A family legacy of breeding champions
Article courtesy of the Waikato Times
Author: Charlotte Graham
Published January 20, 2026
A family legacy of breeding champions – Zane Kite
After 55 years breeding Ayrshire cattle and over 100 years of farming, Zane Kite is stoked to see his calves selling for record prices.
Nestled in the heart of Ōhaupō is Kiteroa Ayrshires – one of the few pure-bred Ayrshire herds left in New Zealand. Owner Zane Kite started working in partnership with his father, Wally, on the family farm 40 years ago, but he has lived there all of his life.
It’s a running family joke that Kite’s big move was 50 metres across the farm paddocks, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.
The original farm block was around 70 acres of mostly swampy, peat land that Kite’s great-grandfather gradually cleared. Eventually he was able to milk about 20 dairy cows on the freshly broken in land, in the early twentieth century.
The Kite family has held on-farm annual sales since Kite’s father established the stud in 1961. They are one of the longest running annual sales in New Zealand while the family celebrated their 55th sale in November last year.
It was in November that Kite sold their “million dollar baby” for $12,200 at their annual sale – a new record for a 4-month old calf at their sale and one of the highest sales for an Ayrshire calf sold in New Zealand.
“It was crazy like it started off at $3000 and within 2 minutes maybe it was up to $9000,” said Kite.
Kite recalled the most he had previously got for a calf was around $6500 and they tend to average $2600 for their 3 to 4 month-old calves. The calf was bought by a woman keen to get into the showing world.
The Kites’ careful breeding, strong record for milk production and reputation in the showing world is what made the record breaking calf so appealing.
“The breeding is a big part of our life and we’ve got a real good name,” said Kite. “I wouldn’t sell [something] if I wouldn’t want to milk it myself.”
Kite has “won every big award possible with the cows,” but he is especially proud of winning the Johnny Rogers Trophy for Best Show Exhibit at the New Zealand Royal Show in 2000 with his cow Kiteroa Easter Boney.
The farm has come a long way from when Kite’s grandfather would “buy the five cheapest cows” at the sales because money was tight.
It was Kite’s father Wally who started the family’s journey into Ayrshire breeding. He noticed that the few Ayrshires his dad had purchased were doing the best on the rough peat land because they were foragers.
“Dad noticed that after a little while that these guys in the winter had the best conditions … so he just sort of got a few more and then bought a couple of heifers and just started there.”
Although the Ayrshires are a breed in themselves, Kite described them as a cross between a Jersey and Holstein Friesian cow in terms of milk production with a good balance of milk and fat content.
In 1961, kite’’s father officially started the Kiteroa Ayrshire stud and worked in partnership with Kite on the farm until he was 79, when he had a major stroke and went into a rest home in Cambridge. Wally died four years ago, but Kite said that he would visit and call his father every day and “talk cows”.
“Dad lived for the farm … that was our common bond.
“After he died, a lot of people said they envied our relationship, the fact we were mates off the farm, like we’d go to the rugby club or the pub together.”
In particular, the pair loved discussing breeding pedigrees and showing their cows.
“I don’t like cows as milking cows as a number. It’s the whole breeding, showing, judging pedigree side of things that keeps me inspired to keep going … breeding and showing, it’s a passion or something that you just love and it stays there.”
Kite’s father showed his Ayrshires after starting the stud and Kite followed in his footsteps. Kite showed his first Ayrshire, a young bull, when he was four-years-old.
“People would look in the ring and see this bull walking around, people thought it was just walking by itself … and then this little kid with stumpy legs came out from behind it.”
Farming keeps Kite pretty busy these days. He goes about six months of the year without a day off, so getting away to shows is a challenge. But his youngest, Zoe, 13, is “getting pretty keen” on showing, so it is something they do together.
Zoe started showing when she was four, just like her dad, at calf club. Now she is competing in big shows around New Zealand like the New Zealand Dairy Event.
Kite said she is a “little chip off the block,” so it’s in the cards that she might carry on the family legacy. But for now, Kite said the plan is to keep farming with the help of his wife Marie and his four kids.