A History of Glen Anthony Simmental Stud

Does farming get much more difficult than this? Two droughts in a row is a hard act to farm through. No Autumn saved pasture last year and so complete reliance on expensive supplementary feed throughout calving. Thank goodness for people like Craig Palaise of Marton who kept on finding us silage and hay in the West Coast Area.

The following spring and early summer were trying. After an early spring flush, we were just beginning to enjoy having grass again when another dry hit us. owing to the lack of stock on some farms - we were able to secure new season’s hay and silage. Thank you to Peter Ebbett, Richard Hilson, John Stevens, Di Murphy, Paul Stitjens and Fionna Paterson of Blackburn road, and Charlie Pattison of Waiwhero for supplying hay and silage this season.

At least we were able to get in a good stockpile of supplementary food early this year before the Waikato driven price rise occurred.

“Drought survival mode” for Glen Anthony has included:

• Putting our 2007 mating date back one month.
• Culling everything and anything in the herd that wasn’t absolutely necessary to keep. (First time we have put weaners in the works).
• Finding grazing, initially for the cows and calves prior to weaning thanks to Charlie Pattison, and then since weaning for sixty cows at Te Aute thanks to Ray and Gordon Falcon.
• Feeding out hay and silage once again from early April. It is going to be a long winter at this rate.

We finally got rain in April this year. Better late than never, the Autumn flush has arrived and our covers while slow to get going are now looking good. Thanks to a good water supply on both farms, especially the district water scheme on farm road, stock health has been okay and our weaning weights this year are adequate - not spectatcular.

The biggest problem group of cattle are the rising two year olds including this year’s sale bulls. They have come through a summer-autumn drought on their mums last year, followed by a winter drought after weaning and now another summer drought leading up to this year’s sale. Some of them put no weight on last winter and are struggling again this summer.

What is the secret to maintaining a stud herd through a drought? Money, money, money. Thank goodness I have an off farm income to help pay for the supplementary feed and off farm grazing.

What of the future? How many dry years in a row can we survive huge farming loss? How many years can we afford to prop up our farming operation? We are already down sizing our herd numbers and will calve less than 100 cows this year! The immediate future looks a little daunting - all at a time when exciting new genetics are arriving in the stud.

2007-2008 SHOWS

The 2006-2007 season was a hard act to follow. What do you do after such a successful year? Stay at home and rest on your laurels? “Hell No” - that’s not the Glen Anthony way. What a challenge this season - just to get cattle into show condition with drought all around us!

HASTINGS A&P SHOW
No extra this year—only a few exhibitors with Glen Anthony’s large team dominating. The great thrill was the success of Yardstick progeny in the yearling classes. Glen Anthony Tundra continued the success he enjoyed as a calf at the Auckland Royal Easter Show 2007 and Sue Wylie showed her lovely Yardsitck heifers with great success.
How sad it was in the Male Championship event to have Yardstick, Hayland’s Rupert and Yardstick’s son Glen Anthony Tundra all in the ring at the same time - three of the best examples of a Simmental four year old, a two year old and a yearling bull that you would see anywhere in the world and only three or four spectators watching! - What have we got to do to attract the farming public back to enjoying the sight of good beef cattle at our A & P shows?

Yardstick defended his championship title and went onto win the Meat & Wool Cup for the third successive year at Hastings and Tundra, on the day, defeated Hayland’s Rupert to take Reserve Champion Bull.

NEW ZEALAND ROYAL SHOW.
We probably should have taken Glennis’ advice and not trekked to Christchurch this year. But, hell, Yardstick looked so well (a little leaner) his yearling cattle looked great and I had a score to settle with Mark Stevens with our two year old heifer. Hayland’s Rupert was out with the cows (where all good bulls should be in November) and so we left without him. We took Yardstick, and thirteen other cattle including two from Sue Wylie and a yearling bull of Don Fosters. We had two trucks plus Sue’s ute and horsefloat in convoy with Don going to lots of trouble to kit out his own truck for the trip this year. Sue and Graham were in the ute, Brenan Cure went with Don and I brought up the rear in the trusty Isuzu.

