The Land Of The Long White Cloud
By Graham Madeley
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Logan Kelly, Graham Madeley and Steve Kelly |
“You will never be any closer!” was the message from our New Zealand friends when they knew I would be in Australia for the Illawarra conference and tour. I had visited New Zealand for six cow free days in 1977 so I welcomed the chance to see some New Zealand Milking Shorthorns as well as spending some time in good company.
As in Australia I had my daughter, Rachael with me as photographer and secretary, when we flew from Adelaide to Auckland on the 3rd of February. We were met by our friend Jill who Shirley had met on a previous holiday to Peru. Jill used to be a matron at a college just outside Auckland and one of her claims to fame is that she kept a young Jonah Lomu under control, something that the English Rugby team never managed! We stayed overnight with Jill in Pukekohe and the next morning she took us to rendezvous with Barry Peake. Some of you will have met Barry when he came to the Britain clay pigeon shooting for New Zealand.
Barry took us to see the Kaihere herd of the Dibble family. Ian and Robyn were on the South Island on business so we were shown around by his brother Jim and Ian’s daughters’ Nacre and Andre.
The drought in the North Island was very evident and without irrigation the paddocks had very little cover so the cows were being feed some baleage.
The management of herds in New Zealand does not differ much from one farm to another. They spring block calve and they have forage with no concentrates, as little as possible of this forage is in the conserved form. If they run out of forage then the cows are dried off early, many herds were on once a day milking at around two hundred days whilst we were there in preparation for drying off. The drought was that severe.
The Kaihere herd was an exception as they had recently built a poly-tunnel over slats to maintain their cows on throughout the wettest part of winter.
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Marleycote Harry in the Kaihere herd, Dibbles |
The Kaihere herd had not used any outside breeds and so by way of introducing new genetics they used pure bulls from America and Britain. I saw a few daughters of Marleycote Henry, Courtover Fellow, Winbrook King Henry and Wenvoe Briars Masterman.
That night we stayed with Barry and Rosa Peake, we had spent some time together in America where we had attended the Dubuque Milking Shorthorn convention. The Peake herd is now managed by Barry’s daughter and son in law. They milk five hundred and thirty cows on the farm and since Barry is semi-retired he only owns one hundred and thirty five of them!
One hundred and twenty of these are Pinedale Shorthorns all of these are blended with Norwegian and Swedish bulls taking precedence. The cattle are never housed and only receive hay or silage when there is a grass deficit. Due to the on going drought the herd was getting five bales of silage a day between five hundred and thirty cows. And I could not help thinking that I would like to see these cows in the spring and in full bloom when there was plenty of grass. As with the previous herd the cattle were smaller and leaner than we are used to seeing but the New Zealand farming system is very low cost and at the end of the day profit/acre is their main objective.
The cows that caught my eye were the Red Holstein blends these had some of the best breeding worth scores which is the main criteria when breeding decisions are made in New Zealand.
In the Waikato region close to the Peakes’ are the Waitomo glow worm caves. A very popular tourist attraction and well worth the visit. After our afternoon excursion we headed back to Auckland airport for a flight to Dunedin on the South Island. We were met at the airport by Logan Kelly from Invercargill. Logan visited the UK in 2004 as part of a major European tour but unfortunately I never managed to show him any Shorthorn herds here because his trip was unexpectedly cut short.
This area of New Zealand was vastly different to that which we saw on the North Island. The climate is almost completely opposite, as the grass does not grow in the winter because the weather is much colder. They can have snow and harsh frosts hence many farms move their cows to a run off farm for at least two months. This winter holding is where they make some hay and silage and grow kale and turnips for the cows and young stock whilst the grazing platform has a rest and starts to regain cover ready for the spring calving rush.
Logan now farms on his own instead of having a share milker, with a herdsman to help maintain his New Luce herd which has originated mainly from his parents Burness herd. The farm had plenty of grass, which was a shock considering what we had seen on the North Island and in some areas of Australia.
All the cows receive in addition is a small amount of molasses through the parlour. To give you a further example of how cost efficient the New Zealanders are; Logan had swapped his 350cc quad bike for a 125cc motorbike because the depreciation and running costs were much lower.
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New Luce Herd, Logan Kelly |
Logan is very motivated and will without doubt have one of the better herds and farms in New Zealand with all his drive and energy. He is also on the Milking Shorthorn Sire Selection Committee and what pleased me was that he recognised the importance of type traits as well as index
That afternoon we went to see father and son Daniel and Paul Murphy. They run the Roslyn and Grosvenor herds as one. Again there was an ample amount of grass on the farm in fact I thought the in calf heifers where in too good a condition.
