For Steve and Nina Ireland, breeding successful bulls and great cows is about breeding for profit.
That means producing animals that are relevant to the commercial realities farmers face, Steve says.
It’s about breeding animals that can efficiently produce a lot of milksolids (MS) in our Kiwi pasture-based systems, get in-calf easily and be strong in all the traits that keep them in the herd year after year, he says.
“We want to see a cow milking well and still in the herd at eight years old.”
That has a big flow-on effect for the profitability and environmental footprint of the whole business with fewer replacements needed annually.
The current volatility in milk returns means it’s more important than ever, from a farm working expenses as well as income perspective, that cows are efficient.
The efficiency factor is also becoming increasingly important because nutrient limits have an impact on stocking rate.
“It makes sense that top cow quality is a very important cog in the wheel of a dairy farmer’s business,” Steve says.
“We all have cows that produce in the top 20% of the herd. Now look at the ones that calve in the first three weeks of calving, don’t get mastitis and never seem to get sick, then do that for eight lactations while maintaining a strong udder and, in the meantime, produce a couple of equally outstanding daughters.
“Cows like that are significantly more profitable than even the average cow in the herd let alone the bottom 20 percentile.”
Steve and Nina operate a relatively low input system in their 550-cow, commercially focused herd.
They use about 280kg/cow of a bought-in grain-based pellet fed in the farm dairy and that’s the extent of the bought-in supplements used to produce 460kg MS/cow (factory received) and 1700kg MS/ha.
Farm working expenses were $4.05/kg MS last season and will be a little less this season.
Their breeding costs are about double those of other commercial dairy farmers but so too is their stock income.
They rear 220 calves each year using a mix of milk powder and milk from the vat and sell surplus in-calf cows towards the end of the season.
Better bull calves are sold to breeders and commercially.
For Steve and Nina the challenge of breeding animals that contribute to commercial farming success is one that motivates them.
There’s no doubt they’ve been successful over the years with that endeavour and say success comes from what’s almost a virtuous circle of passion, knowledge and motivation.
This season their dedication to the challenge is evident in their success with one of their bulls, Lynbrook Terrific, topping LIC’s Premier Sires Jersey list and another, Lynbrook Solar-Keet, heading up the KiwiCross Alpha nominated list.
Lynbrook Terrific currently has a breeding worth (BW) of 268 but that will jump to 301 when the body condition score (BCS) breeding value (BV) is brought in to the index from February.
“There’s no such thing as the perfect bull but he’s as close as we’ve got so far,” Steve says.
“He has plenty of nicknames – Mr Fixit and Mr Everything because he excels across so many traits.”
Terrific is seven years old now and has been in LIC’s bull team for several seasons, selling out as a nominated sire last season.
He has more than 2000 herd-tested daughters to give 98% reliability to his BW and a high level of confidence in his ability to pass on the traits that Steve and Nina focus on:
- protein
- fertility
- udder support
- udder overall
- capacity
- milking speed
- temperament
- longevity.
Terrific has sired several sons who have gone on to be proven sires.
Steve and Nina have produced more than 120 bulls for the industry with more than 20 becoming proven sires for breeding companies including LIC, CRV Ambreed and Liberty.
Breeding and genetics are in the blood for Steve. His father began Lynbrook Jerseys and when Steve was just 10 years old he inherited his first cow.
“I always knew right from a very young age what I was going to do,” he says.
His older brother Kevin was equally focused so it’s not hard to guess what the topic of conversation was around the Ireland dinner table most nights.
Steve and Nina came to their own farm via the traditional sharemilking route, moving south from Tokoroa in 1997 where they’d grown their herd to 300 cows.
The mid-Canterbury 50:50 sharemilking job gave them the chance to more than double cow numbers to 750 cows.
Although it was a bold move at the time, they saw the opportunity to ride the dairying wave that was sweeping the region along with irrigation development.
Friends were worried about their gentle Jerseys coping with what they perceived as harsh winters but Steve says that hasn’t been an issue.
They breed robust, capacious cows that have thrived in the hot summers and what can be long walking distances on some farms as well as winters that at times have included good dumps of snow.
One of their young stock at the time of the move, Lynbrook Adonis Tess, proved just that as she went on to be their greatest bull mother to date starting with her first son, Lynbrook Theo.
About the same time as the move south, the breeding technologies they used became more advanced.
They began using embryo transfer technology and flushing top cows to harvest multiple eggs, increasing the chances of producing top sires for the industry.
The multiple ovulation embryo transfer (MOET) technology provided a step-change in the rate of genetic gain.
