Pinebank North America

[Pinebank]

grassfarmer and others.
Most interested in all your comments. Your concern about adaptability is ours as well, it is going tyo be interesting to see.
The pure Scotish cattle that we have adhered too came of course and evoluted from the highlands. Now 100 years since they left is only a breath in evolutionery terms. So I do not think that they would have lost any of the ability to stand up to snow and cold. Just a comment, our cold is a very wet cold and as such can be vert chilling.
It has not been our experience that a big increase in nutrition has increase our cattle size all it has done is increase their bulk. I imagine that this is just a factor in there ability to handle the high variation in feed supply and their ability to bulk up is just to protect them from downturns.
We have kept away from milk because it is antagonistic to fertility and fertility is our first cow requirement.
Anyway thanks for all the discussion. It is new to us as well as you this method of selling. And good on Gaucho !. The important thing ian any breed of anything is that everyone should not do the same thing. There is no progress that way.
May I leave you with one of my Genetic sayings...."Animals selected under a low environment, will perform just as well as those selected under a high environment when subjet to a high environment. BUt the reverse is not true"

[grassfarmer]

Good to get your input Pinebank and to share our international knowledge.
The Scottish Angus didn't really come from the Highlands - they came from the arable farms on the east coast of Scotland where it is fairly cold (by European standards) but also fairly dry. They only get 18-30 inches of precip. generally in these areas. The south west where the Galloways come from is milder but wetter maybe 45-65 inch precip. Further up the west coast where the Highlands and Luings come you get anywhere from 80-120 inches precip. It seems the more rain, the more hair hence the Angus, the Galloway and the Highland each progressively hairier than the other.

How does your rainfall compare where you are in NZ??

To use a human analogy I find Canadian winters quite pleasant really - even if it's -35C the sun is usually shining and you can dress for it - so can a cow with a good haircoat and the right body type.
In contrast I was often chilled to the bone working in Scotland with wind and rain and temperatures of probably 4 to 7C. Cows were the same, when you got into 3 week spells of that in winter without seeing the sun or a single dry day or dry place to lie you can pull condition off them in a hurry.

I'm not quite following your terminology on "not increasing cattle size but increasing their bulk" Are you saying that the cattle are tending to lay down more fat rather than growing extra frame when fed better? If so over what time period are you talking about increasing nutrition? Are you talking seasonally or have you increased feed to a group of them over say a 10 year period and watched for changes?
I'd be interested to learn more on this subject.

[Pinebank]

Thanks grassfarmer for the comments.
I was in China at Xmas some years ago when the temperature was goodness knows how low, but we were running around in business suits and the cold did not concern us because it was a very dry cold.
After we left the wind came up, and with it the chill factor. Then it was very very cold and reisidents retired in side.

About the increase in nutrition and size. One of the other members of our breeding Group farms under a very much higher plain of nutrition then us but his cattle remain the same size as ours. I was talking about seasonal change in our own herd and imagine that it is fat that the cattle bulk up on.