Almost two three(edit: time flies, I forgot a year!) years ago I detailed a somewhat momentous shift in my breeding plan.  At that point we eliminated purebreeding of Holsteins for the most part.  We were also going pretty strong with the Nordic Red/Jersey/Holstein three-way cross.  The idea at that time was to begin bringing more ‘Strength’ genetics into the herd.  I had already dabbled with Montbeliarde and Normande but this shift was made with the intention of greatly increasing our numbers of Montbeliarde and Normande sired animals while also introducing Fleckvieh and some Swiss Milking Simmental.

As we are now about 34 months from this shift it only makes sense that we are getting close to seeing this shift in philosophy come to pass.  We’ve touched the tip of the iceberg with a few Normande sired animals calving in lately along with the first of my Montbeliarde crop sired by Valfin.  Yet to calve in 2014, I have 18 Montbeliarde sired heifers, 13 Normande sired heifers, and eight Fleckvieh sired heifers.  For my whole population of youngstock, there are 49 Montbeliarde sired, 34 Fleckvieh sired and 26 Normande sired with those numbers being added to every day.

So for today’s exercise, I thought I would post some photos of a few that have already calved and many that will be calving in the next several months.

First fresh Valfin (from a Holstein dam)

Udder View

Twin Sister to the cow above

Normande (Redondo) X Jersey (Juan) X Holstein (Tomahawk)

Fleckvieh (Isegrim) X Holstein (Nickel)

Fleckvieh (Enrico) X Brown Swiss (TD) X Holstein (Malik)

Fleckvieh (Enrico) X Swedish Red (O Brolin) X Jersey (Jace) X Holstein (Kenneth)

Normande (Royal Holl) X Holstein (Booster)

Swedish Red (B Jurist) X Normande (Singleton) X Holstein

Montbeliarde (Valfin) X Holstein (Reagan)

Montbeliarde (Valfin) X Holstein (Adam)

Montbeliarde (Valfin) X Jersey (Barkly) X Jersey (Jerrick) X Holstein

Montbeliarde (Valfin) X Swedish Red (Peterslund) X Holstein (Ready)

The post Breeding Plans Coming to Fruition appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

• The Jersey sired animals put on the best performance in June.  This June wasn’t necessarily heat stressed but the Jersey sired animals always seem to maintain performance in the warmer months.
• Don’t knock the Monties too hard.  8 of the 11 tested in June were producing between 80-120 lbs ECM per day.  Two are at the very end of lactation and it looks like the first Valfin will be one of those that don’t turn on the milk spigot until they are about 100 days in milk.  With a bunch of Monties about to calve in, the numbers may not look too great for a while.  The mature, peak lactation Monties still produce at a good level.
• These test results reflect our afternoon milking which I would guess is our low volume/high component milking as we actually run tank averages of 4.1% fat and 3.2% protein.  Protein is still paying pretty well above fat but the gap has shrunk in the past few months.  There seems to be a tradeoff between volume and fat percent, but with protein paying what it is it makes sense to get more volume if it has a good protein content.  Does the Red/Jersey/Holstein three-way produce enough volume to maximize the value of its superior component percentages?  If you ignore the small sample size on the ProCross for a second, you can see the value of higher volume as long as the protein is there.
• Considering the above point, do I dare bring up the words feed efficiency?  I’m starting to follow some of the articles on the development of a genomic PTA for feed efficiency related trait(s).  Something to follow in the future, for sure.

The post Test Day Results: June appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

It goes without saying that the sires we use will have an impact for years and across generations of cattle.  While sires of daughters in the herd tell us a lot, it can also be interesting to go back a few generations and see which bulls continue to influence the herd as grandsires and great-grandsires.  For this exercise I’ll show tables from my own herd.  The first table will be sires, the second grandsires, and the third will be great-grandsires.

• The sire list is topped by O Brolin.  I included sires of heifers on this list so there tends to be newer bulls is the young ones haven’t had an opportunity to cull themselves out of the herd yet.  My old cow pen is starting to get filled up with O Brolin daughters.  While none have reached the levels of tremendous longevity yet, as a group they’ve been tough as nails  with many going strong into fourth and fifth lactation.  They are not flashy to look at,  but are good proof that more goes into longevity than type.
• Top four bulls are all Viking Red.  32 Foske’s, none of which are milking.  We still use Foske as a service sire so that number will keep going up.  Some of my Arbelunda’s are entering third lactation and despite my previous complaints about production, they are near the top of their age group for production.  I sold a few Arbelunda heifers recently and I told the person that purchased them not to be discouraged by their weak first lactation.  Many grow into very nice production.
• We are not milking any of the Jersey daughters sired by Riley but all 22 TBone daughters are milking.  I’d continue to rank TBone as my favorite Jersey bulls that I’ve used.  Great production from his daughters and the udders are holding steady as they age for the most part.
• Crown is the top Holstein sire on this list.  I’m now milking most of the 19.  Crown is a Goldwyn son, and I’ve just not been impressed at all with the Goldwyn sons I used in my herd, whether pure Holstein or crossbred.  I do think the Crown daughters will be better than the Million daughters, though.  Million is the kind of bull that gives back the gains made in fitness traits by crossbreeding.  I count my blessings that I only have one purebred Holstein sired by Million.  I think Iota, Petrone, and Supersire will finally get me on the right track for the right type of Holstein bull to use on crossbreds.

