A stunning announcement in the Devon world this morning:\u00a0 the famed Rotokawa herd, which originated in New Zealand,\u00a0has been sold to Massachusetts breeder Henry Hauptman of East View Farm in Hardwick.\u00a0 Henry has been a fan of the herd from the moment he went into the cattle business and this fulfills a long-held dream.<\/p>\n
Henry tells us that he would not have considered the purchase of\u00a0the herd\u00a0Ken McDowall developed in New Zealand, if Ken\u00a0hadn’t promised to once again be personally involved in operations.\u00a0 We talked with Ken last night and he said\u00a0he would begin by traveling to the Hauptman farm in August to discuss breeding decisions.\u00a0 Both men expect to be at the North American Devon Association meeting in New York in September.<\/p>\n
A decade ago, Rotokawa, then based in New Zealand,\u00a0was at the center of the Devon resurgence in the United States.\u00a0 Ken exported semen and eventually 13 heifers to a partnership of Ridge Shinn, Gearld Fry and Chuck Lacy.\u00a0 Four years ago McDowall sold his\u00a0herd to the men\u00a0and the entire herd was moved from New Zealand to Massachusetts.\u00a0\u00a0Fry\u00a0left the partnership in 2009 and was eventually replaced\u00a0by Kim and Diane Miller of Ligonier, Pennsylvania and half the herd was moved to the Miller’s Kananga farm.<\/p>\n
Last night, the paperwork signed, about 50 Devon\u00a0were loaded\u00a0onto trailers and trucked backed to\u00a0Massachusetts.\u00a0 The Millers retain a number of calves for their personal herd.\u00a0 Shinn also received some animals under the agreement.<\/p>\n
All the principals involved in the sale are good friends and we wish them well.\u00a0 The Millers will continue raising cattle on their farm in Pennsylvania; Ridge Shinn expects to pursue several avenues including aggragating grass fed cattle to answer the growing demand; and Chuck Lacy has his own herd and is now the sole owner of Hardwick Beef, a growing meat operation in the northeast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A stunning announcement in the Devon world this morning:\u00a0 the famed Rotokawa herd, which originated in New Zealand,\u00a0has been sold to Massachusetts breeder Henry Hauptman of East View Farm in Hardwick.\u00a0 Henry has been a fan of the herd from the moment he went into the cattle business and this fulfills a long-held dream. Henry tells us that he would not have considered the purchase of\u00a0the herd\u00a0Ken McDowall developed in New Zealand, if Ken\u00a0hadn’t promised to once again be personally involved in operations.\u00a0 We talked with Ken last night and he said\u00a0he would begin by traveling to the Hauptman farm in August to discuss breeding decisions.\u00a0 Both men expect to be at the North American Devon Association meeting in New York in September. A decade ago, Rotokawa, then based in New Zealand,\u00a0was at the center of the Devon resurgence in the United States.\u00a0 Ken exported semen and eventually 13 heifers to a partnership of Ridge Shinn, Gearld Fry and Chuck Lacy.\u00a0 Four years ago McDowall sold his\u00a0herd to the men\u00a0and the entire herd was moved from New Zealand to Massachusetts.\u00a0\u00a0Fry\u00a0left the partnership in 2009 and was eventually replaced\u00a0by Kim and Diane Miller of Ligonier, Pennsylvania and half the herd was moved to the Miller’s Kananga farm. Last night, the paperwork signed, about 50 Devon\u00a0were loaded\u00a0onto trailers and trucked backed to\u00a0Massachusetts.\u00a0 The Millers retain a number of calves for their personal herd.\u00a0 Shinn also received some animals under the agreement. All the principals involved in the sale are good friends and we wish them well.\u00a0 The Millers will continue raising cattle on their farm in Pennsylvania; Ridge Shinn expects to pursue several avenues including aggragating grass fed cattle to answer the growing demand; and Chuck Lacy has his own herd and is now the sole owner of Hardwick Beef, a growing meat operation in the northeast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1004,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions\/1004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}