Oldest Herd Tops Group

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32209, 30 January 1970, Page 8

Oldest Herd Tops Group

New Zealand’s oldest Friesian herd, that of Mr J. H. Grigg, of Longbeach, in Mid-Canterbury, had the distinction of being top herd for the Mid-Canterbury group of the South Island Herd Improvement Association in the 1968-69 testing period and also having the best individual performer in the group.

Mr N. R. Roper, secretary of the New Zealand Friesian Association, says that with the highest number of cows that have been milked in its rank for many years, 48, the herd has been credited with its first 5001 b of butterfat ■ average since it has been under group herd test, with its average return of 11,9541 b of milk, a 4.21 per cent test and 5031 b of fat in 282 days. This includes the production of 7901 b of fat by a three-year-old heifer. The Longbeach herd was founded 86 years ago by the late John Grigg, the grandfather of the present owner and the man who was responisble for establishing the now famous Longbeach property, converting impenetrable bog and swamp into some of the finest arable land in the country. Mr J. H. Grigg, who has been in charge of the herdsince 1919—for more than 50 years—and who took it over when he inherited the property on the death of his father, Mr J. C. N. Grigg, In 1926, said that long before ; the turn of the century his grandfather had been convinced that the future of New Zealand would be asso- i ciated with dairying and consequently he wrote to : his son, Mr J. C. N. Grigg, then studying at Cambridge, i asking him to buy cattle of the best dairy breed that he i could find. The late John Brown in i his history of Ashburton i says that after finishing his i course at Cambridge, Mr J. I C. N. Grigg went to Hamburg and at an agricultural show there saw what he thought to be the ideal dual purpose cow a heavy milker with a big body. Then followed the purchase of a bull and six or seven females. Mr J. H. Grigg says that I all of the cattle came from Friesland for it vas the only part of Holland to have a herd book and all of the cattle that came out were in this book. Because of the prevalence I of foot-and-mouth disease in . Holland the original cattle were not allowed to land in England and had to be transshipped U> two sailing vessels in mid-stream. They were landed at Lyttelton in 1884.

The man who had bred them had said that as much emphasis should be placed on type as production in breeding these cattle, Mr Grigg recalled this week. He had said the. breeder could go wrong by putting too much emphasis on production. The original c_ttle were bought from different farms, according *o Mr Brown, to avoid too close a relationship in the line breeding that would be necessary in New Zealand. The present owner has carried on this line breeding policy—he says that he has never gone in for close inbreeding—and this was one of the reasons why in 1968 he purchased the sire,

Lelburne Teriing Major, bred by Mr A. Udy, nf Menzies Ferry, and the son by artificial insemination of the former herd sire at Long beach, Teriing Brabazon, which was imported from Britain as a calf and later released for use In artificial breeding in New Zealand. In this way, Mr Grigg said, he was returning the blood of the former sire to the herd as well as obtaining the blood of one of Mr Udy’s best cows )vith a record over eight seasons of more than 6001 b of fat, including four over 80Olb. Mr Grigg has high hopes for this bull and is happy with the very even type of calves that this sire is now leaving in the herd. He likes a sire to leave its mark on its progeny. Teriing Brabazon, of pure Dutch blood, was imported by Mr Grigg in 1950 from what he considers to have been one of the best herds that he raw in Britain and he says that it bred very well at Longbeach before it went into the artificial breeding service. Mr Grigg notes that Mr Udy’s herd was actually established with 10 heifers

acquired from Longbeach a number of years ago, which were in calf to Longbeach Big King.

One of the moat recent additions to the Longbeaeh Friesians is a calf, now only a few days old, which by artificial insemination has been sired by a bull bred in North Holland, tbe ancestral home of the MidCanterbury herd, and purchased by an Englishman for 5500 guineas and now being used for artificial breeding in Britain. Mr Grigg, who is still an admirer of the Dutch type of cattle, is hoping that this strong young ealf will turn out to be a herd sire. An enthusiast also for the dual-purpose characteristics of the breed, Mr Grigg says that it is only now coming to be recognised that the Friesian can more than hold Its own with the beef breeds as a beef producer, with the particular virtue that there is less waste with It He said that a young breeder of Aberdeen Angus cattle, who had been studying all beef breeds of cattle, had found that the black and white steers were the most sought after and he had found that there was leu wute with them.

In the same context Mr Grigg raid, a lot of people were using the Friesian bull across black heifers to impart greater milking ability before returning again to the use of the black buU.

Referring to the herd’s success under test lut season, Mr Grigg said that in the first year that testing began in New Zealand the highest producer in the country that year had been the herd’s Longbeach Netherland Queen. He felt that his particular contribution to the herd has been in

lifting the butterfat level*. The herd's highest producer in the most recent testing period, Longbeach Brabazon Star, has unhappily died since her performance. As a three-year-old heifer her record was 17,645 lb of milk, a 4.5 per cent test and 7901 b of fat One of the notable performers in tbe herd recently has been the eight-year-old Ulster Queen, which has been milking without a stop for 13 months. She calved again this month. Her record for the 196849 testing period was 7381 b of fat in 305 days with a 4.1 per cent test and 18,0781 b of milk, and since then she has done about another 1881 b of fat Mr Grigg aays that over the years the experience at Longbeach is that the cows perform best at eight yean of age and tbe performance of the herd in the most recent testing period has been achieved with only 15 of the cows more than four yean old.

At the latest test this month tbe 32 cows recorded averaged 671 b of fat with a 4.18 per test with about three returning more than 1001 b of fat and tests going up to 6.5 per cent

Longbeach is, however, not a dairy farm, Mr Grigg emphasises. It is a mixed farm of 3000 acres, carrying 7000 sheep and with 1000 acres in crop. The country is not really favourable dairying country in that it Is too dry—last year, Mr Grigg says, was the moat difficult season in some 50 years on the property—and tiie aim is to milk about 30 cows the year round to provide milk for farm requirements, with any surplus being separated and the cream sold in Ashburton.