As third generation farmers, farming is in our blood. Mike’s parents Alistair and Di Smith founded Kincardine in 1969, and with Alistair’s keen eye and perfectionist attitude the stud flourished selling bulls across the South Island as well as a live export bull into Australia. In fact the Customs-made crate had to undergo some urgent expansion prior to shipment for the bull to fit due to his vast dimensions.

Alistair and Di later sold their farm in the Canterbury foothills and share-farmed the stud cattle with friends in the industry until we were in a position to take over the stud. We owe a huge thanks to them both for enabling us the opportunity to now be able to have our impact on the Kincardine Stud.

Our breeding programme started with the use of the top performing Kincardine cows, chosen for their fertility, soundness, longevity, temperament and performance genetics. This strong foundation continues today.

Initially leasing Cone Peak station on the North face of the Remarkables mountain range in Queenstown and share farming at Glen Nevis Station enabled Kincardine genetics to be trialed through 400 commercial cows run across the properties. Calves were mustered by helicopter at Cone Peak off two large hill blocks where the weak never got a second chance. Temperament was imperative as the commercial calves saw humans once at calf marking and again at the weaning muster. There is no substitute for testing temperament than having a roundup in the morning with the chopper and then straight into weaning in the afternoon! Hence the magnificent temperament we have in our cattle today.

Due to the popularity of the Kincardine commercial calves at the Cromwell calf sale and after numerous approaches as to where we were purchasing our bulls from, we began selling rising 2-year-old bulls again privately in the paddock. This has led into todays online auctions.

We welcome enquiries and are happy to show you around any time you are passing.

Mike and Gemma Smith, Kincardine Angus

Our cows are mated to specifically chosen sires to positively influence the herd and establish strong genetic gains for our clients and finishers alike where paddock performance to the pleasure of the finest restaurant steak is considered.

Our focus is on ensuring that we remain true to the integrity of the Kincardine stud breeding fundamentals – structural soundness, fertility, docility, do-ability, durability, carcase and growth performance.

All females calve as two-year-old’s after being well grown and fit from grazing on the hill. Calving begins at the start of September and are then weaned in March. If a dam needs to be assisted in any way, they are down the road! We have only assisted one in the last ten years so there is a clear expectation of strong calving ability. Their calves are assessed at birth and weaning to ensure the dams initial performance. No tolerance for B grade performers! 

Progeny are then regularly weighed with performance parameters of 200, 400, 600-day weights and raw scanning data of EMA, Rib fat, Rump fat and IMF at 400 days. Cows are weighed at weaning to compare their calf weaning weights to the mature cow weights for performance efficiencies.

A selection of cows are mated by AI sires to bring new genetics into the herd and specific targeted mating’s to bring certain pedigrees together and the rest are mated to our top young sires coming through. We back our bulls to perform hence we use them within the herd. We aim to breed sound, consistent medium framed bulls loaded with thickness and depth along with the Kincardine fundamentals.  

We gain huge pleasure from visiting client’s farms and seeing magnificent lines of females entering their herds, strong robust calves at weaning and phone calls from finishers excited about their kill sheets as their rewards roll in. A full genetic improvement circle.