Fossil Creek Angus

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The Fossil Creek Journey

The Fossil Creek Angus Stud was established by Neil and Rose Sanderson over two decades ago – harnessing a passion and focus on breeding robust genetics.

In 2015 when the Sandersons recognised the heightened demand for Fossil Creek genetics and the need to grow the stud to an even larger scale on hill country – they approached Blair and Jane Smith to become partners in Fossil Creek Angus- who now run the Fossil Creek Breeding cow herd on their Five Forks hill country farm and are active partners in the business. This partnership builds on the strengths of the four of us and the team around us.

The Fossil Creek Herd

We are proud of the fact that the Fossil Creek Stud has spent decades balancing all traits that are important to our clientele for both productivity and profitability in their commercial herds. It is essential that the Fossil Creek Angus genetics can perform in all conditions throughout New Zealand.  

While calving our 340 stud Angus cows in snow prone tussock country at 650 metres above sea level is a good challenge for our genetics, the real test is how they perform  in your breeding herds.

Fossil Creek Angus Sales

Since its inception, the focus of the Fossil Creek Angus herd has not deviated. We aim to produce genetics that reward our clients with the greatest return for the least input. We sell not only our genetics but a programme of integrity, unqualified customer support and product guarantee.

 Our flagship event is our Annual Rising 2 Year old Fossil Creek Angus Bull sale in mid June, with all clients and potential buyers encouraged to visit our breeding herd, young stock, herd sires and the bulls for sale at any time.

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Our Beef in action

 

We are passionate about growing robust and well grown livestock and conformation comes first. At no time does this override any breeding value attribute. We take pride in our land and are proud to show you the tussock environment that our new crop of Fossil Creek Angus calves are born in annually and take delight in watching our bull team grow out each year, ready for you to select the right genetics for your individual needs.

This is what drives us.

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2 months ago

Fossil Creek Angus
Looking for an extra pair of hands during Autumn?Edward Boyer is 21 and is a family friend of ours, and has grown up on a large sheep, beef and cereal cropping farm in Victoria, Australia. He recently graduated with a Commerce degree and is keen to experience 3 months of farming in New Zealand.Ed is keen to go anywhere in NZ, and could spread his time between a couple of farms or even a month at 3 different farms.He is super fit, keen on stock work, tractor work, harvesting or a mix of everything. Loves hunting, fishing, footie and cricket and promises not to harp on about AFL too much....(as Blair says, only the Aussies would invent their own game just so they could be good at it!)Ed has heaps of references available, and would love to hear from you if you think you could take him on for a few weeks or even the full 3 months. He arrives early Feb and could be here until the end of April.Contact Ed on ejboyer13@gmail.com(Or give Blair and Jane a call on 0274324154 / newhavenfarms@netspeed.net.nz) ... See MoreSee Less
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2 months ago

Fossil Creek Angus
Great day for the old nag (Jane) to saddle up the other old nag to check the cow/calf/bull mobs. With single-sire mating and a dozen mobs, we chew through feed at this time of year but its also a good way for the girls to clean up the hill block before Autumn. ... See MoreSee Less
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3 months ago

Fossil Creek Angus
Neil and Rose hosted a "BVs , BBQ and Beers" session with some keen Gen Z's last week, covering areas such as what to focus on when buying bulls, reading EBV tables and graphs, and growing and breeding replacement heifers. A great evening of good food, good banter and tricky questions from the next generation of beef farmers, topped off with an 'eat and rate' steak tasting to emphasize the growing importance of eating quality traits. ... See MoreSee Less
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3 months ago

Fossil Creek Angus
Introducing the 2023 Fossil Creek Forward Pack.... who headed out into the hills with their girlfriends last week. A.I sires joining them on the field this year include Tehama Testament, Stokman Solution and of course Te Mania Rustler R300 who is currently up north at his co-owners, Stokman Angus. Looking forward to seeing the latest batch of calves in September 2024! ... See MoreSee Less
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3 months ago

Fossil Creek Angus
A busy couple of weeks @ Fossil Creek with our 2023 A.I programme underway including Te Mania Rustler R300, Tehama Testament and Stokman Solution S239 . We get fairly quick at drafting up cows and calves at this time of year, mainly through lots of practice rather than skill!Thanks to Dave and Amy from Veterinary Centre - By The Big Blue Cross for being the vital part of the A.I team. ... See MoreSee Less
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3 months ago

