| 25 Meat quality key with Speckle Park Five years ago, the first embryo pure bred Speckle Parks were born on farm, forming the basis of the Cosydell Farms’ Speckle Park stud. Richard Loader Ever since growing up on the family dairy farm just out of Balfour, north Southland, Zoe Jarman has been a lover of animals, the great outdoors and a hard day’s work – the perfect attributes of any good farmer. Now a mother of two young children, Zoe wanted them to experience the freedom of living on a farm and enjoying all the things that she enjoyed growing up. Zoe is the third generation to farm the land that is owned by her parents John and Kim Dale. While Zoe’s husband Rory runs the 550-cow dairy unit on a sharemilking basis, Zoe has responsibility for looking after the young stock, dairy grazers and beef herd on two run-offs a few kilometres up the road. Zoe and Rory have worked hard to replace unwanted bobbies by putting good quality beef over the lower end of the dairy cows during AI. “We used lots of different beef breeds before trying Speckle Park six years ago, and just fell in love with them,” says Zoe. “They were great to rear in the calf-shed and really thrived. They’re also quite attractive to look at.” Zoe makes the point that while there is a lot of short gestation beef coming through that is suitable for dairy, the meat quality isn’t there. “We want something that’s produces good quality meat. We kept a few Speckle Park calves that came through the dairy herd and now have about thirty commercial speckle-cross breeding females. As heifers they have a calf with all steers killed at prime. “The ultimate goal is to kill this high-quality meat through the Handpicked beef programme, which is based around IMF. The meat is the thing that people really get excited about. There are a lot of restaurants in Auckland using Speckle Park, and apparently they just can’t get enough of it. It’s not just the pure-bred animals that are having great IMF qualities, the cross bred animals come out very good as well.” MEAT & WOOL » Cosydell Farms Since building up the commercial herd, the majority of the half-bred calves from the dairy herd are sold at four days old, while some are kept and sold as weaners. Five years ago, the first embryo pure bred Speckle Parks were born on farm, forming the basis of the Cosydell Farms’ Speckle Park stud. Zoe acknowledges that growing the stud herd has been a long and slow process, but one which fits well with her love of genetics and the breeding side of the business. “I wanted more control over what we could buy, and trying to buy a heifer at that time was really expensive, so embryo transfer was really the only way we could afford to do it. We now have about thirty breeding cows in the stud, and we’re at the point where we are starting to refine and cull the herd. “This past mating was the first year that we have just run a bull mob with our pure-bred bulls, rather than doing AI, as part of our dairy mating on our bottom producing cows. Proudly supporting Cosydell Farms PROUDLY SUPPORTING COSYDELL FARMS Proudly supporting Cosydell Farms Brent Eaton 027 485 5994 | Office 027 428 4328 Email ewl.balfouroffice@gmail.com EWL Limited Silage and Baling contractor servicing the Northern Southland District FRANKS MOTORCYCLES & 4 SPARES FREE Delivery to Southland farms on new bike purchases *T&Cs apply • Servicing and Repairs of all makes and models • Selling new Honda & CF Moto ATVs, 2Wheelers, Side x Sides, Ride-on mowers, Push mowers, Outdoor equipment, Pumps & sprayers P: 03 203 7309 / 027 689 9831 A: 299 Main St, Mataura E: fourspare@xtra.co.nz W: www.franksmc.co.nz 2745Waimea Highway, RIVERSDALE | Ph. 03 202 4044 | andrews.transport@hwr.co.nz • Livestock • Bulk and General Cartage • Fert. Cartage & Spreading We are a locally owned and operated company servicing and supporting the rural communities of theWaimea Valley and greater Northern Southland Area. We also tail our AI dairy heifers with a Speckle bull.” Zoe and Rory now have a small number of bulls to sell privately, marketed to people who are doing what they are doing – suitable for dairy, but also with really good meat qualities. Zoe hopes to have most bulls sold by October.
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