William Mellor
Member
- Location
- Peak District
Have you picked out any Friesian Bulls?
All things Dairy
- Thread starter Cows 'n grass
- Start date
Cows 'n grass
Member
- Location
- Modbury, South Devon
It's definitely not sandy . I would describe it as a medium clay loam but on lots of the farm there's only 6 inches of soil before you hit some quite free draining stone.
We've made a fair bit of mud this spring, much more than i would like
Cows 'n grass
Member
- Location
- Modbury, South Devon
KJL
Member
- Location
- Meath, Ireland.
If your crossing onto Jersey would you not want higher figures for milk?
multi power
Member
- Location
- pembrokeshire
Whatever you do don't tell Jimmer
Cows 'n grass
Member
- Location
- Modbury, South Devon
Last year we did 420 kg MS with over 40% heifers in our first full season on the new farm. Within the next couple of years I think we'll comfortably get back up to 450kg. With a jersey x freisian or a jersey x freisian x Norwegian I'd like a slightly hardier animal that can do 500 kg and produce a more salable beef calf.
I'm not looking for massive yields but the low milk does put me off the BF A bit. The kiwi bull Macca has everything i look for in a jersey but with more protein.
farmer on a bike
Member
I don't get why you would not go for a bull higher up the kiwi rankings if you are going to use a kiwi bull
http://www.dairynz.co.nz/animal/animal-evaluation/ranking-of-active-sires-ras/
- Location
- Northumberland
Cows 'n grass
Member
- Location
- Modbury, South Devon
The RAS list doesn't read well on a phone but I'll have a better look tomorrow.
In short I want a medium stature, positive capacity bull with good health traits and positive protein % and good overall protein yield. Macca has this at a good price.
Probably about 10 years ago now when I was milking 80/90 cows I tried to buy some LIC straws at the time they were struggling to import because of the change in IBR rules. I was shown the list I could buy from and told that the top bulls were reserved for their larger herds. I haven't forgiven them and i dont think ive bought from them since...........and their jerseys are sh!t.......and so is the BW system.
In short I want a medium stature, positive capacity bull with good health traits and positive protein % and good overall protein yield. Macca has this at a good price.
Probably about 10 years ago now when I was milking 80/90 cows I tried to buy some LIC straws at the time they were struggling to import because of the change in IBR rules. I was shown the list I could buy from and told that the top bulls were reserved for their larger herds. I haven't forgiven them and i dont think ive bought from them since...........and their jerseys are sh!t.......and so is the BW system.
'Larger herds' hate that nonsense!!!! Totally agree all the ones that are treating folk like that won't be forgotten.
KJL
Member
- Location
- Meath, Ireland.
That's good MS figures for 40% 1st and the live weight of your milkers. Would you consider a Norwegian X? I would say you have a better X with a fr. The few NR X I have seen have always been a bit disappointing I thought. Maybe a 3 way X would be better?
If you prefer to look at a hard copy catalogue, rather than browsing online I can send you over a few up to date Irish ones for a comparison to look at.
farmer on a bike
Member
I am suprised at that. I was an agent for LIC up until about that point and I was certainly not told to act in that way. I wonder if some of the agents were taking it on themselves, unless it was after I left. I don't disbelieve you, but wonder what the hell they thought they were doing, crazy for long term custom.
I did always persuade my customers to use at least 4 bulls to split their risk, and if a bull was in short supply I would phone customers that I thought would want that bull to try to make sure they got some. I probably favoured farmers who bought all their dairy semen from me, but never on a farm size basis.
Also don't get why you think BW is sh!t, PLI is now almost an exact copy except the cows are not all on a grass based system. For an Arla milk contract on a spring grazing system it (along with RBI) is surely identifying the best bulls. I think they probably do have a problem with the jersey breed as their population is now small and they have been slow to test other blood lines.
Cows 'n grass
Member
- Location
- Modbury, South Devon
I'm not a passionate pedigree breeder but I really quite enjoy looking through AI catalogues, part of the appeal of crossing is that it gives me more catalogues to look through and more bulls to choose from. I feel that I'm quite capable of understanding a bull proof by looking at all the individual traits that I want without needing someone else to round it up into an individual figure, be it BW, NZMI, PLI, EBI, SCI or any other.
What I really don't like about BW is the way LIC use it to protect their own market in NZ. Because cow's are bought and sold far more frequently and freely in NZ by people progressing through the industry there is pressure on guys to increase the BW of their herd to add value to the cows regardless of whether they are the best genetics for that farm.
I worked on two farms that had jerseys doing 500 solids from a near enough all grass system but the BW's of their herds would have been in the bottom 25% because they were using Danish, Canadian and American genetics
What I really don't like about BW is the way LIC use it to protect their own market in NZ. Because cow's are bought and sold far more frequently and freely in NZ by people progressing through the industry there is pressure on guys to increase the BW of their herd to add value to the cows regardless of whether they are the best genetics for that farm.
I worked on two farms that had jerseys doing 500 solids from a near enough all grass system but the BW's of their herds would have been in the bottom 25% because they were using Danish, Canadian and American genetics
What will you serve the fresian x jersey to?
Cows 'n grass
Member
- Location
- Modbury, South Devon
No sure. I've got 3 years to decide that. As heifers they woul probably go to Jersey to pretty much guarantee an easy calving. After that I'd be quite tempted to go Norwegian red then back to Jersey. I saw some nice jersey X freisian X norwegian last year, the looked like sensible medium sized but powerful cows.
Irish NZ
Member
- Location
- The mighty Waikato NZ
BW is a load of shite controlled by lic. As you say some of the nicest herds in the country are ambreed crv and pretty poor bw.
Some very well know farmers seem to manipulate it to there own advantage.
1 major problem is its based on all cows eating 5t dm which tends to sway things.
farmer on a bike
Member
As I understand it, the assumption is that the average cow eats 5.05t of dry matter, the weight difference between cows is then taken into account to estimate how much more or less, a larger or smaller cow eats for maintenance.
http://www.dairynz.co.nz/animal/animal-evaluation/interpreting-the-info/economic-values/
Just as the table has average figures for milk yield, fat and protein %, etc.
It is in that area of feed use that ambreed crv has tended to loose out as there breeding tends to be bigger.
However there is a potential problem because we don't really know about the efficiency of the progeny, they may be bigger or smaller but do they really eat more or less to achieve the same production. On average they do, but does that work equally with each group of progeny.
For some reason I've only just found this thread. I've found it very interesting reading some of the posts. I'm very envious of some of your flash set ups!!!! Nothing fancy like that here I'm afraid. Just straw yards. Also a lot of you talk about cross breeding which is interesting for me as I'm a flying herd the most exciting cross I get is with a Hereford!! I will post some pictures and add to this thread soon