We attended the Blenheim A & P show en route tripling the normal beef cattle entries. While this was a great display of beef cattle for the show, disaster struck! Yardstick woke up lame in the hind quarter the morning after the trip from Hawkes Bay - my poor driving most likely - While he won the Meat & Wool Cup at Blenheim things didn’t bode well for the long trip to Christchurch.

We considered leaving him behind in Blenheim through the kindness of the Van asch family but decided to box on and hope that the few days. Rest in Christchurch prior to judging on the Wednesday would work in our favour.

Yardstick’s lameness did improve but he wasn’t his old bright self and the blizzard conditions on the Simmental breed judging day didn’t help. I can’t remember wearing so many layers of clothing under my Simmental uniform at any other show in my career. Our thin skinned North Is. cattle were buckled up like staples and the Australian judge who must have been feeling much the same had little sympathy for us. This year the southern cattle especially David Timperley’s older cow and Tony Partridges yearling bull absolutely trounced us even in the group classes which are usually one of our strengths.

Tony’s good young bull Ladburn Travolta went on to win the Junior Meat & Wool Cup and Haylands Nutmeg won the senior Meat & Wool Cup—another clean sweep for the Simmental breed. Yardstick did combine with Haylands Nutmeg to help win the Champion interbreeds pairs class.

On the final day of all breeds judging before another Australian judge Sue Wylie won the yearling Heifer Championship with her Yardstick heifer.
Both Tundra and Yardstick could only manage seventh in their respective classes and it was up to Cascade’s daughter Glen Anthony Riviera to salvage some of the Glen Anthony pride by winning the Two Year Old Championship and in so doing win the bet I had with Mark Stevens who could only manage second with his sister’s Angus heifer.

Yardstick stayed home from the Autumn Shows and in his absence our Two year old heifer Regina( Ibaroo Lady Di) won the Meat & Wool cup at Fielding best of beef and Yardstick’s yearling bull Tundra was runner up at the Auckland Royal Easter Show after being judged Supreme Champion Simmental. The big thrill came in the junior classes at Feilding Yardstick’s progeny were placed first, second, and third in both the bull calf all breeds class and the yearling heifer all breeds class, the three animals in each class coming from three different studs. In the Meat & Wool Cup Regina had to beat no less than three Yardstick progeny for the title.

At the Royal Easter Show in Auckland Sue Wylie won both the All Breeds Bull Calf Class and the All Breeds Yearling Heifer Class with Yardstick progeny and Tundra won the coverted All Breeds Yearling Bull Class. Tundra and Regina combined to win the Pairs Class, together with another Yardstick calf they won the group of three and with Sue Wylie’s help we went on to win the Breed Group also - a very successful show for Sue Wylie and Glen Anthony.

This summary of the A & P show season highlights how pleased we are with Yardstick’s progeny both in our own stud and in other studs where his semen was used. His rising two year old cattle both bulls and heifers are quite outstanding and in this sale catalogue there are no fewer than fourteen Yardstick progeny. These bulls have great temperaments, have their father’s kind eye and facial markings and in spite of the two droughts they have been through, they display Yardstick’s thickness and softness in their muscle pattern.

We recommend these bulls to you and hope that some stud breeders can make the time to come and see some of the best rising two year old bulls for sale in New Zealand this year.

2009 - 36 years of Simmental Breeding and still we survive.

TO RECAP...

Since 1974, the majority of our stud activity has centred on 230 acres of hard ‘shale’ country 8Km east of Waipukurau. In 1989 we expanded to a total of 500 acres with the acquisition of 270 acres of river flats at Onga. This allowed us to build our stud cow herd up to 150 breeding females.

Twenty years since then, with ever decreasing numbers of commercial beef breeding cows on the East Coast we find that we are only selling twenty bulls a year at auction. When we coupled this with the huge expenses involved in getting our cows through the first two droughts we began to think that we should down size our herd.

