Bred by David Marshall of Waihou Friesians in Te Puke, Murphy offers outcross options with his dam bringing overseas genetics into the mix. His dam is an outstanding producer that never loses condition, has longevity and a fantastic temperament.
As a result Murphy is a high indexing sire with excellent production traits. High protein and fat breeding values combine with good type traits and an excellent udder overall score. He also offers positive dairy conformation scores.
"We carefully choose our bulls based on their production and performance traits, and ultimately whether they will help dairy farmers to breed an easy to manage and efficient herd," said van Elzakker. "Murphy is more than your typical Don Juan. He is considered to have the highest genetic merit and is an essential part of the future success of New Zealand's dairy industry."
Selecting New Zealand's best bulls takes four years. The process starts with CRV Ambreed's sire analysts travelling around the country to find the best of the best cows that will produce the next the superstar bull.
In 2012 these farm visits resulted in about 1500 bull calves being nominated for CRV Ambreed's 'progeny test' breeding programme. CRV's breeding team used their expertise and knowledge of cow families to determine the potential of each bull calf and in the end 150 were selected for progeny test programme that year.
"Once Murphy had matured his semen was carefully collected at our production and distribution centre and distributed to a number of contracted herds around New Zealand," van Elzakker explains.
His daughters were then tested for milk production and type to determine if his genetics would be suitable for different farming systems and environments. Using that information, he was selected to graduate and now takes up permanent residence at CRV Ambreed's production and distribution centre where he lives like a rockstar in five-star accommodation.
CRV Ambreed has a long history in providing the market with top indexing, high quality bulls that dairy farmers are looking for to create easy to manage, efficient herds.
A top bull over the course of its lifetime can produce more than half a million doses of semen for domestic and international sale, have tens of thousands of daughters, and have a long list of sons enrolled on the animal evaluation database for herd improvement in New Zealand.
"We've set the standard in the industry with sires like Manhatten, Murmur and Firenze, and this latest group of graduates are our next generation of legendary bulls that we will all be talking about for many years to come."
