Genetics is key

Raising prime Angus cattle and Dorset Down sheep is the focus of stud farming on the Totaranui operation near Pahiatua. By Sarah Horrocks. Photos: Sarah Horrocks and Brad Hanson.

Set in the damp, misty hill country of Pahiatua in Tararua, Totaranui has been breeding stud stock for nearly a century.

Tally Jackson and her husband Daimien Reynolds came to the operation in 2006. They left their corporate jobs in Wellington and moved back to Tally’s home farm, where her parents John and the late Mary Anne Jackson were still farming.

“John ran things the traditional way, with beautiful big Romneys, set stock grazing with moderate lambing percentages,” Daimien says.

John’s focus was not on commercial stock performance, but developing a significant agri-business. He excelled at developing farms and to this day, has a great love for stud stock.

After a two-year apprenticeship under John, Tally (50) and Daimien (52) decided they needed to gain finishing experience so took up an opportunity to manage the home block at Brownrigg Agriculture. There they learnt to use Farmax as well as contemporary rotational grazing techniques.

“We came back in 2012 and really started investing in fertiliser, fencing and our sheep genetics to lift the stocking rates and get the lambing percentage up.”

At this time the operation was home to Angus, Dorset Down and Romney studs.

Daimien says the Romney stud was a typical dual-purpose animal with a big focus on wool and type.

“They had wool on the backs of their tongues, these sheep.”

When the number of lambs became more important, they decided to drop the Romney stud and focus on the Angus and Dorset Down.

There’s ample room for the large-scale operation, which is spread over three farms – 860ha (effective) on Totaranui in Pahiatua, 1530ha on Puke Te in Masterton and 380ha on Waipori in Makuri.

The Dorset Down flock of 300 ewes is on Puke Te and has been running for just over 20 years. Of the rams born each year, 75% are sold to regular clients who are mostly either local or from Taihape. They’re well known for excellent growth and for picking prime at weaning.

Damien says their Dorsets are tougher than most because they are run with commercial ewes in a mob of 2000.

“If they can’t handle it they die or they’re culled, so they’re naturally selected out of the programme.

“The survivors are tougher for it.”

The main commercial flock of 11,000 Romneys was first crossed with TEFRom, then Coopworth, and is spread across all three farms. They’re experimenting with Kelso-Coopworth cross rams in the mob on Totaranui.

Daimien says the lambing is now 130-140% across the three farms so the crossbreeding has been great for the number of lambs born, but to bring in more size and growth they’ve added the Kelso.

Wool is sold to Primary Wool Co-operative and as with most other strong wool growers, it’s costing money to shear the sheep annually.

Everything at Puke Te in Masterton is terminal so Dorset Down rams are used with replacement ewes bought in from Totaranui and Waipori as needed.

The lambs are processed by Alliance, with prime weaning weights targeting 18kg carcaseweight. Winter finishing targets are slightly heavier — 19kg for the females and 21kg for the males.

“We find the Dorsets tend to get to heavier weights without grading fat.”

While they don’t have supply contracts with Alliance, they are rewarded for their long-standing loyalty and Daimien says they tend to come out better off.

Puke Te also grazes 1300 mixed trade cattle, bought by agents through the saleyards or in the paddock. It’s good finishing country and manager Andrew Florence gets 800 away prime every year, averaging 310kg CW.

Since 2013, the weighted average of meat and wool production per hectare has shifted from 193kg to more than 250kg, a testament to the changes applied within the operation. Totaranui produces close to 300kg/ha, given the wetter summer environment.

No easy life for stud cow

The trade cattle at Puke Te are a small part of the overall cattle operation, with another 200 trade Angus heifers/steers farmed at Waipori. Half of these are finished each year and processed through Alliance at an average of 330kg CW. They grade into the AngusPure and Handpicked programmes, achieving premiums of up to $1/kg on the kill sheets.