• You can see the Peterslund and B Jurist effect when we look at maternal grandsires and great grandsires.
• I was surprised to see so many incidences of Forbidden in the maternal great grandsire list.  I didn’t think he made cows that spread their genes through the herd.  Nuclear I’m not surprised to see because we had 40 milking at one time.  He made the long lasting type of Holstein.

The post Herd Influences appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

Because I don’t have every flavor of crossbred on my farm, we used a little Gyr semen a while back.  Semex has a bull named Cochise that I purchased some semen on a while back. The heifer calf pictured above was born this morning.  The calf isn’t all that large and a mature pure Holstein pushed her out with no problems.

In Brazil, they have a composite breed called Girolando which is 5/8 Holstein and 3/8 Gyr.  This is where the idea originated.

Girolando cow

Before anybody decides to get up on their soap box and declare me to be insane, I should note that this was my only Gyr pregnancy.  I do still have the semen on hand but this is not to become a major part of my crossbreeding program.  Sometimes I just have to keep pushing the envelope!

The post Gyr X Holstein appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

•  For that that need a refresher, the energy corrected mature equivalant is a number that predicts mature production for all cows.  Older cows are more or less the same as what they actually produce while first lactation cows are given an adjustment to predict what they would produce as mature cows.  Energy corrected gives credit to milk components (fat and protein).
• Cows in early lactation are underestimated by this measure.  The Gunnarstorps are a good example.  As a group, they averaged around 24,000 ECMME at one time while now they are all getting close to the end of lactation and they are over 27,000.  I’m excited to see what the Gunnarstorps will do second lactation.
• On the other side of the equation, I’ve had a number of B Jurist heifers calve in lately.  B Jurist daughters have historically produced quite well for me.
• I was only half surprised to see Rocket as the top Jersey bull.  Interestingly, he was a negative milk bull way back when we were using him but is slightly positive now.  Six cows isn’t a very large sample size but we’ve had more Rocket daughters in the past that milked quite well.
• Freddie is the top bull overall on the list.  His number is made up of a mix of pure Holsteins and crossbreds.  Freddie daughters have given me good volume along with great components.  Some of the pure Holstein Freddie daughters give Holstein volume with near Jersey components.  It’s too bad I couldn’t replace the daughters of some of the Holstein bulls on this list with more Freddie daughters.
• Braut is the top red bull in this list.  Like I’ve said before, Braut is one of the uncommon bulls that when I get some milking I decide I need more of them.

The post Mature Equivalents by Sire appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

• Sometimes I get questions as to why I continue to use Jersey in my crossbreeding program.  The answer to that question is simple. The Jersey breed has made a very positive impact on my herd.  The lone survivor of my first group of Jersey X Holstein cows (profiled her here) is now ten years old and over 250,000 lbs of milk lifetime.  The Jersey sired cows continue to lead the pack in terms of milk income each month.
• I always thought the achilles heel of crossing with Jersey was the three-way cross.  What to do after Jersey?  As I get a more representative sample of the Jersey/Red/Holstein rotation, I’m much more happy.  The oldest three-way crosses are beginning to fill my old cow pen but they are mostly as fit as they were in their second lactation.  Production has looked much better on them since the numbers aren’t weighted heavily with young animals. The Holstein X Jersey X Red production figures from above do not include two-way cross Jersey X Holstein and Red X Holstein.  The data is from only three-way crosses and beyond that are some combination of the three.
• I’ve mentioned that we are in the very early stages of increasing our numbers of cows sired by a strength breed (Montbeliarde, Fleckvieh, Normande).  Of course this will affect production numbers so I feel it probably needs to be mentioned every single month.  The Fleckvieh makes it first appearance on this report with two contributing info (I’ve now reached four milking total).  I don’t expect strong production numbers on any of these for quite some time, especially as we calve in a lot of heifers.  I’ll be more interested in some individual performances as they pass 100 days in milk.

The post Test Day Results: July appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

As we are now approaching the middle of September, I thought I’d start my annual series of breeding plan posts.  Before I get into the plans with individual breeds, I thought I’d take a step back and examine where I’m currently at and where I’ll be going in the next few years in terms of herd makeup.  After all, the cows entering the milking string for the next two years are already on the ground.

First, we will take a look at the trend over time for the number of Holsteins versus crossbreds:

As expected, the gap between Holsteins and crossbreds continues to widen.  We sold off the majority of our purebred Holsteins that calved in the second half of 2013 and early 2014.  In the past six months, I can count on one hand the number of Holstein heifers that I’ve calved in.

You could say that we are at the point of no return in our crossbred experiment aside from a process that would take years to get back to pure Holstein.  I can honestly say that I’m not looking back.  Today, the management of my herd is as least stressful as it has ever been.  Reproduction is miles ahead of where we were at the turn of the decade.  Managing my fresh cow pen every morning is very routine these days as opposed to days past where I dreaded the walk up to the pen to see which cows needed extra attention.  The vet was usually at the farm at least every few weeks to perform a DA surgery.  So far in 2014, we’ve only had two instances of displaced abomasum.  That’s not to say that management hasn’t played a role, but I’m convinced that the catalyst to this positive change has been our improved reproduction.  Cows that get pregnant in a timely manner transition the best, it’s as simple as that.

