Why the Programme?
The Beginning
The Present
The Future
Our herd was now defined. Largely
polled, with birthweight and calving ease essentially
under control. We had used a variety of bull power,
largely American except for Eldorado. Many of our cows
had adequate milking capability, some were even trait
leaders for milk. But where was the uniformity? Some
of our cows still didn't have the moderate frame and
fleshing we desired, and some couldn't hack the drought
conditions we experience here in our summers. We continued
to experiment with polled genetics, but they were hard
to find. Where, where, where were the polled bulls out
there to go in over our herd, other than ones we had
bred ourselves? They were not coming into New Zealand.
We wanted a polled bull with real "GRUNT".
We wanted fleshing; we wanted easy calving; we wanted
a polled bull with real maternal strength behind him.
What we wanted just didn't seem to exist.And
then a stroke of pure fortune. As members of the American
Simmental Association we enjoy receiving a monthly magazine,
"The Register". After years of flicking through
page after page and not being all that overly impressed
with the bull power being promoted over there, we came
upon an advertisement of a bull that had recently been
sold in Canada. Photographically impressive, stunning,
he simply leapt out of the page of the magazine at us.
That bull was Bar 5 Paymaster. He had just sold for
phenomenal money, but was he just a dream? We enquired
to the advertiser as to his whereabouts. That next weekend
we were on a plane to Canada. Three days of watching
the bull, his dam (possibly the best cow we had ever
seen), his maternal grand dam (and what a fabulous cow
she was as well), his sire, his paternal grand dam,
his full sib, and lots of paternal half sibs. To
say we were "blown away" would be an understatement.
Perfect feet and legs, deep ribbed, well fleshed, free
moving, and American epd's exactly as we would dream
for, trait leader for calving ease, for growth, and
for the maternal traits we held as important. What a
fabulous package, and then onto our next venture into
the unknown, importing semen to New Zealand from Canada.Without
doubt importing semen of that bull has been the turning
point in our programme. He has bred positively over
every style of female we have thrown his way. He has
since proven to also have carcass traits that we had
no idea he might offer, positive fat cover, good eye
muscle, and good retail beef yield, and as important
as any carcass trait, he has since proven to be in the
top 1% of the breed for intra-muscular fat content.
Marbling for tender beef has to be the future.What
is more, Paymaster opened the door to an enduring, positive,
honest and open relationship with the Bar 5 operation
out of Canada that had bred him and who still held an
interest in him. When
enquiring of Bar 5 of what life might exist after Paymaster,
they suggested Kalgary a full South African, but he
was horned, and we wanted polled. We
had often read of what the South Africans had done with
their "Simmentaler" cattle; of the importance
that they placed on structure, on maternal, on carcass
and on quality. Their dedication to breeding objectives
seemed to mirror what we were trying to achieve. By
this time we had come to recognise that many of the
animals that we had and which we liked mostly for their
ease of fleshing and for maintaining body condition
had some Fleckvieh influence in them. And so the decision
to import Bar 5 Kalgary, regardless of his horned status,
because of the Fleck influence. We bred him over our
most strongly polled cows, and our first calf crop all
came out polled. But most impressively, his calves were
vigorous from birth, up and feeding within the space
of just two or three minutes, with none of the cows
assisted in delivery. That strong survival instinct
had been passed on through Kalgary. Surely, gone were
the days of hanging a "valuable" calf over
a couple of bales of hay for three or four days, and
then nurturing it for another week before we could be
sure it would survive. When calving down 250 cows and
recording their calves, we now had too little time,
and space, for that antic, especially in the mud and
rain we experience here at calving time.And
now Kalgery's carcass ebv's are out, almost exactly
what we had hoped for, within the top 1% of the breed
for fat covers, a significant ebv for producing early
finishing cattle (and for fertility), and excellent
eye muscle and retail beef yield, though possibly a
little low for growth, but then we have never been high
growth EBV driven in our programme. Muscle, fat, good
calving ease, fertility and calf survivability, and
early finishing all in one package, in Kalgery. And
we can see it in his progeny. To have all that red meat
as well? We look forward to see how his first daughters
perform.Polled
Fleckvieh was clearly our goal now. Further genetics
out of Canada, both homozygous polled, Richwood Bruno,
and Marywood Polled Western 91J, fullblood Fleckvieh
influenced Simmental. Bruno offered calving ease and
strong maternal, and 91J offered tremendous growth.
We can see it in their first calves. And line breeding
using these two bulls has proven successful, we now
having semen of five bulls that descend from one of
the all time great Fleckvieh bulls of Canada, C &
B Western. A
good friend found us a new and exciting bull for our
programme on a visit to Germany. This heralded the introduction
of Storno to our programme. The first progeny of Storno
are here. He offers further maternal strength. We anxiously
await his first calves out of some of our Paymaster
daughters.Our
herd is now largely where we want it, with the exception
of a few purchased in females that we use to benchmark
our own programme.
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