Nine spring bulls have entered our KiwiCross Premier Sires teams and make no mistake, they’ll make their mark immediately.
There’s a massive lift in team averages in production traits and fertility, with udder gBV holding firm and liveweight lifting slightly giving farmers (chasing Premier Sires KiwiCross) a slightly bigger cow.
519034 Gordons Flash-Gordon is the man of the hour, and he sits atop of the Ranking of Active Sires (RAS) list for KiwiCross and All Breeds at 564gBW.
Given Flash Gordon's A1/A2 status, he enters the Daughter Proven KiwiCross team. He was reared in the same calf pens as the famous Gordons AM Lancelot S3F (who still commands his place in the Daughter Proven Holstein-Friesian team).
In fact, Flash Gordon’s dam is a half-sister to Lancelot.
This again shows us that, even in this era of genomics and technology, just how important strong cow families are.
Bred by Stu and Sarah Gordon in Morrinsville, the Gordons are making an outstanding contribution to the dairy industry, and this Linan Integrity Winston simply continues that trend.
519020 Paynes Professor- ET: Another powerhouse of a bull who is now part of the Forward Pack team.
A result of embryo work carried out by Brad and Claire Payne on their farm in Cambridge, Professor daughters have all the answers to running a profitable farm system: The combined fat and protein kgs of 137kg complement a capacity gBV of 0.84, which keeps the engines of these deep-bodied animals running exactly how any farmer would want and need.
A Horizon Boulevard son from a Mourne Grove Hothouse cow who has never dropped below 700kg milksolids after her first lactation (where she reached 500kgs).
The Paynes have had an excellent graduation, with four bulls from their stable entering Premier Sires teams (Paynes Platinum-ET enters KiwiCross Daughter Proven, and Paynes Publisher-ET enters the KiwiCross Forward Pack team).
Casting an eye over the younger bulls, 521072 Baldricks Spectacular catches the eye, not least of all because he's an A2 son of the earlier-mentioned Flash Gordon. All the way from Rai Valley from Baldrick and Charlotte O’Donnell’s stable, Spectacular is aptly named: Fat kilograms like a Holstein-Friesian with percentages like a Jersey.
Spectacular sits in the Premier Sires Sexed team and has plenty to offer anyone lucky enough to get some daughters from him.
He offers an excellent mix of traits such as Fertility at 5.2%, Udder Overall gBV at 0.91, and a Dairy Conformation gBV at 0.79. Spectacular’s daughters should be long-lasting, good conformation animals (reflecting the cows in his pedigree), and there’s little doubt they’ll be high-producing, profitable, cows. His dam was sired by Hall of Fame bull San Ray Beamer.
So, based on his strength of pedigree, it’s no surprise LIC’s sire selection team has great belief in this young bull.
The profiles above are merely scratching the surface.
It’s a clear-cut choice in our eyes: These KiwiCross Premier Sires teams are bound to be highly sought-after in the industry.
