Well, what a year it has been in the Bay! 18 months of relentless rain caused country to slip that has never moved before with the onslaught of Cyclone Gabrielle. Apart from a massive gap where our road used to be and some scarring that will last years… I think its fair to say that we got off reasonably lightly compared to some of our Deer Farming peers in the region.

Cyclones aside, a lack of feed hasn’t been an issue and the stock have wintered well and are in great condition. Velvet has harvested well, with weights up on last season and more importantly the sale animals are looking fantastic.

Its always a battle to get the catalogue out with enough time for clients to digest it before sale day on Friday 15th December. As I write this, we still have 25 out of 89 3-year stags to velvet! The 64 3yr stags we have cut to date average 6.4kg and it’s been a tough job getting it down to 23. When we select our Sale Sires, we don’t just select on velvet weight. These stags all have great temperament and good body size (some are huge). We are extremely proud of the style of velvet that we are producing here at Forest Road Farm, and feel it is the type and style that the market desires and we feel that the 3- year Sires and Yearling hinds are a great representation of this.

We are very excited to deliver the first 3-year Lazarus sons to market. Every Lazarus son we have cut has been very tidy (most SAP). The 5 Lazarus sons catalogued are a true representation of the style he is producing.

Even Stevens our Harlem son from Netherdale has been such a prolific breeder of tidy Sale stags, we decided a few years back to mate him over the line of Hinds we purchased from Cruse Deer, to produce a different outcross for breeders…. This has had a tremendous result as you can see from the style and weight of this cross in this year’s offering.

Our new Sires are going ahead in leaps and bounds and we can’t wait to see how they cross with our proven bloodlines.

Kryptonite has cut a massive 12.10kg @ 5yr and his beam is round and huge!