A flock of in-lamb ewes are eating the last of the winter crop to make way for a forestry crew to cover a southern sheep and beef farm in pine trees.
Forestry company IFS Growth took over the management of the 250ha sheep and beef farm Leithen View in Greenvale last month.
As part of the farm sale, farmers Scott and Nicola Chittock negotiated to keep the last of the capital stock, about 2000 scanned Romdale ewes, so they could be shorn, eat any remaining winter crop and be offered at an on-farm sale next week. Forty Hereford in-calf cows had been previously sold.
Mr Chittock would miss his easy-care ewe flock which never needed assistance mothering up at lambing.
"They are good sheep and I wish I could take them with me," he said.
Selling Leithen View for forestry was the only option as sheep farming was "going backwards" financially, due to rising costs and interest rates, and commodity prices falling, Mr Chittock said.
"If we didn’t sell to trees, it would be hard to continue."
The rolling-to-steep farm lies across two provinces and the Chittocks pay rates to Clutha and Gore District Councils.
"The hill is in Otago and the house is in Southland," he said.
Their "fantastic" neighbours had been supportive of the sale. "It is an awesome neighbourhood and we would love to stay."
Mr Chittock was raised on his family’s 260ha sheep farm Evansdale, between Glenkenich and Waikoikoi, in West Otago.
Evansdale was run by his parents Bruce and Shirley, who were retiring to Gore.
His father had worked on Evansdale since leaving school at 14, running a Romney flock.
Both his parents were hard workers and it would be a big change for them to shift to town, he said.
Although Evansdale and Leithen View were similar sized farms, Evansdale was all effective land and ran about 500 more sheep.
Lambs were sold as stores at Leithen View and Evansdale lambs were sold as prime.
Mr Chittock loved farming sheep, which was all he had known.
He stayed on at Blue Mountain College long enough to play on a school rugby trip to South Africa.
"The day we got home, I left school and I went straight into the shearing sheds, aged 17. I was never fast but I turned up each day and shore 250 day-in and day-out."
The Chittock family business bought Leithen View in 2005 and Scott and Nicola moved on to the farm.
It was a challenging farm — they were the fifth owners in 18 years — and it was run down and featured plenty of gorse when they bought it "reasonably cheap".
They stayed on longer than the previous owners because it was part of a family business and they could access the money required to control weeds.
To reduce the need to spray gorse, they planted more than 30,000 Douglas fir trees in gullies.
The trees were never put in the Emissions Trading Scheme which, in hindsight, had made the sale for forestry easier, Mr Chittock said.
In 2016, the family business bought 450ha sheep and beef farm Glenbrook in Glenomaru, between Ōwaka and Kākā Point, in the Catlins.
Ideally, the family would have retained the three farms and borrowed money to buy their parent’s home in Gore.
"If commodity prices were a lot better and farm costs and interest rates weren’t so friggin’ high — but it just wasn’t an option so something had to go."
As Leithen View was the "toughest block" in the farm partnership, it was put on the market.
"We didn’t want to sell to trees but it was our only choice," he said.
The hope had been for the farm to be sold to a sheep and beef farmer.
A North Island farming family had a contract to buy the property but it fell over because they could not sell their property.
When IFS Growth presented a higher offer, the North Island buyers were given a week to find the funds and their deal fell over when they could not.
Scott and Nicola had made other changes to give them more time to focus on farming.
Mrs Chittock (nee McCraw) recently resigned after working 12 years as a district nurse at West Otago Health in Tapanui.
She will work on Evansdale and promote their new business Signs on Slabs.
The fledgling business produces farm signs and and their clients include Treble Cone ski and snowboard resort.
Mr Chittock had also freed up some time by selling his business Chittock Dipping as a going concern in February this year.
In the seven years he owned the business, he dipped up to 350,000 sheep a year.
Selling a farm for forestry was an emotional time, Mr Chittock said.
Anyone considering it needed to come to terms with realising the time and money they spent developing their farm, subdividing paddocks, controlling weeds, installing fences and planting shelterbelts was for "nought".
"It is pretty demoralising but it was our only option to get mum and dad to town," he said.
The sale allowed them to remove some fencing from Leithen View, which would be used on the other family farms.
Removing the fencing had been "a bit depressing" because of all the hard work it required to erect it.
Pine-tree planting would have begun before the ewe sale and IFS Growth had been great to work with, he said.
IFS Growth Otago and Southland regional manager Anton Ridley said a New Zealand forestry syndicate bought Leithen View and IFS Growth was managing it.
About 200ha would be production forestry.
Pine trees would be planted and the existing Douglas fir forestry in the gullies would remain. The forestry would be put in the Emissions Trading Scheme.
The house, sheds and surrounding flat land would be subdivided and sold.
IFS Growth was managing other forestry blocks in Otago and Southland. Southern land appealed for forestry because of good rates of growth, rainfall and suitable elevation, and a low risk to waterways and of erosion.
The contour of the land meant the forestry could be safely thinned which provided access to capture emerging biofuel markets, he said.
