2022 Ahuwhenua Young Māori sheep and beef farming winner, Chloe Butcher-Herries

Chloe Butcher-Herries working on the farm. Photo / John Cowpland Alphapix Photography

Chloe Butcher-Herries may have just won the prestigious Ahuwhenua Trophy for excellence in Māori farming, but she wasn’t always rurally inclined.

The self-confessed “city girl” told The Country’s Jamie Mackay she was “born and bred in Napier,” but caught the farming bug at an early age.

“I was about eight years old when I went to go on my Uncle’s farm and - shoot - I didn’t leave.

“That was me every weekend and school holidays – I was hooked – loved it!”

After school Butcher-Herries (Ngāti Mahanga, Waikato-Tainui) went straight into shepherding and has been farming ever since - except for a “stint in town” at the age of 19 - “just to make sure farming was what I wanted to do”.

She also “had a crack” at dairying for a few years, where she picked up some handy tips.

“What a great sector that is. I definitely learned how to grow some grass [as well as] good animal husbandry.”

Chloe Butcher-Herries (left) with her wife Makita Butcher-Herries at the awards night on Friday. Photo / John Cowpland Alphapix Photography

Sheep and beef remained Butcher-Herries’ passion though.

“I hung up the old tall gumboots and chucked the work boots back on [grabbed] me knife, and got back into sheep and beef.”

That passion paid off for Butcher-Herries, who received the 2022 Ahuwhenua Young Māori Award for sheep and beef farming on Friday last week.

She said it was a “great competition” and encouraged employers to support their staff to “get on board with it”.

Butcher-Herries is now the assistant farm manager on Newstead Farm, a bull beef farm in Puketapu owned by Robert and Helen Pattullo.

The farm runs 1100 Friesian bulls, buying in at the end of April to be fully stocked in May, she said.

“We’re targeting that 465kg mark average weight and [in] the second week of November we start offloading bulls, targeting that 620kg liveweight.”

All bulls were off-farm on the second week of February, she said.

“We’re resting our pastures again and we’ve got a small mob of cows that rotate around the hills to keep those longer covers down a bit.

“It’s a good system.”

The Pattullo’s also had a good system when it came to tree planting, Butcher-Herries said.

“There’s that saying, we all know it - ‘right, tree, right place’ - and the Patullo’s here on-farm have definitely done that.”

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The farm had been in the family for a century and was “going to be in the family for another 100 years,” she said.

“We farm right. We do the right practices and it will keep on going.”

When she’s not farming Butcher-Herries enjoys powerlifting and working out at the gym with her wife Makita.

Keeping physically fit was advantageous when working on-farm, she said.

“I wouldn’t say I’m strong but I can definitely lift a strainer post with ease.”