FLYING TO CANADA Friesian Calf As Export Experiment

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31255, 30 December 1966, Page 3

FLYING TO CANADA Friesian Calf As Export Experiment

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, December 29.

A four-weeks-old Friesian heifer calf, described as the first pedigree dairy female ever to be exported from New Zealand to Canada, left Auckland by air today for Ontario.

The secretary of the Friesian Breeders’ Association, Mr N. R. Roper, said the departure of the calf could be the start of a very useful trade with Canada in pedigree dairy stock. The dispatch of the calf was an experiment to see how a New Zealand Friesian thrived and performed under Canadian conditions. The calf, which is a wellbred animal born on the Meikle farm trust near Hastings, will be reared on the farm of Mr J. Fraser, at Streetsville, near Toronto. Mr Fraser, a past-president of the Holstein-Friesian Association of Canada, has twice visited New Zealand. Under an arrangement made some time ago, the Meikle trust

will retain a 50 per cent share of the ownership of the calf and its first three progeny. The calf is travelling in a special crate and will be fed on the way. For the last week it has been at Howick on the farm of a prominent Friesian breeder, Mr J. Grant, awaiting a permit to land at Honolulu where it will be in quarantine for 30 days.