The next day it was off to Turihaua to catch up with Hamish and Angela Williams. They too had a fantastic sale, clearing all of the 74 bulls offered and achieving an average of NZ$8734 with the highest price of $42,000 to the Bayly family, Cricklewood, Wairoa for Lot 4, a Turihaua Crumble son.
The next morning was the Gisborne Combined sale featuring Kenhardt Angus, Cricklewood Angus, Bayly family and Tangihau Angus. It was at Tangihau our interest lay this year. We had inspected Tangihau 10-100 earlier and really appreciated his length, good head and jaw, strength, muscling and structural soundness. We feel he will add the right amount of size for us and we were delighted to purchase him in partnership with Rick and Andrew Powdrell from Turiroa for NZ$24000.
The Powdrells rounded of an excellent run of sales by achieving the top price this year of NZ$72000 for Lot 5, a Turihaua Break D92 son to Oregon Angus, Masterton. We thought lot 7 was an excellent bull and he was purchased for $30,000 by Merchiston Angus and Atahua Angus combined . The Powdrella’s sale averaged a massive NZ$10,927. They are also our partners in the bull Stern 768 and his sons sold to an average of NZ$9087 at Turiroa which will make the 768 sons at the Glengowan sale excellent value!
Down South, Roger Keech negotiated semen for us from lot 5 at Stern, a Braveheart of Stern son purchased by the Bayly family for the top price of $36,000. By all accounts he was the best bull on offer and will add positively to the Glengowan herd. So congratulations to all our NZ friends for excellent sale results.
One observation we made chatting to people over the sale week was the looming stoush in NZ regarding EBVs. Far from being “unimportant” in NZ, which is an uninformed Australian perspective, the importance of EBVs and how much they should be the “official line” from industry groups was a hot topic in NZ. Every one we spoke to appreciated that EBVs have a significant role in the selection and marketing of bulls but they had very strong views on the direction NZ should take in regard to their prominence. Will the “NZ 100% figures” group listen to their most experienced cattle breeders and honestly evaluate the Aussie experience of EBVs which shows some of the best looking figures belong to some of the worst looking animals?