On a sometimes frosty farm in Hamilton stand the world's leading heat-tolerant cattle.
A bull named Slick Grazer was the first, and was a good performer until his untimely demise at 4 years old after an unfortunate incident with his penis and a fence.
Heat-tolerant cattle have been the work
of Dairy Solutionz directors and friends Derek Fairweather and Paul Bardoul.
The cattle are ideal for hot places such as Australia, Asia, South America, Middle East, America. The cattle have a resting temperature 1C cooler than standard breeds.
The discovery has been about 11 years in the making. It was on a trip to a barren, desert-type farm in Venezuela, when the pair were working for Innovation Park, Hamilton, where they noticed something unusual.
"We went to one particular farm, that looked like the desert, in the middle of this cactus-covered, arid, flood-irrigated oasis and in that oasis were some pretty interesting cows," Fairweather said.
"It was hot, humid and they were doing pretty good [milking 25 litres] and that's pretty good volume for something that's exposed to a lot of heat stress. To do 25 litres is a good amount of milk."
What they also found interesting was that although the herd had trees to sit under - they opted to sit in the sun.
"With all that heat stress going on, they were obviously quite comfortable. We thought 'there's something interesting about that cow'. We didn't know what we were really looking at but saw the behaviour and thought there was something significant about that animal," Fairweather said.
The cow was a native Venezuelan breed called Carora. The following year Fairweather and Bardoul spied another cow, with a different breed composition, producing similar litres in hot conditions in Costa Rica.
New Zealand has five million dairy cows. A further 250 million cows live in tropical conditions. Fairweather said being able to tap into that tropical market would bring endless opportunities.
A year after that 2006 trip, they used semen from Australia and America and started breeding.
"We didn't muck around. We saw something and we did something about it. A lot of people have an idea but don't do anything."
That's when foundation bull Slick Grazer came along.
"Our foundation bull has given us enormous confidence in the whole blood line. We've got six years milking with the breed."
Unfortunately Slick Grazer's breeding days are over after he broke his penis jumping a fence to chase heifers.
"He was becoming a ratbag and worked out how to open gates - he would just push them off their hinges and off he'd go."
Now the company has four blood lines of the heat-tolerant breed to work with for various farming systems.
They worked with big cattle farmers in the United States, but also with aid organisations who buy the semen for farmers in less productive countries, including Ethiopia.
