Cattle are very important part of Waitatapia. They are used to harvest grass helping keep the high energy grasses in a vegetative state especially in spring when maintaining quality pasture is the focus. Waitatapia has three steer finishing programs starting with the purchase of quality waeners, being mainly Angus which are finished the following Autumn at around 320 KGs carcass weight. The second program purchases rising 2 year old steers in the Autumn which are used to clean up pasture prior to going on a wintering pad where they are fed a Total Mixed Ration (TMR) using conserved quality feed, all grown on the farm. The aim of the wintering pad is to look after our soils which are prone to compaction leaving quality feed for our lamb finishing. Some of these steers are finished off the wintering pad supplied to Anzco providing superior consistent beef. The remainder Steers come off the wintering pad are used to control the spring surplus and then killed prior to summer. Our aim is to grow all steers as fast as possible minimizing their time spent on the farm. This helps reduce our environmental footprint plus enhances marbling through the meat helping provide a quality consistent product for our customers.