Karoo Brahmans - Quality not Quantity
Together with my partner Stephen and 2 daughters Amber and Cara we farm a small block, in Wellsford and Kaiwaka. There's the usual menagerie of animals that goes with having land: chooks, rabbits, pet show-day calves (that will never leave) etc.
We also breed Bloodhounds - my other passion.
My love for Brahmans and Brafords all started when I was given two week-old Santa Gertrudis cross heifers.
I instantly fell in love with the droopy ears, the loose skin and their devoted personality. One of these heifers was Peppa. She grew into the most magnificent cow, and always impressed me with her ability to take care of herself, grow a great calf on the ground, cycle shortly after and get in calf first time, over the years Peppa produced 4 beautiful heifers, that we still have, and 2 incredible bulls. She is the great matriarch of the herd. The first few years we mainly used Braford Semen but I wanted more Brahman content so we then went to Brahman semen, until a suitable quality bull was available.
The opportunity arose to purchase purebred Brahmans from the last lines of progeny originally imported from Queensland, Australia in 1992. So with Mighty, my new bull, Karoo Brahmans was established. Now 14 years on, we have a quality herd of Grey and Red Brahmans and many crossbred Brahmans.
From the 6 Red embryos imported from Australia 3 confirmed pregnancys gave us 2 heifers and 1 Bull born in late Feb and March 2009, a dream finally fulfilled espically our very special Bull - Karoo Scotty's Hokey Pokey named in memory of a very precious boy Scotty.
Preperation for showing Ruby, Hazel and Hokey started very early, at 10 months old we took them to their first show it was very successful and the response was astounding. To see their progress on the show circuit, have a browse through there individual pages. We are very excited about the future of these Brahmans not only in the show ring but the progeny we will see from them.
In storage is semen from the magnificent Tartrus Mr Magnate Manso 2612. Also the recent prurchase of Fernhills Kingston 1840 and Chudley Blockbuster semen both red polled bulls will be used this September with Ruby and Hazel. We are looking forward to the seeing the results of both of these fantastic genetics.
All our cattle are kept behind 2-line hotwire fences and tape gates. They are quiet and easy to shift and work with. My favorite time of year is calving, the advantage of Brahmans is they are easy calving; low birth weight calves but once on the ground make incredible weights gains. The cross bred cattle shift and do, and tend to finish a lot earlier than traditional breeds.