ABOUT OUR
ANGUS HERD
The ‘Waitangi Angus’ herd brand was established in 2005 with the combination of two long well-established successful herds of Angus cattle.
Our own herd ‘Kai Iwi” was established in 1954 by my father Phil Bayly at Kai Iwi near Wanganui. Over the years the stud enjoyed much success in both the show ring and with the supplying of bulls to the beef industry. In 1994 a selected nucleus of females was brought north to Paihia.
In 2004 we were offered the opportunity to purchase the very well known and respected ‘Rarewa’ herd of cows from the Lovell family near Whangarei. We purchased the complete herd and they arrived at Waitangi in July of that year.
They are a very sound, robust, easy going, good temperament herd of cows and fitted extremely well into what we were trying to achieve here at Waitangi. The combination of the two herds has been most successful and is well demonstrated by the uniformity in our lines of bull and heifer calves we produce each year, despite the use of numerous sires.
The cow herd is the strength of the Waitangi breeding programme and over the years a limited number of females from other well recognized herds have been introduced into the herd as well.
Today the Waitangi herd comprises some 400 performance recorded breeding females giving good opportunity and scope for selection and testing within our herd.
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All females are performance recorded and expected to breed and rear a calf as a 2-year old, and produce a presentable calf every year after that or they are culled. This is a fundamental practice at Waitangi, as is temperament at calving combined with mothering skills.
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Structural soundness, fertility and temperament are fundamentals in any breeding herd.
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Our cows are run under commercial conditions in conjunction with our 2000 head ewe flock and all stock, including additional bought in steers and finishing heifers, are also finished on the property.
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In the last few years we have embarked on an AI programme to diversify our bloodlines and access a wider genetic base. Sires are also selected from within our own herd, as well as from selected studs meeting our criteria.
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The sires that we have used have been selected for both their predictability and proven attributes, with a strong emphasis on carcase characteristics which we see coming through in the resultant progeny. We are informed our actual carcase scanning data performance puts us at the leading edge of herds scanned in New Zealand. All progeny are i50K verified.
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We aim to breed cattle that enable our clients to meet the carcase requirements of quality beef programmes, such as Angus Pure and others.
