| 53 Speckle Park & Murray Grey’s on offer Premier Cattle Company’s beef block carries 110 breeding cows and all its young stock. Derek has a long-held passion for breeding cattle and developing quality genetics. Russell Fredric RURAL PEOPLE » Premier Cattle Company Your Farm Animal Health Professionals Proud to provide a full range of veterinary services for Premier Cattle Company Ltd Mon-Wed 8am - 7pm | Thurs-Fri 8am - 5pm | Sat 9am - 12.30pm | Sun 9am - 12pm Empire Street 24 Hour Service 827 7099 or 0800 226 838 www.cambridgevets.co.nz Jackson Contracting For all your Agricultural Requirements give JCL a call today on 07 887 6688 OUR SERVICES: - • FULL GRASS & MAIZE SILAGE SERVICES • WEIGHBRIDGE • LOADERWAGON • CROP & PASTURE SPRAYING • MOWING & RAKING • BALING & WRAPPING • TRUCK & TRAILER CARTING • GROUND CULTIVATION & DRILLING • MAIZE SIDE DRESSING & SPREADING Premier Cattle Company’s sixth annual sale being held on September 28 provides the perfect opportunity to invest in high quality, performance recorded Speckle Park and Murray Grey bulls. The bulls are being offered by Derek and Catherine Hayward who have raised the stock on their 118 hectare beef property on rolling country about 10 kilometres east of Cambridge. The couple are also sharemilking 420 cows on another farm just north of Cambridge and have been breeding and promoting Speckle Park in New Zealand since they became part of their sharemilking and beef operation nearly 10 years ago. Derek has a long-held passion for breeding cattle and developing quality genetics. “I’ve been involved through family in beef since I was very young. I registered my first cattle nearly 30 years ago in my own right. My parents milked cows and they had a Murray Grey stud as well so the passion for the beef industry has always been there.” Speckle Park were first registered as a pure breed in Canada in July 2006 and introduced to New Zealand at that time. Premier Cattle Company’s beef block carries 110 breeding cows and all its young stock. In 2019 Derek travelled to Canada and bought a large number of embryos with the aim of introducing new female families in New Zealand and Australia. “We have offered some of those for sale already, and out of that we hope to get a sire to retain, and some of those will be available next year in March when we will be running our second ‘The Power of Premier’ female sale, and there will be more heifers from those flushes available. “I guess that’s our way of trying to help grown the breed in this country as well, by bringing new families in.” Speckle Park are very efficient converters of grass and studies are currently being undertaken overseas to verify this, Derek says. “If you’re purchasing a pure-bred bull, you’ll be able to ask what his gene tests are because registered Speckle Park must have gene tests. “ Data from the test includes the coat colour, whether it is a horn carrier and for the myostatin gene which is a muscling gene. The September sale will showcase 25 Speckle Park and 10 Murray Grey yearling bulls. “They are well-grown, all performance recorded, they’ll all be fat and muscle scanned prior to the sale. We’re really, really confident in our programme and the bulls we’ve put up; we’re getting tremendous feedback across the spectrum from dairy users to beef farmers.” “We are extremely pleased with the progeny of our embryo program, both imported and our own.” “The addition of the Murray Grey’s to our program will be exciting as we establish the herd to our target number over the next two years. Part of our plan is to introduce new genetics to, and we have secured the NZ semen rights in Venturon Rectify and will use him extensively in our AI and ET [embryo transfer] program this year.” A special feature will be three Murray Grey bulls that have been raised by the Hayward’s two sons, Max (14) and Jake (12) being offered for sale. “They were fortunate to get some in-calf heifers from their grandparents so that’s going to be pretty cool. They’re the third generation to breed Murray Greys.”
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