Cool first day but good enquiry

 “It’s been much better than Ashburton,” said one, noting the crowd was bigger at the Mid Canterbury show earlier in the month, but fewer farmers had asked about products.

As Rural News went to press, Canterbury A&P marketing manager Nicola Henderson said she didn’t have final figures for Wednesday’s attendance but it was probably “slightly down on last year.”

That suggested Thursday and Friday – Canterbury’s Anniversary Day – would be even busier than usual as pre-show online ticket sales were 40% ahead of last year. “So we’re expecting big crowds today and tomorrow,” she said.

With most of the sheep and cattle judging done on Wednesday, those areas were as busy as usual with some superb stock on display. Among the winners was Andrew Stokes, with his seven-year-old cow and calf at foot from the Sinai stud, Oxford.

“I’ve been coming for eleven years and this is the first time I’ve won it,” he said after picking up the Supreme Champion Angus title.

Another regular exhibitor in the ribbons was Robbie Gibson, of Malvern Downs Merino Stud, Tarras, winning the superfine ram title.

“He’s a very thick, productive ram with extremely good underlines, wool down the flank and belly. He was grand champion at Wanaka [in March],” he added.

Among the meat breeds judges were hard at work on classes, including several taking measurements as well as the usual eye appraisals.

“We try to include all the technology we’ve got available on the day and judge the general stockmanship to come up with a fair appraisal,” Brent Macaulay said as they worked round the pairs of rams entered in the Merial Southdown Carcase Evaluation Class.

The class, which has run 30 years, has helped the breed “put the muscle in the right places,” David Wylie, a past president of the Southdown Breeders’ Society added. “And now CT scanning has confirmed that.”

In the trade pavilion, among the more agriculturally useful exhibitors was Off Road Refunds, Taranaki, which does the paperwork to reclaim fuel duty paid on juice used in off-road machines such as farm bikes and chainsaws. “People are loving it,” director Leanne Hardgrave said.

The amount claimable depended on the size of operation but usually there was at least a thousand dollars available and for big operations it ran into tens of thousands. “Our biggest to date is $130,000 after our fees.”

Just round the corner Southland farm workers Jamie and Lee Lamb were doing a brisk trade in Lee’s ‘On the Farm’ series of children’s books.

“We released a new one a couple of weeks ago, Snow Rescue, so now there are five in the series,” said Lee.