%protein and fat versus kg fat and protein

Location
Cornwall
What makes them so brilliant? I'm Holstein, but have used a fair bit of Freisan semen in the last few years. I'm happy with our production and fertility but I'm looking to make our cows more robust, with better feet and improve component %. I think I'll struggle making big improvements with robustness and feet if sticking to pure Holstein breeding.

I think your going the right way with the friesian.
 
Location
West Wales
What makes them so brilliant? I'm Holstein, but have used a fair bit of Freisan semen in the last few years. I'm happy with our production and fertility but I'm looking to make our cows more robust, with better feet and improve component %. I think I'll struggle making big improvements with robustness and feet if sticking to pure Holstein breeding.

For me they just clicked. Not sure on components because I don’t milk record but herd average I’m happy with currently. But yes robustness is definitely one of theyre major traits. The right fresian would provide similar benefits but calf sales were fairly important to us and if we crossed what we had here with fresian they still wouldn’t sell well enough.
 

O'Reilly

Member
What makes them so brilliant? I'm Holstein, but have used a fair bit of Freisan semen in the last few years. I'm happy with our production and fertility but I'm looking to make our cows more robust, with better feet and improve component %. I think I'll struggle making big improvements with robustness and feet if sticking to pure Holstein breeding.
They're not brilliant. I will not use any more, and I've never culled a genetic group so hard. Yes calves are valuable, but we are milk producers, temperament can be a problem, fertility and lameness isn't great, production isn't great, and they are some great fat lumps that get in the way and take up too much space in the parlour. Everyone is on about getting a kilo of solids per kilo of live weight as the new target, well that's quite difficult if your cow weighs a tonne. Stick to Friesian, or Norwegian or Viking reds if you want to crossbreed.
 

The Agrarian

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northern Ireland
Are you milking any Fleckvieh, and if so, how do you find them? They intrigue me, but I hear as many bad things about them as I do good things.

I've milked three '08 models (first cross), one of which is still going well. Moderate milker and very regular calver. I only have dates for lactations 5, 6, 7 & 8 and she has slipped a month and a half. But with a birth date of 10/08, and an 8th calving date of 08/17, she may have gained a little time overall. The other two milked very well, but the bags let them down in the end. They were part of an experiment I got talked into by a friend who gave me the semen, and I only did it to please him. I had no notion whatsoever of going white heads. I have some tough calf first crosses downwards, but more montbeliarde, which I chose at the time because of their more dairy characteristics. Both those breeds have milked moderately and bred mostly very well. Had a quick look through them and some have gained a couple of months over four calvings, some have lost a couple. Cull losses appear to be considerably less, but can't quote any figures on that. Just my gut feeling.

Looking back on the detail, the first bull given to me years ago was not special in the udder. In the second run which are fourth calf and below, I was fussy about udder selection, and they are really pretty good for a non Holstein breed. Holstein will probably always be the champion of udders, and plenty of leg into the bargain too, but slightly less will still do for me anyway if there's something good in return.

Lots of variation across the breed, and probably less consistency in a batch of daughters. But then, I'm still crossbreeding them which might not be a true comparison. I've gone for the best udders I can get with the right combination of other traits. It's something you didn't have to worry much about in more recent times with Holstein, almost taken for granted they'll be good bags. Really watch calving ease. I don't compromise on it either as I hate interventions.

I'm not sure yet how far down the line I'll go with fleckvieh. I'm just playing that by ear. My notion so far is to cross with brown Swiss if they get too un-dairy like. I've had good experience with them. And I'd fully expect that some day a Holstein cross on fleckvieh cows could produce an awesome animal, like the effect we got decades ago crossing Holstein onto Friesian. But brown Swiss are good, and I'd use them to keep the white heads tidy if it's needed, and I really have no current desire to head back to Holstein. I want %'s up, culls down, hassle and costs down, and residual value up. Prepared to take less milk to get it.
 

Clay52

Member
Location
Outer Space
They're not brilliant. I will not use any more, and I've never culled a genetic group so hard. Yes calves are valuable, but we are milk producers, temperament can be a problem, fertility and lameness isn't great, production isn't great, and they are some great fat lumps that get in the way and take up too much space in the parlour. Everyone is on about getting a kilo of solids per kilo of live weight as the new target, well that's quite difficult if your cow weighs a tonne. Stick to Friesian, or Norwegian or Viking reds if you want to crossbreed.
You likely won’t be getting a kg of solids per kg of liveweignt with mont or fleck. The montys are on average pretty poor production wise. Some are ok but I have to cull them pretty hard.

