22 | Koanui Polled Herefords sale in May Russell Fredric Koanui Polled Herefords has moved its highly regarded annual bull sale from June to May. The Hawkes Bay stud historically held its annual sale on-farm in mid-June, but this year it has been moved forward to May 21. Founded in 1972, Koanui Polled Herefords is run by Chris and Jennifer (Jen) Chesterman who have four children, Hugh, Glen, Gerard and Allie. The average price in 2025 fetched across Koanui’s 56 two-year-olds that went under the auctioneer’s hammer last June was $11,730 and the top price paid $18,000. Like the bulls going into this year’s sale on May 21, they represented Koanui’s impressive history of breeding and a highly desirable pool of balanced traits. “We had a really good sale, a total clearance,” Chris says. “The average was extremely good. The loyalty of our regular clients is humbling and we like to believe that we give them the best of service to enhance that support.” The change of sale date is to allow more time and to alleviate some work pressure at Koanui between the sale and the start of calving – previously a four week gap – as well as making our grazing management easier going into winter for calving cows. Koanui Polled Herefords is run from its namesake farm in Maraetotara, just out of Havelock North on medium hill country. The Chesterman’s operate 2400 hectares across four farms including Koanui, Te Kura near Palmerston North, Hayland near Rangiora and the recently acquired Pukekura Station near Hastings. One of the largest registered polled Hereford herds in New Zealand, the Chesterman’s annually calve around 800 cows. Annually around 300 bulls are sold for breeding each year into the beef and RURAL PEOPLE » Koanui Polled Herefords Allie, Gerard, Jen, Chris, Glen and Hugh Chesterman. Jared Brock - 027 449 5496 Rural Manager - LNI East | Sales Consultant pb.co.nz | Property Brokers Ltd Licensed REAA 2008 Proud to support Chris and Jennifer and privileged to have been entrusted with marketing and selling their Tararua properties in recent years. We are proud to support Koanui Polled Herefords Power Farming Hawkes Bay | 06 879 9998 Committed to Hawke’s Bay Adrian Barclay Partner Sainsbury Logan & Williams is a full-service law firm with offices in Napier and Hastings, dedicated to helping families, businesses, rural communities, and the public sector achieve long-term success. www.slw.co.nz Napier: +64 6 935 3069 Hastings: +64 6 876 6699 dairy industries in addition to selling semen and embryos around the world. Having a large herd has the advantage of providing plenty of genetic diversity along with enabling cattle to be put under a lot of breeding pressure, Chris says. “There’s obviously a lot of Angus breeders in the industry and a lot of Angus cows, and by having polled Herefords that have some performance in meat quality, we’re able to utilise that Angus base from a crossbreeding situation which allows to get hybrid vigour and I believe we have extremely good phenotype and performance in our cattle.” Another advantage of Koanui’s breeding programme is that it is a good fit for the dairy industry. This year more than 300 heifers will be mated, with a focus on producing bulls from them targeted for moderate birth weight, high calving ease and good performance. “We do want to challenge our heifers and have performance out of those heifers because, to me, it’s a wasted opportunity if you go into that low birth weight, lower performance and you basically have a very limited outlet for those progeny.” Bull calves in the dairy industry need to be able to perform commercially because finishers are paid on weight, consequently they need to be able to be grown out into a good beef animal, Chris says. For the first time in many years, Koanui held a spring yearling bull sale last September, offering 30 premium bulls for heifer mating. “We were very proud of the quality and type of these bulls. There were bulls that had the likelihood of becoming top herd sires, but as with any yearling, their potential is yet to be expressed.” To find the best bulls for breeding, selection for structural soundness and temperament is made at every yarding from birth to sale day. Only bulls that meet Koanui’s high standards for breeding and metrics will be in this year’s sale. Thursday, 21 May 2026 70 rising 2yo bulls at on-farm auction. 1pm at ‘The Sale Shed’, 839 Maraetotara Road, Havelock North. Save the date! www.koanuiherefords.co.nz Chris: 027 4888 635 Jennifer: 027 4777 637 facebook.com/KoanuiPH
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=