Helping heifers grow
Dairy farmers can easily track the performance of their replacement heifers and ensure they reach their genetic potential.
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.”
The country’s 4200 commercial fruit and vegetable growers will vote from May 14 on a new HortNZ levy.
Meat processor Alliance Group is asking farmer shareholders to inject more capital in order to remain a 100% co-operative.
A vet is calling for all animals to be vaccinated against a new strain of leptospirosis (lepto) discovered on New Zealand dairy farms in recent years.
Dairy
Rural banker Rabobank is partnering with Food Rescue Kitchen on a new TV series which airs this weekend that aims to shine a light on the real and growing issues of food waste, food poverty and social isolation in New Zealand.
Telco infrastructure provider Chorus says that it believes all Kiwis – particularly those in the rural areas – need access to high-speed, reliable broadband.
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