Aim to breed better cattle

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32612, 21 May 1971, Page 13

Aim to breed better cattle

Angus breeders were conscious of the need to produce the type of cattle that the commercial farmer required to meet modem market requirements, and they were doing their best to meet this need, the president of the New Zealand Angus Cattle Breeders’ Association (Mr. J. B. Hickman) said this week in the course of an association tour of herds in Canterbury and Westland.

Mr Hickman said that Angus breeders throughout the country were in the process of setting up five bull testing trials—including one in Canterbury—to determine the best performing bulls and those which would leave the type of progeny that were required, and it was hoped that these animals would then be used extensively in the breed.

The breeders who had offered to send cattle forward for these schemes were meeting the costs themselves, he said, which would be in the order of $6O to $BO per bull. The schemes varied a little, but it was generally required that the young bulls should be weaned a short period before they came in. They were then held for a settling down' period of two or three weeks before they were drenched, sprayed and weighed at the start of the trial. In some cases, commercial firms were cooperating by giving drenches and dipping materials, Mr Hickman stud. The trials will run for about a year with regular weighings to help retain the interest of the people concerned. In the event of the owners of the top bulls in these trials deciding to sell, other members of the group will have first chance to acquire them.

While in the past, Mr Hickman acknowledged, there had been differences of opinion between scientists and breeders about the course that animal breeding should follow (this had been bound to happen with farmers taking a more practical line and scientists being more deeply involved from a theoretical point of view, he said) he believed

that both sides were coming more closely together for the common good. He noted that there had been active collaboration between Angus breeders and scientists.

Asked about the attitude of his breed organisation to the introduction of exotic cattle breeds, Mr Hickman said that they regarded these as a challenge, which they welcomed. They kept breeders on their toes.

But he said he was confident that the new breeds would not have any marked effect on the Angus herds of the country. They had had to face such challenges before and he did not see breeds other than the traditional breeds making much progress in New Zealand because of the environment and climate.

The exotic breeds, which were in the limelight, usually came from warmer countries where the terrain was less rugged and the animals were more or less domesticated so that they required more management, and in the New Zealand situation the farming industry could not afford to provide more labour.

Mr Hickman said that Angus breeders were keeping the conditions under which, artificial insemination could be used in the breed under constant review to keep up with modem trends and requirements. It had been fostered initially with the idea that it might promote the use of the breed in dairy herds, in particular, but Mr Hickman said it was now uncertain how this would progress with a demand for a resumption in dairy produce ’output in the light of overseas demand, and the dropping of the dairy beef calf subsidy scheme.

Australian buyers had continued throughout the year to show interest in New Zealand Angus cattle and they had been operating quite extensively at recent private sales, he added. With the intention of promoting Australian interest in Angus cattle Mr Hickman said that the association’s “Annual Review” was sent to every Angus breeder in Australia, which involved the dispatch of some 800 copies. Within the breed in New Zealand, he said that the establishment of district associations in wards of the national association had done much to maintain local interest in the breed, which was not easy in a national association with 600 odd members scattered throughout the country.