Couple: Happy cows, happy meat

Text: Dunedin Wagyu breeders Rachael Powell and Shaddon Waldie were like proud parents when their first carcass arrived at a local butcher.

The Taieri farmers admit an obsession with Wagyu cattle. The couple have been breeding the Japanese cattle since launching Tara Hills Farm Wagyu in 2014.

Now they are celebrating getting their first carcass on sale in a Dunedin butchery.

Powell likened the carcass arriving at Links Quality Meats to a parent farewelling their child for their first day of school.

Waldie agreed. "We are like worried parents," he said.

Before moving South, the couple had been living in Auckland. He was in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and she was working for a veterinary pharmaceutical company specialising in medicines for the dairy industry.

After a career change, he was deployed to Dunedin Airport as an air traffic controller for Airways Corporation.

She kept working in the same sector in the South.

Raised on a dairy farm in Waikato, Powell could never imagine working outside the primary industries.

The couple were renovating a villa on their 2ha lifestyle block in North Taieri.

"When we grow up, we'd like to be proper farmers," she laughs.

When her husband was on a night shift, she decided to buy a cow and a Google search on "best tasting beef" returned a result of Wagyu.

"That's how it started."

At the time, Wagyu cattle were scarce in the South and it took them three years to find some to buy.

They bought purebred Wagyu - two heifers and a steer - from Kaitaia in 2014.

Now the herd size was about 100, he said.

"We've been going pretty hard." Over the next couple of years, three calves arrived naturally and they began flushing embryos, transferring them to some local early-calving dairy cows.

Their favourite cow in their existing herd was a result of one of their first embryo flushes.

"She's friendly, she's also a bit stroppy, she's a lovely type and milks beautifully and has a lovely udder on her.

"She's super-reliable and grows amazing calves," Powell said.

Again when her husband was at work, she bought the first straw of 100 per cent full-blood Wagyu semen.

Now some of their purebred cattle had been bred to nearly 99 per cent Wagyu.

When she bought the first semen straw, she went for the most expensive of the limited amount available in New Zealand, paying $40.

"It turned out to be the perfect match. We could not have picked better for our foundation animals and you can't get it any more," she said.

Now they import semen from overseas.

When her husband was on another night shift, a Google search of "best Wagyu in Australia" turned up the name of breeder David Blackmore.

She emailed Blackmore saying "we are a little bit crazy but we're safe, can we come and visit you when we are in Australia".

He agreed and they spent half a day on his farm Blackmore Wagyu Beef in Victoria.

They imported full-blood embryos and semen from him in 2017.

From those embryos and semen, they produced their own full-blood bulls and cows for the first time.

Breedplan estimated breeding values released last week show their best bull calf from this season, Tara Hills Farm Vanquish, was in the top 1 per cent for eye muscle area and the top 5 per cent for marbling across the entire breed worldwide, Waldie said.

"A proper elite bull by international standards."

Their herd is now run across three Taieri blocks, some by a grazier and they visit the cattle most days.

"We might go two days, but Shad gets itchy feet. We are both obsessed."

The aim was to breed cattle which could reach their highest marbling potential on a grass-fed system, slowly growing them for five years to a weight between 850kg and a tonne.

"We are trying to take them as far as they can go," Waldie said.

The cattle were processed at an abattoir in Gore.

Their Wagyu was priced in the butchery to reflect the time and patience it required to supply a niche product, he said.

"They take forever to finish."

Prices for their Wagyu include eye fillet ($160kg), boneless rib-eye ($140kg) and a 150g burger patty with no other ingredients for $6.

Half of the first carcass sold in the first week showing there was a demand for the product, she said.

Breeding Wagyu was a passion project, which they hoped would one day be profitable.

"It takes a long time to become an overnight success," she laughs.

Waldie agreed. "It's taken a while but we are getting there."

The plan was to process four more cattle next year and the numbers would increase by two carcasses in the proceeding years until they were annually supplying a dozen carcasses.

The long-term plan was to buy a bigger farm, ideally with a winter barn, for the cattle to make weight gains in the colder months.

Wagyu cattle "inhale the baleage" in winter, but appear to lose weight and then "pack on the pounds" in spring, he said.

Farming on the Taieri was good, but land was expensive so the couple expected to one day move to somewhere in South Otago.

The plan was to stabilise the herd size between 100 and 120, keeping the business small enough to continue producing a premium protein and genetics to sell semen, embryos and calves.

Generally, they aimed to breed a balanced animal including cows to be "amazing mothers" with good milk production, to ensure a happy herd, he said.

"Happy cows, happy meat."

The business would never compete on a commercial scale or be profitable working to a meatwork schedule.

"If the animals get to the point where they pay for themselves and a mortgage on a cool farm and we could live there - I'd be pretty happy," he said. ¦ - Otago Daily Times