It was love at first sight for John Henderson, who paid the record price of $50,000 for Sandown, a Charolais yearling bull at the Silverstream 34th annual bull sale.
“I said when I saw him, I love him, I’m going to buy him,” Henderson said.
“I had to pay a bit more for him than I planned but he is just a little bit special.
“His bloodlines have been on my radar as a sire prospect, so now I should be right for a few years.”
Henderson, together with his brother Perry, breed for both the beef and dairy industries at Auahi Stud in Piopio, Otorohanga.
“We have bought from here before, Sandown’s sire Duty Free is doing a tremendous job in the breed, so we know with his new bloodlines and all the qualities of the X-factor we look for that he is going to be a great prospect for us in our future breeding programmes especially with the Charolais breed becoming more and more popular in the dairy industry.
“We will get the money back,” Henderson said.
“I am very confident for the future of the industry despite government wanting to turn us all into trees.”
Brent Fisher
Silverstream
Silverstream stud is run by Brent and Anna Fisher at Motukarara, just outside of Lincoln in Canterbury.
Brent says trends come and go and many don’t practically make a lot of sense but they still happen.
“One trend that is emerging is the need to be more efficient with our resources, this does make a lot of sense and there will be a time, which won’t be too far away, where we will be paid premiums for being more efficient.
“This is really where the beef industry will need to go if it is going to be truly competitive from a land use perspective.
“Very few industries have as much variation in their carbon footprint as the NZ beef industry and the exciting thing is we have a lot of scope to increase our output while reducing our carbon footprint.
“This is going to become more relevant going forward and is a good news story for our industry.
“Being more efficient won’t just have that feel-good factor of reducing our carbon footprint but it will make our industry more productive.”
Brent says the Charolais and Herefords are well placed to take the industry to the next level of productivity.
“I am very confident for the future of the industry despite government wanting to turn us all into trees.”
