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Autumn 2008

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Farming for the Future

The Atahua Legacy

By Jackie Harrigan

Few people in the stud stock community of New Zealand or even in the wider farming fraternity have not heard of Atahua Legacy and his breeders, Alan and Michele Dalziell.

Michelle and Colin Dalziell: continuing the legacy

These unassuming and down-to-earth Angus cattle breeders from Kiwitea, north of Feilding, may be small in stature but they are giants in the world of breeding champion Angus bulls.

Atahua Legacy was their ‘once in a lifetime’ bull – the one every stud breeder strives to achieve.
Selling Legacy for $155,000 at the 1992 Beef Expo has been the highlight of Alan and Michele’s breeding career thus far.

Born in 1990 by American bull Jack’s Hudson out of a Summitcrest Powerplay M032 cow from the Quest family, Legacy was a special calf.

“He was like a big, gentle teddy bear,” Michele says. “You just wanted to touch him. He really had charisma.”

Alan comments that Legacy was the right bull at the right time, offering growth, depth and length. “We used him in our herd as a yearling and he just kept growing,” says Alan. “He was 1045kg on sale day.” The Dalziells thought he was something special “but you don’t know until you get to the sale ring.”

Atahua Legacy turned out to be more than just special, winning the led Angus class and the Supreme Champion Angus award, followed by the prestigious all-breeds Champion of Champions title.

Even then, Alan wasn’t sure how the bull would go in the sale ring.

“Syndicated bull buying was new and everyone was keeping quiet, even at the dinner the night before. People were avoiding us and the subject of the bull.”

“Alan said to me on the way home ‘no one wants our bull’,” Michele remem-bers. “Even our friends from Australia were very quiet about him.”

It turned out that they were also competing to own ‘the big teddy bear’ while other potential buyers were scrambling to form alliances and bidding syndicates and playing down their interest. All was revealed in the sale ring, however, when bids for Legacy raced past the reserve of $25,000, until Colin Williams of Kaharau stud and Charlie Dowding of Rangatira stud, both of Gisborne, won out with a bid of $155,000 – still the Australasian record price for a bull.

'Once in a lifetime' bull Atahua Legacy still holds the Australasian highhest

Legacy went into the AI centre at Awahuri and his semen was sold widely, especially into Australia.

Nor was he a one shot wonder. The Legacy bloodlines have continued to be prominent at the National Show and Sale, with Legacy sons winning the Champion Angus title for Atahua in both 1994 and 1995. Legacy has also featured in the pedigrees of other champions and commercial bulls throughout New Zealand and Australia.

Alan Dalziell was born and bred at Kiwitea where his parents, Verdun and Elsie, established the Atahua stud in 1956. Based on Mangatoro and Puketutu bloodlines, the herd was around fifty cows when Alan and brother Colin joined the family operation in the 1970s.

Australian Michele was lured away from a neighbouring Hereford stud, and she and Alan married in 1980. Her background was in cattle preparation and showing, with experience in Victoria, Australia and on a two-year exchange to South Dakota, USA .

“I grew up wanting to work with horses but there were more oppor-tunities with cattle, so cattle became my work and horses my hobby,” she says.

Alan and Michele and Colin and his wife Louise still run the operation as a family partnership.
Alan and Michele live on the 240ha Kiwitea property running 150 stud cows and calves, 3 herd sires, 56 R2yr bulls, 60 R2yr in-calf heifers and 30 18-mth steers. They also finish lambs from the 800 Romney cross ewes run on the property together with 1000 lambs from Colin and Louise’s farm at Apiti.

The Apiti block is 284ha of medium to steep hill country running 50 stud cows and 2500 Romney and Perendale ewes and replacements. All lambs are usually finished at 17.5-18 kg but this year, for the first time, some have been sold store.

In the past the Dalziell’s wintered all the stud cows on a lease block next to Colin’s farm but they are now grazed at Taihape from April to August.

“Our country gets wet in winter and the cows would make a huge mess of it,” says Alan. “Grazing at Taihape is really good for them – the hill country means they come home fit and we don’t have any calving problems.

“One stock agent said to us ‘you can’t run stud cows on those hills’, but if the cows don’t survive there we don’t want them in our herd. They have to perform under commercial conditions because our commercial bulls are our bread and butter – the odd stud bull is a bonus.
“We run them all in a commercial way, using them to keep the pastures right for the lamb finishing operation, or to clean up the hills out the back.”