Next I have two pie charts.  The first shows the breed of sire for lactating cows and the second shows the breed of sire for my heifers.  For lactating cows, the Red breeds take up the largest part of the pie.  The vast majority of the pie reflects the three-way cross of Holstein, Jersey and Red.  The heifer pie chart shows more diversity with the strength breeds (Montbeliarde, Fleckvieh, Normande, Simmental, and Crossbred) taking up a much larger piece than in my lactating cow pie chart.

One thing I’d point out is that Holstein still takes up a very large part of my heifer graph.  Only three are purebred Holstein.  Some have talked about leaving Holstein completely out of a crossbreeding rotation (and it may be suitable in some grazing scenarios?), but for my own purposes we are still firmly committed to Holstein playing a large part of our crossbreeding program.  I’ve had some limited experience with four-way cross cows and in most cases I’d say returning to Holstein would’ve been a more prudent move than continuing with a four-way cross.  As much as I criticize Holstein in its pure form, there is good reason why they continue to play a major role in my breeding program.

The next question that needs to be answered is what I look to improve upon in the coming years.  Now that I’m happy with the health and fertility of my herd, I’m finding myself putting much more emphasis on production traits.  That doesn’t mean I will completely ignore health traits but I feel that the hybrid vigor built in with crossbreeding will allow me to elevate production traits to the top of my selection criteria for all breeds.  Of course type will not be ignored either, in a functional sense.  A highly productive cow does not do any good if we can’t get the milker on her by third lactation.  A balanced approach is still best but a certain degree of emphasis can still be placed on traits where improvement is desired.

In terms of breeds used, I don’t see any major changes coming about.  We are now calving in a number of heifers sired by one of the strength breeds.  I’m not settled on any one strength breed, though I’ve weighed my usage more toward Montbeliarde over the past few years, as shown in the second pie chart above.  I imagine I’ll continue to use bulls that intrigue me from all the strength breeds though the weight of usage could change over time depending on performance on my farm.  For the Red breeds, I’m pretty well settled that I’ll continue to use a mixture of Viking Red and Norwegian Red with maybe a little Aussie Red sprinkled in.  With a healthy amount of both Viking and Norwegian Red daughters milking, I’m pretty well content to seek out top bulls from both breeds and maintain maximum diversity in my Red options.  Jersey will continue to play a role in my heifer program for easiest calving.

Going forward, I’ll do the typical posts that I’ve done in the past where I’ve highlighted some of the bulls I plan on using in the near and distant future as we approach the year 2015.  Stay tuned.

The post Breeding Plan: 2014-15 appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

ProCross sisters sired by Holstein. Front is second lactation sired by unknown Holstein bull. Back is first lactation sired by Iota.

The first breed I’ll look at in my series of strategy posts will be the Holstein.  As I said in my previous post, the Holstein continues to play a major role in my breeding program.  You could even consider Holstein to be the ‘anchor’ of my crossbreeding program.  No matter what I do for the two generations in between Holstein, it remains a constant in the rotation.

With my breeding of pure Holsteins fading in the rearview mirror, I look at Holstein sire selection much differently now.  No matter the breed being used, when crossbreeding the idea should be to utilize a breed’s strengths and mitigate its weaknesses while harnessing the power of hybrid vigor.  For Holsteins, I would interpret that to be go for high production while keeping an eye on some fitness traits like daughter pregnancy rate and daughter stillbirth rate.  When I previously bred for pure Holsteins, I placed more emphasis on daughter pregnancy rate than anything.  Hybrid vigor allows me to place a little less emphasis on that trait when I crossbreed.  But I still do not want to use bulls that are too far negative in that trait (Million being my prime example).

With a little strategy out of the way, let’s look at a few bulls I’ll be using.  It’s safe to say that right now three bulls form the basis of my Holstein program:

Regancrest AltaIota-ET – This bull appears in my program for the third straight year.  The heifer pictured above is my first and only fresh but I’ll have 20+ calve in before it’s said and done and given that he’s still in the rotation that number could even approach 30.  He may not be the newest thing on the block but there is still plenty of use for a highly reliable bull.  The market must agree, given his retail price. He’s done very well for me in terms of semen fertility so the high price isn’t so big of a deal.

Mountfield SSI Dcy Mogul-ET – I’m hearing good things about this bull from purebred circles.  He only has 18 daughters on his proof but observations I’ve seen suggest that he could meet the high expectations that his genomic proof has brought.  I’m using this bull on heifers and his conception has been fantastic at around 85%.  The first daughters on my farm are only just now hitting the ground but if he doesn’t come in short supply with a potential #1 TPI proof coming up, he’ll remain in the rotation.

Seagull-Bay Supersire-ET – I’ve seen some pictures of some fresh Supersire daughters.  My crossbred Supersire daughters are reaching breeding age.  The sire of Supersire, Robust, has pretty well confirmed his fantastic production proof.  This is a good sign.  This is another bull that has done a great job getting cows pregnant for me.

