The pursuit of breeding better dairy cattle continues to motivate Southland dairy farmers Robert and Annemarie Bruin.

Aparima River winds through their dairy farm in Otautau, inspiring them to name their pedigree stud Meander Holsteins.

Since emigrating to New Zealand from Holland in 1989, the couple have worked their way up to owning four farms and 2800 cows in Southland.

They run the stud on their home farm, Ringway Ridges, which features two category 1 historic buildings — their home and a horse stable.

Contract milkers run the other three farms owned by the Bruins in Southland.

On Ringway Ridges, the Bruins milk 630 cows in a 54-bale rotary milkshed.

The cows were run across about 200ha, producing about 350,000kg of milk solids annually.

Of those cows, 232 were registered pedigree Holstein Friesians.

Young stock graze on another 100ha block and silage was produced on another 90ha.

Cows and calves ate the silage on a feed pad during the shoulders of the season and during winter.

Mr Bruin said they began dabbling in supplying eggs from their contracted mated heifers to artificial insemination companies LIC and CRV about 15 years ago.

The relationship with the companies started “taking off” about five years ago and had gone from strength-to-strength since.

This year, the companies had 120 contract matings on their farms, and 100 cows in Hamilton were pregnant with embryos created from eggs taken from their heifers.

About this time of year, Animal Breeding Services technicians from Hamilton visit the farm to harvest eggs from about 30 heifers, for a fee.

“We have an enormous pool — that’s why every now and then we hit the jackpot.,” Mr Bruin said.

An example of hitting the jackpot was the top performance of “super cow” Meander FMI April SIF, which was born in 2012.

Milking cows twice a day was physical and repetitive work and breeding cattle kept them motivated, he said.

“It gives an extra dimension to our dairy farming — if I’m just putting cups on every day it gets boring. We aren’t getting any younger and this gives us motivation to keep going and enjoy it.”

One of the “biggest kicks” of the job was milking his herd and seeing how the breeding was translating to herd performance, he said.

Mrs Bruin agreed.

“Dairy farming is hard and there was a point where I thought I’d had enough and then the bulls started to come through.”

Seeing bulls in catalogues that were created using eggs from their heifers, was reward for all the hard work, she said.

It was “special” to know semen from your bulls was being used to improve the national herd, she said.

“We are leaving a legacy. It started as a hobby but now it keeps us going.”

Mr Bruin said the eggs harvested by the technicians were flown to Hamilton, where they were artificially inseminated with top-performing bull semen.

The resulting embryos were frozen, and in the mating season were implanted in empty cows in Hamilton.

Bull and heifer calves were born about nine months after the embryos were implanted.

DNA samples were taken from a small piece of a calf’s ear and sent to a laboratory for genomic testing to reveal the cattle with the most desirable traits to bolster the industry.

Straws of semen of the top bulls were listed in the catalogues of artificial insemination companies.

“It gives you an enormous kick,” Mr Bruin said.

Breeders with bulls in the catalogues could choose to sell their bull for a lump sum or get a royalty for every straw of its semen sold.

“If you’re a gambling person and you’re optimistic, you put it on the royalty.”

Any heifer calves born were returned to the farm, Mr Bruin said.

“I’ve got super cows in my herd.”

Straws of semen from the bulls they helped create were sold across the world, including in Australia, Europe, North America and South America.

“It’s going everywhere.”

When Southern Rural Life visited the farm, semen from Meander Holsteins bull was in second, third and sixth place in LIC’s Premier Sires team for Holstein Friesian.

The Bruins also have the most heifers selected in the The Discovery Project team — a joint initiative between Holstein Friesian New Zealand and LIC.

Every year, Holstein Friesian New Zealand members were invited to nominate their high-breeding worth heifer calves for the project.

More than 140 nominations were received for the 2022 team.

In March this year, the project committee selected 73 heifers to be genomically tested.

Of that group, 28 heifers from 11 breeders were selected to be part of the 2022 team, which was announced in July.

The top Holstein Friesian bulls get accepted in the LIC Sire Proving Scheme.

Meander Holsteins had 11 heifers chosen for the 2022 team — the most of any breeder with heifers in the squad.

Semen from their bulls also featured in top spots in the CRV catalogue.

“Our bulls are everywhere at the moment — it’s really taking off.”