Cattle thrive on summer growth

01-04-2010 | Not Specified

Wairoa's explosive summer growth couldn't be more spectacular this year.

Like most Hawke's Bay farmers this summer, Mark Munro's farm has been transformed by significant January rainfalls: 140mm over three days in mid January and 150mm since.

Cattle thrive on this growth, and it's a real strength of the Wairoa country, he says.

The 900 head of cattle make up 33% of the stock units on the hill-country property, but Mark wants to increase numbers to 40% to help with labour costs. He has a stable policy of wintering 350 in-calf females including rising two-year heifers.

All their progeny are wintered, with the top cut of calves steered and sold at 15 to 18 months at 450kg, through agent Laurence Redshaw in Hawke's Bay. The tail of the calves are left entire and all but a handful are killed before their second winter.

Heifers too light to go to the bull are sold store or finished, giving flexibility in system. Any cows not scanned in calf are culled, as are those which don't rear a calf.

Yearling heifers are mated to the bull if they are 300kg or more, and in the past few years they have averaged 340kg. These heifers are mated to low birthweight Angus, while the mixed-age cows are mated to Rissington Stabilisers.

It's a composite herd with an Angus and Angus Hereford base, with a lot of Simmental across them. The herd has an 88% calving percentage for the cows wintered.

They also graze dairy heifers on 18-month contracts. This year they have 101 older heifers and 67 heifer calves. This has proved a successful addition to the farm business, and gives a guaranteed return. The heifers are mated on the farm around October 16 at target weights of 300kg. Last year the heifers averaged 318kg. They return to the Taupo property heavily in calf.

As well, when their own cattle are gone by 15 to 18 months, they buy in 18-month bulls for wintering and killing the following December at 320kg.

Mark was involved in the Soils Underpinning Business Success programme where the late Murray Jesson from Landcare Research in Palmerston North soil mapped farms in the district.

Murray, who took a real shine to the Wairoa district, found the base of their pumice hills are capable of wintering -and not being damaged by - 400kg cattle. So now Kohitane has 80ha of 1ha polywire cells for wintering bulls, which put on 500 to 1000g/day.

"We shift the bulls every two days in winter, and from September 1 once the flats dry out we open them up there."

The steeper country copes well with the beef cows during winter.

Mark is also involved in the Beef Profit Partnership group of Gisborne and Wairoa farmers, which has taken Australian research and extracted relevant information for local farmers. As a result he's adopted yard weaning of calves, a move which helps calves settle earlier and leads to better lifetime growth rates.

Research results are on the Meat and Wool website.

He's also learned never to use a wild bull because it leaves wild progeny which doesn't grow as well. Australian research showed such progeny could grow 1kg less than quieter cattle.

  Printable View