BULLETINPRE SALE 2013

SILVERSTREAM CHAROLAIS

the

Fisher Family2105 Chch Akaroa RdRD2, Christchurch 7672

Ph: 03 329 0994Mob: 027 251 4791

Welcome to our pre-sale edition of the Bulletin. This year we celebrate 25 year

s of selling bulls at auction. Anna

has put together a brief history of those sales in this edition which covers the

highs and lows we have experienced.

Funnily enough it is the lows you remember most and this acts as motivation to

continually try and improve what

you do.Since our last edition we have been to t

he Canterbury A & P Show which celebrated its 150th anniversary. We were

fortunate to be awarded the ‘Meat and Wool Cup’ for the champion all breeds

beef animal of the show with our 3

year old sire ‘Evolution’. We also managed to get the junior version of this awa

rd with one of Evolutions stunning

daughters. We are extremely excited by what Evolution is breeding for us. While

he looks the part himself, it’s the

progeny that count and at this stage we believe he is potentially the best sire

we have used. As he was a later born

calf as a yearling he was only given a handful of cows so we have one son for sa

le this year. There is a truck load of

his sons lined up for next year’s sale though.

On the Hereford front they have risen in numbers rather quickly. Anna and I w

ent up to Mahia Beach for New Year

and while we were there we selected a further 25 cows and their calves to com

e down from her parents place. This

year her parents’ Pete and Jill Smyth will have their last bull Sale for the Na P

uteputi Stud in Wairoa. Next year

in addition to the Charolais we will be offering around a dozen Hereford bulls at

our sale which will require another

pen added to our sale complex. We have around 50 stud Hereford cows calving

this year.

It has definitely been a trying season climatically. We had a cold late spring follo

wed by an extremely hot dry

summer. When you see what other parts of the country have been dealt we ca

nnot complain too much though. We

did wean the majority of our calves in late January. Because we don’t calve un

til September it meant that some of

the calves were less than 4 months old. However, the calves are now as good, i

f not better then what they would

normally be at this time of the year and we have been able to really work the

cows cleaning up rough pastures on

our hill block. The cows have been doing a terrific job and they are in such grea

t order. Our 2 year old heifers are

also looking better than usual without having a calf still on them to drag them

down.

March was an extremely busy month as we took cattle along and supported a co

uple of country shows and in between

that we had the Hereford Herd Tour pass through home. We have again hosted

the South Island Hereford bulls that

are going to the ‘Beef Expo’ in May. These bulls were the main attraction but

we also displayed a few of our own

Hereford cows and calves and snuck a few Charolais into the viewing pens as we

ll. That same week we were involved

with the South Island Field Days at Lincoln. Our long suffering bankers ASB inv

ited us to join their site. Fortunately

through this busy time we had a number of good Lincoln students to help us ou

t. We are encouraged by the calibre

of the young people coming through the industry.

At Easter Anna and I had a wedding to go to in Mosgiel. We combined this with

a short visit to Robyn and Jim

Stevenson of Strathview Station and we also went to the Hore’s Stonehenge pr

operty in Patearoa. We had met

Jim and Charlie Hore last year at the Locharburn Hereford Bull Sale. Jim had k

indly offered us to come and view

some of his older Hereford sires. We also took along good friends Grant and Ch

arlotte McNaughton to look at Jim’s

Angus/Hereford heifers. Grant and Charlotte purchased ‘The Dasher Station’ in

North Otago back in the spring and

are looking to run a simple cow system buying in all Angus/Hereford females and

mating them to a Charolais. ‘The

Dasher’ is a large property with a lot of scope and potential to run a lot of co

ws. We wish them all the best in

their new venture.This edition of the bulletin features a p

rofile on Andrew and Naomi Humm who manage ‘Annandale’ on the Banks

Peninsula. Andrew got me to help him separate his herd into an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ m

ob. This concept has worked really

well with sheep and he could see great benefits in mating just his best cows to

an Angus to get his replacements and

putting the rest to a Charolais. He worked back from the number of replaceme

nt females he required and identified

the cows best suited for this job. It was great to see two mobs of cows with t

he ‘A’ mob being superior cows that

were of a good type. Cows often get criticised for not returning enough; howev

er, with a little planning they can be

a lot more than pasture management tools.

We have lined up 60 bulls for this year’s sale. There is a good selection of polle

d bulls and bulls by new sires. The

bulls are doing well and as usual we believe them to be of a consistent high qual

ity throughout the catalogue.

