Mark McKenzie is a pioneer of the Speckle Park breed in New Zealand, teaming up with a colleague to import the breed into the land of the long white cloud, back in 2008. Adding Speckle Park to the long-running and well-respected Maungahina Stud prefix no doubt raised a few eyebrows among staunch Hereford breeders, with Maungahina having over a century of renown in the whiteface breed. But alas, Mark pushed forward with introducing Speckle Park to New Zealand, and he has worked hard in the years since to refine the breed to suit his conditions and industry demands.

Mark is the fifth generation McKenzie at Maungahina, near Masterton at the bottom of the north island. He operates the property with his father, Bruce, wife, Melissa, and their daughter, Molly, has recently joined the family business as the sixth McKenzie at Maungahina!

Mark has always taken a ruthless approach to culling, leaving him with a Speckle Park herd he is proud of. With the rise of the Speckle Beef meat brand in New Zealand, Mark sees a very bright future ahead for the breed – as long as the right animals are produced, with the right genetic merit.

If you enjoy this episode, please share it among your network, and leave a review. Thanks for listening! You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or Podbean.

Dwight Wyatt operates Wyatt Artificial Breeding Services and Meadow View Farms Speckle Park, together with his wife, Noela. They are based at Goolmangar, near Lismore in North East NSW. Dwight shares the same origin as the Speckle Park breed – he too originates from Canada, but has called Australia home since 1988.

Dwight was just 13 or 14 years old when he did his week-long training in cattle artificial insemination, a course run by the University of Manitoba. By the time he was 17, he had his own area to service, and was regularly inseminating dairy cows. For about 35 years, Wyatt Artificial Breeding Services has serviced predominantly the dairy industry, and Dwight has seen many trends and industry changes during that time.

One that is here to stay, he says, is Speckle Park. “We’ll probably be selling Speckle Park till the day we finish up because the dairy farmers love them,” he says. In this episode, Dwight shares his own experiences with Speckle Park, and those of his vast client base.

If you enjoy this episode, please share it among your network, and leave a review. Thanks for listening! You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or Podbean.