Hooked by the white belt

Successful embryo technology with belted Galloway

Tim Cronshaw

Happy families: Carole and Warren Millar with some of their cattle on Skean Dhu Belted Galloway Stud, near Dunsandel.

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Improving the genetics of a belted cow breed has paid off for a couple in Dunsandel, as TIM CRONSHAW found out.

They are the pandas of the cow world. With a distinctive stripe wrapping around their girth, the Belted Galloways closely resemble the colouring of China's famous bear.
In truth, they come in a range of colours, but they are best known in New Zealand for their black body and white belt.
At Skean Dhu Belted Galloway stud, near Dunsandel, the friendliest of a small herd tolerate a good back scratching by Carole Millar.
Scottish born Carole took a shine to the broad-chested, short-legged cattle four years ago and bought her first "beltie". Appropriately, they originate from her birthplace.
A good Belted Galloway should have a wide back and strong hindquarters, says Carole, who runs the stud with husband, Warren, at their 40-hectare property.
"Warren wasn't very keen on me having a horse and any cattle we chose had to, obviously, be a Scottish breed," says the former stud groomer. "The horns on the highland cattle put me off so I started to look at Galloways."
The Millars had heard about a herd of 25 cows owned by the late Graeme Williams in Dunsandel, so visited, with no intention of opening their wallets.
But Carole became smitten with the breed and returned with their first Belted Galloway.
A stroke of good fortune arrived when she began researching Galloways on the internet and came across a rare breeds website. This led her to Lorne Kuehn, a collector of rare breeds, who saved some Belted Galloways from the freezing works.
Carole bought two heifers and indicated she would be willing to buy several older cows if they were ever to be sold.
Some time later, Carole received a call from Kuehn and became owner of four more cows.
Among these bloodlines emerged Gretal, a cow that produced a yearling, Skean Dhu Braeval, that was supreme Galloway champion at last year's Royal Show in Christchurch.
These genetics are now spread throughout three-quarters of the Skean Dhu herd, including six youngsters impregnated as embryos in surrogate mothers. In her Scottish lilt, Carole says they owe Kuehn a debt of gratitude for saving this bloodline. "We were fortunate that Lorne thought we would do proud with him. We still have three cows and are exporting semen from them."
The Millars' Galloways are mainly belted apart from a standard all-black Galloway, with a calf now at foot.
As well as the belted blacks, there are whites with black points and belted duns, while Galloways with a recessive red gene are red with a white belt.
Warren says the belted black Galloways are popular for their colouring in New Zealand.
"A huge number are belted because of the obvious attraction of how they look in the paddock."
The first Belted and Black Galloways are understood to have arrived here in the late 1940s from Scotland. There was short period of popularity, but they never took off like other breeds.
In Britain, the standard Galloways, particularly, have a good reputation for excellent beef quality and remain the more commonly farmed animal.
Belted Galloways are less numerous because of mass cattle slaughtering during the last foot and mouth epidemic.
Carole was a show jumping enthusiast before advancing into stud grooming throughout Europe. The owner of the Swedish stud she worked with did a lot of artificial insemination and this experience helped in her crossover to Galloways. "Until six years ago I had never been near a cow. Going into the bull paddock terrified me, but now I don't think twice about it."
Warren came from a family dairy farm and reared calves and pigs before beginning a limousin stud.
He jokes that the Galloways have taken over, but he has a soft spot for them.
He believes the high-yielding beef quality of Galloway and limousin crossbreds would have topped the former Canterbury beef competition.
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Beef from Warren Millar's limousins are sold at the Dunedin farmers' market and the Millars plan to send their Galloways to farmers' markets when the national herd is large enough.
Galloways at Skean Dhu, named after the dagger inserted in a Scotsman's sock, have been weaned at more than 400 kilograms, albeit at eight to 10 months of age.
The Millars deliberately wean late because of the Galloway's great milking ability.
Belted heifers are mainly weaned at 250kg-plus and bulls at 320kg-plus. The cows can continue to calve until they are 18 years old.
Several visits to Scotland by the couple have convinced them of the Galloway's hardiness.
"When you drive around the countryside, you do not see them because they are out on the hills and on rough ground away from the road," says Millar. "You have to go to some place out of the way to find them and that is their strength. Galloways will forage around on feed that other cattle won't eat. They are very hardy and are good feed convertors."
Their resilience can be attributed to a double layered coat that enables them to carry less fat than other breeds.
This ability to withstand tough conditions means that they do not require pampering with grain and survive where other breeds wilt.
A major market for belted Galloways has been the lifestyle-block industry and, the Millars would like to see this continue, but with greater penetration in beef farming.
Some Southland dairy farmers use belted Galloways for first-calving heifers, a trend which has yet to catch on in Canterbury.
A few years ago, a lot of beef bulls were sold to dairy farms for heifers, but the skyrocketing payout made them more valuable as milking replacements and dairy bulls gained favour.
The Millars hope the downturn in dairying will coincide with more demand for Galloways.
Carole Millar is the Canterbury and West Coast councillor of the Galloway Cattle Society of New Zealand and the registrar of the national herd book.
She says Galloways would be ideal for the South Island hill country and, as numbers increase, breeders want to push sales in this direction. "Because our markets are lifestyle [block owners], the Galloway is sometimes not looked at by beef farmers. They are just looking at this black-and-white belt.
"We are trying to move the Galloway forward and breeders are working on the confirmation of the cattle by improving their feet and developing their hindquarters."
Southland breeders are leading this genetic advance and the Millars are working with them to bring new blood into New Zealand.
So far semen has arrived from Australia and they are labouring through red tape to try to get new genetics from Britain.
Few breeding centres in Britain have approval for exporting and it is a costly process with returns from small orders from Australasia hardly profitable, Warren Millar says.
They ran into complications after locating a Scottish bull on the internet only to be thwarted by rules that prevented semen entering New Zealand because the bull had not been tested for Q fever, a mosquito-borne infection from Queensland.
They met with more success after bringing in semen from two Australian bulls a year ago. An Australian breeder brought in a live bull into New Zealand in 2006.
The Millars have calves from the semen delivery and bloodlines from the Australian bull, Peppercorn Zula, now owned by Rob Hall from Southland. The trio have entered an embryo deal from the genetics of Gretal, splitting ownership of 16 calves.
Carole Millar is especially fond of the breed for its docile nature, making them easy to manage and handle, she says.
"The more time you spend with them the quieter they become."
She began to show them in 2006 and enjoyed early success culminating at the Royal Show last year.
Her Galloways are also prized in the commercial world. Overseas breeders now want to get hold of embryos flushed from Gretal after visiting Skean Dhu and admiring her calves.
This year, the Skean Dhu embryos are set to go to South Carolina and Utah in the United States.
"It's exciting for someone who just started as a hobby breeder. It has taken four years to get to this stage, and we want to improve the breed."

- © Fairfax NZ News