With the focus on quality and efficiency of cows in your herd, it will be even more important in the future to breed replacements from your best cows.
As usual, the quality of LIC bulls is a hot topic in spring, with the new crop of sires getting their proofs and changes from one Animal Evaluation (AE) run to the next.
This makes it a very exciting time for LIC’s breeding team. Normally the team’s main focus is on the new graduates, but I’d also like to focus on a very popular bull making his mark in the industry, profiled immediately below.
318001 Okura Pepper Lucca
The Okura stud of Luke and Lyna Beehre has made a phenomenal contribution to the industry over the years.
Indeed thousands of cows in New Zealand have Okura bulls in their pedigree, including Lucca himself, as well as Kaino and Index, and the famous Hall of Fame bull, Integrity.
Lucca has both Degree and Integrity in his pedigree, arguably two of the most influential Jersey sires of the past 20 years.
His dam Okura Oli Lilac is from the L family, and she is a super production cow with Production Worth and Lactation Worth recordings of more than 500.
Good production, longevity, and good classification scores are prominent in the maternal line. Lucca himself is one of the top-ranked proven bulls in the industry with excellent production and a combined fat and protein genomic breeding value (gBV) of greater than 70.
Combined with positive fertility and good conformation traits, it’s no surprise that Lucca is a very popular sire. Okura Pepper Lucca is available in the Premier Sires Daughter Proven team, and can be nominated via Alpha.
Three of the most exciting 20-code graduates:
320027 Charltons Misty Magnify
Magnify was heavily used as a sire of sons in contract mating and the embryo transfer (ET) programme, and we are lucky to have a good number of his sons already in the LIC stable.
From the Charltons stud near Cambridge, Magnify is out of a high production Speedway dam with a PW of 561 and LW of more than 600. Longevity is also a standout in this pedigree.
Magnify is a nice all-rounder with good milksolids, positive fertility, good size, and sound udders. Charltons Misty Magnify is available in the Premier Sires Forward Pack team.
320036 Charteris Cojack Maka
From the Charteris family in Taranaki, Maka excels in efficiency with his liveweight relative to milksolids production.
His fat gBV, along with tidy udders, are also features of this boy. Maka’s dam, a Glenhaven TGM Genius S3J cow, was a high-production machine with nine great lactations and a PW of greater than 500.
Charteris Cojack Maka is available in the Premier Sires Daughter Proven team.
320014 Evleen GL Lighthouse
Evan and Shirleen Smeath highly-rated the Excellent classified Goldie dam of Lighthouse. Every time I saw this cow I shared this opinion, as she was capacious with a stunning udder. Her dam, sired by Degree, was also a magnificent high-production cow.
Lighthouse is a good all-rounder, ticking most boxes with good components, size, fertility, and capacity, along with great udders. Evleen GL Lighthouse is available in the Premier Sires Sexed team.