Undoubtedly the main cattle operation is the Angus stud, with 466 females and 150 bulls. It’s no easy life for the Totaranui cow. She spends the hard winter months behind the ewes, cleaning up the pastures.

Damien strongly believes the stud operation must emulate that of a commercial farmer’s, so in winter the sheep always go first.

“I probably push them a bit hard as they get a bit light but once they come in for calving they’re on the upward plane from there.”

The cows stay behind the ewes until early July, three weeks before calving in early August – two and a half months off the grass curve.

Cows are never given a second chance. They must calve and rear their calf as a two-year-old and get back in calf every year thereafter.

While docility and structure are paramount, Daimien believes they should be a given as he won’t breed from an unsound animal. Fertility is bred into the herd, so to speak, as they’ve mated all the yearling heifers for more than 30 years.

A lot of traditional farmers and studs won’t mate their heifers, he says.

“The fact that we mate every single one and retain only what rears a calf is a real point of difference for our fertility.”

Profitability seems to be Daimien’s bottom line and the Angus bloodlines grow fast, have high yield and marbling, and consequently perform well for clients.

Totaranui runs two separate stud cow herds; one to generate high value two-year-old bulls and the other to generate low birthweight yearling bulls. The yearling bulls and their dams are not second-class citizens, being bred specifically for heifer mating in the beef and dairy markets.

They sold 40 bulls at the two-year-old sale in June and are offering 105 yearling bulls in September.

The difference between the breeding objective of the two herds is simple — mixed age versus heifer mating.

The yearling bulls are low birthweight (BW) bulls with an average BW EBV of 1.8. Set against the Australasian average of 4.1, it puts the herd in the top 10% of the breed in the Trans-Tasman Cattle Evaluation.

“I’m always looking for curve benders, with good calving ease but also strong growth.

“However, ultimately the most important thing with heifer mating is to get a live calf and a live heifer, with everything else as a bonus.”

This is especially relevant for dairy farmers who get an extra 15% growth with hybrid vigour.

The two-year-old bull programme aims to fill the catalogue with bulls that achieve the coveted A+ endorsement from AngusPure NZ. To achieve an A+ a bull must be => +$140 for the AngusPRO index, and must be => +2.0 for intramuscular fat (IMF) EBV.

These are low to moderate birthweight bulls with good maternal traits, above average 600-day growth and excellent carcases, Daimien says.

They are looking to target the farmer who wants more than just another black bull – a farmer who understands the true benefits of technology and demands more than just a grazing tool to aid his sheep programme.

Improving marbling and weight

The big shift towards improving carcase and eating quality happened in the early 1990s when John Jackson travelled to the United States on a bull scouting trip with AngusPure’s Guy Sargent and others.

John was wholeheartedly behind Guy’s ethos of improving the marbling within grass-fed beef in New Zealand and set about searching for sires that would increase the IMF and EMA of the Totaranui herd.

Artificial insemination (AI) enables Daimien to utilise the newest, most progressive genetics available. Both John and Daimien still travel to the US and Australia each autumn to ensure they can inspect the bulls they’re using in the herd.

Some elite bulls are bred here in NZ by his peers in the AngusPRO group, he says, but there are more outliers with cross-trait excellence found internationally.

The mixed-age cows are all put through two rounds of AI. The first is synchronised in the first week of November and the second is by heat detection. Some of the heifers are put through AI but Daimien finds it a very fickle business.

“Our early mating dates mean the success rates in the yearling heifers vary from 35 to 65%.

If a heifer misses with AI she drops back a cycle, which means there are a large number of heifers returning at the same time. She could easily get missed by the bull so by no fault of her own, a high merit heifer could get culled.

This year Daimien plans to tail paint the high merit heifers and only those that have a natural cycle before AI will get a straw.

The operation has been successful in providing the industry with bulls that will leave progeny with the predisposition to reach 300kg CW before the second winter and have consistent marble scores of twos, threes and fours, he says.

