Harry Miller buys 18 N.Z. heifers

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34013, 29 November 1975, Page 2

Harry Miller buys 18 N.Z. heifers

The noted show business promoter and entrepreneur, Mr Harry M. Miller, has bought 18 pure-bred Simmentai heifers, mainly from the South Island, for more than $lOO,OOO.

Two of the heifers, each bought for $lO,OOO. were loaded in the Hawea at Lyttelton yesterday to go to Australia.

Richmond Dunmore Emlie. aged 14 months, was bought from Mr A. R. Guthrey, of Amberley, and Risingholme Dunmore Audrey, aged nine months, is from Mr D. S. Crosson, of Methven. The transaction has been announced by the stud stock division of Wrightson NMA, Ltd.

The 18 heifers, which Mr Miller and his wife selected during two recent visits to New Zealand, will go to Mr Miller’s Dunmore Manilla stud, north of Tamworth, in New South Wales, where he has a property of 4450 hec- ' tares.

LARGEST HERD Mr Miller now has the largest pure-bred Simmental breeding herd in Australia. At the Royal Melbourne show this year he showed the first pure-bred female exhibited at an Australian Royal Show, On his New South Wales property he also has 1500 Hereford cows, and is using these as a base for a programme to produce pure-bred

Simmentals after initially the two breeds. Mr Miller believes that this approach will produce a type of animal that will cope with the wide variations of summer and winter temperatures, such as experienced in his part of the country, by combining the foraging capjacity and drought resistance I of the Hereford with rapid igrowth and superior motherling ability. TESTING Performance testing is an integral part of the programme — all the cattle bred on the property are identified and tested under the national beef recording scheme run by the University

1 of New England. Much of the selection work has been done : in conjunction with the Unii versify of Munich’s Institute :of Animal Breeding and : Genetics. An egg transplant or transi fer unit is being built at Dun- ' more Manilla. It will be un- • der the control of Mrs Miller, > who has had considerable I experience in the technique •at the Animal Research ;Council’s unit of Reproductive Physiology and Biochemistry at Cambridge. 1 Since her return to Australia ■ she has worked on the practi- ‘ cal development of the tech- , nique in collaboration with . Dalgety Australia and the 1 University of Sydney.