waihou
Well-known member
I am posting some photos of our new sire and cautiously await comment!
Now a few points to remember, it is late winter here and he is still in his winter coat, we don't house cattle here, we don't grain feed and he has just arrived off the truck from the AI centre where he left his deposit as insurance before coming on here.
He is originally from Southland-which is about 500 miles south of us, and across in the other Island, which is a 3 hour ferry ride and a 10 hour truck ride away!
He is a late September born calf, so in these first 2 photos he is 22 months old. His first calves are already on the ground and he will go out with our cows at the end of October. Our main market for stock is yearling bulls for mating dairy heifers, so they have to be low birth weight and fast growing, so the resulatant cross bred calves from the dairy herd can be marketed for beef around 18 months of age. We also specialise in good temperament, so we sell surplus heifers etc to small block farmers-which we call 'lifestylers"! We are only a small farm ourselves, with 70 acres and calving 30 cows this year-as a hobby!
We weighed him this morning and he was 750kgs around (1650lbs?) that's his daily diet, grass and silage. I can get his EBV's (EPD's for you northern hemisphere people)-if I can work out how to down load them. For the Australians-he is by a Woodbourn bull!
Now a few points to remember, it is late winter here and he is still in his winter coat, we don't house cattle here, we don't grain feed and he has just arrived off the truck from the AI centre where he left his deposit as insurance before coming on here.
He is originally from Southland-which is about 500 miles south of us, and across in the other Island, which is a 3 hour ferry ride and a 10 hour truck ride away!
He is a late September born calf, so in these first 2 photos he is 22 months old. His first calves are already on the ground and he will go out with our cows at the end of October. Our main market for stock is yearling bulls for mating dairy heifers, so they have to be low birth weight and fast growing, so the resulatant cross bred calves from the dairy herd can be marketed for beef around 18 months of age. We also specialise in good temperament, so we sell surplus heifers etc to small block farmers-which we call 'lifestylers"! We are only a small farm ourselves, with 70 acres and calving 30 cows this year-as a hobby!
We weighed him this morning and he was 750kgs around (1650lbs?) that's his daily diet, grass and silage. I can get his EBV's (EPD's for you northern hemisphere people)-if I can work out how to down load them. For the Australians-he is by a Woodbourn bull!
