Tinopai Red Devons

The Tinopai Red Devon Cattle Stud owned by Wayne and Tricia Aspin welcomes viewers to their web page.

We were formerly owners of the high genetic Tinopai Pedigree Jersey Stud that was dispersed in 1989. Since then we have been in deer, beef, and dairy grazing farming with last of the deer being sold in 2007.

Red Devons were chosen for our beef enterprise because of the breed's docile nature, good fertility, early maturing and a reputation for easy calving. They are good grazers and being a mid-size British breed are easier on the land than larger exotics. Our first Devons were four pregnant autumn-calving cows with calves at foot, five empty yearlings, and a yearling bull, purchased in 2002 from the Thelmara Stud of Mrs Tuppy Jones. In 2007 another 13 M/A cows from Joan Powers' Isca Stud were purchased along with the outstanding three year old polled bull Isca Quixote. Quixote is now a mid-size frame, well muscled seven year old weighing 990kg. He is of excellent conformation and with superb temperament. His progeny are of consistent Devon type with good muscling. Their average birth weight is 36kg; range 32-42kg with no calving difficulties. His progeny have a quiet temperament and are pleasant to handle. His oldest female progeny are now third calvers with compact udders, small teats, sound feet and good frames. No calving problems have been experienced with his daughters. His EBV's place him among the best Red Devon sires in the country along with his similar bred half-brother Isca Quicksilver. Quixote's dam, 14 year old Isca Ioda passed on this year. She was a daughter of Matahaia Tammy 3rd P (Gold Star) a cow that lived to 19 years and left the best family at Isca. Tammy's son Isca Mustang has two top Isca daughters at Tinopai and their progeny from Quixote are extremely promising at this stage. Mustang also has a high EBV. A highly impressive cow in our herd is Ioda's daughter, Tinopai R866 Ida 729 H, a dam worthy of producing Stud bulls.

Our three year reserve sire Tinopai Jason is one of few known polled sons in NZ of the British sire Brightly Diamond. He has some impressive well muscled calves at foot and we look forward to his EBV lifting considerably. Brightly Diamond has also sired a top cow in our herd, Tinopai BD Pammy 701 Sc. Pammy has an excellent well caught udder with smallish well placed teats.

In 2010 we purchased five of the best polled first calvers with calves at foot from John Dunn's Dunnland Stud, along with four of the best polled yearlings. Four of those purchased are from the renowned Braelands Dainty family and also a descendant from Monavale Red Girl in Dunnland Red Girl. Her son, Dunnland Red Sunset P, is an outstanding individual who we intend to mate with the 2010 and 2011 born heifers.

Also purchased in 2010 were four yearling polled heifers from Colin Nash's Woodland Stud from the Helen, Nicola, Delilah and Thistle families along with the a 2yr sire Woodlands Tone Sc. Used by Colin over his heifers, he is by Palinga Lewis from a polled Tilbrook Sunset daughter Woodlands Helen 20th . A short gestation bull, his EBV is above average.

We are now on Breedplan and are utilizing the useful information that it provides. Tinopai welcomes other breeders and interested parties to visit us on Animal Inquiry. Enter our stud name and the year progeny are born. This will give you all the animals' pedigrees going back to when the NZRDA was first started as well as the animals latest EBV.

We are currently testing our Devon stud cattle for the A2 protein gene and are actively breeding towards this goal with the knowledge that there is a portion of genetics within the human population that have health issues consuming milk and meat products containing the A1 gene. Trial work in Australia also indicates that A2 is associated with meat tenderness. This follows work initiated by Louise and Greg McConnell in their Hau Hiwi Stud.

This year our calves are by Isca Quixote P, Tinopai BD Jason 711P, Tinopai IQ Pomp 920 P and Woodlands Tone P and the autumn calvers are once again pregnant to them. This spring we will be using semen from Hansett Hamilton a British Polled sire and next year we hope to introduce Australian polled genes from Bongalabi Atlas.

The Tinopai Stud is now made up of 39 autumn and 20 late spring calvers. All except 5 are polled. In the near future we hope to settle on 70 breeding cows, plus replacements, surplus 2year sale heifers, 12-15 bulls for annual sale and the balance for the local prime meat market. 50 bulls have now been sold since 2006, mainly into the dairy industry with some going to other Devon breeders, other breed beef breeders, and lifestyle farmers.

Our environmental-award winning farm of 73 hectares on the Awhitu (Manukau) Peninsula has three QEII native tree reserves plus small timber lots of Pinus radiata, Tasmanian blackwood, Leyland cypress, Cupressus lusitanica, and Californian Redwood. The terrain is rolling, intersected by three gullies and the light sandy clay loam soil tends to dry out in the summer. The effective pasture area is 67 hectares and is predominantly rye/kikuyu. Average rainfall is 1100mm.

All visitors welcome

Wayne and Tricia Aspin; Ph/fax 09 2351074;

aspin@ps.gen.nz

195 Hatton Rd.
Awhitu
RD 4
Waiuku 2684

- (up date Nov 2011)

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