Page 140 - NZ Herefords Magazine 2018

Our Breeders

NZ Hereford

Trans-Tasman

Ambassador 2017

Mark Murphy

Longacre Herefords

WORDS / PHOTOGRAPHS MARK MURPHY / SUPPLIED

MARK MURPHY, OF LONGACRE HEREFORDS, WAS THE RECIPIENT OF THE

2017 NZ HEREFORD ASSOCIATION TRANS-TASMAN AMBASSADORSHIP.
HE WROTE THIS REPORT ON HIS TRIP TO AUSTRALIA.

IT ALL STARTED WITH A 3AM trip to the airport, then through $32,000. The sellers were very pleased with how the sale went,
security and off to Aussie I went. After a couple of flights I was met with the average price being $10,000.
at Albury Airport by Mike and James from Kanimbla Poll Herefords. It was an amazing experience to be at a sale like this. It is
Off we went for a look around. After what had been a very also worth noting that there were a lot of New Zealand genetics
hot, hard summer all the stock had done it hard but were still in this line-up; Pourakino Downs Jasper and Otapawa Spark
looking impressive. This was the first stop on the trip and the 3060 just to name a couple.
first time I came across split calving, with one round starting Next up was the long nine-hour cattle truck ride up to Lachy and
in March/April and the other in September. Kanimbla receives Lou Day, of Days Whiteface, located in Bordertown, South Australia.
about 26 inches of rain a year. The next day started with a trip around the calving cows to
This was my first encounter with kangaroos, seeing tag and weigh the new calves, then feeding and looking at a
hundreds grazing one paddock and running through fences; couple of bulls going to the Dubbo sale.
which is when I found out how much of a problem they can be. The Day’s block is around 1000ha, running 220 Hereford
Show day at Wodonga was an absolutely overwhelming stud cows, 80 commercial cows, 350 white Suffolk stud ewes
experience. An amazing line-up of both polled and horned and 150 composite ewes. It was a great few days spent with
Hereford bulls – walking into the cattle shed and seeing seven the Days and even a day trip to Lachy’s brother Alastair’s
rows of Herefords all in one place is pretty amazing. All up there property, which is Allendale Poll Herefords, as I had purchased
were around 180 bulls filling up the shed. It was the first year the some semen from them.
polled and horned Herefords were being showed and judged The next stop on my tour was down to Andrew Bell, who
together. This is where I first found the big divide between the runs the progeny test trials. The purpose of these trials is to
two groups; it was amazing to see the friction between them, create greater accuracy in estimated breeding values (especially
as I had no idea. in the carcase traits) recorded for BREEDPLAN and adding
That night the youth auction, raising funds for the youth to the Herefords Australia reference population, which was
programme by selling semen and other products, raised an needed for the transition to Single Step. It was great to see
impressive $11,395. New Zealand sires here as well, and I was impressed with the
Sale day people were a bit slow and sore-headed after a calves as we were marking all of these calves while I was there.
night of entertaining potential buyers and other breeders. As Next I was off to Mawarra. After a quick flight, a crazy taxi
well as it being the first year of horns and polls been shown ride and a very confusing train station I got my first look at
together, it was also the first year that they were sold in a mixed Mawarra. My first thought was ‘where is the grass?’ I thought
order, starting with the junior bulls and moving up to senior. the other places were dry, but these guys had received no rain
The sale started up nicely with lots 1 and 2 fetching $5000, since March and only half of what they would usually have had.
then things really started to warm up with a $15,000 and a But an absolute credit to them, their cattle were still in
$16,000, and we then saw three bulls reach the top price of amazing condition for such a hard time. A great mix of both
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