• Norwegian Red bull Braut has over 100 daughters on test in the USA and he’s looking like a bull that will be remebered years down the line.  Converted to Holstein base with hybrid vigor included and using only US daughters, his PTA Milk is +481, lbs of fat +77, lbs of protein +54 and daughter pregnancy rate of +6.3.  Pictured above is a recently fresh Braut from a Ramos dam.  She will be included in an upcoming post where I share pictures of Norwegian Red daughters.
  
• 2012 Bull of the Year Papayou along with other Montbeliarde bulls continue to see a rise in their proof figures.  Papayou’s productive life has gone from +6.6 to +7.4 with minimal daughters being added.  This upward trend in Montbeliarde proofs continues to verify the theory that initial parent average calculations were grossly underestimating the Montbeliarde breed, thus supressing the overall proofs.  It’ll be interesting to watch as more and more Montbeliarde crosses contribute to the data.  The trends certainly look positive.
• The top JPI and NM$ Jersey is a bull named Magnum.  He’s probably not the kind of Jersey I’d use for crossbreeding given his negative udder depth.  Plus continues to be one of my favorite Jersey bulls. With a PTA Milk of +2025 and being on the ride side of the linear chart for udder depth, he could be a good one as he approaches 99% reliability.  Two 99% reliability Jersey bulls worth mentioning are Legal and his sire Impuls.  I have one Legal milking and a small handful of Impuls daughters.  Both bulls avoid the pitfalls we sometimes see when using Jersey in a crossbreeding program.
• For Brown Swiss, Driver tops both PPR and NM$ lists.  My old favorite bull Vigor has cemented his legacy as one of the best Brown Swiss bulls of his generation and sits at 98% reliability.  I’ll be calving in some more Vigors this year and look forward to them.
• For Ayrshires, there is a new interesting bull out of Canada.  Perfect is a  Poker X B Jurist that looks to combine the type of Poker with the production of B Jurist, putting him 3rd on PTI list.  The Finnish bulls Valpas and Tossiko hold the top spots for both PTI and NM$.  One common thread to all Ayrshire bulls that top the list is Scandinavian blood.
• For Milking Shorthorns, Royal Treble continues to dominate the indexes.  I always keep a little Royal Treble in the semen tank as I like the two I have milking.  There is a promising polled option from Genex.  Cowboy-P is a high production bull that will have a hornless calf 50% of the time.
• Last but not least, Dr. Gonzo has his own page on the Sierra Desert Breeders site.  There is one error on the page as he is not the product of the ProCross.  More importantly, we’ve confirmed our first seven pregnancies and have semen in about 50 other cows at the moment.  Right now, almost my whole milking herd is being serviced to Papayou or Dr. Gonzo.  Gonzo’s mother just completed her second lactation and will have a little bit better of a record to display than the one on his bull page that she made on a broken leg.  While she’s not the queen of volume (around 23,000), with components her energy corrected lactation total comes in around 27,000.  She’ll be having a Valfin calf in about a month (hopefully a heifer!)

As promised, here is a group of Norwegian Red crosses I photographed recently (along with a repost of some older ones for an aging comparison).

Norwegian Red (Sand) X Holstein (Sailor). From First Lactation, recently calved a second time.

Braut X Action (Jersey) X Holstein (Aaron) – First Lactation

Udder from Above Cow – First Lactation

Same cow now in second lactation

Same cow from the side

Braut X Holstein (Mitchell) – first lactation

Udder of above cow

Raastad X Jersey (Jacinto) X Holstein

Raastad X Jersey (Jacinto) X Jersey (Golden) X Holstein

same cow as above

Hjulstad X Jersey (Matinee) X Holstein

Hjulstad is a good bull to repair a Matinee udder.

Braut X Jersey (Action) X Holstein (Adam)

same cow as above

Braut X Holstein (Ramos)

It’s now May and I haven’t even put March up yet so here it is:

• I believe that this is the largest advantage Holsteins have had over crossbreds in any month in terms of energy corrected milk.  Time to get rid of the crossbreds?  Of course not.  I can definitely say that April will tell a different story.
• Otherwise nothing significant to report.  While it’s always fun to look at, I’m looking forward to getting larger samples of different crossbred combinations.  There’s not a lot of conclusions that can be drawn when comparing different crossbred combinations when there are only two or three cows in a sample.  I’m pondering consolidating Swedish, Danish, and Finnish flavors of Red into one breed for the purposes of this report.  I’m not sure that I will ever have large enough samples of Finnish and Danish sired cows and they are all marketed as one.  I will keep Norwegian Red separate as there is enough interest in comparing Norwegian Red with Viking Red and eventually I will have a decent sample to compare the two.  Any thoughts?  

Matriarch – Montbeliarde (Oran) X Holstein (Mysterious) – pictured in third lactation

Today in Fourth Lactation

Udder – 4th lactation

The highest cow for lifetime production in my herd produced 344,000 pounds lifetime.  Toward the end of her career, there was one thing she lacked. A legacy through her daughters.  I guess I could blame her own transmitting ability or I could blame what we bred her to, which was Holstein.  Finally I wised up and bred her to Montbeliarde (Oran JB, same pedigree as Masolino).  The resulting Montbeliarde X Holstein single-handedly resurrected the family from the brink of extinction.  She is currently in her fourth lactation, and with a little stroke of luck she has given me four daughters in four calvings.

Her production demonstrates well the maturation process I like to see:

Now let’s look at her milking daughters.  First is a ProCross sired by Arbelunda:

Arbelunda X 2076 – First Lactation

Arbelunda X 2076 – first lactation

Like a lot of Arbelunda daughters, she did not set the world on fire in her first lactation, giving only 18320 lbs in 294 days.  But she did continue her mother’s trend of lactations under 300 days and it will be interesting to see if she sees a nice bump in second lactation production.

