Now the company is putting out to grass two of its ‘super sires’ after their years of service to the New Zealand and international dairy industry.
Jersey sire Okura Manhatten and Holstein-Friesian sire Top Deck KO Pierre had semen collected for the last time in June. The company last week hosted a final viewing of the sires at its centre at Cambridge. Manhatten now retires at age 13 years and Pierre at 14.
“These two remarkable CRV ‘teenagers’ leave incredible legacies, having made huge impacts on the Jersey and Holstein-Friesian breeds respectively in this country,” the company says.
The bulls will leave special memories with CRV staff, in particular operations manager Andy Medley who has worked with both sires since the beginning of their careers.
“Pierre’s first year at AmBreed was also mine. The most rewarding part of the job is when you see a bull come back to the collection barn as a 4-year-old. So for him to still be here as a 14-year-old shows how special he has been.”
Manhatten will be remembered in particular for his performance at bull parades. “He just knew he was the number one bull, and played up to the crowd,” says Medley. “He was a real show-off.”
When Manhatten entered CRV Ambreed’s progeny test scheme in 2000 via a joint venture project with Jersey NZ his genetics were at the time considered “a little bit left-field”, being sired by Danish bull Fyn Lemvig. However he was out of a bull dam – already turning heads – from the Okura stud of Bruce and Ngaire Cutforth.
Upon graduating in 2003-04 Manhatten immediately became recognised as an ‘all-rounder’ with the added feature of transmitting exceptional protein. Manhatten went on to dominate the Jersey sire ranks for the latter half of the 2000s as the undisputed ‘protein king’ of the breed, heavily used domestically and in offshore sales.
At least 37,600 Manhatten daughters currently milk in the national dairy herd, and he still ranks as one of the breed’s top sires for protein, the company says. Manhatten retires having sold at least 670,000 straws of semen, of which 294,000 were in export sales. A further 18,000 straws remain in stock.
CRV Ambreed says Pierre was also the result of its involvement with breed societies, being procured from the Top Deck syndicate via CRV’s joint venture with Holstein-Friesian New Zealand. “Pierre quickly rose to the top upon graduating 2002-03 establishing himself as a production sire and leaving much-liked daughters with exceptional udders…. Demand for Pierre was to grow even more upon his second-crop reproof in 2007.”
Pierre boasts nearly 48,500 New Zealand daughters still milking today and he remains a top ranking udder bull. He is being retired after having sold at least 560,000 straws of semen, including 89,470 doses offshore to at least 14 countries.
