Mark McKenzie in the ring at the Maungahina Stud’s yearling on-farm sale. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
BECKIE WILSON
The McKenzie family of Maungahina Stud have created a market that they now must supply.
The rural Masterton stud celebrated its 110th year of breeding herefords at its 72nd on-farm bull sale in June. But the McKenzies had more to celebrate after their on-farm yearling sale last week.
It was the biggest turnout for one of the stud’s yearling sales that owner, Mark McKenzie, had ever seen.
He believes many people had come to see the speckle park breed which is gaining a lot of traction in the world of cattle breeding.
Mr McKenzie brought the Canadian breed into the country over a decade ago, and doesn’t regret it.
The stud recorded a national average record price for a speckle park pure bred yearling at $9900, he said.
“I’m just really humbled by the way the breed is going after 11 years of bringing them into the country.
“It’s starting to pay off, and it’s only going to get stronger . . . the averages are reflecting that.”
He had noticed that the amount of interest and enquiries about the breed had doubled.
Buyers have seen what the speckle park progeny were doing and more people were buying.
It has taken a while to get the number of cattle they had now because they had been “so fussy” about selecting the right bulls for the market.
It was “gut instinct” that the breed was going to meet strong demand due to the family’s long history of breeding, he said.
The yearling sale comprised 31 pure bred hereford yearlings, ten pure bred speckle park yearlings, 11 hereford speckle park cross and one speckle park sire.
Prices for the herefords averaged $2358 and $4800 for the hereford speckle park cross.
Next year, Mr McKenzie hopes to have more yearling bulls on offer with the help of Derek Hayward from Premier Cattle Company.
NZ Farm Source livestock agent Bunter Anderson said they were privileged to host the sale and were delighted with the result.
“We put a lot of hard work into it, all the guys over the North Island promoted the sale strong,” Mr Anderson said.
He had buying orders from Northland down into the South Island, he said.
“[The McKenzies] have been farming Herefords for 110 years and the products are outstanding,” he said.
