8 | RURAL PEOPLE » Colvend Shorthorns Bulls bred to handle the high country Colvend Farm Shorthorns on the move. An R2 bull (below). The King Country farm near Taumarunui (bottom). Virginia Wright Colvend Farm is a well-balanced combination of 14 hectares of at, 200 hectares of medium hill, and 150 or so hectares of steep to very steep country, with a further 137 hectares of virgin native bush. It can be found 40 or so kilometres north of Taumarunui in the King Country and is run by Alan and Valerie Park and their 21-year-old son Ashley. Their daughter Melissa (28) works propagating plants in Te Awamutu. As a teenager Ashley wasn’t too keen to go farming until Alan and Valerie took him along to a New Zealand National Beef Expo in Fielding, a meeting place for breeders of all kinds from all over the country, when he was 14. “They’re still common in many countries around the world but we don’t have anything like that here any more,” says Alan. “It’s harder now for the young ones coming through but that’s where we made a name for ourselves with our Shorthorn bulls. We took Ashley along to help us prepare them. They were washed and blow-dried and they were all led, so they had to be broken in before we went and Ashley had helped with that on his weekends home from boarding school.” It was on their way home that Ashley showed his rst enthusiasm for becoming a farmer, probably helped by the fact that the Park family’s Shorthorn bulls proved themselves to be the best in the show, going on to win the Supreme Champion Shorthorn Bull award three years in a row. Alan’s own history with the Shorthorns goes back to when he was about the age Ashley is now, when he was working with his parents Lola and Colin on the family farm on Mt. Pirongia, near Te Awamutu. “Dad always put a white Shorthorn bull across our Angus cows to create the blue-grey cattle which I really liked. That’s going back something like 46 years ago,” says Alan. In 1997 the Park family moved to their current farm which, unlike the high and exposed Pirongia property, lent itself to starting a stud and they wasted no time in doing just that. The Parks purchased the cows for their Colvend Shorthorn stud over about four years from Ina Philips in Dar eld, out of Christchurch. “We just took a few every year,’ says Alan. “Ina didn’t want to sell them all at once, she had a soft spot for the Shorthorns so that’s why she only let them go year by year.” Alan’s idea was to sell a few bulls annually, building up to holding an annual on-farm sale for 12 to 15 bulls. With only the Shorthorn stud in action the most they got to was 10 a year which wasn’t quite enough, so the second stage of the plan came about when they started an Angus stud in 2016 to complement the Shorthorns. “We built a big implement shed that we combine with the bull-sale yard,” explains Alan. “The rst bull sale was the nervous one because we had no pre-existing clients for the Angus. Then we ran into Covid for the second one. The third one was better because we were starting to build our reputation and our next sale is 31st May. We’ll have 10 Shorthorns and 11 Angus bulls for sale and we’re really looking forward to it,” says Alan. Back when they started the stud in 2000 Alan was aware that the hindquarters on the Shorthorns weren’t as good as they could be, so they started breeding for a type with a good hindquarter while keeping the good growth needed for modern farming. Alan believes that many other breeders chose to concentrate on size at the expense of do-ability when targeting the traits they selected. While the majority of American and Canadian cattle are grain fed, New Zealand cattle need to handle life outside, fending largely for themselves, grazing pasture. “I worked hard on that over the years,” says Alan. “We breed a medium-size shorthorn bull that can handle the hill country. We now sell our bulls to both stud and commercial farmers all over New Zealand.” Eight years ago the Park family’s Shorthorn bulls won their rst awards and Alan believes they’ve only got better since then. “We use our steep country as our testing ground for our Shorthorn cows. When they come home during the winter to calve we can tell which are the good do-ers and which aren’t so we know which ones to keep. “We only keep the best and we’ve been doing that for 22 years.” “The rst bull sale was the nervous one because we had no preexisting clients for the Angus. Then we ran into Covid for the second one. The third one was better because we were starting to build our reputation and our next sale is 31st May. We’ll have 10 Shorthorns and 11 Angus bulls for sale and we’re really looking forward to it.” Telling your story with numbers By combining our Business and Farming knowledge with Xero and Figured for all your Planning, Forecasting and Monitoring Helping you move forward. 378 Crozier Street, Pirongia 3802 07 871 1866 Specalists in BUYING AND SELLING ALL CLASSES OF LIVESTOCK MyLiveStock Local Agent: Vaughan Rogers: 027 452 1568 100%NZ owned and operated • Working with farmers for farmers • PROUDLY SUPPORTING COLVEND SHORTHORNS mylivestock.co.nz Website | Mobile | App
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=