Younger Bulls

By old standards, Supersire and Mogul would still be considered to be very young bulls.  In today’s fast paced world of genetics, these bulls now have had sons being marketed for some time.  Some people have apprehension about using such young, unproven bulls.  For me, if the pedigree fits the numbers I’ll use some pretty young bulls.  Most of the youngest bulls I use have the above bulls in the pedigree:

Iota son: Jacey

Mogul sons: Montross Tampa Commander Defender

Supersire sons: Josuper Littleton Franz

The post Breeding Plan: Holstein appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

Back in August, Dairyco released a new list of bulls ranked to be suitable for Spring calving herds. Spring Calving Index (£SCI) is targeted on herds making full use of grazed grass with a target yield of 4500 litres. The value of  £SCI represents the extra lifetime profit from using a bull.

The interesting thing about this new genetic index is that unlike PLI, it is can be used across the breeds. Seeing as Spring calved herds are often crossbred, I thought it may be of interest to some readers of this blog. Most of us in the UK will probably have heard about but abroad they may not.

Personally this list won’t be of much use to me. I only take notice of PLI when looking at Holstein bulls. Other breeds have very good ranking systems already in place in their native countries. For example in France they have ISU for Montbeliardes and the Nordic countries have NTM for the Viking Reds.

Below is a pie chart showing how SCI is made up and a list of the top 35 bulls from all breeds. If you want to see the full list click here. Not surprisingly, Jersey’s dominate the list with Danish Jersey’s taking the top 4 spots. There’s a scattering of Holsteins and Friesians with a Brown Swiss Huray at no.30 and Viking Red Pell Pers for the Ayrshires at no.33.

The post SCI – Spring Calving Index appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

• The August pay price spread between fat and protein was as close as it’s been in some time.  A pound of protein was still worth about 30 cents more than a pound of fat.  When fat is worth relatively more, the Jersey sired animals are nice to have around.
• I’m continue to be happy with the Jersey X Red X Holstein three-way rotation.  Going back to one of the crossbreeding myths that the first generation is great but the following generations aren’t so good, I feel that the three-way cross concept has proven itself on my farm.  That’s not to say that the Jersey X Red X Holstein rotation is the best three-way cross (ProCross would have something to say about that!), but I feel the three-way cross concept itself is what I’m firmly settling into to.
• Based on breed of sire, it appears that the Jersey sired animals carry the production load for the Jersey X Red X Holstein crosses.  For the moment this is true.  Soon I believe we will see an improvement in the Viking Red and Norwegian Red numbers.  The first Norwegian Red daughters are now entering third lactation with excellent production.  I have a second wave of O Brolin daughters entering their second lactation.  A few people came through for World Dairy Expo week and the general consensus was my O Brolin and Braut daughters stood out from the pack.  This matches my own feelings.
• I’ll continue to put out a warning not to fret over the Montbeliarde, Fleckvieh, and Normande daughters.  This test was from August.  Being October now, I can say that they are coming around.  As fresh heifers continue to come in, the numbers will still look poor on average.  But I have been completely content with their performance so far.  Especially as I see the first ones to calve earlier this summer get into that 70-80 lb/day range with decent components.

The post Test Day Results: August appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

Waldhoer

Apologies for my recent lack of posts but you can say I’ve been a little bit on the busy side.  Part of that was from October 20-27 I took a trip to Germany to check out the farms and the Fleckvieh cattle.

I’ve been using some Fleckvieh over the past few years with the earliest heifers now entering the milking string.  The apprehension with Fleckvieh has always been that they are overly muscled and will not produce enough milk to be useful in a crossbreeding system.  With my first heifers milking being sired by Enrico, I was going to put this theory to the test.  I will say that I am more than happy with the production thus far.  With this in mind, I scheduled the trip to Germany with John Popp of Big Bear Genetics in Canada. (Disclaimer: this trip was not funded by John or any Fleckvieh organization!).

After the almost nine hour flight from Chicago to Munich, we ventured to the bull stud, Bayern Genetik.  They brought out several bulls including the bull I pictured above, Waldhoer.  We met with the head of BG, Dr. Thomas Grupp.  One thing that sticks out about Bayern Genetik is that they do not shy away from the label ‘dual purpose’.  Dual purpose sometimes implies beef and maybe a little milk but with the Fleckvieh the goal is for the animals to excel in both traits.  Another interesting tidbit is the desire to move the breed toward being polled.  Dr. Grupp predicted a time in the near future that dehorning could no longer be legal in Europe thus they are intensifying their efforts to introduce the polled gene into some of the best cow families in Germany.  Rosskur is an example of a polled bull that ranks high in the German index (don’t mind the horns in the picture, he is polled and those are scurs just hanging there).

Rosskur

After visiting the stud, we visited a few farms in Bavaria near Munich.

The first farm was well managed with an interesting breeding philosophy.  This gentleman was not one to chase the newest and highest indexing bulls.  When we asked about certain newer bulls he kept saying that the bull’s sire was better.  Another point he made which seems counterintuitive is that he sells heifers that milk too much and too fast.  He was adamant that this type of cow was not made to last and he had several examples of very old cows in the herd that fit this philosophy.  It’s not unusual to see a cow with 10+ lactations in this herd and they still looked to be in very good shape.

The next farm continued the pattern of farms that look for lifetime production out of their cows.  The above cow I believe was just fresh for the seventh time and doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.  The second herd was milked with robots.

