Page 104 - Hereford Magazine 2022

NZ Hereford Youth members at Xcell Breeding Services

Passion for as well as sharing some useful tools, such as the mating
predictor, and talking us through EBVs and how they
are measured. I think it surprised the group to see how
Herefords progressive the technology and EBVs are becoming and the
impact this is having on production and sales.
Saturday morning kicked off with a farm tour to Grassmere
Hereford Stud owned by the Jeffries family for the senior
group, while the juniors visited Woodburn Herefords owned
Georgia Moody says she jumps at the chance by Helen and Tim Molloy. A personal highlight of the trip
to be involved in events that bring together to Grassmere was learning about the process Chris uses to
like-minded youth and their love for Hereford docility score his Hereford and Angus stud cattle for the
cattle. This is her view of the NZ Hereford EBVs. It was interesting to see both breeds farmed using
the same management practices and the ability to compare
Youth Development Forum in Rangiora. their performance at the end of the day. It was also awesome
to have a look at the bull Chris put forward for the National
he forum started on the Friday, and it was great to Hereford Sale in May.
see a few familiar faces as well as meeting some Following an introduction to public speaking from Becs
new people who had travelled far and wide to be Paterson in the afternoon, Posy Moody talked to us about the
there. After some words from Niamh Barnett about structure of NZH and how it runs. Gaining this knowledge
Ther journey and involvement with NZ Hereford gives seniors the ability to carry it through into their future
Youth to start us off, we headed to Xcell Breeding services to careers within the industry. Stock judging kicked off around
learn about their business in semen collection and embryo 2pm. I would like to thank the Burrows and Stokes families
transfers. We were lucky enough to have an in-depth look into for providing the bulls for this section of the weekend and
the semen freezing and storage process in the lab and learn also Will Gibson for being the over judge. For many of the
all about sperm density and preservation. This was a great participants it was their first time judging stock, so it was
opportunity to explore a different area of the agriculture great to hear about the calibre and level of stockmanship that
industry and understand its importance in increasing genetic was shown in the ring. For the more experienced competitors
gain and preserving genetics herds and rare breeds. it was a terrific chance to brush up on our skills and gain more
Then we relocated to Beechwood Hereford Stud, owned by confidence for shows in the future.
Rob Burrows, who talked us through a structural assessment Later that night we had a chance to let our hair down and be
and judging workshop on some of his Beechwood heifers. We social at a burger and pizza night at Better Half Kitchen.
all took away some valuable points and knowledge to use in Sunday signalled the weekend was drawing to a close.
the stock judging competition the following day. However, before the final prizegiving, we had some great
That night the lovely Molloy family hosted us for a BBQ. talks from Datamars about the importance of their on farm
Ross Paterson helped us navigate the NZ Herefords website, technology products and how to use them, as well as a

102 HEREFORD MAGAZINE Year 2022