Cheviot-romney cross perendales still productive, compelling breed

• Published date: 02 February 2022
• Publication title: Central Rural Life

Native scrub was cleared and superphosphate added and sub-clover oversown by Tiger Moths after World War 2 to generate more grazing country on the 930ha property at the foot of North Canterbury’s Hundalee Hills near Conway Flats

The farm was called Kalimera — the Greek word for good morning — as Tim’s grandfather, Arnott, was a great fan of Greece when he was in the Mediterranean during World War 2.

He was also fond of cheviots, and was one of the first to cross them with romneys.

This led to a perendale stud set up in the early 1950s. A group of similar-minded families got together — led by Sir Geoffrey Peren — to do trial work and found the cheviots crosses were outperforming other breeds.

On the face of it, little has changed.

The farm continues to support two families — with Tim and Sue, and their son, Edward ‘‘Woody’’, and his wife, Sophie, but there’s no longer a married couple.

Mt Guardian Perendale Stud remains a pivotal part of the operation and has gone the distance when other studs have folded as sheep numbers decline. At the Gore Ram Fair they sold a two-tooth ram for more than $10,000 and another for $4200, while 20 years ago a ram sold for $22,000.

That’s where the similarities start to fade, as Kalimera has evolved with the changing dynamics of farming that have made one-dimension sheep farming no longer feasible.

Today, much of the borderline farming land on the steep to rough hill country — mixed with some river terraces and land on the flats — has returned to bush.

There’s about 400ha of effective farmland, another 300ha of thick bush, 100ha of forestry with the rest lying somewhere in between this and either farmed or reverting to bush.

The 60 Angus breeding cows and 100-odd trading cattle are a tool to maintain grass quality for the 1000 perendale DNA recorded stud ewes and a flock of 650 commercial perendale ewes.

The stud sells about 250 purebred perendale rams from December to January on the farm along with 60 romdales. Another 70 terminal rams with texel, suffolk and beltex bloodlines are sold each year.

About 400 perendale ewe hoggets from the stud are mated with romneys for romdales.

Some of their clients have been coming on the same day each year to buy their rams for more than 30 years.

The Andersons take a hard-line approach when it comes to culling unwanted ewes in the stud flock. Each year, it’s freshened with about 300 two-tooth perendales. For those that don’t make the stud grade, 150-200 two tooths go into the commercial...