$3000 paid for Simmental

Press, 16 August 1978, Page 28

$3000 paid for Simmental

The top price at the second national Simmental cattle sale held at the Manawatu and West Coast Agricultural and Pastoral Showgrounds at Palmerston North was $3OOO for a heifer sold by P. Weenink, of Onga Onga, Hawke’s Bay. The purchaser was B. T. Shaw, of Melbourne, Australia. Sixty cattle were offered before a gallery of 350 people. Apart from four, all the cattle were from North Island breeders. Twenty heifers were entered and apart from the sale at $3OOO others were disposed of at $2300, $2OOO. $lBOO and $1600; the heifer average was $l2BB. Nineteen bulls averaged $l6OO, the top price being $2500, obtained by A. H. and G. M. Thompson. Waipukurau. The purchaser was R. L. Baker and Son, Te Puke.

Cows realised up to $l4OO, which was obtained by Continental Livestock of Australia. Other sales were made at $llOO, $1025 and $950; the average for the section was $959. For seven-eighths heifers the average price was $582, the top figure being $BOO. The sale was considered a sound one, virtually all lots being cleared at prices which reflected renewed confidence in the beef market. Judging of entries for the sale divided into three classes was introduced on this occasion. The judge, Mr Ivan Grieve, of Hastings, selected a bull entered by Roy Smith, of Sherwood Simmentals, Cambridge, as the preJ mier animal in the sale.

Cattle sold at the fifth national Charolais classic sale in Hamilton earlier in the season grossed $84,110 to average $1956. No animals were passed in and bidding was animated. New Zealand cattle men featured strongly in the buying and of the 43 cattle offered, only 14 were sold to Australians.

The highest priced bull was lOM Montgomery, owned by the Earl of Northesk and prepared by Tipapa Cattle. Ltd. Motunau, which sold to G. L. J. Edwards, of Dannevirke, for $5OOO. Brookfield Marilyn, bred by Angus Copland, of St Andrews, was the top priced purebred female at $4lOO. A fifteenth-sixteenth Simmental heifer, CC Ranches Masherle, bred by Henry Clothier, of Clothier Charolais Ranch, Matamata, realised $4250. Purebred bulls averaged $1783. purebred females $2900 and fifteenth-sixteenth heifers $3225.