A 12-year-old bull with over 150,000 offspring has been inducted into an elite animal 'Hall of Fame' for his outstanding contribution to the national dairy herd.
KiwiCross artificial breeding bull Priests Sierra. Photo: Supplied / Livestock Improvement Corporation
Born in Waikato in 2010, Priests Sierra joined Livestock Improvement Corporation's (LIC) premier sires bull team in 2011.
The breeding bull was part of the team for eight years, a record held jointly with only one other bull.
Sierra was involved in 797,207 inseminations, fathered 151,937 daughters and produced eight sons which are in LIC's premier sires bull team.
LIC livestock selection manager Simon Worth said Sierra had had a significant impact in helping to improve the production efficiency of New Zealand's national dairy herd.
Simon Worth Photo: Supplied / Livestock Improvement Corporation
"Breeding the best cows faster is key to helping farmers solve the challenge of being profitable and sustainable and it's elite bulls like Sierra that are helping farmers do exactly that.
"There's a lot of boxes a bull needs to tick to earn a spot in one of our teams and they can be quickly superseded by the next generation of elite young bulls from our breeding programme, so for Sierra to have a place on the team for eight years on the trot is extremely impressive."
The offspring Sierra generates tick many boxes for farmers including more dollars in the bank and a lower environmental footprint, he said.
Sierra is the 59th inductee into LICs Hall of Fame. The last one Beamer who fathered more than 170,000 dairy cows and was inducted last year.
Sierra remains on LIC's Hamilton bull farm, producing semen for international exports.