Challenge X 2076 – first lactation

Challenge (Guernsey) X 2076

Next is the recently fresh heifer that I talked about in this post back in 2011 about combining the two extremes of Guernsey and Montbeliarde.  She is sired by the Guernsey bull Challenge.  She doesn’t have any production data yet but I’m looking forward to see what she can do.  I definitely like the udder on the Guernsey better than the Arbelunda though I think both bulls have made an improvement over 2076 himself.  My preference for body type would have to go to the Arbelunda though.  The Guernsey daughter is more sleek with a refined head while the Arbelunda is a more rugged, wide muzzled type of cow that I prefer.  More than anything, I think using Guernsey was interesting in this once instance and I’m more than happy with the result, pending her performance of course.

2076′s other two daughters are not yet milking.  One is sired by the Viking Red bull Facet and the other is sired by the Brown Swiss bull Vigor.

With her voluntary waiting period up, I’m pondering what to breed 2076 to next.  Norwegian Red bulls Eik or Haga II would top my choices right now, as I would like to try and get a Norwegian daughter from her and those are the two bulls I have right now.  The daughters?  They will get Holstein.  The Arbelunda has a daughter by Crown and will have a Manifold calf any day now.  The Guernsey had a bull calf by Petrone.

There is only one week to go before the polls open to vote on our Cow of the Year. I’m currently putting all the candidates together and so far we have some nice cows from a variety of breed combinations.

If you have a favorite crossbred cow you want to enter, just send me an email with your pictures along with any breed/sire/production info to mark.birkett@o2.co.uk and i will enter her into the contest.

In February of 2012, I took a look at the rate of fresh cow problems between Holsteins and crossbreds.  With another year having passed, I thought it would be a good time to take another look at where we are at.

Some things to keep in mind when looking at percentages is the way they are diagnosed and recorded.  For ketosis, I am very aggressive with finding even the smallest cases and recording them.  I draw blood and test BHBA levels on all cows in third and higher lactation (and will spot check some younger animals).  A very large percentage of my cows getting ketosis are very mild cases.  For death loss, the way I record it is if I did not receive money for a cow when she leaves the herd, she is labeled as died instead of sold.  We can not sell down cows so all are marked as died, not sold.

The number we will base percentages off of will be the number of freshenings in each group.  For Holsteins, we recorded 252 fresh events and for crossbreds we recorded 324 fresh events.

Milk Fever

Holstein: 8 cases (3.17%)

Crossbred: 6 cases (1.85%)

Ketosis

Holstein: 26 cases (10.31%)

Crossbred: 25 cases (7.71%)

Displaced Abomasum

Holstein: 6 cases (2.38%)

Crossbred: 8 cases (2.47%)

Retained Placenta

Holstein: 10 cases (3.97%)

Crossbred: 8 cases (2.47%)

Antibiotic Treatment in First 30 days (not including mastitis)

Holstein: 84 treatments (33.3%)

Crossbred: 104 treatments (32.1%)

Died Within First 60 Days

Holstein: 13 deaths (5.16%)

Crossbred: 14 deaths (4.32%)

I’ve added a measures that I didn’t look at last year.  The previous post looked at 504 fresh cows and this post looks at 576 fresh cows.  Comparing the two years, I think we can say that we are doing better overall in the fresh cow department.  The combined overall rates have dropped in all categories.  The advantages for crossbreds still exists but is smaller than I previously found.  The reason I’d speculate is that my proportion of older cows is now essentially even between Holsteins and crossbreds.  Which is interesting in itself because the proportion was NOT even when they entered the herd. There were more Holsteins.

In anecdotal terms, I tend to believe that crossbred cows still have their share of problems but they tend to get over their problems better than a Holstein.  I can’t say for certain which crossbred combinations do better than others.  The list of my crossbreds that died in the first 60 days is pretty evenly split.  Parsing the data down into the breed groups would make the sample sizes too small to be worth looking at (even though I do the same with production data every month).

All the entries are in, now its time to choose our crossbred cow of the year. The voting format will be the same as bull of the year. To cast your vote simply leave a comment with your favorite three cows like this:

1. First choice cow

2. Second choice cow

3. Third choice cow

The only rule here is nobody who entered a cow can vote for their own.  Please attach a name to your vote. Anonymous votes that aren’t clarified won’t be counted. Any discussion should be saved until the winner is announced.

Cow A: Suzette from Barbara Wogsland

Normande x Red Holstein

Sire: Fukrain. She was Grand Champion on the North American Normande Show 2010.

Age  Days  Milk (lbs)  %Fat  #Fat  %Protien  #Protein

4-o2  365  22662        4.6      1050    3.3              751

5-06  348  30594        4.6      1409    3.0              931

6-07  337  27830        4.6      1278   3.1               864

7-08  365  30087        4.3      1290   3.0               911

Cow B: Malgudo from Sylvia Reda

62.5% Brown Swiss 25% Sahiwal 12.5% Ayrshire

Sire: R Hart PR Crosscut. Picture taken on day she passed 70,000 litres of milk. Her lifetime production so far: 73,812 litres in 3579 days achieved pasturing under extreme tropical conditions with no cooling and poor quality feeding.

02 04 8347 ltrs in 360 days

03 06 8846 ltrs ins 381 days

04 08 10100 ltrs in 456 days

06 03 9034 ltrs in 458 days

07 08 7596 ltrs in 404 days

09 01 10007 ltrs in 484 days

10 08 9944 ltrs in 506 days

12 03 9938 ltrs in 530 days

Cow C: 4196 from Lance Johnson

4196 is currently in her 2nd lactation. Her last test was 147 lbs with a fat of 4.4 and protein of 3.2. Her last two tests have been 185 lbs and 197 lbs of fat corrected milk. She is on track to have over 40,000 lbs this lactation after having 32,000 lbs as a heifer.

She is a Brown Swiss x Holstien and her sire is TD. She bred back on her first service to Driver.

Cow D: 1449 from Jon Lundgren

Jerrick (Jersey) x Winchester (Holstien). 1st pic 6 year old, 2nd pic 9 year old.