Fossil Creek Angus
Neil and Rose recently spent some time up at Twinburn Station sorting up breeding heifers with recently graduated Growing Future Farmers student, Ellise O'Neill Neil and Rose were super impressed by Ellise's knowledge and passion for livestock and genetics. The future is in good hands with young farmers like Ellise! ... See MoreSee Less
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4 months ago

Fossil Creek Angus
We are pleased to welcome 3rd Year Vet student Kayleigh Gill to the Fossil Creek team for the next few weeks - plenty of action here with our A.I and E.T programme underway......Kayleigh will be a proficient cow/calve drafter by the end of her placement, and she might even understand some of Blair's hand signal instructions by then too! ... See MoreSee Less
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4 months ago

Fossil Creek Angus
Very exciting to be holding a B+LNZ Genetics Beef Study trial here at Fossil Creek with our 160 Yearling and 70 Two year old Heifers, using @SenzTag @CowManager tags to analyse a wealth of fertility data. A great effort from the team to get the tags installed and all the I.T that goes with it, including the network of solar panels (a trickier job up on the hill block but will be definitely worth it once the data starts rolling in!). Exciting future possibilities for NZ farmers to have this technology in the field ... See MoreSee Less
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6 months ago

Fossil Creek Angus
Fossil Creek Angus ... See MoreSee Less
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6 months ago

Fossil Creek Angus
Fossil Creek Angus ... See MoreSee Less
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CLIENT COMMENTS

We have bought 44 Fossil Creek Angus bulls over the last 13 years. Lambhill Station has a very rigid genetic selection policy and an emphasis on maternal traits eg positive fats, longevity, reproduction, moderate mature weights (aim for a 550kg LW cow at weaning time) and find the advice given and the follow-up service to be very useful. Yearlings are mated and cows must produce a calf every year to survive. Our country runs along the Taieri Gorge and is steep and inhospitable with a 550mm to 650 mm annual rainfall, no supplements are fed, but the genetics we are developing are well adapted to this and our calves are highly sought after by finishers. We have repeat buyers for our surplus in-calf heifers, cows and calves.

Chris & Lucy Thomson

Lambhill Station, Hindon

The Fossil Creek Angus bulls we have been bringing to the Cascade Valley in South Westland seem to tolerate the 3 metre rainfall, get the job done with the breeding cows and always produce sale topping weaners. Our surplus heifers in particular have regularly fetched significant premiums at calf sales.

Keith Muldrew

Cascade Station, Haast

We have now moved to finishing all our own bred cattle. The progeny of our Fossil Creek Angus finish early and when we are buying in calves we are very careful with our selection and are prepared to pay more for Fossil Cree Angus bloodlines. The follow-up service and knowledge about genetic selection and female performance has really helped develop our cowherd to thrive in the Omarama high country over the past 15 years of buying bulls from Fossil Creek.

Richard & Wendy Parsons

Twinburn, Omarama

We have been buying bulls from Fossil Creek for over 20 years. During that period we have also bought a few bulls from other studs but have found the Fossil Creek bulls to suit our environment best – are quiet and breed highly sought after progeny at sale. Fattening our own young stock for high value premiums is now a real option for us.

Fraser and Amanda King

Hororata, North Canterbury

Since we have been buying Fossil Creek Angus bulls, our strike rate with SFF Eating Quality carcase specs has risen markedly. The bulls we buy have great temperaments and we have recently embarked on an AI programme with some Fossil Creek herdsires to improve our carcase quality and female genetic base even more. We are enjoying being at the cutting edge with our beef, sheep and deer breeding programmes.

Cleveland Family

Braelyn Farms, North Otago

Since buying Fossil Creek Angus bulls, our herd fertility has gone up. This year our 2 year first calving heifers scanned 100%. The temperaments are fantastic and we are delighted with our strike rate in Silver Fern Farms Premium Grade. Our next focus is marbling with Fossil Creek.

Georgie & Walter Cameron

Wainui Station, Kurow