have them exited before they start cutting their teeth. This was also a great experience working in this side of it to.

Finished school at the end of the schooling year, then done work experience for my father who was a Livestock manager for Brownrigg agricultural in the Hawke’s Bay, I used this time to get a small team of kuris together while working in multiple aspects of the brownriggs business as I was to young to be employed under their employment contracts until I turnt 16 this was great stepping stone for me which gave myself a foot in the door for the career path I was born to do …