Page 144 - NZ Herefords Magazine 2019 Edition

Our Breeders

The

Old Productive

Bull

WORDS LUKE BROWN, AGE 11 PHOTOGRAPHS SUPPLIED

RIGHT: The old productive bull, alias Matapouri Hick 06 214.

ON FARMS, good breeding bulls come and go, but in this case, Even with our newest sires we have purchased this year,
Matapouri Hick 06 214 arrived on our farm more than 10 years Hick will always stay in our pedigrees here at Maranui Herefords.
ago and is still going strong.
We originally purchased Hick, or as we like to call him ‘Hicky The original version of this article was supplied by Luke’s
Boy’, in 2008 at the Beef Expo as a two-year-old from the mother Rachel, who works for Maranui Herefords at Waihi
Clements family’s Matapouri Stud. We were impressed with his Beach. She says Luke is passionate about the work they’re
markings and posture and especially with his temperament, so doing and has started to take over their book work for the
he moved over to Maranui Herefords in Waihi Beach to enjoy Hereford Association.
the sea views and work hard!
We ran Hick with our main herd for six years and in that time
he produced many well-marked heifers and bulls with some
good figures to match. Some of his heifers are now part of our
main herd and seem to produce some great progeny. However,
in 2013 we decided to retire Hick and that was to be his last
year out with the cows as we already had a lot of his bloodline
throughout our herd. But we could not part with him just yet,
he had become part of the furniture so to speak, and with his
extremely quiet personality we decided to keep him.
In 2016 after introducing new bloodlines into the herd we
thought it was about time to say farewell to Hick and put him
on a truck. But when the day came we just could not bring
ourselves to part with him, he was part of the farm now. So,
after much investigation, in 2017 at 11 years of age, we pulled
him out of retirement and thought we would give him another
go and gave him a small herd of 17 cows. It is amazing at how
young a bull can look again once he gets to go with his ladies! ABOVE & BELOW: Matapouri Hick 06 214 with the author’s
younger brother Finley; Luke Brown, 11, at Maranui Herefords.
In the spring calving season of 2018 we have had some
beautiful calves come from Hick once again. Much to his
pleasure we have put him with just six cows this year to calve in
2019 and then I think he will definitely be ready for retirement!
But at 12 years old, to still be working, even though it is not with
a huge number of cows, we think he is pretty amazing. Hick has
17 registered dams on the farm but is also a grandsire to most
of our old and young bulls and heifers, and in some pedigrees
a great-grandsire.
One of Hick’s sons born in 2018 is looking like a future sire
at Maranui. Another one of his sons is Maranui Hick 11-62, who
we sold to the Matapouri Stud in 2014. He has had more than
100 progeny over the years and we are proud of him and he is
doing well.
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