We look forward to catch up at bull sale time and we are only a phone call awa

y if there are any queries.

Kind Regards,

Brent, Bruce, Maureen & Anna Fisher.

SILVERSTREAM SILVER SALECELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF BULL SALES

This year we are celebrating our 25th Annual Bull Sale. There have been plenty of highs and lows through the years but the one consistent thing has been the loyal support from our clients around the country. The 1st sale on the 28th of April 1989 was held at Addington show grounds and was opened by Ruth Richardson, M.P. for Selwyn. The sale consisted of 26 lots including bulls sired by Silverstream Ulverstone and Silverstream Bonecrusher. This sale averaged around $3,000 and the top priced bull was sold to ‘Falls View Charolais’ in Australia. The 2nd Annual Sale comprised of 10 lots and saw the top price bull, Silverstream Executive sell for $36,000. The 2nd sale and 3rd Annual sales included other invited studs to sell their bulls alongside Silverstream and also in-cluded the sale of females. The 4th Annual Sale was high-lighted by a heifer Silverstream Gemma who sold for $20,000 to Paul Steele. She was a heifer sired by Bonecrusher and out of the infamous Brookfield Ocelot. The sale also saw Mitchell Allan buy the top price bull for $9,000. The 5th Annual sale was the first be held on property at the ‘old Silverstream’ at Greenpark. All the cattle were displayed in a disused loaf-ing barn. This made the viewing of the cattle difficult but you could have come to the sale in your slippers. In fact one year we were fortunate to have this barn as there was a bad snow storm which cancelled many sales around the area. The sale was held in this venue for 15 years. This sale Paul Steele again paid top money of $14,000 for another daughter of Brookfield Ocelot and Minzion Station purchased the top priced bull for $6,500. The next 2 sales saw the numbers increase up to 30 lots. The 6th sale was a boomer with Silverstream Hitchcock purchased by the Motu Stud for $21,500. The sale averaged over $7,000 and saw the cheap-est bull sell for $5,000. This sale had a detrimental effect on the stud as buyers were put off the following year. The 7th Sale saw the average drop to $4,000 and then even further to $2,400 by the 8th Sale. There was a lot of soul searching after this sale and we wondered whether to pull the pin. It was encouragement from a lot of buyers who still purchase bulls from us today that kept us going. That and a young bull by the name of Silverstream Jonah who from day one looked pretty special. The 9th Sale was quite unique by the con-sistent prices fetched and a full clearance of the catalogue. The top price was $5,500, the bottom price $3,000 and the sale averaged $3,500. By the 10th Annual sale in 1998 the sale had increased to 38 bulls. The top price bull was Silver-stream Nobilo, a Jonah son who sold to the Drayton Stud for $15,500. In the 11th Sale two Jonah sons featured again with Silverstream Niagra making $12,000 and Silverstream Narra-tor being sold to Mitchell Allan for $14,000. The 12th Annual sale saw a lift in the average price to over $5,500 with the top price bull being bought by The Whananaki Coastal Cha-rolais stud who purchased Silverstream Orion (another Jonah son) for $16,000. The 13th Annual Sale was an exciting one with the sale of ‘Silverstream Phoenix’ for $43,500. Phoe-nix was purchased by Forest View and Whananaki Coastal Charolais Studs. This was the record price for a Charolais bull in N.Z until it was exceeding by the sale of Greenwood