No outside bulls had been used in these herds. Yet the cows were deep bodied and bigger than in the North. They were wearing well, a common trait throughout the breed, yet they were not being pushed too hard which would also help towards longevity. The cows I admired the most were by Roslyn General.
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2nd Calver at New Luce by Te Kiripi Gun Brent |
The next morning we set off on a Shorthorn orientated tour of the South Island which led us into the Canterbury area. The drive was very scenic especially on the coastal stretch. The Canterbury area is much flatter than any other area we saw and there was a considerable amount of cereals being grown. This flatter ground enabled extensive irrigation systems to be put in to action.
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Roslyn General in the Roslyn herd, Murphy’s |
The first herd we visited was the Brecon herd at Red Cow Farm owned by Mark and Jenny MacDonald. The cows on this farm were more typical of the Dairy Shorthorns that you see around Britain.
They were on quality pastures due to irrigation and they were fed a small amount of grain through the rotary parlour. As well as having some of New Zealand’s highest producers in the Shorthorn breed there were also some good type cows throughout the herd. This was very impressive since Mark had only recently set up his herd after being a share milker for Dibbles. Mark is also a talented artist and the farm house walls are adorned with some impressive paintings.
The next morning we returned to the MacDonald’s to see the heifers; a very nice level bunch showing how the herd has made good progress. Mark was using the Australian Illawarra bull Panorama Royal Treble.
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MacDonald’s Brecon Arthur 2nd Lactation in the Brecon herd |
The next visit was to the Eyretonlea herd of Alistair Smith and his sons Donald and Philip. As we were
driving up to the herd I could see what I thought were narrow accesses to the paddocks at regular intervals over the stream. In actual fact they were for the wheels of the giant seven hundred metre long pivot irrigator that sprouted over the milking parlour roof.
This one irrigator was covering four hundred acres and although water was restricted irrigation was making a huge difference to the production on this farm. Some American bulls had been used here and there was still a nine year old Peerless in the herd. They had used Kaihere Grenade and a homebred son of his to good effect. Longevity was evident with the grand dam and great grand dam of a cow selected as a sire dam on display.
Leaving Eyretonlea we headed on to Phil Garrett’s farm at Rushbrook, the Te Kiripi herd. There were eight hundred and seventy cows being milked and virtually all of them were red and white. Many of the cows had a lot of Scandinavian blood in them. The high yielders were milked twice daily and the others were milked once a day. There were quite a few irrigation systems being used around this farm many of them were rain guns but this took up a lot of man hours. However work was in progress to install a huge pivot irrigator as we could see irrigation was a huge necessity. But it did make me wonder if in Britain we would be allowed to fell all the trees that stood in our way!
Phil had a Sweet Nessie cow that was eighteen years old and was the dam of five proven bulls. Te Kiripi Astronaut particularly showed some promising heifers. The Te Kiripi herd had certainly made a mark in New Zealand as I had seen some good cows in other the herds on this trip.
The last farm on the trip was that of Logan’s parents, Steven and Sandra Kelly and their Burness herd. They milked four hundred and seventy cows on one hundred and sixty hectares through a fifty point rotary. But they too have a run off farm for the cows to go to when dry in mid winter. This farm was the furthest south we travelled on the South Island and the climate is much different as no irrigation is necessary here.
Logan had taken a lot of the Shorthorns to form his two hundred and thirty strong New Luce herd as the majority of cows we saw were black and white. But there were some decent cows around especially one by Wenvoe Briars Man that was milking well.
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Te Kiripi Sweet Nessie 18yrs old, Dam of Five Proven Bulls 60,000 solids |
The next morning Sandra dropped us off at Dunedin airport and then we travelled the long trip home via Auckland and LA. I certainly appreciated being back at home after forty hours of travelling and I could think of no better way to unwind than milking the cows! And after nearly five weeks of working single handed Shirley was just about ready to let me take over the milking again.
In conclusion I did not receive too many surprises in New Zealand as I was prepared for the low cost system and the smaller cows although the North Island cows were obviously suffering from the harsh drought conditions.
As you would expect from an index driven system and an increased use of Scandinavian genetics the udder type was not good enough for our more intensive systems. In fact I could not understand why so much Scandinavian semen was being used when their production comes from TMR and very little grazing and the New Zealand system is an entirely grazing one.
In the UK our sales of Dairy Shorthorn cows, bulls and semen have benefited from the many black and white breeders who have been let down by semen companies pushing for all index and no type or longevity.
New Zealand is a great place to visit and the hospitality was fantastic. We are very grateful to everyone who spared us their time.
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Eyretonlea Irrigation....Start.... |
..............Middle..............
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.....Never Ending! |