Bull Sale

Welcome to our 21st on-farm Angus Bull sale to be held on Wednesday 4th June starting at 1pm.

As I write this it is still incredibly dry here in the King Country, we were looking good until Christmas but since then we have lacked moisture, and things are short to say the least. There is some rain on the horizon for later this week so hopefully that comes and then we get some follow-up. At least it is still mild.

The real positive over the last twelve months has been the improving returns for sheep and beef farmers. Certainly, from a beef perspective it has been solid for quite some time but that has gone to another level in the last few months and very good schedules are available for beef with the USA (a major influencer in world beef prices) with the lowest cow numbers since 1951.

During this time, you might expect that the rising price of beef would put a downward pressure on consumption, but this has not happened, and US consumers continue being prepared to pay good money for high quality beef.

When things are buoyant and prices strong, it can be easy to take your eye off the target, but we urge you not to do that – cattle breeding is a long-term business as you know and the quickest way to heartbreak is to lose sight of your breeding objective or chase a rainbow.

Animals that have strong maternal attributes along with early maturing top-quality carcases will reward you over time. This year Angus Australia who we record with have new EBV’s which are shown in this catalogue that highlight mature cow condition and mature cow height. These are import traits for hill country farmers to monitor. 

Recently, Beef & Lamb have been in the news announcing the launch of the n-prove for beef selection tool along with a claim they were launching NZ based indexes. That claim is a misnomer as indexes used in NZ for many years across all breed societies not just Angus have been designed specifically for New Zealand along with using New Zealand economic models and returns. 

The AngusPRO index that we use, and the other Angus NZ indexes are all New Zealand specific indexes. You can have confidence in them if you are a self-replacing herd wanting also to target premium prime beef markets.

We are excited by this year’s lineup of bulls for sale and Bruce has presented them in great order. Some new sires represented include, Dunoon Recharge who recently had a son sell in Tasmania for $275,000  Clunie Range Plantation and Murdeduke Quarterback and Lawsons Rocky. From the past there are some Beast Modes back and then four of our own in Storth Oaks 47 who has a good number of sons, Storth Oaks S11, S6 and S30.

It is really pleasing to see our own genetics come through and reach the top consistently. 

Every bull in the catalogue has either the AngusPure A+ or A endorsement with the vast majority, 62 in fact having the A+.

Also worth noting is that the average IMF or marbling EBV of those bulls catalogued is +3.72 This is more than 4x the Angus New Zealand breed average figure of +0.9 and well above the Australasian average of +2.5

I continue to mention the desirability or the extra progress you as commercial beef producers can make by utilising new technologies such as genomics through taking up Heifer Select or Inherit Select. This will help maximise the genetics going into your replacement herd. The old drafting stick and eye for the biggest will not necessarily mean the most profitable females in your herd over the next 10 years. 

If you have any questions or would like to discuss your program or breeding objectives, please do get in touch. We would love to have a chat with you.

Best wishes

Tim and Kelly