Page 17 - NZ Herefords Magazine 2018

On Farm
Consistent quality and

quantity en masse

WORDS LYNDA GRAY
PHOTOGRAPHS LYNDA GRAY / RICHARD HORE

BEAUMONT STATION, ROXBURGH
OWNERS: ALAN AND JEAN HORE,
RICHARD AND ABBY HORE.

A half-bred and Hereford breeding and finishing enterprise
based on Beaumont Station and Marydale collectively, BEAUMONT STATION’S ALAN AND RICHARD HORE were
wintering 37,000 sheep and 5,800 cattle, and annually delighted in an understated southern way at the news of their
finishing 7000 to 8000 lambs and 900 cattle. home-bred heifers’ record-breaking success in the North Island.
There was no extroverted act of jubilation but nonetheless
BEAUMOUNT STATION: it’s clear that the pair took great satisfaction in the price-topping
• 28,000ha rolling paddock (9%) oversown (25%) and achievement (see pg 21).
native country (66%) bounded by the Clutha river on the Siberia Station’s James Hurley was quick to acknowledge
southwest and the headwaters of the Taieri river to the the role that the father and son played in the overall sales result,
northeast. Altitude ranges from 300 metres (homestead) in particular their talent at combining genetics and big numbers
to 1,208 metres (on the Lammerlaw Range, which to turn out A-list heifers.
bisects the station). The Hore family run 5800 Herefords, one of the country’s
largest commercial herds.
MARYDALE: The breeding hub’s 2400 mixed-age cows are managed
• 440ha south Otago easy rolling, fully developed finishing in a simple yet effective system based for most of the year on
farm, wintering about 600 terminal-sired lambs and 600 Beaumont’s oversown hill and native run country. Their job
18-month cattle on 20ha fodder beet and 10ha swedes. description is to consistently turn out top quality beef and breeding
progeny regardless of the variable and sometimes extreme
weather. That means being able to bounce back after long winters,
PICTURED: Richard and Alan Hore with Siberia-bound calve and raise offspring over a relatively late and short growing
heifers. The 200 yearling heifers selected by PGG Wrightson
agents in mid-October grazed Beaumont’s lower-lying season, and bear the brunt of adverse weather. They produce their
paddock country for about six weeks before being sent first calf at three-years-old, giving them time to grow out and adapt
in three unit loads over the final week of November. They to the run country environment.
weighed on to the truck at a 268kg live weight average, Development of the breeding herd has been a steady
20-plus kilograms more than 2016, reflecting the relatively
mild winter and excellent spring. The road trip took 36 hours, work in progress since Alan and Jean moved from Ranfurly
including an overnight stop in north Canterbury. to Beaumont in 1972. The station was largely undeveloped,
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