Country Life

Vanessa Corry is New Zealand's only registered breeder of Brahman Cattle. The huge, floppy-eared, loose skinned animals also have a hump and Vanessa's often been asked if they are camels or wildebeests. There are, in fact, more Brahman cattle in the world than any other breed of cattle. They can withstand hot temperatures and can be found out grazing and putting on weight in the heat of the day, when other breeds are seeking shelter.

Soils are completely saturated in parts of the North Island - but on the west coast of the South, it's been dry.

A love of meat runs in the Harris family. The family opened its first butchery in Cheviot, North Canterbury 60 years ago. These days Harris Meats is an independent abattoir and meat processing business employing 45 staff. The family has a farm which supplies the abattoir with sheep and cattle year round.

An update on how the more specialist meat breed Wagyu is doing in New Zealand. Wagyu is a traditional Japanese breed which is known for its fat-marbled meat. Firstlight Foods, the only commercial scale producer of Wagyu beef in New Zealand, says export markets are wanting more grass-fed beef, rather than grain fed beef, and it's keen to see dairy farmers use wagyu genetics over some of their dairy herd to produce a high value calf.

Five hundred barber's pole worms can kill a sheep. They suck so much of the animal's blood that when you cut its throat, it doesn't bleed. Sheep farmer Gordon Levet has spent a lifetime breeding sheep to be resistant to the parasite. He's recently been honoured for his work.

Welcome rain has been falling in coastal Wairarapa and crops are going in in Canterbury.

Ziplining through native bush is fun for the tourists and beneficial for the flora and fauna. Canopy Tours is into its fourth year of operation and visitors have been so excited by the pest control work being carried out in the Mamaku Forest that they've donated over 30 thousand dollars, unsolicited, towards the programme. Birds are returning to the area and one of the guides says people are remembering the bush as much as the zip lining.

Tony Tripp has created a museum dedicated to rural memorabilia on Snowdon Station where he has been farming since 1961. In one of the sheds is a 1929 Bentley with a tow bar that Lucy Wills, the previous owner, used for feeding out hay to sheep on the 2200 hectare high country property in Canterbury.

Milk has just started flowing into one of the two largest milk driers in the world at Fonterra's Lichfield plant in South Waikato. It's the same size as a drier at Darfield in Canterbury. The 50 metre high drier can make 720 metric tonnes of milk powder a day.

Warm and moist conditions in the North Island are pushing grass growth, and asparagus along, while in the South Island arable farmers have been preparing ground and sowing spring cereals.