Page 9 - Totaranui Angus Catalogue ebook

FEED

EFFICIENCY

uch is being said about agriculture’s impacts on the But let’s think of the efficiency of the herd. Herds that grow fast,
environment and the potential compulsion to reduce calve as two year olds and have fast finishing progeny are going
Mcattle numbers by 15% to meet GHC targets into the to produce more kilos of product per unit of GHG gases than
future. It leaves one pondering where it’s all going and whether another herd that doesn’t perform as well. One client has said
our fearless leaders have got it all right?! Going forward, us as to me I should be mentioning how fast and to what weights his
farmers are going to have to maintain a balance between being progeny do with Totaranui genetics and as it’s relevant to this
practical as well as political and potentially as a group, being topic, I will. Dave Danks of Monarae Station, Wairoa, has just
united and willing to take the odd tractor to parliament, should recently started mating his heifers. His fears that they would
the need arise - if our own fearless leaders are up to the war cry have compromised structural size and performance after the first
of course. calving have been allayed, in terms of total MA cows, he has not
had to reduce numbers to accommodate the new priority class.
But in the meantime, what can we do. The smart thing to do is Their steers in a common year are killed at 16 months at well
to try and get a story together and do what we can to be able to over 300kgs carcass weight, albeit on their finishing farm down
defend ourselves against criticism and there will be plenty of it. below. This has to be efficient. Across the herd, genetics and
management have allowed them to produce more kilos of beef
This brings me to feed efficiency in cattle. It is inherent in many per kilo consumed than many other herds in the country.
Totaranui females, for example Totaranui 825 was in the second
cohort of the Australian Sire Benchmarking Programme. He is in
the top 1 percentile for feed efficiency across Australasia and we
continue to look at feed efficiency traits and residual daily growth
epds when we look at sires in the US.

TOTARANUI 2YR OLD BULL SALE 7