John and Jan Marchant together with their son Greg farm at Maramarua, 40km from the towns of Pukekohe and Thames.

In 1975 we settled on a Lands and Survey block of 305ha. Over the years we have purchased neighbouring properties and now farm 872ha of which 751ha is grassland. The farm now trades under the name of Marchant Farms Trust. We also lease an additional 283ha of pines which border the farm which provide a great autumn/winter pad for a large percentage of the breeding cows in the months leading up to calving.

In 2002, Greg returned to the farm after being in the Police Force and has 2 children, Thomas and Sasha who attend a local primary school and enjoy helping out with what jobs they can.

We are traditional farmers with 2800 breeding ewes and 240 angus breeding cows with a general philosophy of trying to sell stock in prime condition and increase the performance and positive genetic traits of our breeding units.

The angus herd has been built up with the use of low birth weight-high weight gain bulls purchased from TeAtarangi Stud Dargaville and next season will see the first offspring from a Rissington Angus bull purchased this year. We market yearling angus bulls predominately to dairy farmers. We autumn calve some cows to a terminal charolais sire purchased from Balmarc Stud TeKuiti.

We became members of the ARDG in 1980. We strongly believe had we not become involved in the ARDG for the outstanding eczema work which has been done over the years, we would not be sheep farming in this district today as it is a very eczema prone area, consistently recording extremely high spore counts during the eczema months. We can proudly state we have a high performing eczema tolerant Romney flock.

The ARDG are also aware of other issues facing farmers and as a group we have been devoting time, money and energy into developing the worm resilience and resistance of the flock without compromising the traits of high breeding values, good weaning weights, above average wool weights and an overall sound, sturdy open faced Romney.

Any farmer in any area that contributes sheep loses to eczema and wants to increase the overall performance of their breeding units should not hesitate to contact one of the ARDG members and purchase eczema tolerant rams.

 

Marchant Farms

Dimmocks Road

RD1, Pokeno

Maramarua

 

Ph/Fax: (09) 232 5613

E-mail: marchant.farms@farmside.co.nz