Angus Cattle

Angus is arguably New Zealand’s most popular beef breed. Imported from Scotland from as early as 1863, the Angus has been selectively bred to suit the climate and topography of New Zealand. The New Zealand Angus Association demands the best from this superior breed of cattle, and has implemented programmes to ensure that only quality Angus are born and bred in New Zealand.

History of Angus Cattle in New Zealand

The first shipment of Angus cattle to New Zealand - a single bull and three cows - is recorded in 1863. Subsequent shipments made by the New Zealand and Australian Land Company in 1875 and 1883 led to the establishment of two herds of approximately 60 head at Edendale, Southland and Totara, Oamaru.

New Zealand Angus cattle were exported to Australia as early as 1885, with registration records for NZ Angus dating back to the same time. In 1891 Angus cattle were moved to the North Island, with studs initially established in Hawkes Bay.

The New Zealand Aberdeen Angus Cattle Breeders Association, which in 1969 became The New Zealand Angus Association, was inaugurated in Hastings in 1918.

The first National Angus Sale was held in Hastings in 1919, moving two years later to Dannevirke. The breed grew rapidly, with entries in the sale increasing from 44 bulls in 1926 to 387 in 1962. In 1975 the National Angus Show and Sale moved to Palmerston North where it continues to be a key feature of National Beef Bull Week.

Over the years, importation of cattle - and more recently of semen and embryos- has seen New Zealand Angus breeders utilising genetic stocks from the United Kingdom and North America. This is today a two-way process. In the past 20 years over 1,000 Angus cattle have been exported and semen sales made to China, Japan, Scotland, Europe, the United States and Australia.

Total beef cattle numbers to 1995 in New Zealand are reported to be xx million. The Angus breed would account for over 60% of the beef breeding cow base with pure bred and Angus cross herds.

Advantages

Why Angus?

• Angus cattle are well suited to New Zealand’s farming systems
• Angus show great adaptability to the varying conditions of altitude, topography, climate, nutrition and management
• Angus thrives on green grass, yet has the constitution and resilience to cope with feed shortages and to recover quickly from drought and harsh winter conditions
• The Angus bull is today big, virile and rugged. In a cross breeding programme with dairy and beef sires, females mated to Angus sires showed fewer problems at calving than those mated to a selection of seven other breed sires used in the test
• Angus is a no frills breed, the cattle are easily handled and have good temperament
• Angus calves grow rapidly and efficiently on pasture or in a feedlot, reaching heavy weights when about eight months of age
• Angus is a genetically polled breed (horns can cause hide damage and bruising of other stock)
• The New Zealand Angus Association inspection system for animals transferred ensures that pedigree breeding stock are free from structural defects of feet, joints, jaws, teeth and reproductive organs and are true to Angus colour and type

Angus offer:

• increased herd fertility
• easy calving, easy care herds
• lower maintenance costs
• feed conversion efficiency
• access to the premium Asian market

The Angus Breeding Cow:

• Angus cows have the known ability to get in calf quickly, to calve without assistance, wean a good calf and get back in calf
• Angus cows milk well and are good mothers enabling them to safely rear a calf or calves to a heavy weaning weight.
• The Angus cow while rearing or carrying a calf is capable of withstanding periods of feed shortage and regains lost condition quite rapidly once the feed deficit is remedied.
• Angus cows offer a shorter calving interval than other breeds
• The Angus cow is an ideal animal when crossed with sires of other beef breeds.
• Very rarely does an Angus female experience calving difficulty when mated to an Angus bull or a bull from other beef breeds.
• Angus cows produce fast finishing progeny
• Angus cows can be run in large scale commercial herds under conditions where skilled labour is in short supply. They do not need to be pampered.
• The Angus cow is a good forager and is known for its longevity and consistent production.

Cross breeding

• Angus is used widely over other beef and dairy breeds to improve carcass quality, marbling, fat colour, meat colour and texture. The Angus cross also offers increased herd fertility and an easy-calving and easy-care herd.