At this time—back in August 2008 we had a fantastic offer for our Onga Onga property. It all seemed too good to be true but inspite of the economic recession and the gathering gloom for dairy farmers the sale went through and so we are now the proud owners of only 230 acres.

2008-2009 Season

After a mild winter with only two heavy rain periods that flooded our gullies and almost washed out Don’s crossing, we had a great spring. Lots of early grass meant plenty of cattle feed for our later calving cows.

Having been away grazing rough pasture at Te Aute until the end of June the cow herd was in great order and calved down well.

The first of the Hayland’s Rupert calves arrived this year. They had no trouble calving with an overall shorter gestation period than our other sires. Mostly solid red with good frame, these Rupert calves complimented the Yardstick progeny who continued to be stamped with Yardstick’s unique phenotype—head shape– goggles—quiet temperament correct conformation and well fleshed bodies even from an early age. A young bull calf AW24 is probably the best example— a lovely calf.

Our four point drought management plan worked well as measured by this season’s in calf rate. Altering the calving date, reducing numbers, winter grazing and the use of quality supplements produced better condition scores at calving.

This one major factor coupled with a good spring feed supply and plenty of bull power Newry, Yardstick, Rupert and Ruaview Scotch Tape meant we had one of our best mating seasons ever.

Thank goodness we got through that October-November period well because come December the ‘Rain Gods’ deserted us again. No more rain until a false Autumn in February when the whole farm sprung to life only to be dried out again by a further drought with no rain until the 11th of May—the morning of this years National Sale.

Drought three years in a row takes some beating!

At least we prepared well this season—buying in 200 bales of early silage and filling our barns with early spring hay. Our heartfelt thanks to Sue and Norm Wylie who took on the summer grazing of our heifers with calves at foot and now have our weaner heifers for the winter. We also would like to record our appreciation of Ed White’s generosity in grazing our mixed aged cows and calves over the dry summer at Barnsdale and following up by grazing these cows on into the winter—just fantastic—thanks Ed.

The rising two year old bulls have been at home on our drought country where they have survived on a diet of good quality silage. They have come through pretty well and we are delighted to present them to you for sale.

A&P SHOWS

As long as A & P Associations put on Beef Cattle competitions we will support them, with as large a number of cattle as we can manage!

Alas the interest of the rural community in A & P Shows in general and this sort of beef cattle display in particular is sadly waning.

Hand in hand with this trend is the waning of enthusiasm of other stud breeders to display their cattle this way.

In the future it is obvious that the only beef cattle left at A & P shows will come from hobby farmers and lifestyle blocks with a swing towards Highland Cattle and the smaller breeds.

Can you blame the farming community for losing interest in beef cattle showing?

HASTINGS SPRING SHOW:

Sue Wylie and Glen Anthony Simmental Studs dominated the Hastings Spring Show with Yardstick yearlings from both studs performing well. Glen Anthony introduced their new acquisition Ruaview Scotch Tape to the show team. He has a fantastic temperament and settled in well. He soon got into the routine and proved himself to be an outstanding exhibit winning the Meat & Wool Cup ahead of a strong line up of young Yardstick cattle and a good exhibit of Gelbvieh cattle brought down by Sandy Stewart all the way from Raglan.

FIELDING AUTUMN SHOW:

The Fielding Best of Beef Show was a great success for the organisers, the Murray Grey breed and ultimately Glen Anthony Simmentals.

Cattle numbers were up and the quality of the exhibits prompted Bruce Orr to remark that “in at least two or three classes the quality and numbers entered, rivalled the New Zealand Royal Show in Canterbury.”

Of the seven interbreed classes competed for, the Murray Grey breed won 4 and Glen Anthony won 3.

In the final analysis Glen Anthony Utah, one of the Outstanding Yearling Bulls of the season, went on to win the Meat and Wool Cup.

