The New Zealand Dairy Industry is looking for a way to remove/reduce bobby calf numbers and produce animals capable of contributing to the New Zealand Beef Industry. So, what is the best Dairy Beef Solution for our grazing dairy beef in New Zealand? To answer this question, we have investigated not only what Dairy Farmers require but also what our Dairy Beef Industry requires to produce quality dairy beef animals and what beef products in both the international and domestic market are in demand?
Samen NZs Dairy Beef Solutions have all been hand-picked to benefit the New Zealand Dairy Farmers, the New Zealand Beef Finishers and the New Zealand Beef Industry.
The traits providing the most value to New Zealand Dairy Farmers are Short Gestation (more days in milk), Calving Ease (less stress on animals and staff) and Growth Rates (better weights benefiting both dairy farmer and finishers). Fortunately, these traits go hand in hand with our Double Muscling Gene. With an increased level of Jersey genetics in the New Zealand dairy herds the importance of the Double Muscling Gene becomes second to none, the ability to produce quality dairy beef animals with rapid growth rates from any dairy animal is required to remove bobby calves and replace them with viable quality grazing dairy beef animals. Samen NZ has many Double Muscling Gene animals available, the headlining breeds being the Extremely Short Gestation Belgian Blue, Double Muscling Speckled Park, Double Muscling Angus & Double Muscling Charolais.
We spoke with Adrian and Pauline Ball about their experiences with our Extremly Short Gestation Double Muscling Belgian Blue animals. “Adrian has crossed our Belgian Blue over his bottom production Friesian cows and due to the Belgian Blues easy calving, have not had to assist a single birth. The extra short gestation of the Belgian Blue has meant extra days in milk and moving forward Adrian and Pauline will look to increase this percentage to as high as 50% as carrying these guys through has proven to be on par with milking extra cows.” Adrian & Pauline’s Belgian Blue cattle pictured at around 16 months of age Image 01
Cam & Jo Shepherd who run Silver Ridge Farms a 360 cow dairy farm that is 100% Autumn mating in Wellsford is currently calving his Belgian Blues and seeing phenomenal results. So far this calving season the Shepherds have had 15 Belgian Blue calves on the ground and has another 30 on the way, they have had 0 assisted birth and so far achieved an average of 10 days early with his earliest being 30 days early. The Shepherds plan to continue using Belgian Blue on all cows during the last 4 weeks of AB to shorten their calving season. The Shepherds are very happy with the growth rates of his Belgian Blue and Cam says it is amazing to see and feel how sturdy and beefy these animals get.
The beef market is comprised of a variety of beef quality levels, when developing the Dairy Beef Solutions, Samen NZ have catered to a variety of these markets and teamed up with Southern Stations Wagyu to bring you a superior animal with a premium marbling meat, these Red Wagyu animals come with Lucrative contracts, dairy farmers can select to sell the calves at four days old or at a 100kg average weight with a minimum of 90kg. “Heather Storey has been working with Wagyu for around 5 years and says that the Red Wagyu have been the easiest to get feeding! At around 1kg per day average weight gain, these calves have had some of the best growth rates Heather has experienced with Wagyu so far.” See Heathers Wagyu Calves In Image 02.
To top these great solutions off Samen NZ’s Dairy Beef Solutions also provide a variety of breeds with different traits available such as Red Wagyu(Lucrative Contracts), Double Muscling Extremely Short Gestation Belgian Blue, Homozygous Black Black Hereford, Speckled Park, Double Muscled Speckled Park, Angus, Double Muscled Angus, Charolais, Double Muscled Charolais, Simmental, Red Devon, Blonde d’Aquitane, Murray Grey, Limousin and more!
In producing quality range of Dairy Beef Solutions with the ability to cater to each party involved in rearing quality dairy beef animals Samen NZ aims to improve the sustainability of our New Zealand dairy farms, remove/reduce our bobby calves and work towards better farming systems together building better herds.