Some MG's from NZ

[waihou]

Well calving has finished and spring is meant to be here, but today is wet and 6C and it's snowing in the hills.
We finished the calving this week in our little herd, with 14 bulls and 14 heifers, all unassisted and most unseen. I like to keep an eye on the 2yr heifers as they sometimes need a bit of guidance to let the calf feed but this year all 7 new girls were excellent at calving and feeding within half an hour, nice short labours too.
Here are a few photos of our Murray Grey herd and the new arrivals.

Here is a general view of some of them.

We calve in one paddock with cows behind an electic tape

and then shift the cows as they calve. They only get grass and and baleage all winter and now the grass is growing, only that from now on.
The calves are all weighed at birth and the senior cows calves averaged 40kg calves, thats about 88lbs I think and the 2yr heifers avg @75lbs.

This cow is 7 and was shown successfully last year, she has another super bull calf this year. Here she is the day before she calved

and the result age 28 days

Some of the 2 yr olds and their calves

This is the new sire we used over the 2 yr olds-now just turned 2 himself-he is a son of Lerwick Park Zeppelin for those who know the Aussie sires!

 

[aussie_cowgirl]

I like that 273 calf

 

[Australian]

Very nice cattle. Love the green grass.

 

[Eagle33]

What a great looking bull calf at 28days! Where do MG's rank in numbers of beef cattle in NZ?

 

[Hereford76]

i'm ready to move to NZ - how hard is it to become a citizen there and/or buy a place. I know the pres of the NZ hereford association. he runs locharburn station just out of cromwell.

 

[alacattleman]

good looking herd

 

[waihou]

What a great looking bull calf at 28days! Where do MG's rank in numbers of beef cattle in NZ?

Probably about 8th or 9th in terms of numbers of registered pure bred cattle. I think there are about 1400 registered Murray Grey cows-around similar numbers of Charolais and South Devons.
If you talk about total beef cattle, then very small numbers of MG's compared to all the rest. Most popular are Angus and Hereford then possibly Simmentals.

Most of the MG herds are pretty small, ie under 50 cows. Most of the bulls are sold to dairy herds for heifer mating but the dairycow x MG progeny are doing well in the local trade beef market, which is for home consumption rather than export.
Being a small country (pop. 4.2million) we rely heavily on exports of agricultural exports and tourism for income! Export beef tends to be the heavy weight European 3yr old beef, plus Freisian bulls (for hanburger mince!) Virtually all beef is finished on grass.

Even the Pure bred bull trials where weaner bulls from different studs are run through as one mob to 2yrs in preparation for the National Beef Bull sale in May, are run outside on green feed plus hay/baleage in the winter.

i'm ready to move to NZ - how hard is it to become a citizen there and/or buy a place. I know the pres of the NZ hereford association. he runs locharburn station just out of cromwell.

Not hard to qualify if you have plenty of money to start a business or buy land ;-)