AUCKLAND ROYAL EASTER SHOW:

A disastrous entry of beef cattle for this year’s show was averted by a truck and trailer load of Hawkes Bay Simmentals from Glen Anthony and Ratalea supported by Cornwall Park and Don Foster of Huntly together with a good entry of Belgium Blue cattle from Lockwood Smith.

While the show lacked huge numbers it did not lack quality and the Glen Anthony—Ratalea team was sorely tested by an excellent line up of smaller framed high quality Gelbvieh cattle.

While the Gelbvieh cattle won a majority of the interbreed classes our cattle held their heads high with wins in the Senior cow and Senior bull classes and Ruaview Scotch Tape going on to win his second Meat and Wool Cup.

2009-2010 SEASON

SIMMENTAL MARKET REPORT

It is now a proven fact, well grown, well presented SIMMENTAL cattle are unbeatable in the Sale Ring. Up to $100 per head is the premium being paid.

Congratulations again this year to Graham Williamson for an outstanding line of Simmental steers that topped the Stortford Lodge early weaner fair at $960 - great stuff.

Congratulations also to Andrew Tweedy who sold an outstanding line of  two year old Simmental cross steers at Stortford Lodge last Spring for $1300 or $2.20 per kilo liveweight. These were purchased by  the  Butler family of Tikokino. Owen Butler specially invited me out to view these cattle, he was so pleased with his purchase. I had to fully agree with him as the line of steers looked really magnificent.

2009 –2010 SEASON

A marvellous early spring after a wet winter. Lots of mud on the home farm with all the cows back from grazing at Barnsdale. We sure do miss the Onga block in wet times. The flats of river bed stones were a great wintering pad for the cows.

Although we under foot, calving went well with our first calves not arriving until July. The early Rupert-Farina ET calves were exciting with a heifer calf AX 15E and a bull calf AX 9E  the ones to watch for the future. After the July rush of ET and heifer calvings things slowed up and it seemed to take for ever for the mixed aged cows to finish calving.

Although wet had a good bank of feed for the lactating cows, cycling was slow and few cows with calves at foot came forward for early AI. Luckily the yearling heifers and carry over two year old heifers (drought calves) performed well and held to AI in the first twenty two days.

To speed things up, mating was handed over to the bulls and Rupert, Ruaview Scotch Tape and Newry were called on to do their stuff.

October grass growth into November was fast and furious with many farms around us turning into early hay paddocks owing to the lack of stock (especially cattle) following the droughts. And then the dry hit again - lovely weather for hay making. Late November and December were extremely busy months for hay contractors with the early spring surplus being turned into silage and hay. It is the first time for years that we had our full compliment of supplementary feed bought in, wrapped, and stacked safely away before Christmas.

On the home farm the bull mobs on rotation were quickly running out of feed as recovery rates slowed dramatically.

Norm and Sue Wyley and Richard Hilson came to our rescue again. The Wyley’s farm had a spring explosion with hay paddocks everywhere and so in November Rupert’s entire mating mob were trucked out to Ashley Clinton relieving the pressure at Home.

In December the bulls were withdrawn and the cow mobs divided into those with bull calves and those with heifer calves. One mob stayed with the Wyleys’s for the summer the other went to Richard Hilson’s property to graze beautiful cattle tucker that resulted from acquisition of extra land not yet grazed this spring.

Just goes to show that we can retain a relatively large herd of stud cows on a small farm providing we can get ‘Off farm’ grazing when we need it and can afford to buy in heaps of hay and balage. Thank goodness for an off farm income.

Dry December! Where to Now? Another long drought? No - nearly 200mm of rain in January - absolutely unusual and as it turned out not very helpful. The grass did grow, it was initially green and soft, it then turned blue, then grey, then brown as the rust built up and a new dry period developed—NO MORE RAIN until well into MAY. Summer saved grass became Autumn grass. Young cattle were weaned onto a mixture of rank, brown unappetizing Summer remnant and struggling new growth Ryegrass staggers throughout Central Hawkes Bay has never been so bad.