The cross breeding that included Monty’s or flecks that was supposedly going to take over the diary world certainly isn’t happening. They are nothing special.
 

bovine

Member
Location
North
What makes them so brilliant? I'm Holstein, but have used a fair bit of Freisan semen in the last few years. I'm happy with our production and fertility but I'm looking to make our cows more robust, with better feet and improve component %. I think I'll struggle making big improvements with robustness and feet if sticking to pure Holstein breeding.

You're wrong. Look at genomics. The right Holstein bull(s) can tick all boxes.

God I hate Freisans .
 
I've milked three '08 models (first cross), one of which is still going well. Moderate milker and very regular calver. I only have dates for lactations 5, 6, 7 & 8 and she has slipped a month and a half. But with a birth date of 10/08, and an 8th calving date of 08/17, she may have gained a little time overall. The other two milked very well, but the bags let them down in the end. They were part of an experiment I got talked into by a friend who gave me the semen, and I only did it to please him. I had no notion whatsoever of going white heads. I have some tough calf first crosses downwards, but more montbeliarde, which I chose at the time because of their more dairy characteristics. Both those breeds have milked moderately and bred mostly very well. Had a quick look through them and some have gained a couple of months over four calvings, some have lost a couple. Cull losses appear to be considerably less, but can't quote any figures on that. Just my gut feeling.

Looking back on the detail, the first bull given to me years ago was not special in the udder. In the second run which are fourth calf and below, I was fussy about udder selection, and they are really pretty good for a non Holstein breed. Holstein will probably always be the champion of udders, and plenty of leg into the bargain too, but slightly less will still do for me anyway if there's something good in return.

Lots of variation across the breed, and probably less consistency in a batch of daughters. But then, I'm still crossbreeding them which might not be a true comparison. I've gone for the best udders I can get with the right combination of other traits. It's something you didn't have to worry much about in more recent times with Holstein, almost taken for granted they'll be good bags. Really watch calving ease. I don't compromise on it either as I hate interventions.

I'm not sure yet how far down the line I'll go with fleckvieh. I'm just playing that by ear. My notion so far is to cross with brown Swiss if they get too un-dairy like. I've had good experience with them. And I'd fully expect that some day a Holstein cross on fleckvieh cows could produce an awesome animal, like the effect we got decades ago crossing Holstein onto Friesian. But brown Swiss are good, and I'd use them to keep the white heads tidy if it's needed, and I really have no current desire to head back to Holstein. I want %'s up, culls down, hassle and costs down, and residual value up. Prepared to take less milk to get it.
Thanks for that. The lack of consistency and variation in the animals seems to be recurring theme. I think I’ll stick with with my Holstein/Friesian direction for another few years and see how that works out. As for Brown Swiss, I would never have even considered them, it’s wonderful what you learn sometimes!
 
You're wrong. Look at genomics. The right Holstein bull(s) can tick all boxes.

God I hate Freisans .
I have dabbled in genomics and am currently using a Supersire son (Instead) who is marketed by AI Services (NI) on my Hilton bulling heifers. However, I still find that a lot of the high Pli genomic sires look like they will produce frail daughters. In fairness, the Holstein society have recently made changes to the Type Merit formula as the stature of the young sires was heading in entirely the wrong direction. Oman, Leif, and Emil II were all bulls I am familiar with that left proper tanks of cows. There arent too many genomic sires that have a linear similar to them (maybe Nadal, Jabir), although I’m finding it impossible to keep up with genomic listings.
 
Location
Cornwall
I have dabbled in genomics and am currently using a Supersire son (Instead) who is marketed by AI Services (NI) on my Hilton bulling heifers. However, I still find that a lot of the high Pli genomic sires look like they will produce frail daughters. In fairness, the Holstein society have recently made changes to the Type Merit formula as the stature of the young sires was heading in entirely the wrong direction. Oman, Leif, and Emil II were all bulls I am familiar with that left proper tanks of cows. There arent too many genomic sires that have a linear similar to them (maybe Nadal, Jabir), although I’m finding it impossible to keep up with genomic listings.

