Sep 12, 2025
Greetings from windy and horizontally wet Hawkes Bay. We had a relatively dry August (just 28mm at our place) but it wasn’t great lambing weather: not bad for the deer, but a bit tough for the lambs. Everyone will be well through their button drop drafting now, and a few very early heads are already off. We have had a reasonably kind winter so the yearlings are doing well, even though they sure look scruffy at this time of year. And now we’re docking… the lambs born on the deer farm are not easy to lift!
Last week the NZDFA Executive Committee met in Wellington, timed to coincide with the annual NVSB auditors catch up and NVSB meeting. It is always great to touch base with what is going on in this space.
We took the opportunity to meet with the NVSB as part of our meeting. One discussion was around compliance and reminding farmers velveting to ensure they have good processes in place to meet obligations with records and timely return of logbooks and drugs at the end of the season. Chasing people for these records and unused drugs has become time consuming (and it should actually be unnecessary). For the integrity of our velveting standards, which allows us the privilege to continue velveting, it is important that this is done correctly. Please keep your records accurately and return them in a timely manner at the end of the season.
We had further discussions regarding the upcoming velveting season and I would like to refer you back to last month’s article in Stagline regarding some of the things to consider for the upcoming season. To be fair, we are all waiting with bated breath to see how the season pans out: it has been a rough ride for velvet producers, and we appear to far from out of the woods yet.
The proposed change to the Transport QA Standard for stag transport has stirred up some noise/opposition and so with the upcoming Branch Chairs meeting there is an opportunity to discuss this further. Specifically, it has been proposed that mature stags (two years and older) cannot be transported to slaughter after 14 February, which moves the date from the current “end of February”. It is important to remember this a health and safety issue as well as an animal welfare issue, so it is reasonable for the Transport operators to want to better protect staff. They are willing to listen if there is a different practical solution: please let your Branch Chair know your thoughts.
This brings me to another point and that is around effective industry communication. The NZDFA Executive Committee, DINZ and the DINZ Board are working to ensure we have clear pathways of communication to help get messaging from the grass roots up to the decision makers and equally back to those doing the hard yards on the farm.
If you have something to raise, please do it through your Branch to the Executive committee and we will pass it on. Responses will be dealt with in reverse, as often the same queries are coming from throughout the DFA Branches and DINZ staff have already answered these very queries. We hope this will keep everyone more informed and enable those who have something to contribute to know where to go to do so.
Finally, I hope spring is kind to all.
Karen Middelberg
NZDFA Executive Committee