Lac 1:23410 lbs milk 1021 lbs fat 741 lbs protien 4.36% fat 3.17% protein 300 days

Lac 2:41660 lbs milk 1874 lbs fat 1419 lbs protein 4.50% fat 3.41% protein 506 days

Lac 3:29210 lbs milk 1331 lbs fat 960 lbs protein 4.56% fat 3.29% protein 299 days

Lac 4:36460 lbs milk 1688 lbs fat 1209 lbs protein 4.63% fat 3.32% protein 343 days

Lac 5:32540 lbs milk 1469 lbs fat 1073 lbs protein 4.49% fat 3.30% protein 290 days

Lac 6:30010 lbs milk 1382 lbs fat 996 lbs protein 4.61% fat 3.32% protein 306 days

Lac 7:14280 lbs milk 669 lbs fat 502 lbs protein 4.68% fat 3.52% protein 170 days

Lifetime: 207570 lbs milk 9425 lbs fat 6900 lbs protein.

Cow E: Festine#5099 from Christophe Boizard

Image 1     Image 2    Image 3     Image 4

Uberlu JB ( Montbeliarde) x Osmont DT ( Holstien)

Born 07/12/10

First calving 24/12/12 a daughter from Gunnarstorp.

Pregnant to sexed V Foske at the first service at 66 days.

Last test result at 114 days: 38.9 kg milk 3.38% fat 2.87% protein.

At 114 days shes already produced 156 kg fat and 126 kg protein.

Cow F: Tubby from Danny and Liz Strite

Normande x Ayrshire

She is a 4th lactation cow and bred back 1st time on her previous lactations. We’re not sure on the sire details other than her sire was a Normande herd bull and her dam was a full blood Ayrshire. She is a New Zealand Ayrshire Challenge granddaughter. Her daughter Jumbo, pictured right, is by NZ Ayrshire Brody.

We are seasonal grass based and feed 12 lbs of feed in the parlour daily. No corn silage is fed. Tubby just tested at 79.8 lbs of milk at 41 days fresh.

Cow G: 1343 from Richard Blaser

Fleckvieh x Fleckvieh x Holstien (Raup x Enrico x Holstien)

Currently pregnant to Malhaxl (Fleckvieh)

1st lac 299 days 16692 milk 792 fat  607 protein

2nd lac projected 21820 milk 5.0 % fat 4.2 % protein

Cow H: From Oscar Camara

This is one of Oscars first xbred heifers. Shes 23 months old and is a Jersey x Fleckvieh x Holstien. Shes inseminated with Gunnarstorp.

Cow I: Cabin Hill Hippo 1088 Moxi from Mike and Lori Boesl

Fleckvieh x Red Holstien sired by Hippo.

Just completed her 2nd lactation with 21332 milk at 4.2 fat and 3.1 protein. Average SCC was 78. She was part of the Fleckvieh exhibit at World Dairy Expo 2011 and was one of the first Fleckvieh to be shown at the Red and White show in 2012. Above are pictures of her in 1st and 2nd lactation.

Cow J: 161 from Mark Birkett

Swedish Red x Holstien (sire: K Lens)

32 days into 3rd lactation, current daily yield 47 litres from grazing and 12 lbs of concentrates per day.

Cow K: Paris from Laura Sizen

Montbeliarde x Holstien (Oyama x Lotta-Hill Bert Kyle RC)

1 yr 10 mo 506 days 32832 milk 5.5% fat 3.3% protien 1074 protein

3 yr 4 mo 537 days 45999 milk 4.9% fat 2238 fat 3.2% protein 1485 protein

4 yr 11 mo 181 days 24419 milk 5.0 % fat 1225 fat 3.0% protein 732 protein in progress

Lifetime to date: 103250 milk 5270 fat 3291 protein

Milk per day since 24 months stands at 81.7 lbs

Cow L: From Gillian Wall

Jersey x Norwegian Red x Holstien (Daysh’s Landmark x Heigre)

Second lactation, Mature live weight 467 kg, calving interval 371 days

289 days 5426 litres 5.96 fat 4.09 protein = 546kg milk solids SCC 46000

Produced on full time grazing with 700kg meal fed in parlour.

Cow M: Burgess MW Treasure from Michelle Burgess

She is a 2 year old 90 days in milk in those pics, 11/16ths Friesian 5/16ths Jersey. Sired by Fairmount Mint Edition.

She produced 500 kg MS (1100 lbs) in 291 days lactation. At 3.80% fat and 3.63% protein. This comes to 6725 litres (15,500 lbs). This compares to her group average of 450 kg MS.

Shes back in calf and due 378 after her first calving, to a contract mating for the breeding company LIC.

Cow N: Yule Lane Roy Pyng from Nate Kringle

75% Holstien 25% Guernsey

At 6-3 years of age and 30 days in milk, shes giving 110 lb/day which topped our herd in our most recent test. Shes sired by Roy (29HO9023) then a homebred  Guernsey clean up bull (who’s sired by Enhancer (29GU218).

Cow O:  Ms Frankenstien from Sue and Chris Pieters

Holstien x Montbeliarde x Jersey

1st lactation, 4 weeks fresh, giving 43 litres/day.

Cow P: 5546 from Ben Anderson

Swedish Red (Perterslund) x Holstien

6th lactation 6yrs 3m 1815 days 143,640 milk 5957 fat 4.14% 4808 protein 3.34%

She calved at 1yr 8mo, 2yr 7mo, 3yr 7mo, 4yr 6mo, 5yr 6mo, 6yr 6mo, she is due again end of August and will calve for the 7th time at 7yr 8mo. Her 1st 5 lactations required 5 units of semen. Her lactations have lasted between 293 to 317 days. She has given me 5 heifers and 1 bull and only had mastitis once.

Crossbred Cow of the Year

Runner up

Voting has now now ended and the winning cow is Jon Lundgren’s 7th lactation Jersey cross, 1449. Runner up is Lance Johnson’s Brown Swiss cross, 4196, who was leading the vote until the last few votes came in. Hot on their tails in third place is a tie between Ben Anderson’s Swedish Red cross, 5546 and Barbara Wogsland’s Normande cross, Suzette.