Park Rangi the following year. We still retain Phoenix’s full sister in our herd and she is in fact the dam of lot 3 in this year’s sale. The 14th Annual Sale had an increase in numbers to over 50 bulls. Silverstream Rembrant a full French sire made top price of $22,000 and was purchased by the Castle Downs Charolais Stud. The 15th Annual Sale featured Dennis McKenzie purchasing the top price bull for $10,000. Silver-stream Talisman highlighted the 16th Annual sale. He sold for $19,000 to Mitchell Allan. We continue to use this sire in our A.I program and you will find sons in this year’s sale. This sale also saw the average reach just over $6,000. The 17th Annual sale was the first sale to offer 60 bulls which we have remained at to this day. The selling of females in the Silver-stream Sale had ended. Between 5- 10 heifers were sold annually for over 15 sales. The top price bull this particular year made $22,000 and was sold to J & H Williams. The 18th Annual Sale included an impressive line of Silverstream Performer sons but the top price bull was Silverstream Venus who sold to Hemingford stud for $14,500. The 19th Annual Sale was another sale that featured Mitchell Allan purchas-ing the top price bull Silverstream Academic for $13,000. It must be noted that this sale included a huge support from Muller Station who purchased 5 bulls. This sale was also the last one to be held at this venue. The Banks Peninsula boy’s dedication meant that there was a good and long ‘send off’ for the ‘Old Silverstream’. The 20th Annual Sale was the first sale at the new venue on Hudsons Road where it is held to-day. This venue had a brand new barn and excellent outdoor display pens. Silverstream Bookmaker and Black Jack were the highlights that year with Bookmaker being sold to Lloyd McClay for $10,000 and Black Jack going to Hemingford Stud for $16,000. The 21st Annual Sale Finally saw a change in the catalogue cover and the introduction of a DVD. This sale had two full French sires at the top with Silverstream Command-er selling to Hemingford for $16,500 and Silverstream Chan-cellor being purchased by Maungahina Stud for $12,500. This sale also had the exciting sale of a bull to Australia. Silverstream Colorado sold to the Paringa stud for $11,500. The 22nd Annual Sale had a great support from Jim Ferguson of the West Coast who purchased 4 bulls. Silverstream Digby (a Palgrove Zephlin son) made the top price of $15,000 and was purchased by Rauriki Charolais. The 23rd Sale resulted in an average of nearly $6,500 and 3 bulls making success. Silverstream Enforcer was purchased by Minzion Station for $12,500, Silverstream Evan was purchased by Muller Station in Awatere Valley for $12,000 and Silverstream Enigma was purchased by Whananaki Coastal Charolais for $12,000. Last year’s 24th Sale featured Silverstream Fever a young polled sire sell to Paul & Claire Granger for $19,000. Over the years the sales have varied but have generally always been a suc-cess. The average price has varied from $2,300 in 1996 to over $7,000 in 1994. We acknowledge the support from all of our clients who have been buying bulls for a number of years and we are genuinely grateful for the continued support from all our clients.

SOUTH ISLAND FIELD DAYS

washed up were a great attraction for the passersby. ASB also put on a ‘guess the weight competition’. ASB did a great job with their display. The sheep and calves out the front were a great touch and showed ASB’s great relationship with the rural people. There were two sections in the best site competition and ASB won the ‘Best Small Site’. We would like to thank ASB for their kind offer to join their site, congratulate them on an awesome display and for being great hosts.

The South Island Field days are held every second year at Lincoln. This year we were lucky enough again to be invited by our bank the ASB to display some calves in a pen out the front of their site. We took along three Evolution calves. They all had great tempers and when they were

SILVERSTREAM EVOLUTION E168

Our most exciting sire yet. His calves are outstanding!

Meat & Wool Cup Champion (Champion All Breeds Beef Exhibit)

150th Canterbury A & P Show 2012

HIS PROGENY:

See him live on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CENCPQVxkZU

Silverstream Homeland Polled Out of a Kairua Tom dam13 months

Silverstream HarvardPolled Out of a Silverstream Performer dam13 months

Silverstream WendyPolled Out of a Silverstream Valentine dam19 months

BULL SALE PREVIEW WED 12TH JUNE 2PM 60 LOTS DVD AVAILABLE

LOT 10LOT 8

LOT 6LOT 3

LOT 2LOT 1

LOT 11 LOT 12

Polled Polled

Polled

Polled

Polled

By Silverstream Enticer

By Silverstream Enticer

By Silverstream Enticer

By Silverstream Dynamo

By Silverstream Dynamo

By Silverstream Benchmark

By Silverstream Evolution

By Kaitoke Dugan

BULL SALE PREVIEW WED 12TH JUNE 2PM 60 LOTS DVD AVAILABLE

LOT 16 LOT 22

LOT 23 LOT 25

LOT 36 LOT 37

LOT 44 LOT 49

Polled

By Silverstream EnticerBy Silverstream Dynamo

By Silverstream Dynamo

By Silverstream DynamoBy Silverstream Dynamo

By Silverstream Dodge

By Silverstream Brumby By Silverstream Talisman

Andrew and Naomi Humm have been managing the Annandale Property now since 2007. Annandale is a 3500 acre property set in the picturesque Pigeon Bay on the Banks Peninsula. The Annandale property was originally owned by the Hays family which is a family that dates back to before the first 4 ships that came into Canterbury. It was then owned by the Davidson family who had married into the Hays family and then 7 years ago it was bought by Mark Palmer. Andrew came to manage the property after spending sometime on the Peninsula doing contract fencing for Chris Chamberlain, Philip Helps and Tim Coop and then going out on his own.