Used jabir a fair bit here and using him this year 1st ones are going to the bull soon they are already looking like tanks. (y)
 

The Agrarian

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northern Ireland
I more or less saturated the herd with Oman genetics years back and found I basically had nowhere else to go. At a time catalogues were just full of Oman or Goldwyn ( :eek: :nailbiting:) blood which was one of the reasons for looking outside the breed.

I haven't found any of my first cross montbeliarde or fleckvieh to be useless. There very likely will be a few crop up if I carry on breeding successive generations that way, but I'm not that far along yet. Fully expect heifers to be much lighter in milk though for first lactation. Which to me isn't a bad thing anyway.

Without wanting to stimulate a debate on this thread about Holsteins, I have had my fair share of useless ones of them. It's all good when things are going well for them, but man they can be truly pathetic when they hit a speed bump. I'm dealing with one this weekend, and the outlook isn't good. She just gave up immediately and when they get stiff there's basically little hope.
 
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Turboman

Member
Location
N.I.
Have a few month crosses and find them very hardy and fertility much better. Just red the article there about the farmer that almost got wiped out by botulism and a month cross was one of his few survivors!
 
Also DF producer. Currently in the tank with components in mind are two fleckvieh bulls, one montbeliarde, one brown Swiss and one Danish red. I don't mind a bit of size as long as they can handle themselves well in cubicles, which these breeds are generally fine for. It only seems to cause some Holsteins a problem.
i wanted to cross breed but never had the balls to.was scared of ending up in a muddle. have you any pure fleks?
 
We have a similar philosophy, half of our young stock are sired by Hilton and about 2/3 of the semen in the flask is Chad. We'll then serve these back to Holstein again with the overall aim of producing a slightly shorter, wider, more robust animal which can still milk well. That's the theory anyway!
have you any of your crosses milking yet? am using inch tarquin a bit at the min.would like to try chad but am relying on ai services so am limited a bit
 

The Agrarian

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northern Ireland
i wanted to cross breed but never had the balls to.was scared of ending up in a muddle. have you any pure fleks?


No. havent got that far. Not sure that entirely pure would be for me. But there's a range, like Holsteins. German stuff tends to be more strength and less milk and udder. Austrian stuff is more dairy and better udders. We'll see how it develops down the generations. I've already crossed brown swiss on some first cross white heads, but only getting calves this year.
 
Location
West Wales
i wanted to cross breed but never had the balls to.was scared of ending up in a muddle. have you any pure fleks?

I run a few pure flecks. I love them but suspect the deeper I go into breeding my own we will end up with fleck x Holstein x red. They were intilailly our answer to not wanting to Holsteins or grazing rats. Being a flying herd we were finding it difficult to get what we wanted on the middle ground which weren’t just low fertility spring calving slips.

With all that said I do plan to keep some pure probably around 20-25 animals (roughly 10% of the herd when we hit target numbers) simply to provide me sweeper bulls and maybe as another income stream.

We will be using some crossbred bulls this year Simmental x fleck but next year will be the real tell when we will have a Holstein fresian x fleck working
 

Wee Willy

Member
Location
Tyrone
I've got my first 4 fleck/Fres milking this year. They're what I want. Yield wise..22-27 litres. Don't know about solids,I don't milk record. Need to calve at 2yo or less to control size.
Last heifer to calve had a lim bull calf ,was the size of a six week old calf. Heifer was ripped,didn't get up for a day and then trailed a leg. That was three weeks ago . Today she is in the first row into parlour,giving 27 litres and bulling yesterday!
If that was a Holstein..she would have died !
 

pappuller

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
M6 Hard shoulder
I run a few pure flecks. I love them but suspect the deeper I go into breeding my own we will end up with fleck x Holstein x red. They were intilailly our answer to not wanting to Holsteins or grazing rats. Being a flying herd we were finding it difficult to get what we wanted on the middle ground which weren’t just low fertility spring calving slips.

With all that said I do plan to keep some pure probably around 20-25 animals (roughly 10% of the herd when we hit target numbers) simply to provide me sweeper bulls and maybe as another income stream.

We will be using some crossbred bulls this year Simmental x fleck but next year will be the real tell when we will have a Holstein fresian x fleck working
I have been v impressed with the pro cross we have, I think to to buy them we will have to go abroad. Hol x mont x viking red seems to be the favoured.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.0%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 34.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.2%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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