Deer will always be close to the hearts of a self-made Tasman couple who progressed through farm ownership the hard way.
Wakefield farmers Claire Parkes and Simon Vincent can trace their start to the early 1980s.
Claire was in her first year out of university in Christchurch when she bought five deer caught by helicopter for $750 and three of them fawned within a week.
University student Simon returned from hay making at the family farm one summer with $5000.
After borrowing $3000 from a mate he managed to convince a lending institution to lend him $20,000 to buy a house.
A few years later this investment, and Claire’s deer sales, helped them buy a 32ha block of land with "no fences, lots of gorse and plenty of debt" in Brightwater.
Deer income got them through the 1987 stock market crash and interest rates scaling to 27%.
"So that was a challenge and it was just about surviving," Simon said. "I was working building a dam in Nelson and Claire was teaching. We were coming home at night killing deer to try and get some cash, but we got through."
From these beginnings, they went on to buy 200ha Castledowns in 1995 and the neighbouring property Wantwood in 2013.
Today the 890ha operation called Castledown Farms is a deer, beef and sheep finishing farm on the southern urban edge of Wakefield village.
This has a common boundary with Claire’s family farm run by her brother.
Simon grew up milking cows every day of the year on a Waikato farm and today Claire is the hands-on farmer, while he manages a business resolving major construction disputes.
Castledowns was converted to deer, aided by cheap deer prices when other farmers were selling up.
"We had some really good years with deer and that helped get us a bigger farm," Claire said.
Recalls Simon: "Then 10 years ago we saw Wantwood Station which had been on the market for three or four years. Initially we thought we couldn’t do it and then we tried to do a joint venture and eventually we decided maybe we can do it. We really stretched ourselves going from 200ha to 890ha. It was kind of like Pepsi taking over Coca-Cola for the funding and getting it up and running as it was quite rundown, but it was a positive move."
An intensive regrassing programme was carried out on Wantwood to rejuvenate soils and replace browntop. Many kilometres of fencing helped expand the deer operation and increase sheep and cattle production.
Claire said they liked to employ young staff to train them to managers.
"We really like young career-orientated staff. It’s quite a complex operation we’ve got because of having so many stock classes and being very close to urban areas."
She said they try to be progressive and had just "hooked" into New Zealand Farm Assurance Programme Plus, a higher-level voluntary sustainability standard.
They are not far from being signed off for the joint initiative by the red meat sector and Ministry for Primary Industries with just the carbon mapping of their farm and some documentation to be completed.
They also work closely with their meat processor, Silver Fern Farms (SFF), and strongly support its net carbon zero programme.
The couple are quick to dip into their pockets to donate stock for the farmer-founded Meat the Need charity that goes to needy families via foodbanks and community groups. Generously, they donated to farmers hit by Cyclone Gabrielle.
Simon said the biggest kick he got from farming was working with people and the relationship they had developed with SFF stock agents and staff as well as seeing the animals grow.
"I like working with the animals, dogs, any stock," Claire said.
"As I was doing the lambing beat this morning the view on rolling green hills and Mt Arthur and Mt Owen in the background was magnificent. It never bothers me if it’s raining. That’s just part of farming."
