Megan Friel from Mt Mable Stud in Kumeroa was asked to review a book on the history of Aberdeen-Angus.
When Megan Friel first met Dr Robert Hough, it was online.
She had reached out to him after the Colorado-based author and academic wrote an article which resonated with her.
So when the Kumeroa farmer and Angus breeder was asked to review a book on the history of Aberdeen-Angus, she felt honoured.
It was 2012 when she first met him.
She says they were having a difficult time with their association, which was being dominated by people who felt they should forget about the art of breeding cattle.
“The only thing you’re interested in is numbers, the EBVs (estimated breeding value), which is fine if you’ve got a new herd and you’re picking and just buying numbers, but for established herds like ours, we were using cows that were related to the cows that predated EBVs.
“We were really battling.”
On the Mt Mable website, Megan states they have resisted boosting their EBVs through using fashionable animals or having a computer select a sire.
“We believe in breeding cattle based on lines of pedigree and years of family performance.”
Megan says she saw the article Hough had written which said that bigger was not necessarily better, and she reached out.
While they have never met face-to-face, they have “FaceTimed” and have had robust intelligent discussions, she says.
“He’s a purist - where he believed that the computer is always right, that people don’t cheat - and I’m here saying, ‘Well, actually, Bob, I’m sorry, but people do cheat’ ... and so we’ve sort of come right to the middle, where he actually acknowledges that there is room for interpretation.”
Hough, who has a PhD in animal science, has written the book the History of Aberdeen-Angus in the US, UK, and Worldwide, with co-authors Andy Frazier, from the UK, and Tom Burke, from Missouri.
Megan says the book goes right from the evolution of the Angus breed, the settling of the breed and the personalities involved in Scotland to the export of the animals around the world.
She says it’s also about the evolution of farming and how closely the industrial revolution is linked to the agricultural revolution.
“The industrial revolution would not have been possible without the agricultural revolution because you had to feed all the people in the cities [as they went] from being masters of their own food to actually relying on food turning up in the cities for them.”
The selection and specific breeding of cattle also happened around this time, and in the book, the authors talk about a couple of “geniuses” who were “doing their own thing to settle and develop a purpose-bred beef animal and settled on the Angus breed”.
Megan says reviewing the book was a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity because she believes with each of the authors being older, it would never get written again due to collective knowledge and the art collection.
“It’s really special,” she says.
“I’m so honoured to be able to read it.”
While it was just reviewing, Megan was able to catch some points that were wrong, or errors made.
Her contribution was also acknowledged with a mention in the book and an interview on the podcast Toplines and Tails.
Megan, who runs Mt Mable Stud with husband Kevin, found her passion in the work.
Mt Mable Stud was started in 1967 in Ōhura by Kevin’s parents and Kevin and Megan took over in 1997.
They moved to Norsewood and ran the stud there until 2015 when they moved to Kumeroa, where they found the weather to be much “kinder”.
It took some work to bring the then-run-down dairy farm up to standard, but in eight years, Megan says they have managed to turn it into a show farm.
Information on the book is available at https://www.angushistorybook.com/.
Leanne Warr has been editor of the Bush Telegraph since May 2023 and a journalist since 1996. She rejoined NZME in June 2021.