This dry Autumn even hit the usually wet areas west of Highway 50 and the cows had to leave their Summer grazing. Luckily Ed White was able to help and we had the luxury of weaning the herd in his cattle yards and leaving forty cows at Barnsdale for the ‘Autumn’. Thanks again Ed.

All this time the young bulls have had a rotation in the moist gulleys of the home farm especially fenced up for the purpose. On a diet of a little fresh green and a lot of brown rusty rank grass they have come through pretty well. They are now on Summer saved pasture with ad lib baleage leading up to the sale.

A&P SHOWS

Not a vintage year for Glen Anthony. We still entered a team of fifteen cattle at Hastings, Feilding and Auckland and while we won a lion’s share of the prizes through weight of numbers we didn’t quite rise to the high standards that we set ourselved.

Highlights would have to be the performance of the Yardstick Yearling Bulls Westerley and Waterford and the emergence of a new young bull ‘out of the paddock’ in Glen Anthony Warwick by Yardstick from a Macho Man cow AP 104.

The Rupert yearling heifers promised much in the Spring with Whitney catching the judges eye at the Hastings show where she was runner up to a two year old Galbvieh bull in the Meat and Wool Cup.

The January rain didn’t exactly help our show team in that our yearling heifers put on a huge growth spirt and for the first time I can remember were too big and fat at the Autumn shows - Whitney weighed over 700kg at the Royal Easter Show in Auckland.

FEILDING BEST OF BEEF:

The outstanding yearling bull Glen Anthony Westerley by Yardstick from Marina won the ‘Meat and Wool Cup’ at Feilding and will be the first Yardstick son to be retained in the herd.

AUCKLAND ROYAL EASTER SHOW:

The beef competition this year became another three way battle between

Glen Anthony, and Sue Wyley’s Simmentals, Lockwood Smith’s Belgium Blues and Jacky Stewart’s Gelbvieh Cattle.

Sue Wyley won the prestigious Female Performance Class with an outstanding productive unit of two year old heifer and heifer calf, Glen Anthony Nina won the Senior Cow Class, Ruaview Scotch Tape the Senior Bull, Praise’s bull calf won his interbreed and we carried off most of the group classes. In the Meat and Wool Cup Scotch Tape was substituted by Nina and she came a close second to the two year old Gelbvieh heifer who had an outstanding heifer calf at foot.

BEEF EXPO 2010: The outstanding performance of the Year

Tuesday 18th May What a day!

Two bulls stood out from the crowd: Glen Anthony Waterford - Champion Simmental, Glen Anthony Warwick Reserve Champion Simmental. Both showing Yardstick’s outstanding attributes of thickness, softness and capacity. Warwick went on to sell to David and Jane Timperley for $7,500. Waterford is still for sale as a stud bull.

Then Glen Anthony Xcess, not yet a yearling heifer weighing 480kg and led by Ashley Dingley, sold for the top price so far this year for a stud female of $6,200. to Brian Aldridge of Lincoln, Christchurch.

What a thrill to have our whole team involved. Sue Wyley winning the best Leaders Trophy, Glennis leading her heifer and hoping all the time that it wouldn’t be sold (wish granted), Ashley leading the Champion Heifer expertly and Amey Hoogenbloom doing her own thing in the steer class winning The Lightweight European section both on the hoof and on the hook - Congratulations!

Thanks to Merial and the Ancare brand for their generous sponsorship.

Glen Anthony Warwick	Glen Anthony Xcess

Thanks to Craig Chapman of Straight Furrow for these excellent stud photographs.

STEAK OF ORIGIN 2010

To cap the day off Glennis and I attended the Steak of Origin gala dinner as finalists. What excitement when we went on stage to win The European section with a sirloin steak from a 20 month Simmental heifer that had wintered over with Norm and Sue Wyley - FANTASTIC!

Just shows our breeding programme is not only producing beef cattle that look good they also taste good as well!