28 | Beef cattle with dairy farmers in mind Barry calved close to 110 cows last season, with approximately three-quarters of his breeding aimed at the dairy-beef market. Kim Bowden RURAL PEOPLE » Hillbrae In a region dominated by dairy farming, Barry Gledhill breeds beef cattle with dairy farmers firmly in mind. The Manawatu farmer has spent the past decade refining a Simmental breeding programme focusing on easy-calving animals that grow fast, finish well, and are simple to identify in the paddock. “Easy calving was my number one thing to start with,” Barry says. “Dairy farmers don’t want to be pulling calves or calling the vet. If they don’t have to do that, it saves time and money straight away.” The second box Barry wants his cattle to tick is growth and finishing ability. Year after year, his weaners are right at the top of the Feilding sale, and the same buyers keep coming back for more. “They’re happy because the calves grow, and they can get rid of them early and make room for the next lot,” he says. Barry says one of the big shifts in his thinking has been around how easy it is for dairy farmers to pick the beef calves by eye. “Some of them, when you put them across Friesian cows, they don’t always have the white face to identify them,” he says. “Dairy farmers want to know whether it’s beef or not - and it’s a white face that can tell them that.” That’s led him to put more emphasis on using blonde Simmental bulls in the dairy space. When those bulls go over Friesian cows, the calves are more likely to come out a mousey, greyish colour or otherwise clearly marked, which helps them stand out from straight dairy types. Another key focus for Barry has been breeding out horns. DNA testing helps him identify homozygous polled animals and he says there are now very few horned animals left in the herd. Barry calved close to 110 cows last season, with approximately three-quarters of his breeding aimed at the dairy-beef market. The farm is 140 hectares – “50 percent gullies and 50 percent flats, with some lower tops,” he says. It is split into roughly 100 paddocks with the gullies fenced off. He farms the place much like a dairy farm, he says, using tight rotations and regular break-feeding to keep pasture quality up. Pasture renewal is a constant part of the system. Damaged or tired paddocks are cropped and brought back in with winter grass, followed by mixes of chicory, clover and ryegrass, with leafy turnip and turnip used to help keep feed quality and production up. Day to day, the farm is largely owner-operated. At 75, Barry still does most of the day-to-day work himself, calling on his son Mark, who farms down the road in Tokomaru with the Hillbrae Friesian stud, or his best mate Paul, in Levin, for extra help when it’s needed. He jokes he hasn’t had many holidays, but his life hasn’t exactly been short on adventure -he once spent 80 days travelling around the world and helped ship 3000 heifers to China, then cruised up the Yangtze River 200 miles to Nanjing, without losing any animals after 16 days on the water. These days, he reckons the real secret is simply to keep moving. HILLBRAE SIMMENTAL CATTLE Barry Gledhill barrygledhill@outlook.com 021 519 190 Grass, Wholecrop, Maize, Stacking, Bagging, Buying & Selling, Round Bales, Hay & Baleage, Conventional Bales & Ground Work For all your harvesting needs Proud to Support Hillbrae Call Murray: 021 414 227 “Don’t stop,” he says. “Get out there and stay active – that’s a big part of it. “Another secret in the mix is having a beer at the Tokomaru RSA twice a week with mates. It’s good for mental health and wellbeing.”
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