Congratulations to Jon and his cow. Also thank you to all who took the time to enter cows and vote.

There has been comments about how difficult it is to vote when there is such a variety of production systems. I’d be glad to hear ideas on how we could improve on that for a future contest. Perhaps we need to include average herd production to get a better idea of how each cow is performing? Or perhaps we should scrap production data which would basically turn this into a beauty contest?

Either way, looking at the scores, there are clear winners from the vote. If anyone would like to explain why they voted the way they did, please leave a comment. The final scores are illustrated in the table below.

• We’ve been down in both milk and components since April.  Due to the severe drought we experienced last summer, we found ourselves stretching haylage as long as we could.  While not feeding for optimum production, I was surprised that the production held up the way it has.  There was some more regression in May but we’ve  put up first crop haylage and will start feeding it this weekend.
• I’ve been mostly breeding my HoJo’s to Montbeliarde and Fleckvieh but I keep sprinkling some Brown Swiss into the mix.  The four I have don’t constitute much of a sample but they are all fantastic cows.
• I’m looking forward to eventually getting more Normande crosses milking.  I’ve given my Redondo daughter plenty attention on this blog (she was in last year’s judging group).  She keeps rolling along and is pregnant once again (Normande absorption cross! Already sexed as a heifer sired by Ulozon).  I’ve added a few current pictures of her to this post.  I also have a very nice Saintyorre daughter that calved for a second time.  She was unremarkable in her first lactation but looks to be one that hits her stride in the second lactation.
• My Montbeliarde sired animals averaged 110 lbs of energy corrected milk per day in April (combining two and three-way crosses).  Is there anybody out there that still thinks these things don’t milk?

The California Department of Food and Agriculture just released their annual Cost of Production Annual.  The complete survey can be found here (PDF).  Within the survey, they make comparison between Holstein, Jersey, and Crossbred herds.

I’m unsure of what the exact composition of the crossbred herds are but the report implies that there are a lot of ProCross herds in the data.  The Jersey herds came out the best for income over feed cost.  In terms of feed costs per hundred lbs of milk, the crossbred herds came out the best.  I haven’t gotten into great detail regarding the numbers myself, but I thought I’d throw this out there for those that are interested.

We tested this week and I thought I’d post the data from the DHI-202 report between the Holstein and Crossbreed ‘strings’.

• Breakdowns for breeds within the crossbreds and Holsteins.  I put cows with 75%+ genes in the Holstein string and anything else with non Holstein genes in the xbred category.  Holsteins 97% identified by sire, 1 New Zealand influenced, 2 Ho x Je x Ho.  Crossbreds:  3- Ho x Sr x Je x Ho, 15 Je x Ho, 2 Lineback, 3 Montbeliarde, 8 Sr x Je x Ho, 6 pure Jersey (4 NZ influence), 4 unknown or unsure of sire.

• First comment is about what appears to be an error with the Calving Interval.  How can the Holsteins have a lower calving interval but have a much lower preg rate?  The answer is likely found in the breakdown of the projected minimum calving interval which has the Holstein intervals for each lactation category over 12.6 while the crossbred intervals for each lactation category are all below 13.3.  I believe that the cows bred but not called pregnant are not included in the calving interval listed in the chart above.  If they all become pregnant, the interval would change with the crossbreds being lower because of the higher DIM cows now being added.

• The number of animals per lactation for each breed category shows the longevity of the crossbreeds.  I’m adding lots of Holstein heifers but they’re not staying for long.  The cull rate is evident of this as well with the xbreds now 4 times lower in cull rate.  The low cull rate of the xbreds has not been pushed for or manipulated by culling batches and then only reporting on this blog when they leave the RHA data.  The xbreds have consistently been 2-3 times lower in cull rate for the last few years.  I usually have a ’3 strikes your out’ policy when culling cows.  For example, a 3 teater with poor feet that is diagnosed with twins leaves.  Of course other cows need to leave if say their milk production doesn’t support feed costs, feet are too bad to keep around, etc.  And if you kick me when I’m milking you good luck, your gonna need it.

• The cull rate is also found in the SCC which favors the Holsteins.  Looking closer at the cull rate, we find that 12 of 44 Holstein culls left for mastitis while only 1 of 8 xbred culls left for mastitis.  Other culling stats of interest are 8 of 44 Holstein culls listed as feet and legs while no xbreds left for feet and legs.  The xbreds largest reason for culling is 4 0f 8 for low production while the Holsteins had 7 of 44 leaving for poor production.  This past January we had a run of the craps, likely from a disease or infection carried by starlings.  The herd dropped 15+% in milk and some dried off early or never came back in production.  I didn’t look at the breakdowns between breeds, but it’s worth mentioning that some may have been late in lactation at the wrong time.  Death rate is also interesting, the few xbreds I’m culling are not having (as many) life threatening injurys or problems.

• I haven’t reported much about milk production on the blog because when looking at Jersey xbreds feed costs must be kept in mind.  From what I’ve heard, pure Jerseys eat 80% of pure Holsteins.  But I found IOFC data on the report just recently and I now have yearly data to compare the strings.  I personally found my xbreds to eat 80% of my Holsteins when I split them into groups a few years ago.  I somewhat doubt that data is still relavent with the addition of more non Jersey breeds but I am not going to split the herd again just to prove anything.  So I have the xbreds entered to eat 85% of the Holsteins.  You’ll see that the feed cost matters more than the production with the xbreds almost $200 ahead per lactation but with all production stats lower except for fat.  I may have higher feed costs than most because I buy all my grain and have bought some forage this past winter.  I use forage costs and not forage value for harvested baleage and corn silage.  I use $.03 per DM of grass for pasture intake.  The milk price I use is from the last milk check that I received.  This price may be a month old but I would rather use that than try to predict the current milk price.