For this reason, the trade steers and heifers at Waipori are either surplus stud stock or bought back from clients.

“We know they’ll grow and grade well, and it’s also really nice to do business with people you know.”

Waipori isn’t fast-finishing country. Trade cattle are utilised as a cow over two winters, cleaning up behind the ewes in a straight grass programme. It’s hard country, with only 15ha suitable for the tractor.

Puke Te has mixed topography and an annual rainfall of just 750mm – half that of Waipori and Totaranui. While the cows are on the hills in a straight grass programme, the flats provide ample room for cropping.

The trade cattle are strip grazed 10ha of fodder beet in winter and 60ha of kale is also planted annually.

Daimien finds kale a versatile crop so the ewes are often given the first grazing and then it’s fed to either trade lambs or trade cattle.

Andrew and his team finished an additional 4800 winter trade lambs on Puke Te in 2022 as they had a “brilliant” autumn and early winter.

About 10ha of oats is usually pegged for the trade cattle, but sometimes used for the later calving cows if feed is tight. The cropping is all done themselves, with the exception of the fodder beet.

An additional 8ha of fodder beet is planted on Totaranui for the young weaner stock.

They do most of their cropping on the flats and have experimented with direct drilling kale into former plantain, clover or Italian ground. The old base comes back underneath and holds well into the spring if they graze the kale quite hard on the first grazing.

Custodians of the land

Preserving the environment is a top priority for Daimien and Tally who see themselves as custodians of the land for the generations to come.

They’ve been planting poplar poles for the past 15 years on Puke Te and there are QEII reserves on both Puke Te and Waipori. The rivers have been fenced, but in a manner that Daimien refers to as being quite high risk.

“To preserve the hectarage we’ve fenced below the 10-year flood line, so you’ve got to hold on to your hat a bit now that those floods seem to be coming through every five years.”

There’s frustration from Daimien at paying $85,000 a year in river rates. The Greater Wellington regional council receive $40,000 of that and have a policy to not alter the gravel levels in the Ruamahanga River. The other $45,000 is paid to Horizons.

“The river seems to be getting higher and wider every year.”

There’s been a sustainable land use initiative plan in action on Totaranui since 2016, used to ultimately steer them in the direction of farming in a sustainable manner with low erosion.

Fertiliser is not shied away from, with 20 units of phosphorus /ha going on to the hills every year and when economics allow. DAP is used to add nitrogen to the hill country, increasing stocking rates. Chicken manure is used on the flats to apply maintenance or capital P, achieving target Olsen P levels of 35 and a pH of about 6.3.

The annual fertiliser budget is about $250,000.

Daimien admits they’ve had to pull back the stocking rate a lot recently, on Totaranui especially, purely because of the price of DAP and nitrogen.

 

They have been putting a lot of lime on to Totaranui and while the pH on Waipori and Puke Te has always been good, they’ll be due next.

“As fertiliser goes up in price we’ll focus more on lime.”

Totaranui Stud Limited envelopes all three farms and has a gross income of $4m, $1550/ha and the EFS is $500/ha.

The operating costs of $1050/ha are higher than Daimien would like but include the costs of owning all their own cultivating machinery and a truck, used for delivering the stud sale bulls.

As well as Daimien, three other full-time staff are on Totaranui, four on Puke Te and one on Waipori. Tally does the office work, helping onfarm when she can, and is also busy chasing after the couple’s three children – Lilly (15), Ricki (13) and Jacko (10).

“We have trouble finding good young staff at the moment so we find ourselves relying heavily on our loyal long-term staff.”

With labour constraints and government compliance, combined with inflation and other rising costs, the Totaranui team are doing their best in a challenging farming climate.

Daimien says Totaranui is about keeping the business healthy for future generations.

“Ideally we’d like to expand but at the size we are now, we’re just focusing on keeping a tidy ship.”

• Supplied by AngusPRO.