Younger Holzmichl daughter

After the farms in Bavaria, we ventured to the state of Saxony in the old East Germany.  That in itself presented some interesting aspects.  We visited two farms in Saxony.  One was a newer setup, and the other older.  Both were larger herds than you’ll find in Bavaria.  Land in Bavaria is at a premium and most farms are in that 30-50 range while in Saxony the farms were much more similar in size to my own or larger.  Both farms we visited in Saxony are making the transition from pure Holstein to pure Fleckvieh.  Both demonstrated improvements in all areas, including production.

Cow comfort is something that I found to be challenging on farms in Germany.  You do not see large, sand-bedded stalls anywhere.  Despite the challenges, the Fleckvieh cattle do quite well in the facilities.

We also visited the Bayern Genetik waiting station in Saxony that houses all the young bulls in waiting.  The bulls are pastured when possible and raised on grass.

Finally, to wrap up the trip we attended the German National Fleckvieh Show which brought some of the best Fleckvieh cattle in Germany under one roof. I had to get a chuckle as these cattle are not your pampered show cattle and they show it.  Handling them in the show ring can be challenging and you can see the crooked flowers on the far wall from the cows running into it.  We also saw a person drug across the ring by an especially boisterous cow.

And my favorite Fleckvieh cow from the show, Fiona.  Though not champion of the show, she is the dam of current breed leader, Reumut.  At seventh lactation she has a few more lactations to go before beating some of those 10+ lactations cows that dominated her division.

Fiona

Overall it was a great trip with great cows.  One of the best parts was spending a week with four other passionate Fleckvieh breeders in John Popp, Dave Goodrich, Henk Klok, and Mitch Nadeau.  My background in Fleckvieh is not the strongest so spending time with more experienced breeders allowed me to pick up a fair amount of information on the breed.  Right now the Montbeliardes outnumber my Fleckviehs two to one but on the heels of this trip I could see myself using a fair amount of Fleckvieh in the future.  I do not see myself going pure Fleckvieh like many do, but I think they can play a very important role in a crossbreeding program where the goal is lifetime production through strength.

The post German Fleckvieh Tour appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

Last week i attended an open day at Richard Parks farm near Kendal in Cumbria. The event organized by Genus and Pro Cross, was presented by Hielke Wiersma who is actively promoting the Pro Cross in the UK and other countries.

After an interesting presentation from Richard followed by Hielke, we had lunch then rounded off with a walk through the 170 cow herd.

Richard started crossbreeding back in 2002 with the initial plan of breeding a pure Viking Red herd. While he liked the 1st cross, the 2nd and 3rd were more disappointing. Primarily he has since followed a Pro Cross style system but the other main dairy breeds have been used too. The whole herd is block calved in the Autumn.

Below are some snaps i took of some individual cows from the herd.

Pure Danish Red

This cow is a pure Danish Red. One from a batch Richard imported in a few years back.

Masolino daughter

This Pro Cross cow is a 5th lactation Masolino daughter.

B Jurist daughter

An 8th lactation B Jurist daughter. Shes averaged 9,599 litres in her previous 7 305 day lactations.

Patinage daughter

This is her Pro Cross daughter by a bull called Patinage. One i’ve not heard much about. Shes 52 days into her 3rd lactation.

Asmo Tosikko daughter

Another nice looking cow by the Finnish Ayrshire Asmo Tosikko.

Redondo daughter

Richard has a couple of Normande X heifers milking which were of interest to me as i have a few at the point of calving. This ones out of a Swedish Red dam.

Another Normande cross

The other Redondo daughter. Hard to find many faults in her.

The post Pro Cross Open Day Photos appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

Moving forward in the Breeding Plan series, we’ll look at the strength breeds next.  In this category I place four breeds.  Fleckvieh, Montbeliarde, Simmental, and Normande are in this category.  The past few years I have weighed my usage more heavily to the Montbeliarde.  In 2014, we have calved in a number of animals from Montbeliarde, Normande and Fleckvieh breeds.  Next year we will see some Swiss Simmental daughters calve in.  Thus far, the results have been as expected and I will continue to make heavy use of strength breeds in my breeding program with perhaps a bit of a different weighting of breeds.

Fleckvieh

I started using Fleckvieh around three years ago with a bit of caution.  A more muscular version of the Montbeliarde seemed to be pushing things too far in the direction of less milk production.  But after calving a few in myself and going to Germany to see this breed in the pure form, I’m happy to throw out any feeling of trepidation I felt in the past.  I’d say over the past year that the Fleckvieh have come to gain equal footing with Montbeliarde in my strength breeding program.  As for bulls I’ll be on in the near future:

Waldhoer – This bull would be my all purpose bull.  If I am away and cannot advise my breeder on bulls to use, the instructions are to grab Waldhoer if in doubt.  He is balanced in almost all traits and could serve a wide variety of cows.  For anybody that has a concern for calving ease, at 128 Waldhoer will ease any concerns.  And for the person looking to use a strength breed bull on heifers, Waldhoer should be among the top choices.  Another top Winnipeg son that we are unable to get in the USA is Waldbrand, one of the most popular bulls in Germany.

Reumut – This bull will be limited by price and availability.  But leave no doubt that this is one of the top Fleckvieh bulls.  I was impressed by both his dam and daughter group at the Fleckvieh show in Germany.  This bull I am using on some of my better cows and families.  It’s hard to find a hole in this bull’s proof.  Availability in the USA has nothing to do with Schmallenberg, it’s a reflection of his popularity in Germany.

