PLI or EBI

[Green Grass]

Currently looking around for my bull team to start serving in December. Coming from an all Holstein herd in 2010 we have being using nz friesians, norwegian red, and run a monty stock. On the whole replacements have being healthier, more fertile, smaller with better milk quality, but volumes have dropped by 1500litres in line with cut in concentrate. Now i need maintain the cow i have 7500litre 4.3bf 3.4pro, ideally further increase milk quality.
Herd is autumn calved feed on grazed grass or grass silage and cake in parlour.
So genus guy reckons i should use coldspring ponder on nr red crosses to slightly increase yields. I quite like look of imleach lucky whistler from lic. But when i compare them on pli ponder seems the bull to use but the other way round when bulls compared on ebi. So which should i use and which testing regime has most relevance to me

 

[More to life]

Have a look at sci,compares across breeds on the AHDB site.

 

[Holsteinfriesian90]

What are you aiming for a Holstein friesian type cow?

 

[farmer on a bike]

Have a look at sci,compares across breeds on the AHDB site.

+1

 

[sidjon]

I use Ebi or bw as a guide, but Sci seem to give high scores to bulls which never have been bred of block calving.

 

[dinderleat]

I would use classic over ponder. Got some ponder heifers milking not overly to my liking to big and framey , classic should do what you want with a smaller cow.

 

[dinderleat]

Nadal and dancer might be worth a look and pesky trix calving some heifers to him at the moment great easy calving calves that thrive

 

[buffalo_soldier]

If your crossing back to holstien what do you folks think of this: http://www.bullsemen.com/bull-sires-profile-2016.php?hb_no=01000000644841

Compares quite favorably with the bulls mentioned?

 

[dinderleat]

Figures look good but the Goldwyn in the dam would put me off, but it's a good bull with proven figures and well priced

 

[More to life]

If your crossing back to holstien what do you folks think of this: http://www.bullsemen.com/bull-sires-profile-2016.php?hb_no=01000000644841

Compares quite favorably with the bulls mentioned?

Personally I'd not use him as he's breeder proven 9/10 it ends in tears

 

[Holsteinfriesian90]

If your crossing back to holstien what do you folks think of this: http://www.bullsemen.com/bull-sires-profile-2016.php?hb_no=01000000644841

Compares quite favorably with the bulls mentioned?

I can't see much wrong with that.

 

[buffalo_soldier]

Personally I'd not use him as he's breeder proven 9/10 it ends in tears

. There are a lot of letters after his name.

UK bull and proof though, thought it may tick the OP's boxes.

 

[Holsteinfriesian90]

What about this one?

http://www.cogentuk.com/bulls/proven-holstein/detail.php?id=625

 

[More to life]

. There are a lot of letters after his name.

UK bull and proof though, thought it may tick the OP's boxes.

He should be well proven in six months

 

[Stinker]

I'm amazed how all the indices score the same bulls so differently for fertility. Irish bulls score very well for ebi with very low reliability and are disappointing on sci, whereas many fertile bulls on sci are not fertile on ebi. I don't know what to make of it all.

 

[Clay52]

I'm amazed how all the indices score the same bulls so differently for fertility. Irish bulls score very well for ebi with very low reliability and are disappointing on sci, whereas many fertile bulls on sci are not fertile on ebi. I don't know what to make of it all.

Look at country of origin to get the best idea. Any conversions often don't work great.

 

[Stinker]

Look at country of origin to get the best idea. Any conversions often don't work great.

Most of the top irish Bulls have reliability of under 50% so should I pay any more attention to that than a conversion from another country. I guess the only way to know if irish holsteins are worth using is to use some. Trouble is I dont know how to compare these Bulls to UK proven Bulls without just taking a gamble.

 

[More to life]

Most of the top irish Bulls have reliability of under 50% so should I pay any more attention to that than a conversion from another country. I guess the only way to know if irish holsteins are worth using is to use some. Trouble is I dont know how to compare these Bulls to UK proven Bulls without just taking a gamble.

Ask your self this,how many Irish bulls have been internationally successful ?(I know we have a short list)

 

[Clay52]

Most of the top irish Bulls have reliability of under 50% so should I pay any more attention to that than a conversion from another country. I guess the only way to know if irish holsteins are worth using is to use some. Trouble is I dont know how to compare these Bulls to UK proven Bulls without just taking a gamble.

That conversion is based on that already low realibity Irish proof. So it's not going to be more accurate.

Like @More to life says look at the history of the Irish bulls.

This is why I moved to US Holsteins. More reliability, more choice, greater numbers of internationally successful bulls.

 

[Stinker]

It's interesting that many of the top proven ebi bulls in Ireland are nz Holstein or Scandinavian reds. Do you think this is because Irish bulls don't live up to the hype? Or will the current crop of Irish Holstein bulls be that much better than previous ones.