2019 Past Years Highlights
Calving Date
Please note that we have chosen to put our calving date back to July and
August. In 2017 we only had 6 calves born on late June and all of these were
either born to 2 yr old heifers or from embryo transfer. Three of those June
calves have been good enough to be included in this catalogue.
Polled Cattle
We are committed to continuing to use only polled or scurred stud sires. So far
Y-arta has consistently produced the largest percentage of clean polled offspring.
We hope that as more polled sires come on to the market there will be greater
opportunity to breed or purchase a good quality homozygous polled bull which
will speed our desire to produce a completely polled herd.
Winter 2018
After an exceptional Autumn the cows went into winter in excellent condition.
Kerry Arnold our Stock Manager kept his finger on the pulse and with break
feeding, silage and hay the whole herd calved in excellent condition.
Calving was a breeze except for two first calving heifers. One had blocked teats
and the other a small pelvis leading to a caesarean.
Summer 2018-19
“Where have all the rains gone?” after a wet July and early August the spring
rains disappeared and with a very dry October we were heading for an early
Summer drought. Our usual hay and silage providers phoned warning us that
no paddocks had been shut up. Our barns were empty, all our baleage had
been fed out – things looked fairly grim.
Lucky for us November brought about a change that would stand us in good
stead for the next six months.
Firstly we were able to buy 160 bales of Autumn saved baleage from Nicky
Tillett in Ashley Clinton. Then Shane McDonald came to our aid with another 40
bales from Taranaki. Ross Clayton recognising our predicament, stood aside
from a grazing arrangement he had with Neville Flaws on Middleton Road and
gave us access to grass on a 40 hectare farm with no stock. 10 hectares were
almost ready for baleage with the remainder requiring more time and some rain
to produce grass worth harvesting.
The first rain arrived on 26th November and over the following week we had
100mm which set the pattern for the next 6 months with 20 to 80mm of rain
coming at regular fortnightly intervals. The grass at Middleton Road bloomed,
Tim Moore phoned back to say that hay would be available after all and so our
“cup overflowed”. By the end of January our baleage stacks and haybarns were
overflowing. Totally Amazing!
2018 Mating
With cows in great condition, regular rainfall, excellent grass growth, we
achieved 100% “in calf” rate with 3 dry cows offset by 3 sets of twins.
Autumn 2019
Totally amazing. The grass grew all Summer and didn’t stop. Regular rain and
temperatures as high as 26° Celsius going right into May, what an amazing year.
We have seen clover like it and the regrowth of both grass and clover after each
rotation was amazing. Our weaning weights and weights of our yearling cattle
were down on past years but that would be easily explained by our later calving
dates.
Show Season
The only show we competed at this season has been the NZ Royal Show in
Hastings on the 18th and 19th October as we had the only Simmental cattle
entered, the breed classes were not difficult to win. Our three year old bull Glen
Anthony Democrat AD18, won the Supreme Champion award ahead of our 2
yr old entries Glenanthony Executive and Glenanthony Estelle (with calf at foot).
We presented a large number of yearling cattle but sadly this year, the quality
was lacking.
In the all breed classes our senior cattle were beaten by the Saler entries from
Willowcreek (Wellsford) and our yearling cattle took the minor prizes behind
excellent Charolais bulls from Simon and Wendy Collin and an amazing Belgium
Blue heifer all the way from Tuakau. The only Highlight for us was Glenanthony
Estelle winning the all breeds champion 2yr old class while the low light was our
failure to make the top three in the Meat and Wool Cup.
With family issues coming first we didn’t take a team to the Dannevirke Show
this year and with Future Beef moving to Masterton we were not involved there
either.
After such an amazing Summer and Autumn our bulls are looking well, and we
hope you are able to attend our sale on Friday 7th June.