Holzmichl – My impression of this bull in Germany was that he made very nice barn cows.  Nothing flashy but cows that would get the job done.  His biggest faults would be component percentages and suspensory ligament.  If breeding is like fitting puzzle pieces together, I think this bull would fit well on cows with a higher percentage of Jersey.  I would be a little wary of using this bull on O Brolin bloodlines due to the suspensory ligament issue.

Helderberg – This bull will make some large cows and large calves so if that’s something that turns you off this wouldn’t be the bull for you.  A bull I was very impressed with in Germany was Ilion, who has a very similar type profile to Helderberg.  The calving ease is a slight concern but I think I would keep this bull away from pure Holsteins.  On crossbreds I would have no concerns using this bull.  Production, udders, and frames for those that like large frames will be the strengths of this bull.

Rotglut – We saw some nice calves from this bull and I’ve already got a number of pregnancies from him.  This bull will be great for frail, dairy cows.  At 114, he has the highest muscularity of this group of Fleckvieh bulls.  I’ve used his sire, Roundup, a legendary bull for the Fleckvieh breed.  With Roundup not available in the States any longer, Rotglut looks to be the next best thing.

Vanstein – A legend of the Fleckvieh breed, he has tens of thousands of daughters and still ranks among the top of the index in Germany.  I’ve used some Vanstein in the past year and have a number of pregnancies due to his excellent semen fertility (in our herd anyway).  Another bull with very few holes and with the shear number of daughters he can be used with high confidence.

Montbeliarde

I may have a lot of excitement for the Fleckvieh coming off my trip to Germany but that does not mean the Montbeliarde will be thrown off to the side in my breeding program.  We will continue to have a lot of calves born in the next year and there are some good bulls to pick through in the breed.

Triomphe – Some of my favorite breeding age heifers are Triomphe daughters.  This bull will really put strength into a mating.  With over 9000 daughters, he also has plenty of production coming from that strength and muscularity.  If that weren’t enough, his udder composite is also tremendous.  Maybe stay away from cows with short teats.

Ugostar – He is excelling in both the French index and is also putting together a stellar proof in the United States.  I absolutely love the few I have milking and one I recently sold has been doing well also.  If you have any questions about the production ability of the Montbeliarde, Ugostar would be a nice bull to start with.  The proof says narrow chests and dairy, but standing next to a bunch of Holsteins I do not believe you would get that impression from his daughters.

Urbaniste – Well into second crop, this is one of the top Montbeliarde well proven bulls out there.  This bull will sire udders and components.  My first Urbaniste daughter was a bust due to a blown udder but my latest few that calved or are close to calving look to have very nice udders.  The first one was a bit of a fluke.  I’ve also found the Urbaniste daughters to be more moderate in stature than his proof would suggest.

Valfin – We calved in a number of Valfin daughters this summer.  Compared to other Montbeliardes I would consider them to be taller and more dairy.  But the udders have been tremendous.  Temperament is a concern for some (not me), and I would say Valfin daughters are more calm than the average which would jive with his proof.  Valfin is also the first bull we’ve finally crossed over with and used on heifers.

Crumble – Redon without the stature.  That’s the best way to sum up Crumble.  At 157 ISU, he is a top indexing bull available in the US.  With good components this bull should sire a fair amount of fat and protein from excellent udders.  This is another calving ease bull that I will use some on my heifers.

Normande

Redondo – It seems like I’ve been using this bull forever.  I’ve calved in daughters from some other Normande bulls but I always find that the Redondos remain my favorites.  My Redondo daughters have shown some good production from good udders along with good productive life.  A bull worth recognizing across all breeds.

Saintyorre – I’ve got some nice Saintyorre daughters in the latest wave of Normande daughters.  I wouldn’t be opposed to going back to him in the future.

The post Breeding Plan 2015: Strength Breeds appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

• Overall we start to see milk production rise in September.  Our feed situation is very good which allows us flexibility to push a little more production.  The gains in September were mostly component driven.  The component percentages in these test results are inflated as they are taken from our afternoon milking, which is likewise slightly deflated for volume.  In September we shipped 4.17% fat and 3.22% protein which was up from 4.05% fat and 3.16% protein in August.  The components remain on the rise today.
• The energy corrected 305ME figures between the Red breeds are remarkably close.  There are quality genetics in all Red breeds.  Braut is far and away the best production sire among my Red daughters but coming in second is O Brolin.  O Brolin has also delivered the goods in improving health and longevity, as my old cow pen begins to fill up with O Brolin daughters and his name is littered throughout the pedigrees of my cows.
• Back to the subject of components, consider their value.  The Holstein X Jersey X Red and the pure Holsteins had the exact same energy corrected milk figure, 89 lbs.  The pure Holsteins gave 7 lbs more of volume yet the value of their milk was over two times less than the H X J X R cows.
• We’ve talked about the recent performance of some of the strength breeds (especially Montbeliarde) ad nauseam, and the same points stand.  But I thought I’d make a note of the component levels.  The Fleckvieh look to be putting out some pretty solid components but there is a little bit of an asterisk to that.  Most of my Fleckvieh sired animals milking are three or even four-way crosses, with three of the five containing a high amount of Jersey blood.  The Montbeliardes are in large part straight up Montbeliarde X Holsteins, with fat percentages sometimes very Holstein like with that cross.  With the component percentages I’m seeing on my ProCross animals, I’m not worried about them because I know they will improve all-around when a third breed gets involved.

