With a backdrop of Mt Hutt, one of the country’s largest, red-coated Milking Shorthorn herds is set off beautifully among kilometres of young native plantings.
They have put hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into fencing and planting out natural, spring-fed waterways on the farm, creating what will one day be one of an increasingly rare number of native stands on the Canterbury plains. The main stream is already teeming with fish – juvenile and adult trout, along with what appear to be native fish in some of the smaller reaches of the waterway.
It runs sparkling clear from where it springs up through the river gravels that lay below paddocks alongside Ashburton River. It has just a couple of kilometres to travel before the water rejoins Ashburton River but Mark and Jenny are determined to make sure that on its short journey through the farm it is protected and remains as pristine as it is at its source.
Snow and heavy frosts hit some of the plantings, including 1.8m high beech, this year but Mark is undeterred and is keen to continue, replanting any that don’t make it and spraying to keep weeds and grasses down.
Included in the wide range of natives are carexes, pittosporums and coprosma, as well as kahikatea, totara and kanuka. Cabbage trees and flaxes have also been planted around the farm for aesthetic and shelter value and to bring in native birds. About 400 beech trees have been planted this year alone.
Everything the McDonalds do on the farm is done with sustainability and longevity in mind, even if they know they won’t be around in 60 years to see the results of their labour. And at this stage it’s not clear if any of their children will be interested in farming. Their son Jack, 19, is studying engineering at university and George, 18, is embarking on a law and commerce degree, while daughter Annie, 15, is still at high school.
They don’t subscribe to the use of high rates of nitrogen (N), keeping to about 100 units N/year, applied strategically at low rates. Along with stewardship of the land, stockmanship and great animal husbandry also feature highly.
Mark has been smitten with the Milking Shorthorn breed since he was given a doe-eyed, red-coated calf when he was just 10. Most of the 570-cow herd Mark and Jenny own is made up of the attractive-looking reds, along with a few Holstein Reds and just a handful of black-and-whites.
Although thought to be the first milking cow introduced to New Zealand, the Milking Shorthorn is no longer common in the country’s dairy herds. The modern animals have come a long way from the originals, which were seen as a dual meat and milk breed, thanks to years of breeding in outside genetics. Mark has used Norwegian, Swedish and Danish red genetics, along with input from American and British bloodlines and the Australian Illawarra, a red breed that is also a blend created over the past century using Ayrshire, Milking Shorthorn, Jersey, Kerri Dexter and Friesian. While the herd is still best described as Milking Shorthorn, only about five cows in the McDonald herd could claim to be the original pure breed, Mark said.
In years gone by inconsistency among animals was the biggest criticism but with the work that’s gone on over the past 20 years with genetics that’s largely been answered. Mark hasn’t used any Ayrshire in his breeding programme because he is after a predominantly red animal, rather than red and white. He is primarily using NZ bulls that have had offshore influences in their gene pool, along with using a small amount of overseas semen.
Don’t be fooled into thinking Mark and Jenny are all about the softer side of dairying. Their main focus has been on profit and building their assets over the years, doing the hard yards as sharemilkers and keeping a close rein on costs, thanks to Jenny’s sharp accountant’s eye.
The herd averages 420kg milksolids (MS)/cow at a stocking rate of about 3.4 cows/ha on the irrigated inland Canterbury property, with total supplements of about 280kg dry matter (DM)/cow silage and about 200kg barley/cow fed in the spring and autumn to achieve the desired round lengths.
Mark said the Milking Shorthorns were generally said to produce about 10kg MS/cow less than a Friesian over a season but he believed they made up for that with less cow wastage and lower costs, particularly in animal health. The black feet were associated with lower lameness and the brown teats tended to get less cracking, which helped reduce mastitis.
Heifers are more likely to make it to a third lactation and cow wastage from culling is reduced.
