- 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!)