The post Test Day Results: September appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

• We’ve now went over 20 Montbeliarde sired animals in the milking herd.  As a group they made a nice jump in production last month.  They are still well below average as a group but when I take a look at lactations two and greater they look much better.  That age group is currently averaging 99 lbs/day ECM which is four pounds above the average for the age group.  Even some of the first lactation are giving some decent production though most are middle of the road.  We continue to freshen some heifers that don’t help the average.  Nothing unexpected, as anybody that’s milked cows from these strength breeds can attest to.
• This was taken under pretty good conditions.  While I think we could squeeze some more milk out of the cows I’d classify this as being on the upper range of what my herd is capable of.  For the month of October as a whole, we saw components climb some more.  We shipped 4.26% fat and 3.27% protein in October compared to 4.17% fat and 3.22% protein in September and 4.05% fat and 3.16% protein in August.  November will almost certainly see us go over 3.3% protein shipped.  We were slightly under the volume shipped in August but with higher components, October was our best production month of 2014 so far.
• On another note, DairyXbred commenter Dave Goodrich was featured in the DairyStar newspaper.  Check it out here.  The article on Dave is in section two.  Dave is a part of the team of Fleckvieh enthusiasts that have brought me to appreciate the merits of the breed, being a Wisconsin freestall operation not too different from my own.

The post Test Results: October appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

Continuing my Breeding Plan series, we move on to the Red breeds.  I put a lot of different breeds and subdivisions of those breeds into this category.  In this category we have Viking Red (can be subdivided into Swedish, Danish, and Finnish), Norwegian Red, Aussie Red, Ayrshire, and Milking Shorthorn/Illawarra.  I currently have 180 milking cows from this category and feel that I have a pretty decent grasp of what I’m looking for when using bulls from this category.  My goal going forward is to utilize the knowledge I’ve gained through experience in using a wide variety of Red bulls.

Pell Pers (Sweden)- This has been a bull for use on my heifers over the 2014 and that likely will continue into 2015.  The first calves have hit the ground and will be fairly steady for the foreseeable future.  This bull’s proof suggest solid production with decent udders, all in a very small frame.  Health and fertility scores suggest that the small frames of his daughters are also very robust.

Foske (Sweden)- Time will tell how much usage Foske will get in 2015.  We’ve relegated him to #2 choice on heifers in 2014 not because he’s fallen out of favor but because I’m going to have 40 daughters already.  My first Foske daughters will freshen in March and I’m excited to see what they will do.  I’d love to hear any reports of milking crossbred Foske daughters.  For good or bad, this bull is going to make a major impact in my herd.

Braut (Norway)- Braut remains in the rotation even after over 1200 heifer calves have been born on my farm since the first Braut was born.   I’ll probably just use him until I can’t anymore.  These days I’m utilizing Braut a little differently.  In the past I was using Braut to make a lot of first generation crossbreds from Holsteins.  Today, I think Braut makes an ideal match for my Valfin X Holstein daughters, and some of the more dairy Montbeliarde crosses.

Tangvoll (Norway)- This Norwegian bull caught my attention earlier this year.  Tangvoll is an Oygarden son so you can expect very high production.  Like Oygarden, Tangvoll is also polled.  His udder composite is below average but strategically using him should avoid any problems.  Close teats are becoming a problem for some.  Tangvoll is a bull that could widen them out.  Likewise, you’ll probably want to avoid Tangvoll on cows with already wide teats.

Donato (Denmark)- A new one being brought to the US that has my attention.  This bull doesn’t look to have many holes.  He is listed on the Viking Genetics site under the >12.5% Holstein and I also see some Brown Swiss in his background but that does not impact my opinion.  Udders and fat percentage are traits that his proof suggests his daughters excel in.  He also carries an excellent calving ease figure, so he very well could find his way into my heifer program.

Lekve (Norway) – In the past year I’ve only used 10 units of Lekve.  I’d like to change that as when I take another look at his proof, I like what I see.  His type traits aren’t too dissimilar to Braut’s.  He has a decent production proof, high fertility, and milking speed is the only standout negative trait.  I had seven pregnancies to the first ten units of Lekve but got zero heifer calves from those pregnancies.  Time to try again.

BonJovi (Australia) – My foray into Aussie Red genetics has mostly been BonJovi.  I had a handful of calves born this summer.  They don’t seem all that different than any other Red breed calf.  BonJovi being an Orraryd son, I wouldn’t expect them to.  I can’t claim to know what to expect here but I did want to get some more Orraryd blood into my herd through BonJovi.

Kansas (Canada) – Cleanup bull.  This Peterslund son has done great cleaning up hard to breed cows for me.  I can generally get him at a price cheaper than the imports.  He lost some share to beef semen in 2014, but Kansas ought to see some more clean up use in 2015.

The post Breeding Plan 2015: Red Breeds appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

O Brolin (Swedish Red) X Potter (Holstein) – 5th lactation

I wanted to show some pictures of some older cows while also showing some more figures in my herd in terms of survivability.  The first three pictures including the one above come from the 2100 series of cows in my herd.  The 100 cows in the 2100 series were born from February to September of 2008.  So they will be hitting seven years old in 2015.

