With many dairy colleagues feeling the sting of tight margins, the South West Genetics owner said it was important for communities to see the good too. 

“This is the best Spring we’ve had for 10 years and our rams are as heavy as we’ve had (in a while),” he said. “We’re still chasing our tails a bit as well, but we now have confidence we’ll come out the other side.”

Mr Parker said his 3000 ewes were doing better than previous years with “water everywhere” and “grass everywhere”. 

"We’re producing all our own supplement feed and the market is pointing in the right direction,” he said. 

Mr Parker said the local economy of town’s like Mortlake relied heavily on farmers and urged those that could, to remain positive. 

“We’ve got the most even line of rams we’ve had for a long time and the highest performance-figured rams ever offered, so we’re expecting some good sale results,” he said. 

South West Genetics will have 10 Coopworth rams for sale at the National Ram Sale in Hamilton next Monday, October 24 and will put forward 38 Coopworth rams and 17 Texel rams at their annual on-farm ram sale at Mortlake on Wednesday.