Urbaniste was the first Montbeliarde A.I. bull used on my farm.

When it was decided i should use Monty semen on Swedish Red crosses, my Alta semen rep stopped by along with a rep from Coopex. He recommended a few bulls including Masolino and a few others. The one bull that ticked all the boxes was a new bull only just made available in the UK and topping the ISU rankings called Urbaniste. Eager to silence any crossbreeding critics, i decided i wanted to use only the very best. I’d been told by some, the Montys would be a disaster. Too beefy and with terrible udders with teats like carrots on every corner! 100 units of him were ordered that day.

With a steady stream of his daughters calving this year, i decided i’d photograph a random selection of them. I am pleased with the ones i have. The most notable thing for me is their nice udders. I’m also currently calving heifers from my herd bull (Bridge) along side the Urbanistes and the difference is easy to see. While the Bridges are decent functional heifers, the Urbanistes have a better type and are quieter to milk with yields similar.

All in all i’d say Urbaniste is a safe bet for anyone looking to try Monty semen for moderately sized, good all round cattle. That’s if his semen price doesn’t frighten you off!

403: Urbaniste x Orraryd x Home bred Holstien herd bull. I have made this photo my new avatar since my last avatar cow has now gone down the road.

Her udder up close in the parlour.

425: Urbaniste x Orraryd x Zicostar. This heifer was pictured as a calf with her dam 2 years ago in this post.

409: Urbaniste x K Lens x Red Holstien, sire unknown.

352: Urbaniste x B Jurist x Holstien sire unknown.

384: Urbaniste x Orraryd x Maughlin Storm. This heifer is unfortunately 3 titted.

438: Urbaniste x Orraryd x Convincer.

421: Urbaniste x Orraryd x Home bred herd bull.

381: Urbaniste x Peterslund x Granite. This heifer is daughter of last years judging contest champ no.85.

Another photo of 403 from another angle.

I decided I would post some rear udder pictures of Redon daughter’s for Julian and any one else who is interested in Redon.  I started using Redon late in 2006 and I am just finishing my last 10 units of semen.  I am currently milking 87 Redon’s with 87 heifers in the pipeline.  Redon daughters are tall and strong with good feet and legs.  The last few years he has been used primarily on smaller cows with Jersey blood because of his stature.

Redon (Mo) X Dutch Boy (Ho)

#6736 4th lact 226dim 95lbs 4.8F% 3.5P%

Redon (Mo) X Holsten

#7339 3rd Lact 215 dim 86lbs 3.8F% 3.3P%

#3456 Redon (Mo) X Holstein

#3456 3rd lact 156dim 111lbs 4.0 F% 3.4 P%

Redon (Mo) X Petersland (Vr) X Holstein

#7675 3rd lact 92 dim 119lbs 2.9 F% 2.9P%

Redon (Mo) X Holstein

#8338 2nd lact 117 dim 92 lbs 4.3 F% 3.2P%

Redon (Mo) X  Holstein X Jersey

#9058 1st lact 143 dim 101lbs 3.8 F% 3.2 P

Redon (Mo) X Paramount (Je)  X Holstein

#9194 1st lact 99dim 83lbs 4.0F% 3.8 P%

Redon (Mo) X Matinee (Je) X Holstein

#9159 1st lact 83 dim 78lbs 3.6 F% 3.0 P%

Redon (Mo) X Jacinto (Je) X Holstein

#9036 1st lact 143dim 122lbs 2.9 F% 3.5 P%

More pregnancies, more calves like this polled Norwegian Red X Montbeliarde X Holstein.

Last April I did a reproductive analysis for 2010 and 2011.  Also of interest in this post will be the estrus expression comparison I did last May.  With a year having passed since those posts and over half of 2013 almost over, I thought it was past time to take a look at 2012′s reproductive performance.  I posted this link last year that explains the measures of reproductive performance that I look at the most.  Heat detection rate, pregnancy rate, and conception rate.  One thing I don’t do is break down the numbers even further by breed combination.  Sample sizes become so low that they tell us next to nothing.  Reproductive performance of  a small handful (10-15 cows even) isn’t sufficient to tell us much.   Another factor to keep in mind is age.  My crossbreds have a slightly lower average lactation number (2.0) than my pure Holsteins (2.4).  But we will also look at performance of older cows later in the post.

For the third straight year, we had an overall improvement in reproduction and probably the best since for our farm since the days my dad was breeding Holsteins that actually got pregnant.  I said in last year’s post that a potential goal of mine would be to hit an overall 25% pregnancy rate.  I also mentioned that it might not be possible until the Holsteins are purged from my herd.  We did hit the 25% mark with my crossbreds while my Holsteins can’t seem to hit 20%.  I realize there are some tremendous Holstein herds out there that run pregnancy rates around 30%, but when you look at the overall picture in my herd, it’s not even close.  Crossbreds reproduce much more efficiently.

Another interesting way to look at it is in the number of total inseminations.  In 2012, my herd was approximately 55% crossbred and 45% Holstein.  Yet the Holsteins had 627 total inseminations while the crossbreds had only 556 total inseminations!  Between semen and drug costs, that’s a fairly substantial savings without even getting into the other economic benefits of better reproduction.

Speaking of drug costs, let’s next look at estrus expression.  As I’ve said in the past, I use the Select Detect automatic heat detection system.  The way I manage the cows is that I allow the cows to naturally express heats from 60-100 days without any hormonal intervention.  There is a school of thought that we should still be synchronizing first services for all cows.  I strongly disagree with this, especially in the case of crossbreds.  At 100 days we give cows a shot of PGF to try and induce a heat.  If they do not show a heat off that, we enroll them in a CIDR protocol.  Again, people that mass synchronize cows don’t usually use CIDRs but we’ve never had a more successful protocol.  Anyway, here’s a breakdown of natural heats and other heats:

The numbers speak for themselves.  Crossbreds do not need to be synchronized as often.  But they are also much better at getting pregnant when they are synchronized.

