| 85 Hill Valley Simmentals herd growing Hill Valley Kanah. Russell Fredric Located in Teviot, Central Otago, Hill Valley Simmentals is part of an expansive 1900 hectare sheep and beef farm run by Jimmy (James) Hill that was originally bought by his father James in the 1980’s. The farm’s home block covers 250ha of which 100ha is irrigated, while 800ha rises to high altitude tussock hill country for about 15 kilometres to the east towards Lake Onslow. Producing high muscle, high growth cattle is at the heart of Hill Valley Simmentals stud operation. Jimmy has always liked Simmental cattle and purchased the stud from Lone Pine Simmental owners Dave and Kath Keown mid-2021. Genetics have also been sourced from Kerrah Simmentals, Gisborne and Glenside Simmentals, South Otago. The farm supports 4500 to 5000 Romney breeding ewes with Rawahi genetics, 1200 to 1350 hoggets and 100 Simmental breeding cows, of which 30 were purchased from Kerrah Simmentals in May, alongside its commercial cattle herd comprising 180 Hereford breeding cows. Because some of the stud’s Simmentals have horns, Jimmy is focusing on homozygous polled genetics in both the sire and dam. “At this stage I’m looking for docility, homozygous polled and growth rate.” He is also concentrating on increasing their ON FARM » Hill Valley Simmentals intramuscular fat for marbling, plus the eye muscle area, with the cattle currently achieving scores in the high 3 to 4 range for IMF and 80 to 90 for EMA. “This is the third calving that we’ve had now and I’m pretty happy with the cattle, they’re doing well.” Simmental cows are good milkers with good maternal traits, but those that aren’t are selectively culled. On the sheep side, early lambs are skim drafted before Christmas and weaned the first week in January with the balance progressively weaned weekly through the rest of the month. This year’s lambing of 170% with a good crop of triplets produced has been particularly favourable, especially compared to the previous season which was 140%. “We had a pretty good autumn and they went to the ram pretty good. In the previous year we had quite a tough autumn. I didn’t scan for triplets so it was a bit of a surprise.” The lambs are grown to the high 16 kilogram to 17 kilogram range and while this is below average for many farms today, it is more important to get them away before the summer dry kicks in, Jimmy says. It has been a challenging season, with fickle, colder weather that was not good for pasture growth and the condition of the ewes, along with disappointing lamb and higher costs. However he is excited about the purchase of the 30 mixed-age Simmental cows. Lindisfarne Farms Ltd For all your baleage and harvesting needs Phone Daniel on 027 229 7258 CALL FOR YOUR BOOM SPRAYING NEEDS! Hunter Contracting is based in the Teviot Valley, covering Central Otago. We provide top quality boom spraying service. We have a Tractor unit and Truck unit too! HUNTER CONTRACTING LTD Matt - 0221077815 hunter.contracting20@gmail.com “I’m pretty passionate about the Simmentals and am looking to expand the stud operation and just looking at putting up a few more bulls [for sale] and getting some more good quality genetics going.” He is also pleased with the result of the sale on May 23 of some 18 month old Simmental bulls. “We had a good clearance; we sold all the bulls bar one and had a good day and good feedback.”
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