Page 63 - NZ Hereford Magazine 2023

A two-year-old bull under the hammer at Te Taumata’s annual Alistair and Jim in 2001.
on-farm auction.
Milestone for the McWilliams
Three generations of the McWilliam family have proudly developed
and farmed Te Taumata for 80 years. Last year they celebrated 60
years of breeding polled Hereford cattle and Romney and Border
Leicester sheep – a milestone the family is immensely proud of, but
sad they had to do it without patriarch Jim.
Jim’s parents, livestock agent Alistair and his wife Beryl, bought
Te Taumata as bare land in 1942, fattening lambs alongside Jim
and his brother Bill. The Border Leicester stud was started in
1957 and the Romney flock and Poll Hereford herd in 1962. The
Herefords quickly had great success at the National Hereford Sale
and A&P shows.
Jim and Bill continued farming Te Taumata until 2002 when
management of the farm shifted to a new partnership with Jim and
son Alistair.
Clients and agents at Te Taumata’s 2022 sale. Sadly, Jim died last April after a valiant battle with cancer. He
spent his last few years keeping an eye on the livestock, helping out
sheep. They have to be able to hold condition until the rams where needed and working in his beloved garden, the family said.
go out; we still get the high fertility out of them without the Jim loved farming and had a real passion for Hereford cattle
green feed or crops to flush them on.” and Romney and Border Leicester sheep. He enjoyed traveling
Te Taumata bulls and rams go to hill country breeding and viewing livestock and meeting other like-minded cattle and
properties around Wairarapa, Taihape, Manawatu, Whanganui, sheep breeders around the world, and he worked with other New
Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne. They are fortunate to have strong Zealand breeders to import new genetics to benefit the New
local support and regular repeat clients. Zealand beef industry.
All hay and baleage supplement is grown and used on the Alistair and Eileen share the passion Jim had for the key role
farm. Herefords play in the beef industry. Over the past 20 years they have
The farm has summer chicory-clover crops to finish lambs continued to develop and progress their breeding programmes.
not retained for breeding. “History is important, and where we came from is important, but
“Because we’re keeping the high performing lambs for we’re also focusing now on where we’re going and how we can
breeding and selling on, we focus on growing crops to finish grow our business for the future.”
our cull lambs and get them away quickly.” Ram lambs and
ewe lambs retained are grazed on the better-quality summer
grass paddocks.
Beef progeny not being kept in the breeding programme
are finished and processed at about 20 months with
processing space found through PGG Wrightson and local
independent stock agents.
“We’re grateful for the relationships we have with them,
plus other local businesses like our spray contractor, baleage
contractor, and seed rep. As a family, we love the relationships
we have with these people because in a farming area like this,
they’re all part of our community.”
Alistair grew up in a similar farming community in the King
Country. His grandparents on his mother’s Cowan side had the
Roselawn Hereford Stud in the Otorohanga/Te Kuiti area. He
moved to Wairarapa to work with his father Jim and his uncle Jim and Te Taumata Minerva 1st, winner of the 1966
Bill at Te Taumata when he finished school. Wairarapa Show Meat and Wool Cup.

Year 2023 HEREFORD MAGAZINE 61