Andrew grew up on his parent’s property in Mt Somers and was told he could only leave school if he got a job, so he worked for a while on a property at Klondyke and then went to Australia when he was 18. While he was in Aussie he was working on a station in Western Australia. The station was situated 7 hours north-east of Perth. It was a million acre property running 4000 cows. The cows were mainly a shorthorn cross but they had a few Brahmans as well. While he did his 18 month stint in Aussie he was lucky enough to meet his wife Naomi. Naomi was a ‘townie’ girl from Victoria. She had always had an interest in trying out the rural lifestyle so she threw herself in the deep end and got a job as the ‘nanny/house keeper’ on the same station 7 hours from Perth. Luckily Naomi took a liking to the rural lifestyle. She helps out regularly on the farm especially on busy days and really enjoys helping out in the yards. When she’s not busy she likes to muck around on her horses. Andrew and Naomi have an 8 year old daughter, Erin who attends Duvauchelle School.Since taking on Annandale Andrew and Naomi have found themselves busy with a lot of development work. The main problem with the property when they arrived was the water. Fortunately when Andrew was contracting he was the one who laid down the waterline so has found it extremely helpful knowing where everything is. The original water scheme was pretty unreliable with 4 pumps getting water up to a 500L header tanks in the summer

and the springs keeping things going in the winter. This system is now only used as a backup. Since taking over the management they had put in a 4 ½ million litre lined dam at the top. A lot of fencing has taken place subdividing the larger blocks. The original block was 3000 acres with the extra 500 acres only recently been taken on in the last month. The property sits on the eastern side of Pigeon bay, runs up from sea level to about 600 metres and has an extensive amount of coastal boundaries. The property has very good access with an 18km track which follows around the property and then meets up with a public road. When they first arrived they could barely get a 4WD motorbike round it as it was a clay track that was pretty rough. The road is now of such a good standard they can truck bulls out the back to the cows. They have also built a set of yards out the back of the property which are really handy when marking the calves.

The property runs 5500 ewes. The ewes are run in two separate mobs, the’ A’ and the’ B’ mob. The ‘B’ Mob consists of 2000 ewes which lamb to the terminal sire, a Suftex in July. The ‘A’ mob are the better types of ewes which lamb in August to a Romney. The flock was originally a Perendale base but bred year after year to Composites. When Andrew arrived the sheep were of a poor type and he was getting no lambs off mum into the works. The store weights were also only averaging 26kg. Andrew has chosen to go back the Romney way and is getting the flock back into shape. He is now getting 500 lambs away off mum and his store weights have lifted to about 30kg.

CLIENT PROFILE: ANNANDALE

Managers, Andrew & Naomi Humm

The concept of an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ mob means the Angus cows will improve by having-better cows going to better bulls and with the poorer cows there is not the tail end like with the straightbreds.

Looking north over the property. North Canterbury and Kaikoura are on the horizon.

White gates are a theme throughout the property. Andrew is phasing this out!

The wool weights have also lifted over time. The hoggets were also mated for the first time this year and there will be another 800 to go to the ram this year. Annandale has an on farm lamb sale which is held at the beginning of November. This is when all the Suftex lambs are sold. The rest of the lambs are sold through till the end of March. Andrew usually puts in a crop of rape to get the store weights up a bit. This year he had 10ha of rape and believed he added an extra $10 per lamb by taking them through a bit longer on the crop. About 1350 replacement ewe lambs from the ‘A’ mob are taken right through. A small tail will be taken off before their teeth cut and whatever doesn’t get in lamb as a hogget will be mated as a two-tooth.

The cow herd at Annandale consists of about 270 mostly straight Angus cows. Recently Andrew has decided to adapt the same theory he has in the sheep with the cows by having an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ mob. He cannot see the benefit of having the poorer type cows trying to produce replacement females. He feels that he will be able to produce more replacement females he likes out of fewer numbers of better cows and lift the production of the poorer cows by mating them to the Charolais. Andrew likes the idea of putting only what you need to get replacements to the Angus bull and putting the rest to Charolais because the Charolais cross calves are ahead of the straight bred calves.

