Background
When Maggie and Hutch bought the farm, they were going to purchase cattle, but were unsure on what breed.
Maggie was brought up on the farm, but Hutch didn’t know the front end of a cow to the other. There was a lot to be learnt.
Maggie’s late mother always loved the Red Devon cattle breed. Upon talking with her Aunty Maureen, Maggie learnt the reason her mother loved the breed was because her late Grandfather (Vic Schischka) used Red Devon as oxen when logging trees on his farm in Puhoi.
The Red Devon are a strong and docile animal perfect for oxen cattle.
Research directed Maggie and Hutch to a stud owned by Wayne and Trish Aspin (Tinopai Red Devon) on Awhitu Peninsula, Glenbrook in September 2017.
Coincidentally whilst visiting Wayne and Trish’s stud in Glenbrook, to view Jed and Rye (17 month old bull calves), Wayne advised us that they were retiring and selling their farm and pedigree breeding herd.
Over lunch at the kitchen table we advised Wayne and Trish that we would like to buy their pedigree herd if they were willing.
We purchased Wayne and Trish Aspin’s herd and in January 2018 our herd of in-calf pedigree Red Devon’s arrived on the farm.
These cows calved in Autumn 2018 between the months of March and May and kept the new farmers busy calving.
After dealing with the mud, rain and short winter days Maggie and Hutch elected to change from autumn to spring calving and from mid September 2019 they saw the calves arriving in warm spring weather with plenty of food and sun.
