Probiotic additive helps farmers achieve target lightweights
The company behind probiotic additive Calf Xtreme says around 450 dairy farms are successfully rearing calves with the help of the product.
In a reasonably tight season for milk prices, the Summer Sensation Sale at the New Zealand Dairy Event in Feilding last month averaged $4,612 over 33 live lots.
The sale included live lots, embryos and semen. The top live lot was $15,000 and it was paid for a Jersey which sold at lot 23a – Posterity Man Susie.
The top-priced Holstein was $9,000, and it was paid for Lot 20, Paragon Graze Charlie. The second top-priced Holstein was paid for lot 15, Barwell Mercy Frosty. Frosty travelled from Canterbury to sell, and she traces back to an international household name in the industry that twice won World Dairy Expo. She was bought by Ryan Andrew, of Panic Station.
The sole Milking Shorthorn to sell was Westell Hunt Angela SOS and she was a popular inclusion.
She sold for the fifth highest price in the sale to Jarod Hudson, of Hudson Farming, at Ngatea, for $7,500. Angela’s fourth dam was the 2008 International Dairy Week Champion in Australia, Panorama Angeline 8. Her sire comes from the equally successful big-milk Queensland herd of Myrtleholme.
The pick of ten Brown Swiss calves from the Meier Trust sold for $4,000 to Fernlee limited.
The highest priced embryos were the imported embryos from double master breeder herd from Canada, Avonlea Jerseys. A package of five embryos sold for $2,000 an embryo ($10,000 for the package).
The semen lots sold for up to $1,200 per dose for five straws of sexed Holstein semen, Westcoast Alcove ($6,000 total), which as offered by the Gilbert family, from Ashburton in Mid-Canterbury.
Only one animal as passed in, according to Carrfields representative, Luke Gilbert.
“It was an extremely successful sale, with buyers from both islands of the country,” says Gilbert.
“BIDR played a massive part with 315 people watching the sale online from home. We are pleased and grateful to the vendors and to the purchasers.”
Alliance Group has turned a corner on a challenging two years following a comprehensive re-set over the past 18 months and is forecasting a return to profitability, farmer-shareholders were told at the company’s annual meeting in Gore today.
Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) says proposed changes to rural deliveries mean NZ Post is putting commercial viability ahead of the needs of rural communities.
Non-tariff trade measures (NTM) remain a problem for NZ exporters, according to Horticulture Export Authority (HEA) chief executive Simon Hegarty.
Farmers on the east coast of the North Island are facing a quandary as hot, dry weather and dropping soil moisture levels persist.
Tributes have flowed in from around the country for mid-Canterbury farming leader Chris Allen who died in a tragic accident on his farm near Ashburton.
New Zealand’s horticulture sector is projected to reach a record $8 billion by 30 June 2025.
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