Page 57 - Hereford Magazine 2021

Rob and Mary Ann Burrows at Ashley. Beechwood In Time 7.

“We use yearling bulls to gather information on their ability
to handle the harder hill country environment. Growing them
out naturally gives longevity to our clients because they
haven’t been overfed.”
Whether they are breeding for the dairy or beef market, low
birth weight and calving ease EBV data is always important,
especially for the two-year-olds.
When they are looking to purchase stud bulls, carcass traits
and positive fats are important selection criteria they focus
on for the steer finishing side of their operation and for the
weaner markets for their clients.
“The yearling sales target low birth weight, but we don’t
want to lose the 600 day growth rate. It’s about birth weight
versus growth rate, and a happy medium somewhere around
the three is good for us.”
Rob says usually 70% of their yearling sale clientele will be Beechwood heifers with calves at foot.
dairy buyers.
This year there was also a fair amount of the beef trade
represented, perhaps a reflection of the growing use of
yearlings in the beef industry.
Long, hard winters and a correspondingly short summer
growing season are a feature of the Lees Valley, so a 50ha
property in Maskells Road in Balcairn, where they live most
of the time now, gives them options. The breeding cows stay
on the hardier valley country while the weaned bulls return to
Balcairn for winter.
Daughter Roz is based in Oxford on a 120ha irrigated block,
where she finishes about 150 of steers and about 1000 lambs
each year, as well as carrying a few replacement heifers. Her
Lees Valley stud is integrated with Richon.

Beechwood breeding goes back 60 years
Thirty older Beechwood cows are farmed at the Ashley block.
Rob and Mary Ann Burrows of Beechwood Herefords have
a few decades of Hereford breeding under their belts; Rob’s culled down to 35 for calving then AI’d again for their second
mother began breeding them in 1962. mating, before being returned to Richon.
Five years ago they sold the 275ha Culverden property The Burrows have embraced the technology and data available
known as Beechwood and bought a smaller block of land near for breeding the Herefords they believe the market wants.
Rangiora, at the Ashley end of Marshmans Road. Some of their “You can have all the EBVs in front of you, but it’s still a
stock was moved to the new 45ha property, but they needed matter of picking out the categories that are important to
additional space. The Burrows have 120 mixed-age cows with you,” Rob says.
the Stokes at Richon and the 30 oldest cows back at Ashley, One of the bulls sold by the Burrows in 2020, Irish Eyes,
where they also calve the two-year-old heifers. About 60 of had a birthweight EBV of -0.8 compared with the breed
their heifer calves are wintered on kale at Ashley, AI’d in early average of +4.4.
November, and followed up with a yearling bull. The mob is “At 600 days he’d gone past the [breed] average of +78 to be

Year 2021 HEREFORD MAGAZINE 55