How about the old cows?  We all know that younger cows, even Holsteins, can perform fairly well in terms of reproduction.  Unless you are one of those people that doesn’t believe there is anything wrong with a 700 day lactation, a cow that continues to get pregnant in a timely manner as she ages is a cow that will last.  The next two tables will be exactly the same as the previous two, except the numbers will only be for third and greater lactation.   In my herd, third lactation tends to be the lactation that cows will begin having problems getting pregnant and I’ve got enough old crossbreds running around that we can do this type of analysis.

Perhaps it is sounding like a broken record, but aging tends to treat the reproductive performance of crossbreds much better than Holsteins.

One other point to note is that our Holstein bull selection has strongly emphasized daughter pregnancy rate (DPR) for a number of years.  The average DPR of the sires of my lactating Holsteins is well above the breed average.  While selecting for daughter fertility for a number of generations has helped, they still can’t compete with crossbreds.  My anecdotal observations along with the numbers tell me that selecting for DPR has helped my Holsteins in first and second lactation where they just don’t maintain it later in life.  Thankfully, with pure Holsteins eventually being phased out in my herd, I may someday reach reproductive numbers I only dreamed of attaining.

When we crossbreed, we are doing exactly the opposite of inbreeding by taking two completely unrelated animals and mating them.  The reasons we do this have been discussed at length.  On the other hand, we also see pedigree Holstein breeders that are not at all opposed to mating two close relatives.  Look at the bull Damion, for example.  He’s been a very popular bull for the type conscious crowd and is the result of a mating between maternal half-siblings.  One of my main reasons for crossbreeding and concerns for the Holstein breed going forward is the narrowing of the genetic pool.  Sure, with genomics there are lots of different names out there as sires of sons but it only takes a look at a pedigree before you realize the same names appear over and over in almost every pedigree.  I continue to laugh at what gets marketed as an outcross sire these days.  The inbreeding in the Holstein breed certainly isn’t slowing down.

But sometimes mistakes happen.  Before I post the link, I’ll warn you that this is a picture of an extremely deformed and dead calf.  Most farmers are used to this stuff, but I’ll err on the side of taste by not plastering this all over the blog. *LINK – click at your own discretion*.  What that mess of a calf is, is a Peterslund calf from a Peterslund mother.  This is about as inbred as a crossbred could get but the mother’s being half Holstein dictates that this calf was still a crossbred (black coat color carried from the Holstein).  One day, of all the semen in my tank, an employee grabbed a straw of Peterslund to use on a Peterslund daughter.  The results are not surprising.  No front feet, no belly, twisted torso, and back legs.  But I’ll still call it linebreeding.

Instead of an ugly calf corpse, I’ll instead put a picture up of a new one for my farm:

This calf is a Kiwi Cross (Amorous) X Holstein. This is the first New Zealand sired calf born on my farm.

May

June

• Last year’s drought is still flexing its muscle.  May production was low and components are lower than I like for both months.  First crop haylage has helped us get a bump in production in June.  Just as we hit our stride, we ran out of corn silage.  So far, the cows are holding together their production without corn silage as we replaced it with peas and oats.
• The top cow on the farm in June was 2076, a Montbeliarde X Holstein that I recently profiled.  She tested at 197 lbs per day.  While her components aren’t very high, that type of production is tremendous.  I’m feeling very good about the surge of Montbeliardes I have in my heifer pens.  As divisive as the breed can be, I know they fit my goals and like a fine wine they get better with age.
• The Swedish Red X Holstein production has been a little low for a few months.  Some at the tail end of lactation and a handful of fresh heifers off to a slow start would be an explanation.  There are a handful of Arbelunda heifers coming in too.  First lactation production on them will be mediocre at best but the second lactation daughters are really blossoming into nice cows.  My heifer breeder loved Arbelunda because of his semen fertility and perhaps overused him a little bit, but I’m not regretting it if you can get past the low first lactation production.
• The fastest growing breed combination in my herd is the Norwegian Red X Jersey X Holstein.  Among this group, I’ve freshened by first Bosnes and there are some Velsvik daughters that will be calving soon. My ABS rep pulled into the farm a while back with 40 units of Braut on the truck and I did not hesitate to buy it all up as the import restrictions leave me wondering whether I would have another opportunity to use such a great bull like Braut.
• Perhaps the biggest development in June was the drop in the LgSCC average.  Lower is better when we look at LgSCC and after dealing with some terrible cell counts for the past nine months, I believe we’ve got the problem under control as the fresh cows are driving this drop.  Lessons learned, now the key will be maintaining the gains we’ve made at a time of year that SCC traditionally goes up.

The first cow is 1890, a B Jurist X Holstein (Manfred).  Her dam was 661, a cow I profiled in March 2011.  1890 is six years and five months old and in her fourth lactation.  In her lifetime she stands at 130,000 lbs of milk and tested at 115 lbs/day last month.  She is a foundation cow in my small Red absorption cross program and has one daughter milking:

This is 1890′s Norwegian Red sired daughter by Raastad.  That makes her a Norwegian Red X Swedish Red X Holstein.  I posted a photo of her in my original red absorption cross post, but she was dirty and just fresh so I wanted to get a better picture of her.  She last tested at 91 lbs/day and will in all likelihood be confirmed pregnant to Foske on Monday.

This is a first lactation Norwegian Red (Braut) X Jersey (Juan) X Holstein (Tomahawk).  At 50 days in milk, she tested at 82 lbs/day.  She illustrates the continued quality I’ve seen in my Norwegian Red daughters.

This is a first lactation Holstein (Jenny-Lou Shottle Trump) X Swedish Red (O Brolin) X Jersey (Brazo) X Holstein.  Very nice cow, she has production on both sides of her pedigree though her three-way cross dam that does 30,000 lbs per lactation and her sire, Trump.  So it’s no surprise that she’s one of my top producing first lactation cows at 109 lbs/day.