Lynbrook Adonis Tess’s genetics, for instance, were able to be shared across many more calves via a greater range of bulls than they ever could have been if she’d had to bear each calf.
Steve says she was an outstanding donor cow producing 18-26 eggs at each flush.
Nina does all their artificial insemination.
The holding rate with the MOET technology and transplanted embryos into their recipient cows is high – better than AI, Steve says.
Within six years of their move south the couple was able to buy land at Rangitata Island close to the coast and convert it to a 550-cow farm.
The size was ideal to allow them to employ staff so they didn’t need to be milking every day.
“At the same time it’s the right size to have enough hands-on management yourself so that you can make sure what you do is done well – especially the breeding.”
They’ve continued flushing their five top cows with the eggs fertilised using contract matings so there is a definite market for the offspring.
They get to keep any heifer calves and given the good strike rate of pregnancies and successful bull calves the females can be a free bonus.
They still do about 20-30 contract matings each season.
Once calved, all their own female progeny are herd-tested regularly and inspected for traits other than production (TOP).
They’ve installed LIC Automation (formerly DAL) milk meters in their 50-bail rotary dairy and are happy with the accuracy of the system.
“We’re getting what are effectively more than 500 herd tests a season now so we’ve got a lot more information to base our selections on,” Steve says.
As you’d expect breeders to do, Steve and Nina have always nominated the sires for their herd and have absolute minimum BV’s for protein, fertility, capacity and udder support when it comes to selecting bulls.
More than half a cow’s BW comes from non-production traits – traits that can be a big part of whether a cow remains in the herd or not.
With the latest push by the New Zealand Veterinary Association to cut antibiotic use by 2030, apart from exceptional circumstances, the somatic cell score BV is one trait that is likely to get more focus.
So too will the BCS BV, given it centres on the cow’s ability to hold condition and therefore the cost of building body condition through the autumn.
While Steve’s proud to say he’s a passionate Jersey man and is now a director of Jersey NZ, he’s also proud of the success he and Nina have had with their KiwiCross bulls.
They started out in their earlier farming career by cross-breeding the bottom 10% of their herd to get the production and other trait gains possible through hybrid vigour.
Their intention had been to sell those cows when it came time to buy their farm, but they didn’t.
Instead they seized the opportunity to build on those crossbred animals and use the best bulls they can over them and their Jersey animals.
“We always aspire to use the best bulls possible so cross-breeding and producing KiwiCross animals lets us use outstanding bulls like (Fairmont) Mint Edition or (San Ray FM) Beamer.”
Both are top Holstein-Friesian bulls.
Just as they do with their Jersey breeding programme, they contract mate good cows with the top black and whites.
They’ve used MOET technology with the KiwiCross breeding too and have had four proven bulls offered by breeding companies.
They DNA parent verify all the calves they rear and find less than 2% inaccuracy with the calf recording done over calving.
That’s thanks to Steve’s diligence.
He’s out in the calving paddock about six times a day recording calves over the peak of the calving period.
While it stands to reason a breeder would put in that level of effort, Steve says recording over the busy period is an area where the industry generally needs to lift its game.
The calves born during the early calving rush will be those kept as replacements on most farms and if farmers want the BW index to work to its potential they need to take some responsibility for ensuring accurate parentage records.
The couple employ two full-time staff and have set up their farm dairy with technology such as Protrack and automatic cup removers to allow one person to milk.
They run two herds, keeping their younger and any lighter cows separate from the main herd.
Four years ago they bought an irrigated support block and now AI all of the yearlings rather than just the top 10%, as they did when their young stock were grazed off.
“It’s just easier to do that now we have full control over them and it’s had a big impact on stepping up our genetic gain.”
Steve and Nina are always on the look-out for advances that can ramp up that gain but note that not all new technology has been trouble-free.
Steve believes genomic selection was made available to farmers too quickly and couldn’t deliver on its promises early on.
“Breeders were contract mating using genomic sires and they were watching the proofs as they came in once their daughters were milking.”
When it appeared some daughters weren’t meeting expectations breeders were quick to step back from the technology.
However, Steve says there have been improvements in genomic predictions since then and genomics will advance genetic gain in the future.
For Steve and Nina there’s no stepping back or dampening the passion they have for producing top genetics or their desire to promote the importance of lifting the quality of the national herd.
Farm facts
- Owners: Steve and Nina Ireland
- Area: 150ha milking platform
- Cows: 550 Jersey and KiwiCross
- Genetics: BW182, PW197
- Production: 460kg MS/cow, 1700kg MS/ha
- Supplement: 280kg/cow grain
- Farm working expenses: $4.04/kg MS
- Reproduction: 6.5% empty after 10.5 weeks mating