The group originally consisted of 54 pure Holsteins and 46 crossbreds.  Today, there are nine pure Holsteins left from that group and 17 crossbreds.  That gives us a survival rate of 17% for pure Holsteins and 37% for crossbreds.  Ten of the 17 surviving crossbreds are sired by Swedish Red bulls (eight by O Brolin), five sired by Jersey and two by Brown Swiss.

It gets more interesting when we look at production.  Of the surviving cows, the crossbreds average 114,738 lbs of milk lifetime versus 118,810 lbs lifetime for Holsteins.  Advantage goes to the Holsteins there, but I’m more interested in pounds of fat and protein as I’m paid on components.  The advantage shifts to crossbreds here as they average 5120 lbs of fat and 3822 lbs of protein lifetime compared to 4830 lbs of fat and 3761 pounds of protein for Holsteins.

When you combine survivability and production, there really was no contest in this group of 100 cows.  The crossbreds have been the better cows.

With that, here some pictures of some of the middle aged to older crossbreds in my herd:

O Brolin (SR) X Nuclear (HOL) X Jersey X Holstein (5th lactation)

B Jurist (SR) X Manfred (HOL) – 5th lactation

Pollyden (Brown Swiss) X Paramount (Jersey) X Holstein

Orkko (FAY) X Jersey X Holstein

TD (Brown Swiss) X Holstein

The post Some Old Cows and Survival Figures appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

Hopefully everyone has had a good Christmas. Dairy farming never stops even at this time of year, but i hope you all got to spend some time with friends and family.

I have a few heifers from some new bulls that have entered my milking herd. Not only from new bulls but also new breeds. Below i have compiled some photo’s of some of those heifers.

This Swedish Red X sired by Skyhigh Samson is the only heifer I have by this British bred bull.

A Norwegian Red X heifer sired by Hojem. The ones I have are yielding well. This one is giving 35 litres/day.

Normande X Swedish Red X Holstein sired by Arnica

A pair of Normande crosses both by Redondo and also both out of K Lens dams. I’m not sure how i got them to strike the same pose.

A Pro Cross heifer sired by Redon out of a Skyhigh Hartland dam.

Another Pro Cross sired by Ulcoto.

One of my favorite heifers to calve this year. She’s another Pro Cross sired by the second Montbeliarde herd bull i bought i call Simpson. He has since gone after fertility trouble.

The post Some New Additions appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

• First I’d like to make mention that the contest for 2014 Bull of the Year will be commencing shortly.  The voting for the contest will take place here on the blog.  Previously we’ve had a discussion post on the blog but with the XBred XChange in place this year we will have the discussion over there.  The current discussion can be found in this thread. Voting will commence some time next week.  Feel free to discuss the contest in this post too.
• November’s test was taken as we were adjusting to 2014’s corn silage so components are higher and volume is lower.
• Pure Holsteins have the advantage in November for production.  This is aided by the fact that we only have 11 first lactation pure Holsteins in the herd at the moment and only two more in the heifer pipeline.  Looking at mature production (greater than first lactation), crossbreds have the advantage at 93 lbs ECM/day compared to pure Holsteins at 91 lbs ECM/day.
• The Montbeliarde sired population continues to grow as we bring more heifers into the milking string.  Those fresh heifers continue to make the Montbeliarde production look mediocre overall but the first heifers to freshen last summer are starting to show up at the top of the first lactation production list.  And they are pregnant, too.
• We will have to wait until next year to push the Fleckvieh cow numbers higher.  Right now with only six milking, the numbers are next to useless.  But as a whole, I’m more than happy with what they’ve given me so far.
• Elsewhere on the topic of white faced cattle, we’ve calved in our first two Swiss Simmental daughters sired by Adi.  Very nice udders on the first two milking.  They also carry the flesh and muscle I see more in Fleckvieh.  If you like long necked dairy cattle, you’d probably dislike the first Simmental I calved (Sim X Jersey X Holstein) as she has a head and neck that reminds me of a bull.

The post Test Day Results: November appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.

It’s once again time to crown The Dairy Crossbred Blog’s Bull of the Year for 2014!

Previous winners:

Bull of the Year 2013: Braut (Norwegian Red)

Bull of the Year 2012: Papayou (Montbeliarde)

Bull of the Year 2011: Valfin (Montbeliarde)

Previous discussion took place here. Being a crossbred blog, preference should go to bulls based on crossbreeding impact.

Voting is simple.  To vote, just comment on this post with your top three choices in order.

1. First choice

2. Second choice

3. Third choice.

If you feel only one bull is worthy, than you are free to only vote for one.  A first choice vote is worth three (3) points, second choice two (2) points and third choice one (1) point.

Please put at least a first name or nickname to your vote.  Anonymous votes will be thrown out.  I will also be monitoring the IP addresses that the votes come from this year after one single IP address voted 50+ times last year (and the votes were subsequently thrown out).  If you vote from the same computer as another voter, make a note so I do not throw those votes out.

Please refrain from discussion on this post as it will keep things nice and tidy for me to keep a running tally.

Thanks for participating and commence the voting!

The post Vote: Bull of the Year 2014 appeared first on The Dairy Crossbred Blog.