40 | Making her mark at Mangaotea Station Jacqueline founded Mangaotea’s Hereford stud in 2002, with the Angus stud following in 2006. Kim Newth Over the past ve years, since returning to her family’s home farm, east of Mount Taranaki, Zarrah Blackwell has been strongly focussed on developing the property’s Murray Grey cattle stud. Her passion for working with cattle goes back to her rural childhood and was further solidi- ed through several years’ experience working in Western Australia. “Of course, everything is so much more extensive over there – helicopters and horses are used for mustering and the paddocks are enormous.” One practice she brought home from Australia was doing weaning in the yard, feeding freshly weaned calves in the yard for four days. It gets the calves off to a good start being handled around the yards. When people come to view stock, it also means the animals are used to people. The Blackwell family has been farming in Taranaki since the 1960s and Zarrah’s father Robin and partner Jacqueline have developed a diverse bull breeding and dairy support operation, with supplementary winter feed also sold into the dairy sector. Jacqueline founded Mangaotea’s Hereford stud in 2002, with the Angus stud following in 2006. The job of building the farm’s third stud – the Murray Greys – naturally fell to Zarrah on her return from Australia and she has relished the challenge. “I’ve always liked Angus and the Murray Grey is pretty similar as a breed, but there are limited bloodlines in New Zealand. I’ve been very lucky to have had good support and guidance from Barry McDonald, who runs the Torrisdale Murray Grey stud in Southland, which uses AI Australian bloodlines. I bought a bull from him this year. If I have any questions, I know I can give him a call.” Zarrah was voted onto the New Zealand Murray Grey Beef Cattle Council last year, bringing further growth opportunities. “I’m new to the role but have already met some great people who are happy to help younger breeders.” Sound constitution and excellent fertility are top performance priorities at Mangaotea. With all bulls going into dairy operations, good temperament is also top of the list. “I’m seeking out improvement for our Murray Greys all the time. We put 35 cows to the bull this year. The goal is to get 40 cows to calve each year. We also calve 90 Angus and 90 Hereford. “We appreciate the good following we have for Mangoeatea bulls and, following on from that, our clients are getting good results selling four-day-old calves.” Zarrah runs all the bulls for the annual RURAL PEOPLE » Zarrah Blackwell Billy & team proudly support Zarrah Blackwell LOCHBURN SHORTHORN STUD 2022 In Calf Heifer & R2 Bull Sale WEDNESDAY 25TH MAY 3.00PM Corner of Driver Road & Speedy Road, Horsham Downs, Waikato Kelvin Stokes Mobile: 027 4844672 Email: barb_ssf@xtra.co.nz Mangaotea Farm Bull Sale in September and manages sale administration too. “It went really well last year.” The Murray Grey stud is sited on Mangaotea’s home farm comprising 339ha (effective) of at and rolling country through to steeper hills. “Dad and I went into partnership on leasing the home farm off him under a new company, Blackwell Holdings and, as part of that partnership, we also buy replacement Angus heifers to herd build.” The latest spring and summer season has been “a bit mediocre” with not a lot of grass growth until November. January has been very dry to date. Calving has gone well though and, at time of writing, weaning was on schedule to go ahead a little earlier in mid-February. “I’m seeking out improvement for our Murray Greys all the time. We put 35 cows to the bull this year. The goal is to get 40 cows to calve each year. We also calve 90 Angus and 90 Hereford. “We appreciate the good following we have for Mangoeatea bulls and, following on from that, our clients are getting good results selling four-day-old calves.”
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=