We are feeling for members who are calving in the wet conditions which seem to be encompassing all of NZ. At least the days are getting longer.
 
Autumn sales have been and gone with a mixed result for members. The office is now focusing on the Spring yearling sales marketing campaign. We encourage you to share the short YouTube videos on your Facebook pages and with your clients. There are two videos focused to the beef industry, one talking about the benefits of DNA testing and two targeted to the dairy beef market. I’ll be shortly working with the board to set the budget for 2022/23 and updating the rule book, with the board scheduled to have a zoom board meeting on the 15^th and 16^th August.
 
Suzanne will be spending the next couple of months updating the database, so expect either a call or email from her. If your farm has either gone through succession changes or about to, it may be timely to review who is the ‘full’ paying member in the family, so they receive the correct information to accurately record the stud animals. Becoming an Associate member is a great option if you wish to remain part of the Hereford family, receive the magazine and Hooked on Herefords, but not have your inbox cluttered with emails which are no longer relevant to you. It’s also worth clarifying that “Life” membership is assigned to one person and not the stud, so if he or she passes, then someone in the family will be required to join.
 
The technical committee are meeting next week to further discuss days to calving, the proposition from Beef + Lamb Genetics regarding their multi breed evaluation ‘nProve’ (which you will have read about in the papers), progeny tests and diagnostics. Diagnostic reports are continuing to be challenging with many breeders experiencing samples coded N4 which means they do not have sufficient SNPs to be accepted for the evaluation. One of the reasons may be due to sample failure. Read the link for common reasons for sample failures. Also please get back to Megan when she contacts you regarding animals which are on the diagnostics report. As explained previously, they are animals which have not been accepted for the genomic evaluation, as they have failed the quality control at AGBU.
 
I am looking forward to Spring and hopefully seeing you at a few sales. Until then please email if you have any questions, suggestions for the magazine or something to say. We like ‘nice’ but ‘bad’ can also be helpful and drive progress!
 
Cheers

Beef Progeny Test – call for nominations.

B+LNZ Genetics are inviting breeders to nominate bulls for the 2022 mating of their across-breed Beef Progeny Test at Pāmu’s Kepler farm, Te Anau, and a new North Island site – Rimanui Farms’ Lochinver Station, Rangitaiki Plains.

This Progeny Test will be fundamental to a multi-breed evaluation by providing both linkage between breeds and New Zealand collected data to be able to accurately estimate hybrid vigour.

Cattle will be Artificially Inseminated in December 2022 (Kepler) and January 2023 (Lochinver). Angus and Hereford bulls will be used across both breeds of cows.

Nomination - FREE (assistance for semen collection can be requested to NZ Herefords)
Bull Nomination Information click here
Bull Nomination form click here
Nomination deadline: Monday 22nd August, 2022
 
Dairy Beef Progeny Test - call for nominations is now closed. Stud breeders will be contacted directly by BLG if they are successful in their nomination. We understand there were approx 13 Hereford bulls nominated out of 42.