The Hybrid vigour and the fact that Andrew buys good types of Charolais really pumps up the production of the lesser cows. The concept of an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ mob means the Angus cows will improve by having better cows going to better bulls and with the poorer cows there is not the tail end like there is with the straightbreds. When they first arrived at Annandale the cattle were in the same predicament as the sheep. They were types of cattle that had come from some very poor Angus genetics. The cows were lighter boned, had narrow muzzles, narrow hips and were flighty. Fortunately they still had some good older cows left as it was traditionally a good cow herd. Andrew has been working on this and has gone back to a more traditional type of Angus Bull. When he buys bulls he likes them to come from a line bulls that are consistent in their type. He is finding this more difficult in recent times. He currently puts about 40 replacement heifers back into the herd but would be happy to increase this number which he believes he will be able to do by having an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ mob of cows. The black steer calves over 200kg at weaning are sold to his neighbour. The last couple of years these calves have averaged 240kg. The replacements are picked out from the line of heifer calves and the rest are taken through and killed between 18 months and 2 ½ years of age. The Charolais steer calves for the last two years have been sold to ‘Silver Fern Farms’ and put in a trial here at Silverstream. The heifer calves he use to sell but he has now decided to take them right through. With the extra grazing from the new block he needs more stock and would prefer to take them through instead of increasing sheep numbers. He has approximately 140 odd finishing cattle poking around the place. With the warm coastal country it is ideally suited to supplying cattle in the winter/spring premium periods.

Andrew has been coming to Silverstream since he took over managing Annandale. He finds he can get a bull of a type that he likes for a price that is right for him. He focuses on getting bulls that are moderate with a lot of meat and bone. He notices his calves by the Silverstream bulls are so wide and deep and weigh well.

An example of Silverstream bred calves. Andrew likes that they are good types, with great depth and width and they weigh well.

Andrew really likes how the Charolais can improve the performnace of his poorer cows. His Charolais calves are bigger and better then his straightbred calves.

FISHER FAMILY2105 CHRISTCHURCH AKAROA RDRD2, CHRISTCHURCH 7672www.silverstreamcharolais.co.nz

FINDING EFFICIENCY WITH FODDER BEET

SILVERSTREAM CHAROLAIS

SILVERSTREAM SILVER SALECELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF BULL SALES

12 JUNE 2012 2PMOn property, Greenpark, CHCH

In our last edition of the Bulletin we wrote about a trial we were conducting with Fodder Beet. Jim Gibbs from Lincoln University was the investigator of this trial and with excellent support from ‘Seed Force’ and ‘Ballance Fertiliser’ we planted the crop back in November. Despite a trying season the Fodder Beet has performed particularly well and we have some impressive sized bulbs. We planted 10ha which will be grazed and a further 3ha of Fodder Beet and 3ha of Sugar Beet which will be harvested. It has been decided we will now run two trials. The first trial which was the original one involves the early weaned calves from 5 properties on the Banks Peninsula. They arrived early February with an average weight of around 215 kgs. The calves are a combination of Angus, Angus/Hereford, Belgium Blue and Angus/Charolais cross calves. The aim of this trial is twofold. Firstly to see if we can grow export weight cattle at 13-14 months by the following spring on an extended ration of Fodder Beet. Secondly the aim is to monitor the subsequent production benefits on the cows from having their calves weaned early. This has probably been a good season to test this. An observation is that on many summer dry properties the calf and cows’ production both get compromised by being together too long. I’m sure I’m not alone in having seen calves that are looking good in January and

then looking decidedly ordinary come April when many traditionally wean. When this happens the calf hasn’t grown to their potential and the cow has lost condition in the process.We hope that if successful it can give finishers other options. The reality is that on a 12 month basis Farmers can earn nearly $500 per head with no capital tied up from grazing dairy heifers. There is a real challenge for the beef industry to stay competitive from a land use point of view The second trial involves fattening 18 month cattle through the winter on a diet of mainly harvested Fodder Beet. Both these trials involve ‘Silver Fern Farms’ who have identified the major constraint into tapping into lucrative high paying markets is the lack of quality beef in the shoulder periods of the season. Customers want a 12 month supply of young well grown beef on a consistent basis. As an industry we clearly need to be paid more but we need to work with the market and industry.For as long as I care to remember we have been critical of meat companies, however it has not seemed to improved our lot. We need each other and we need to work closer with the industry to understand the market and supply on a consistent basis what it wants.