Overland Simmentals is a new stud, built on an old base of Simmental cows. Overland Farm was a stud in the 1970's, and was de-registered to a commercial herd in the mid 1980's. In recent years we have added stud cows from Willowbrook (south of Timaru) and Brooklands (North Island).
We purchased our original Stud Bull from Glenside Simmentals -Glenside Ultimate AU12, He is an outstanding bull, polled and very docile. In 2012 we purchased Ida Valley- AY36 who is also polled. He was the top price bull at the Lone Pine sale 2012 and is a very thick set bull. In 2013 we also purchased another Ida Valley bull AZ 40 who is another example of the easy doing dark colour bulls that we are trying to breed. He was also the top bull at the 2013 sale.
Our heifers are running with a very good Leafland bull,who is also dark and a easy doing type bull.
Overland Simmentals operates over an area of 2150 hectares of medium to steep hill country ranging from 400- 610 metres a.s.l. Located north of the Waitaki River with a average rain fall of 450- 750mm .Pastures are all old english grasses, no new pasture species or kale etc.The aim is to challenge all stock to identify any animals that do not perform. We have the view that the bulls need to grow up eating this kind of pasture as most will end up on similar country. Our focus is on quality and temperament rather than stock numbers.
We are building our Stud numbers steadily, only keeping quality rather than trying to increase numbers too quickly. The top left picture of a 18 month old heifer is the type of cow we are striving for.
Overland Simmentals is a 9,000 s.u operation running 190 cattle, with the balance Corriedale sheep . We have 40 good stud cows and 50 non registered pure Simmental cows which came from Stone Hut and Overland's original stud. There are also 50 Herefords, replacements and 20 bull calves.