This is a first lactation Holstein (Clark) X Swedish Red (O Brolin) X Jersey X Holstein.  Her sire is a Goldwyn son that I used to correct some pretty awful looking three-way crosses.  The dam of this cow had the worst of the udder traits her breed and sire stack would indicate, a  deep udder and no cleft.  Clark has done a nice job making a better udder.

This Montbeliarde (Plumitif) X Jersey (Jerrick) X Holstein (Winchester) just calved for the third time and is the daughter of Cow of the Year 1449.  1449 has had six daughters thus far and of the three that have milked, this is my definite favorite.  In her second lactation she made 31,520 lbs of milk in 319 days with 1223 lbs of fat and 1064 lbs of protein.  To make her three calves, it’s taken four units of semen.  She has daughters by Time and O-Style.

This is my oldest Montbeliarde at 5 years 5 months.  She just calved for the fourth time.  I’ve posted picture of her on this blog before but she is a Plumitif X Road Mark (Holstein).  She enters her fourth lactation already over 100,000 lbs lifetime and is a good bet to make it to 200,000 lbs lifetime.

Finally, we have a second lactation Ayrshire (Jupiter) X Holstein (Potter) X Jersey (Formal) X Holstein.  She wasn’t all that productive in her first lactation, giving 21,000 lbs in 299 days but she looks to be ready to take off in the second lactation with her first test being 99 lbs/day.  I find that a lot of these crossbreds won’t set the world on fire for production in the first lactation but they mature very nicely unlike some Holsteins that are burned out in the first lactation already.

It looks like we will finally be seeing some newer bulls here in the United States.  Joan Cooper posted an update on the Geno Global Dairy Crossbreeding blog with the pertinent information on the new regulations for importing semen from Europe.  Bulls that test negative to Schmallenberg will be able to be brought into the United States.  It’s taken a long time to get this whole mess sorted out but it’ll nice to finally be able to use the newest and the best from Europe.  I’m not aware of how widespread the virus will be in bulls or which bulls will test positive or negative but we will at least be seeing something new for once.

So what have we been missing here in the USA?  If you are in Europe and want to chime in, I’d love to here what you have to say.  But here are some European bulls that haven’t been available in the United States that would potentially interest me if they are indeed eligible to be brought over:

Lekve

Norwegian Red

Lekve – This bull is the top polled bull in Norway based on TMI.  His proof strengths include production, fertility, udder ligament and calving ease.  Areas to protect are foot angle and milking speed.  If you look for polled in your breeding program, Lekve seems to be a no-brainer.

Ravn - Another polled bull, I’ve been wanting to use Ravn for quite a while now.  He once resided at the top of the TMI lists and although there are higher bulls out there, he’s still in the top ten and is tied for the second best polled bull behind Lekve.  Production, fertility and udder are a strength of Ravn but will a calving ease score of 81, he’s probably best used on cows rather than heifers.

Val - The number one active bull for TMI at 35 (Velsvik is still the top bull overall at 36, just freshened my first daughter a few weeks ago).  Val looks to be the production king of the NRF breed with a production index of 136.  With all that production he still sires a nice mammary system at 114.

Of course, I don’t think anybody will complain if Geno chooses to bring back an old standout like Braut.  With more than half of 2013 completed, Braut is my personal top choice for Bull of the Year.  Another bull I’d be happy to go back to would be Eggtroen, a high production polled bull.  Before I ran out, Eggtroen was my go-to bull for creating a pregnancy.

Pell-Pers

Viking Red

Pell-Pers - I’d love to use this Swedish bull to complement Foske in my heifer breeding program.  Pell-Pers is a very balanced bull with almost no holes in his proof.  Production, udders, and health, it’s all there.  With a paternal calving ease score of 113, he’d make a great bull to use in heifer pens.

VR Cigar – This bull is on the Creative Genetics price list so I presume he is available in the United States.  At +28 NTM, he ranks tied as the best Viking Red bull.  He is another bull that excels in almost all traits.  One potential negative is the fact that he has a higher amount of Holstein blood (19.5% according to this)

VR Gibson –  Gunnarstorp X O Brolin X Peterslund as a sire stack kind of reads like a history of my own crossbreeding with Viking Red bulls.  Production is pretty moderate but with a longevity figure of 132 and daughter fertility figure of 113, this bull breeds true to his sire stack.  And for icing on the cake, milking speed (Gunnarstorp’s flaw), suspensory ligament (O Brolin’s) and hoof health (Peterslund’s) are all positive therefore he does not transmit the faults of his ancestors.

Brink Daughter

Montbeliarde

Brink – A son of 2012 Bull of the Year Papayou, Brink is another bull I’ve had my eyes on for a while.  Udders will be a strength on Brink daughters, with an udder composite of 117.  He would also make a good Montbeliarde bull to try on heifers, with a calving ease score of 93.

Crasat – Redon has established himself as a legend of the Montbeliarde breed so it was only a matter of time before his sons started making an impact.  Crasat is the number one bull for the French ISU index by a good margin.  Crasat looks to be a very high production bull that sires less stature than Redon (Crasat’s stature score is 103 compared to Redon at 121).  With a calving ease score of 91, the calves should come out easy.  Suspensory ligament is an area to watch.

Cardiff JB – This bull intrigues me because of the sire stack.  Oran and Natif were two Jura Betail bulls that I have one daughter each of.  While that’s not even close to make enough of a judgement on, I really like both daughters and Cardiff has a very nice proof.  If this bull makes it to the United States, I’m sure he’d find his way into my tank.  Good all around, the only caution would be calving ease.

Let me start out by saying this is my first guest post on the blog. I have really enjoyed reading the blog ever since it was started and have enjoyed getting to meet everybody on here. First I’ll give you a little background on our farm and my experience with crossbreeding and then I’ll get into the main purpose of my post, to show off some of my Monty and Fleckvieh crosses.

