30 | Resilience and strong maternal traits The Fossil Creek Angus breeding herd is born and bred in the hills of North Otago. Russell Fredric Breeding and growing top quality cattle is highly dependent on the resilience and strong maternal traits of cows, Fossil Creek Angus co-owner Jane Smith says. Jane and her husband Blair farm 1400 hectares which includes an 1100 hectare hill block where Fossil Creek Angus stud’s cattle are run in the Kakanui Range, North Otago. “A cow that can eat poor quality feed and turn it into quality protein is really important. Being efficient all year round and having cows that can be self-sufficient all winter and produce a cracking calf in the Spring is essential. “We get fairly harsh winters here and run all our stud cows in one big mob out the back of the farm for those three months, which reflects the type of conditions that our bull clients operate in. Cows are literally the mothership of any operation, but we also need to make sure they are tough, resilient and efficient, so not breeding cows that are too big is important as well.” Fossil Creek Angus’ 25th on-farm bull sale on June 10 will mark a major milestone for the stud. Jane and Blair have aimed for a balance of traits and believe the line-up of bulls being offered are the most even yet in terms of multi-trait performance. The 80 bulls being offered have been selected from 180 bull calves born in 2023, with emphasis first and foremost on strong maternal traits such as calving ease, growth, fertility and milking ability, coupled with carcass weights, rib and rump fat and intramuscular fat. “Which means our buyers have a large group of multi-trait strength bulls available to them to select from,” Jane says. Headline herd sires include Fossil Creek Ripper R18, Te Mania Rustler R300, Fossil Creek Prophet, Rockley Rocky Q7, Clunies Plantation, ‘Fossil Creek S004’, Earnscleugh Pisa Range and ‘KG Justified’. The stud uses both natural mating and artificial insemination, with overseas genetics coming from Australia and North America.” “We are usually about 250 cows natural mating and about 100 cows to AI. Natural mating is important to us, particularly in our heifers because if you do AI your heifers, for their first mating it can mask some poor fertility. We naturally mate all our heifers and they have to be in-calf in two cycles.” There is currently some real excitement in the beef industry with the development of E-Star indexes, Jane says. These are essentially a tool for bull buyers for selecting the best fit of genetics for their specific herd’s needs. There are six New Zealand Angus studs in with the E-Star programme, derived by experts at Abacus Bio and reality-checked by all of the six studs, including Fossil Creek. Neil Sanderson, the original founder of Fossil Creek Angus “went on a crusade” nearly a decade MEAT & WOOL » Fossil Creek Angus ago to provide indexes that were more transparent and suitable for each individual farmer that didn’t come with the risk of buying the completely wrong bull for a herd. The four E Star Indexes are: maternal, terminal, efficiency, and heifer direct which is designed to be a standalone selection tool for ranking bulls as suitable for mating yearling heifers and is “a massive step forward for the NZ commercial beef industry.” “Being able to assess every bull through traditional EBV’s and to be coupled with the strength of the E-Star assessment is groundbreaking and further adds to the ability for clients to ensure their bull buying decision is a good one; both on paper and in the paddock.” Partners: Doug Harvie, Craig Wyatt, Brett Challis, Robyn Friedrich & Tom Saul. Harvie GreenWyatt is here to help youmaintain & grow your agri business. Our rural business accounting, business and planning disciplines. Software solutions , including Xero, Figured, Focus and tailored payroll solutions Business advice and planning Tax guidance and returns Cash owmanagement Succession planning Proudly supporting Fossil Creek Angus 3 Usk St, Oamaru 9400 | www.nops.co.nz | 03 434 7766 Blair and Jane Smith: 027 432 4154 newhavenfarms@netspeed.net.nz 25thANNUAL ON FARM FOSSIL CREEK ANGUS BULL SALE Tuesday 10th June 2025 | 2pm, Five Forks, North Otago 80 R2 Angus Bulls
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