Why Angus Beef

• Angus beef consistently achieves more desirable results in carcass quality determinants such as marbling, fat depth, fat colour, meat colour and pH, assuring a tastier and more tender product
• The Angus breed achieves better marbling scores than any other breed
• Angus carcasses yield a higher proportion of quality retailable beef than other breeds
• Angus steers can be finished at weights to suit all markets without losing high quality carcass composition
• Angus members are actively involved in quality control programmes for New Zealand bred Angus beef

Angus : "Clearly Superior"

• Angus beef has consistently shown itself to have better marbling, fat depth, fat colour and meat colour than any other New Zealand beef. And that’s what the expanding Asian market is looking for. And then there's aesthetics : the Japanese market prefers black cattle. Add that to their meat quality requirements and its easy to see where your best interests lie.

Profit from Angus

• To illustrate the effectiveness of profit in Angus cattle, a farmer can turn over three lots of 18 month steers at profitable carcase weights in five years compared with only two lots of 30 month steers in the same period of time
• An 18 month steer is wintered only once, as a weaner, which is very attractive compared with 30 month cattle twice wintered on grass and hay
• Actual figures taken over one season showed a breeder of Angus cattle received a monetary gain of more than 33% per month by killing cattle carried to 18 months of age than an income from cattle carried through to 30 months. The gain did not take into account the added saving on hay or additional supplementary food

Angus are market-led, easy care, selectable when purchased for a range of recorded performance traits, and are one of the most profitable breeds available

Organisation

The New Zealand Angus Association Incorporated

The New Zealand Angus Association (Inc) was incorporated in 1918. Today it has a membership of over 400 breeding and associate members. The Association is administered by a Council of ten members and employs a staff of one at its premises in Feilding, Manawatu.

An annual herd book of registered bulls and cows is published. The herd book entries are the progeny of approximately 29,000 stud Angus cows farmed in all provinces of New Zealand.

Performance Recording

From its inception an industry leader, the Association in 1946 introduced an inspection system that has been the envy of other breed societies.

Inspection ensures that only cattle which are structurally sound, correctly identified and which exhibit the traditional Angus characteristics, are passed for transfer. This has ensured that only consistent quality pedigree Angus cattle are utilised in stud breeding programmes.

The Association again led the way in performance recording with the introduction in 1979 of NZ Angus Breedplan & Group Breedplan.

Breedplan is a within-herd performance recording system which uses an animal’s own performance, plus that of all its known relatives, to predict its ability to produce superior progeny. Breedplan uses Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) to rank animals for the commercially significant traits of birth weight, 200 day growth, 200 day milk, 400 day growth, 600 day growth and carcass traits.

In the past, performance recording systems used weight ratios to express the performance of an animal in comparison with its herd mates. EBVs give a better estimate of the genetic merit of an animal because they look beyond the performance of one specific animal to the performance of the family.

NZ Angus Group Breedplan is a larger Breedplan analysis which includes the data from all the Breedplan performance recording herds in New Zealand. A trans-Tasman Breedplan analysis was first introduced in 1995 and is produced on an annual basis.

This analysis results in the annual NZ Angus Genetic Reports which include all sires plus the trait leading dams.

Marketing

A National Show and Sale of Angus bulls is conducted annually by the Association at Palmerston North. All bulls entered are selected and inspected. In addition there are around 70 annual auction sales of rising two year bulls held by individual breeders or groups of breeders and numerous private treaty sales.

International Arena

The New Zealand Angus Association is a member of the World Angus Secretariat which meets every four years in one of its member countries. These meetings are open to all breeders.

Further information

Contact:
John Turner, President, Telephone (09) 423 7776, Mobile (021) 513 199
Rob Wylie Executive Officer, Telephone 06 323 4484 Fax 06 323 3878
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