I farm with my dad and uncle in Upper Michigan (about an hour and a half north of Green Bay WI). We currently are milking at two separate facilities. The first is the original farm which was founded in 1899 by my great great grandfather. At the home farm we milk 1200 cows. A year and a half ago we had the opportunity to purchase a neighboring farm about 6 miles away from the main one. We currently milk 200 cows at the “Eastview” farm and are in the middle of an expansion with a goal to be milking 350 cows by this fall. We have a free stall setup at both farms. At the home farm we have a double 16 parallel parlor and we bed our free stall with sand. At Eastview we have a double 8 herringbone and we have mattresses. We currently have a 28,900 lb. RHA and milk about 70% pure Holsteins. The rest of our herd is a mix of crosses with the majority being Jersey crosses.

Our experience crossbreeding started around 10 years ago when my dad and uncle were sick of pulling big calves out of heifers. They purchased several jersey jumper bulls and bred most of our heifers Jersey over the next few years. They had mixed feelings about the results. On the positive side they loved when the heifers freshened with small calves. Some of our Hojos have been some of our best cows as well. They milk well, have great tests, and have been pretty fertile. On the negative side they were very inconsistent. We had a good percentage of them have blown bags by the 2^nd or 3^rd lactation and the ¾ Jerseys were a little squirrely and a little too small for our free stalls. I do realize that bull breeding may have had quite a bit to do with our negative experience with Jersey. For the last 5 years we have not had any bulls on our farm except we do run a few to clean up our heifers. Our heifers get bred AI for 3 services and if they aren’t confirmed pregnant by then they go out to the bulls.

In 2005 my dad bought our first Monty and Fleckvieh semen. I actually won some of our first Fleckvieh semen in a drawing at world dairy expo. I was very curious when I saw the Big Bear Genetics booth and was very impressed with the look of the Fleckvieh breed. John Popp visited our farm and my dad bought a few more straws on top of what I had won. That same year my dad and uncle were intrigued when they heard about both the Montbeliarde and Swedish Red breeds. They ordered some of each of those breeds as well. We kind of messed around a little bit with all three of those breeds for the next few years. We currently are milking around 30 combined Fleckvieh and Monty crosses. We will be milking a lot more in the near future with some recent purchases from Ben Andersen and Heinz Daub another Fleckvieh breeder who recently sold his farm. We also have been breeding a majority of our cows to the Monty and Fleckvieh breeds. This past February we had the opportunity to go to California for the Procross tour. We were very impressed with what we saw and I would encourage anyone to go. I also visited our very own Ben Andersen and was blown away by his herd. After visiting California and Ben we have decided to breed about 70% percent of our cows using the Procross system. We will be substituting Fleckvieh/Monty and using that with Swedish Red. I also might still use a little Brown Swiss as I have had very good luck with our Swiss Crosses. Well I’m sure you’ve all had enough of my rambling on. Let me show you a photo roll of some of our Monty and Fleckvieh cross cows.

6424 (pictured at top of the post) is one of our first Monty crosses and she is also my favorite. She is a 5^th lactation MicMac and has had 3 tests over 170 lbs. She has bred back on the first service on each of her 5 lactations. She is currently 160 days carrying calf and pregnant to the Fleckvieh bull Illion. Her hast test was still 147 lbs.

6375 is also a 5^th lactation MicMac. She is currently producing 136 lbs. a day. In her 4^th lactation she produced 39,600 lbs.

7418 is a 4^th lactation MicMac cow. She peaked at 170 lbs this lactation and is still doing well over 100 lbs.

6412 is a 5^th lactation Fleckvieh Cross cow. She is a Samurai daughter and has bred back on the first service in every one of her lactations. This lactation she peaked at 146 lbs and she is also bred to the Fleckvieh bull Illion. She is also pictured on the Big Bear Genetics website.

9395 is a recently fresh ¼ Fleckvieh cow. She is a daughter of the 6412 cow listed above. Her first test was 115 lbs.at 20 days in milk.

3017 and 3024 are both Fleckvieh cross cows sired by the bull Enrico. Both of these cows were recently purchased from Heinz Daub. 3017 is around 100 days in milk and her first test on my farm was 105 lbs. She came in heat a couple days after she arrived and she is currently pregnant to the Swedish Red bull Foske. 3024 is currently 65 days in milk and her first test on my farm was 91 lbs.

The next three cows are all sired by the Fleckvieh bull Engadine. The first two we bred and the last was purchased from Daub. The first cows of these three (221) was tested at 48 days in milk and shipped 113 lbs. The second (242) was at 53 and is currently at 136 lbs. and the cow from Daub (3028) is currently at 97 lbs.

The next two cows pictured are both 2^nd lactation Fleckvieh crosses out of the sire Mandela. I have a few other Mandelas that are all ready to go dry and they are all very consistent. They are milk machines but they don’t have the fanciest udders. They are also built like Sherman tanks. The red cow (9320) is 75 days in milk and is pumping out 115 lbs. a day. The black cow (9355) is confirmed pregnant and at hear peak was at 120 lbs. both of these cows also have averaged a 4.5 fat and 3.6 protein throughout their lactations.

3021 is another cow that was recently purchased from Daubs. When I bought her she was 2 days fresh and on her first test for me she was already at 112 lbs. She is a Ruap daughter.

347 is a monty cross out of the bull Oviedo JB. She currently is 45 days fresh and her first test was 130 lbs.

The final four I’m going to show pictures of are all fresh 2 year olds. The first (870) is a ¼ Fleckvieh. Her mother was tremendous 4th lactation Ruap daughter who I lost last year to HB. She is currently around 100 days in milk, giving 117 lbs, and is confirmed pregnant on the first service to O Brolin.

The next three are all fresh two year olds I purchased from Daub. They are all daughters of the bull Retrakt. The middle one (3002) is a ¾ Fleckvieh (Retrakt x Ruap) who I recently bred to Round Up. They all gave 70-85 lbs. on their first test on my farm.

I hope from this post you can see the potential of the Fleckvieh and Montbeliarde breeds. I realize they might not work in every setup but they will work for some. I am very happy with all of my Monty and Fleckvieh crosses and am looking forward to milking a lot more in the future.