CountryLife
OCTOBER 2018
Deerly beloved
Sitting on 227 hectares just out of Cambridge, the Raroa Red Deer Stud has been producing venison, velvet and trophy deer for the past 30 years. At the helm for 21 of those years is manager Bill Robinson, who will be hanging up his boots next year and retiring into Cambridge – time for a well-earned rest. The property on Fergusson Gully Rd was a sheep and beef farm until it was converted into a deer farm back in 1988, with the accompanying sixfoot fences and custom-built deer shed installed. And long races with sharp right-angled turns put in to cater to the deer’s tendency to run quickly, then zig-zagging to escape. “There’s a lot of psychology in deer farming,” Bill explained. The 70s and 80s was a boom time for the deer industry, Bill continued, with tax incentives from successive governments intent on diversifying the country’s farming industry. Fast-forward thirty years and Bill reckons around 2000 deer farms in New Zealand are now without deer on them. “Those left in the industry are passionate about it,” he said, explaining that there have been a lot of dips over the years. The overseas demand for velvet has kept the industry going throughout, with New Zealand producing half of the global supply. It’s mostly used in Asian medicine and health care products, Bill explained, with the term referring to the stick of velvet not just the furry coating on the outside of it. “It feels like the velvet curtains,” he laughed, “but it’s not”. And the international demand for New Zealand venison outstrips current supply, Bill said. “That’s why venison is expensive in the New Zealand market,” he explained, adding that the price it fetches overseas makes it more worthwhile for farmers to export the meat than sell it domestically. With 650 stags and 500 hinds on the Raroa stud near Karapiro, the red deer there are bred for different purposes. Over the past five or six years, Bill said the stud has moved back to velvet, with venison and trophy animals a by-product of production. The stud now favours animals with thick antlers which are well-suited for velvet production, with bigger animals suitable for venison and deer with a multi-pointed sire most likely producing trophy animals. Continued on page 2 PICTURED RIGHT: Raroa Red Deer Stud manager Bill Robinson and a deer skull, which shows the pedicle that acts similar to a nail bed, growing a number of sets of antlers over the stag’s life.
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