Page 70 - NZ Herefords Magazine 2018

awesome result ever, we are ecstatic, but it almost seems too
good. Demand was incredibly strong and the downside is there
are people who miss out. I hate that, especially when they are
people who have enjoyed purchasing our bulls in the past.”
Last year the Ezicalve branded bulls achieved an average
sale price of $4000. “The brand was created to identify specialist
dairy heifer mating bulls. No one had ever thought of them as
a premium product and to have an average of $4000, paid by
dairy farmers, that’s almost unprecedented.
“The reality is, if guys are paying $4000 for heifer mating bulls,
they have worked out there is a value proposition for them.”
Will and Mike Cranstone have done research on the subject
and discovered that about half of the dairy farmers they sell
these bulls to are also operating significant beef operations.
Some run completely integrated dairy and beef farms.
He says there has been a mentality change. Many of these
purchasers keep their bulls longer, look after them better, and view
their bulls the same way as a hill country breeding property does.
He sees this as an untapped opportunity, not just for him,
but also for many breeders. “There are more dairy heifers mated
annually in New Zealand than there are beef cows. The provision
of bulls for dairy heifer mating, no one has targeted that. The
numbers are all around, you just have to look at them and think
‘there’s a massive market here’.
“Many of them also own finishing and beef farms and want
to produce quality beef as well.”
Will says they could easily sell twice the number of bulls, but
the resource needed is prohibitive, particularly the number of
cows. “We can only run so many Hereford cows.”
They are currently exploring a range of options, from franchising
the Ezicalve brand to sexed semen and embryos to go into cows.
“The point is that there is a massive market here for heaps The Ezicalve brand was created to identify specialist dairy
of other people, if you care enough to breed and supply the heifer mating bulls.
product they want.”

HIGHER VALUE CALVES A PLUS

A higher value calf and fewer calves on the bobby truck is a big
plus for Santoft dairy farmer, Joe Skerman, after switching to
Hereford bulls.
Joe and his wife Kym farm in an equity partnership with
Kym’s father, David, on the coast at Santoft, west of Bulls.
They calve about 700 cows and the herd is split between
two farms, which are located side by side, and the cows are
milked through two separate sheds. They operate a three-herd
system, with two herds milked twice a day and the heifers from
both farms run as one herd and milked once a day.
Their herd is straight Friesian with spring calvers. They have 90
hectares irrigated under a centre pivot, while the rest is dry land.
The operation is self-contained and they have a run-off 5km
down the road where young stock are run and cows wintered, ABOVE: Joe Skerman and his children Lachie, Jonty and Hugo,
as well as cutting supplement from the property. with one of their Hereford bulls.
Joe made the decision to change to Hereford bulls after
previously using Jersey bulls. He purchased nine two-year-old OVER THE PAGE, CLOCKWISE TOP LEFT: Joe Skerman has found
the Hereford bulls nice and calm to handle, a benefit of switching
bulls from the Morrison family’s Ardo stud to go across his cows breed; Using a Hereford bull means higher value calves and fewer
as tail-up bulls following AI. calves on the bobby truck; Richard and Christine Barnes were
attracted to Herefords because of their exceptional temperament.
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