The first time Robert and Annemarie Bruin saw their bulls in the LIC sire-proving scheme it felt like their hard work had paid off.
“It’s like breeding a winning race horse, it gives you a kick,” Robert says.
The couple own Meander Holsteins, a dairy farm and bull breeding property near Otautau in Southland.
They farm 600 Holstein-Friesian cows with 170 rising one-year olds and 150 rising two-year olds. The 390-hectare farm is split into a 200ha milking platform, 90ha silage block and a 100ha young stock block.
Originally from The Netherlands, it was Robert who first made his way to New Zealand in 1983 after completing agricultural tertiary studies at home. He found a job working on a farm in NZ before returning home but, as he puts it, “I liked it so much I decided to come back”.
“As a child I always wanted to be a farmer.”
But before Robert made the journey back to NZ he met Annemarie.
She had also studied agriculture at a tertiary level in The Netherlands.
But she didn’t quite know where NZ was when Robert suggested moving but she was excited by the opportunity to actively build their way up to farm ownership.
The couple were both raised as townies and if they had stayed in their native country they wouldn’t have been able to get into farm ownership because they didn’t have a family connection to it.
So the young couple packed up and moved across the globe.
“I always thought if it didn’t work out we could go back,” Robert says.
They never did. Instead, they worked themselves up from the bottom of the dairy farming ladder and now own three dairy farms. And they have two children, Savannah, 26, and Derek, 19, who are off pursuing their own careers.
They arrived in 1989 and after a few months Robert found a job as a manager at a dairy farm at Patea, South Taranaki, while Annemarie worked on a neighboring farm as a farmhand.
After a year the couple began 50:50 sharemilking.
Robert check outs the herd.
This year the couple reared 270 heifer calves. The bottom third of them are sold.
“We always rear more than many other dairy farms. That adds a lot of pressure,” Annemarie says.
Meanwhile, the contract calves are DNA and genomic tested.
Eventually, the heifer and bull calves are drafted off from one another into two mobs while the Bruins wait for the genomic testing results.
Bulls chosen for sire programmes leave the farm in January/February and the rest are sold to a local beef farmer.
“We have invested a lot of money in our breeding programme and now we are seeing the returns from the increased milk production of our herd and the sale of semen,” she says.
“Our aim is to breed bulls that give cows that are efficient converters of feed into milksolids with minimal health problems and good conformation,” he says.
“The ability of dairy cows to convert feed efficiently into milksolids starts with genetics.”
As their breeding business grows the Bruins want to keep growing with it.
“As a breeder you have to look to the future. What do you want in 5-10 years’ time?” Robert says.
Now farmers are looking for A2 milk and to reduce their cows’ nitrogen excretion to minimise their environmental impact, he says.
The Bruins see the future of breeding as part of alleviating problems farmers are facing, especially when it comes to the environment.
Breeding will have to focus more on reducing methane and nitrogen outputs in cows as well as making sure cows are efficient at converting feed to milk, he says.
When they do get some time away from the farm the couple like to keep active and play a role in their community.
Annemarie is a qualified yoga teacher, while Robert enjoys mountain biking and both enjoy playing tennis.
Annemarie is the chairwoman of the Western Southland Vet Club and Robert is the chairman of Otautau Community Health.
Looking ahead to the future Robert says he just wants to keep improving on what he has – more bulls and an even better herd.
“The possibilities in breeding continue to expand,” he says.
“I just want to keep going. I really enjoy what I’m doing.”
Farm facts
Owners: Robert and Annemarie Bruin
Location: Otautau, Southland
Farm Size: 390ha
Cows: 600 Holstein-Friesian
Production: 2017-18 320,000kg MS
Target: 2018-19 335,000kg MS