Fertility also isn’t a problem, with an 8% empty rate after 11 weeks mating, with no intervention in the form of CIDRs or inductions. They artificially inseminate (AI) for six weeks and then follow up with their own Milking Shorthorn bulls.
Over recent years they have found more of their animals are carrying the poll gene, with more than a quarter of their replacement calves this year without horns. Mark finds the reds hold their condition well as young animals, although they can be slower to mature and can still be growing through their second lactation. So their third and fourth lactations can be their best.
Having hands-on control of young stock and the herd over winter is important to the McDonalds, so they lease a 154ha runoff at Anama, closer to the foothills. Young stock are grazed there and cows are wintered on kale, straw and grass.
Mark is originally from Stratford and Jenny from Edgecombe. Both are from dairy farming families, but they were latecomers to the industry, with Jenny maintaining her career. She currently works for Synlait and Mark is an accomplished, exhibiting artist.
They were in their early 30s in 1993 when they decided dairy could offer them a good future and managed to secure a 50:50 sharemilking job in Canterbury.
“The idea was we’d go down to make our fortune and then go home to Taranaki and buy a farm,” Mark said.
Almost 20 years later, they’ve bought the farm but they’re still in Canterbury.
They took a few Milking Shorthorns with them when they made the move south but their first herd was predominantly made up of 230 black-and-white cows bought from the farm owner.
Over the years they built up herd numbers to 540 and after seven years sharemilking they decided that rather than return to Taranaki they’d buy 138ha of a nearby mixed-cropping farm and convert it.
They continued with their sharemilking job to help fund the venture and ran their own farm with the help of farm managers until, in 2006, they decided it was time to simplify the operation by stepping out of the sharemilking job and concentrating on their own farm. By that stage they were milking 1000 cows across the two farms.
It was then they sold almost all the black-and-white cows and kept the reds they’d been building up. The couple had started their own pedigree stud, known as Brecon, named after the road they’d lived on in Taranaki.
Breeding pedigree cattle is in the blood, with Mark’s parents, Ian and Geraldine McDonald, known for their Ayrshire and Holstein Friesian stud Snowline.
Mark and Jenny have had success, with bulls being used by breeding companies. Brecon Jamiriquoi is a six-year-old bull used by LIC that tends to produce daughters with protein tests above 4%. LIC, Semex, Samen and Genetic Enterprises have all used genetic material from the McDonalds’ bloodlines.
They’ve had success in the show ring too, not common for Milking Shorthorns, attractive though they are.
“They’re usually the poor cousin when it comes to the ring,” Mark said.
So it was particularly pleasing when Mark and Jenny’s six-year-old Brecon Arty Empress placed second in the all breeds section at the Royal Show in Hamilton this year. She’d had previous success as all breeds champion at the Ashburton A and P Show in 2010 and placed third in the all breeds section at the Stratford A and P Show this year. Next stop is the Dairy Event in Feilding.
With his hands full running the Canterbury farm Mark calls on friends and other breeders to help show animals, with Phil and Hannah Faulkner, of Rongotea, getting Arty Empress to her show dates in the North Island. The irony is Arty Empress is the result of an accidental mating between her mother at nine months old with bull Brecon Arthur.
Attraction
Along with the bulls the couple also sells surplus heifer calves each year, mostly to people who have had some association with red breeds in the past. Mark admits that, much like those buyers, part of the attraction of the breed for him is simply the colour.
“They’re great-looking animals,” he said.
That’s not to say their breeding plan is influenced by prospects of ribbons.
“We don’t breed for the show ring. It’s an interest and a sideline – a bit of a hobby I guess. We’ve definitely got a commercial focus here,” he said.
Neither does he cull on colour, making those decisions solely on the usual factors such as fertility, mastitis and production.
“But we’re not seeing the black-and-whites increase in the herd though.”
The reds are holding their own when it comes to measuring up as a viable milking breed and at the same time providing immense pleasure.
“We’re here to run a profitable business, as well as enjoy what we do,” Mark said.
