People

FARMERS WEEKLY – farmersweekly.co.nz – December 12, 2022

People Astra Farms’ young star on the rise

Estee Browne, who was named Beef + Lamb NZ AgResearch Emerging Achiever at the recent awards, doesn’t consider herself anything exceptional. Neal Wallace meets a young farmer who, despite that modesty, is leading change in her family’s business.

ESTEE Browne has never shied away from challenges or hard work.

In high school she had a list of chores to complete before catching the school bus, at a time when she was also training for competitive rowing.

It was an upbringing that set up the now 27-year-old to confront a series of challenges – taking her career and family business in a whole new direction.

“I go to work, it’s not that hard,” the unassuming Cambridge farmer says.

When Browne was growing up her parents Allan and Toni ran a 600ha sheep and beef farm on flat to rolling country outside Cambridge.

But in the past nine years the property has undergone significant changes, with Browne at the forefront.

In 2013 the family converted part of the farm to a dairy unit but that wouldn’t be the end of diversification for the Browne family – or challenges for Estee.

At the age of 18 she was awarded a rowing scholarship to West Virginia University in the United States.

In New Zealand she had rowed as a double scull but in the US she was selected for the eights squad. That adventure came to an end when a back injury, caused by wear and tear, ended her rowing aspirations.

Browne stayed in the US for 18 months, during which she studied nutrition and sports psychology.

On returning home it was straight into the cold, hard realities of farming.

“I came home and began cutting thistles,” she says.

The family were heavily involved in livestock trading and Browne was soon learning the ropes.

Her big chance came when a polo event, a sport in which the family are involved, clashed with a store cattle sale and Browne was asked to attend.

“Out of desperation I was allowed to go to it.”

It proved a financially successful move.

“I don’t think I would have been allowed back if it hadn’t worked out.” As she always has, Browne had done her homework.

When learning the art of livestock buying, for each line she would note down an estimate of the animal’s weight and value, which she would then compare against the actual killing sheets.

In tandem with this assessment, Browne also started to learn the attributes of the stock offered by various store stock suppliers.

The family had a sizeable livestock trading business, but disruption to store stock markets during covid, a reduction in the number of sellers and tightening margins made the decision to ease back relatively straightforward.

But another opportunity was to present itself.

Browne recalls the family talking about sheep milking when she was a teenager, and in moment of pure coincidence as they considered alternatives to livestock trading, representatives from Maui Sheep Milk came visiting.

After deliberation and attending a couple of field days, the family decided to branch into sheep milking.

“It was something new, a new challenge and it was the right time and right opportunity.”

Browne was put in charge of building the flock for Astra Farms.

“We went to saleyards and bought a lot of ewes, anything that had a good mouth, feet, constitution and udder.”

They bought a mix of East Friesian, Coopworth and Highlander ewes and those that made the final selection were put to Lacaune rams.

The first crossbred lambs were born in 2020, the foundation of an initial 1100 milking ewe flock.

On reflection Browne wishes she had kept more thorough records on attributes such as feet, as milking sheep are not as resilient as those bred for meat and wool.

Milking sheep are also bred to be kept indoors so do not tolerate extreme cold or extreme heat.

In the first year the ewes produced between 2.5l and 3l of milk a day.

Last year they were hit by facial eczema but still produced 381,825l or 68,173kg/MS.

This year Astra Farms are milking 1500 ewes and are Maui Milk’s largest supplier.

Browne says she has worked in cowsheds so has an understanding of the process, and the family has learnt the other skills required to run a sheep-milking operation by talking to other farmers. This includes monthly discussion groups.

Many of those farmers have made the switch from milking dairy cows and Browne says they have adopted a similar pasture and stock management approach to sheep, such as rotational grazing.

The paddocks on Astra Farms tend to be larger and the pasture managed according to sheepfarming practice rather than that used for dairy cows.

They milk their ewes from July to May, but the biggest transition has been rearing lambs – 3000 this year.

Lambs are taken off their mothers at two days of age and reared for 35 days before weaning.

Daily feeding takes from 5am to 7pm each day, starting in August and lasting until November.

As operations manager, Browne is involved in all aspects of the business, including the chore of training lambs to drink from a feeder.

With a daily intake of up to 200 lambs, it can be a demanding task.

Ewe lambs go to the ram the following March and males are finished for slaughter.

Browne, who was recently appointed a director of Astra Farms, says milking ewes behave very differently to those bred for meat and wool.

“Those operate out of fear, but milking sheep are much more relaxed. They come up for a pat, which does make it quite frustrating when you need them to move.”

Winning the Beef + Lamb NZ AgResearch Emerging Achiever Award was a surprise and not something she sought. She was, she says, just being herself.

“I like going to work.”

I go to work, it’s not that hard.

TIME OFF: Polo is an interest for Estee Browne and provides a break from sheep milking.