Pete Adam told a recent Beef and Lamb New Zealand monitor farm field day he was facing the challenge of changing a cattle-sale policy as the run block is developed while also benchmarking the performance of the 1200ha Wilden run.
All cows are mated to Simmental bulls and heifers to low birthweight Angus bulls, the top steers sold at the autumn calf sale in Heriot.
Last year, they averaged $580.
Heifers are finished to 220kg carcass weight and rising 2-year-old steers are sold as stores, which have been run on a rough block on the home farm.
But as more pasture was renewed both on the home farm and the run, Mr Adam said they were running out of suitable country.
The run block was also being developed, but Mr Adam said its biggest limitation was a lack of water, which would be addressed by a proposed water scheme.
The 1200ha run is split into five flocks and 12 paddocks, with plans to further subdivide.
His rising yearlings grew at 0.53kg a day over winter 2009 and 0.3kg a day from May to September last year.
His rising 2-year-old cattle grew at 0.9kg a day from October to December 2009 and 1.1kg a day from December 2009 to February 2010.
Mr Adam told the field day the focus was to target poorly producing cows and improving the calving percentage.
But he questions whether producing weaner calves and selling old cattle as prime and store was the best policy and, if not, what the alternative was.
In hand with this is measuring the farm's performance, made difficult by having a semi-intensive hill country home farm and a separate run block.
Monitor farm facilitator Karl Barclay, of AgFirst Consultants Otago, said a solution could be to have two sets of key performance indicator targets: one for the farm and the other for the run.
Equally, Mr Adam is looking closely at wintering costs and what system suited the property.
He grew 70ha of swedes and had 835 bales of baleage and hay last winter.
He plans to sow 99ha of winter crops and 800 bales for the coming winter as part of his pasture-renewal programme.
Data prepared for the field day reveals kale to be the cheapest option at 17c a kilo of dry matter, and baleage the most expensive at 42c a kilo dry matter.
Silage was 34c and 10 weeks of hogget grazing at 25c.
Utilisation of winter feed was assessed at 80%-85%.
Mr Adam has been concerned at the light condition of ewes coming out of winter.
He runs a split flock based on a graded selection of each animal using the Falkirk system, which uses several physiological factors including wool, fat cover and structure, but especially the meat to fat to bone ratio, which equates to muscularity.
The thinking behind this system is that muscularity was the most heritable trait, at 54%, compared with eye muscle mass, at 20%.
Mr Adam said from this system, each ewe was assessed and placed in one of two mobs for life: an A mob, from which replacements were bred, and a B mob which would only ever be mated to a terminal sire.
Replacement ewe hoggets are put through the same grading process each year.
Ewes in the B mob, which were mated to a terminal sire, started lambing in mid September and those in the A mob on October 1.
Weaning would occur in the third week of January.
Lambing had been improving, from 162% in 2008 to 167% this year.
Not all lambs were sold prime, but the percentage that were had been improving.
In 2007-08, 62%, or 5200, were sold prime at an average weight of 15.8kg, and the following year 54%, 4368, were sold at 17.1kg, and in 2009-10, 63%, 5018, were sold at 16.8kg.
His aim for 2010-11 was to sell 72% prime, 5600, at an average of 17kg.
The prime price has ranged from $50.44 to $85 and those sold store from $3954 to $58.69.
The average kill date was January 23, the birth-to-sale date 111 days and average growth rate from weaning to sale, 195g a day, and from birth to weaning 264g a day.