Ngātea-based Pirie Farms attended the NZ Dairy Event at Fielding between January 24 and 26 where New Zealand’s best cattle were exhibited.
Pirie Farms director Julie Pirie told The Profile she helped co-ordinate the Youth Team Challenge at the event which her daughter Ella and Ngātea resident Chloe Sargent competed in with Kimberley Simmons from Invercargill and Jacoba Gread from Morrinsville.
The team, called Hot Shotz, competed in clipping, parading and judging to place first in the Open Country Youth Team Challenge.
“[Ella] was very thrilled because there were a lot of other great animals there so it gave her an opportunity to see how hers compared. She was pretty happy with how they did,” Julie said.
Ella also competed individually at the event where she paraded her yearling, calves and cow.
“[She] had quite good success with her animals, her calf won her class, her yearling won her class, her calves got second and third, and her cow went on to win reserve champion intermediate and combined breeds,” she said.
“We hadn’t gotten into showing cattle at that local level before, but now that Ella has got involved she really enjoys the comradery and to catch up with all her other friends who were there to show cattle.
“It gives us the opportunity to portray what we do in quite a good way on the farm. But you have to go in with eyes open, it is a lot of work but you don’t have to have your own animals to take along you can just help somebody.”
Julie said she also managed and organised the New Zealand Jersey team, which competed against six Australian teams at the International Dairy Week held in Tatura, north of Melbourne, from January 14 to 19.
“In the past we’ve won it much to the surprise of the Australians, but this year we placed sixth, which in hindsight is not too bad because we’ve had a couple of years where we couldn’t do much in terms of that competition,” she said.
“But the highlights [this year] were the clipping team who scored 98 out of 100 and the parading team performed very well.”
