Online Reporter
JOHANNESBURG. — Recently, the Boran has become a topic of hot debate on social media in agricultural circles thanks to the sale of the bull BH 18 749 Cyclone to Zimbabwean farmer Collen Tafireyi.
The bull was sold at the Sinyo Boran Stud for a record-breaking price of R8 million at the Hurwitz Farming 10th Production Auction in August last year.
At the time of the sale, Tafireyi told Farmer’s Weekly:
“We are excited to have acquired this top bull.
“Cyclone is going to play a major role in our future plans in terms of breeding quality. Our plan is to breed the best Borans in Zimbabwe.
“We want to put Zimbabwe on the map.”
Tafireyi’s insistence that Cyclone is the right bull for this purpose is indeed high praise for the men behind his breeding: Simeon and Jarren Hurwitz.
And, while the Boran may now be growing in popularity, there was a time when it was hugely unpopular, and farmers were selling their animals for below slaughter prices to simply get rid of them.
“We were always true to the breed, even at a time when everyone told us we were wasting money by reinvesting in the Boran,” says Simeon.
With the sale of top-quality animals like Cyclone, it seems that the Hurwitz brothers are well on their way to having their names cemented in the Boran’s history in South Africa and, maybe, even further afield, but it hasn’t been an easy journey. The Sandton-based brothers took over their grandfather’s farm located in Bethal, Mpumalanga, in 2009.
Dr Barney Hurwitz was a pioneer of the Boran breed in South Africa.
Simeon and Jarren’s grandmother’s sister Reeva married into a farming family.
One of Reeva’s daughters, Marcelle, married a farmer in Mpumalanga.
As many farmers do at some point, Marcelle and her husband fell on hard times, and to stop the bank from liquidating the farm, Barney signed surety to keep the farm in the family.
Then, in the early 1990s, Marcelle’s son Evan, who grew up to become a veterinarian, along with his friend Shaun Morris, a well-known feedlot veterinarian in South Africa, began researching cattle outside of South Africa that were best suited for the country’s conditions.
This led them to the Boran, and acted as the foundation on which Hurwitz Farming was eventually built. Simeon explains that the Boran is very intelligent, and that it doesn’t jump fences and walk easily in hand.
“Where dams and calves are camped together, we’ve seen them create a type of ‘nursery’: a few cows will stay behind with all the calves, while the mothers go out to graze. They’ll later return to feed their calves.”
He says they have a calm temperament and are generally easy to handle.
The sale of Cyclone and Jasmine, says Simeon, is not only good for Hurwitz Farming, but also good for the reputation of the South African Boran in general.
“The Boran cattle are in huge demand in Zimbabwe, and that is why there is so much interest from Boran breeders in that country.
“However, while Cyclone is no longer in South Africa, his genetics are still here in the form of his progeny. We must remember that farmers put animals on sale to be sold. Where that animal ends up is determined by the open market. But that does not mean that we’re losing all our Boran genetics.”
He explains that as the protocols in Zimbabwe are different to those in South Africa in terms of where animals, semen, or embryos can be shipped. — www.farmersweekly.co.za
