| 11 Simmental stud a labour of love Six month old calf showing good growth against a seven-year-old. Inset: Each year paddock sales are held for about 40 R2 bulls. Richard Loader RURAL PEOPLE » Hampton Downs Simmental Ph: 078263075 Proud to support Hampton Downs Simmental www.thetractorcentre.co.nz THE TRACTOR CENTRE phone (09) 238 7179 Cnr Heights & Paerata Roads, SHW 22 Pukekohe Massey Ferguson Global Series Tractor & Loader Packages On 0%* Finance To Approved Purchasers 74 to 132hp Cab & Rops options (Conditions Apply) THE TRACTOR CENTRE Enquiries and inspection always welcome email: 2033 State Highway 3, RD Mahoenui, 3978 phone: 07 877 8977 or 027 355 2927 www.raupuhastud.co.nz Raupuha Stud Bull & Heifer On-Farm Sale 9am 31st May 2022 Red,White & Roans of our world When Malcolm and Ngaire Entwisle were living in Germany in the late 70’s they fell in love with the Simmental breed of cattle that happily grazed near the alpine villages wearing cow bells and owers around their necks. Returning to New Zealand, they bought a dozen in-calf cows, the start of what would become Hampton Downs Simmental Stud near the small north Waikato township of Te Kauwhata. Further females were purchased from stud dispersals to initially build herd numbers. Following calving issues with the rst in-calf cows, semen was sourced overseas, looking particularly for ease-of-calving traits. Polled genetics also resulted from the Entwisle’s search, which has followed through to this day with semen preferentially selected from homozygous bulls, while acknowledging the need to use some horned bulls strategically to expand the genetic base. The Entwisle’s eldest daughter Sarah and her husband Patrick English returned from Australia in 2011 to allow Malcolm and Ngaire to ease into retirement. Although Malcolm passed away four years ago, Ngaire continues to support day-to-day running of the 400-hectare farm and the stud passed to Patrick. Sarah has an off-farm day career, but assists her husband on the farm in the weekends and shares Patrick’s passion for the family farm and stud. “The breeding focus now is on low birth weight, calving ease, good carcass, structure and feet. We’ve been historically very strict on temperament. We scan all our R2 heifers and bulls for eye muscle area, and intramuscular fat as well as doing all the performance recording required to create the EBV values.” Genetics continue to be sourced predominantly from United States and Canada with the intention of advancing the breed to suit New Zealand hill country conditions where the bulls are likely to end up. Short gestation has become a recent focus and Sarah says that if cows can calve early, their calves mature earlier and cows have more time to get back in calf. Patrick and Sarah breed with the intention that all females will stay on farm to be bred, with the bulls sold as breeding bulls. Anything that is not structurally sound is fattened on farm then culled and not offered to market. Each year paddock sales are held for about 40 R2 bulls throughout the year and by arrangement, mostly prior to the October breeding time. “We like to sell our bulls as two year olds, so that we can be con dent about their structure. We also strive to be a low input system. At the moment we have drought conditions with no grass growing and we need our animals to get through that. Our thinking is that if the animals do it tough on farm here, wherever they go to they will thrive. We don’t want an arti cially pumped up animal that falls apart at their new home.”
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