Our Story
Our transition into Wiltshires in 2002 was driven by necessity after we purchased a bare land, high country block at the base of the Tākitimu Mountains with no woolshed. We began with a 3/4 cross Wiltshire ram which we mated across our Romney breeding ewes. Even after this first cross we noticed the strength of the Wiltshire’s shedding ability as some of the offspring started to lose their belly and neck wool. This gave us confidence to fully embrace the breed and we began to work towards a sheep that did not require crutching, dagging or tailing.
Our growth into the breed was steady and very soon our whole breeding flock was fully bald on the neck, crutch and belly, dramatically decreasing our working expenses and labour inputs. This Wiltshire cross also held its title as a specialist meat breed, recognised at the Glammies awards twice for being the top performing sheep in the terminal section. We did however face two main challenges during this time, both becoming apparent upon moving our flock to our home farm in Dipton. The first was that the down that a Wiltshire sheds is a lot more visible on a semi intensive farm than a high country station. Fortunately Tim & Helen Gow of Mangapiri Downs & Tim’s Australian geneticist uncle, Scott Dolling, were perfecting a self-shedding sheep that had a coat comprised of hair fibre, reducing the total down shed each year. The hair sheep that they have trademarked as Shire® has been paramount in our ability to overcome this hurdle and has significantly increased our studs performance. The second challenge we were greeted by was the lack of foot constitution on the heavier lowland soils. We are eliminating this through adoption of a strict selection process before mating and after weaning, removing any stock with inferior feet.
Our stud flock was created to supply genetics for our entire breeding mob, both at home and our station in Northern Southland. It consists of 200 ewes who are all selected on their down length, shedding ability, foot constitution and most importantly, fertility. Because of our large commercial breeding program we have the ability to judge our stud flock harshly and replace any ewes that are not performing. The Tarata Hills Wiltshire Stud has been tagged and recorded since 2018. For honest, ongoing records view the stud updates.