The Kiwitea and Apiti properties are run separately but share some stock classes. Alan is generally the cattle stud-master while Colin’s area of respons-ibility is the sheep operation.
With ten Supreme Champion Angus awards and six Champion of Champions trophies, the Dalziells have had terrific success at Beef Expo since they began selling at the Palmerston North event in the late 1980s. “It’s a great showcase for the Angus breed,” Alan says.

The stud has twice won Champion and Reserve Champion on the same day.

“We always use half a dozen of our best yearling bulls for mating and once they’re finished we look at which will go forward to the Beef Expo,” Alan says.

The couple have mated yearling bulls to both yearling heifers and older cows since the 1980s.

“It’s a matter of getting the genetics stacked in – proving bulls faster and turning over genetics faster.”

The yearlings go out with heifers at a ratio of 1:25 and with cows at 1:30.
As well as selling at Beef Expo, Atahua has two annual on-farm sales selling rising 2yr bulls in June and yearlings in September. Dairy farmers used to make up the bulk of the buying bench for yearlings but more beef farm-ers are now buying younger bulls to cover yearlings or two-year-old heifers.

“They pay lots of attention to birthweight EBVs, whereas buyers of older bulls are more focused on 400 and 600day growth EBVs,” says Alan.

A question of balance
Breeding principles at Atahua are focused on doing the basics right and maintaining a balance between traits.

The Dalziells aim to breed a moderate framed, structurally sound, easy-fleshing type whilst maintaining the maternal traits of fertility (there are no excuses for dry cows or heifers), udder attachment and teat shape. They strive to improve growth, muscle pattern and carcase yield and quality, combined with constitution and temperament.

Breeding bulls that will perform in any environment is the aim.

“We don’t select on single traits in our herd,” says Alan. “We use the figures as a tool and concentrate on keeping a balance between phenotype and geno-type. The same applies when purchasing a sire to use in the herd.”

Following research and buying trips to USA, Alan came home with Summit-crest Powerplay M032 followed later by Jack’s Hudson – the sire of Legacy.

“M032 set up a good cow base for us, as he was a bigger bull with extra length and still good muscling, and although it wasn’t measured then, he had good IMF,” says Alan.
“We’ve used other US semen since, but it got to the point where I preferred what we had at home, so it was time to consolidate and use more homebred and other New Zealand bulls and semen. It’s about always keeping balance.”

The aim to breed a moderate framed, structurally sound, easy-fleshing type whilst
maintaining maternal traits including good udder attachment and teat shape.

The recipe seems to be working. At last year’s Beef Expo Atahua TJ sold for $57,000 to Tangihau Station, Gisborne, as well as picking up another Champion of Champions trophy and Michele’s fav-ourite trophy, the Dalstud and Te Mania trophy for the top price.

Michele says Alan has a natural eye for choosing the right cow to mate with the right bull. “He’s able to see a cow’s strengths and see which traits will be complemented by a bull’s strengths.”
Alan credits ex-studstock agent Pat Cooper with offering them encourage-ment and support. “Pat is a very astute cattleman and he’s great at seeing what people’s breeding programmes really need – he can put the right cattle with the right breeder.”

Customer service is important. The Dalziells have many long-time bull clients and use follow-up calls and visits to discuss client’s breeding objectives and check on the progress of bulls.
A more rigorous semen testing regime has been used for four years using tests developed by Dr Hennie Strydom BVSc. Semen motility and morphology is examined along with scrotal measurements, palpation of scrotal contents and internal sex organs and a visual inspection of the penis.

“Breeding cattle is a ‘people business’; it’s all about trust and building relationships,” says Alan. “Buyers need to have peace of mind that the bulls are fertile and in good shape.”

The tests pick up any penis problems and semen abnormalities, and suspect bulls are culled.
As for the future, Alan and Michele have three children, teenaged daughters Rebecca and Kirsten and son Jason who, at 23, is currently working off-farm. Colin and Louise have a 2 year old son, Alec. “You never know who will be keen to be involved in the future,” says Alan.

The Dalziells are excited at the momentum AngusPure is generating and have supplied steers and heifers to the branded beef programme.

“We keep the programme in mind when selecting bulls and always make our commercial clients aware of it,” says Alan. “We’re looking forward to suppliers being paid a premium for a premium product.”

In the meantime, Alan spends as much time as possible in ‘The Back Pad-dock,’ the family’s two year old fishing boat, which offers family time off the farm and on the water fishing and relaxing.

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