montbeliarde dairy cows

red bull

Been at dairyiny a long time, changed my breeding from fresian to montbeliarde a few years ago. yield down a lot but solids up. No co-op wants watery milk anymore, great price for my bull calves. Did I take the right choice ? what you think :pac:

Sam Kade

I crossed a few of my cows with them when I was dairying. They were sold as second calvers when I got out of dairying. I was told that they were prone to lameness when they get older.

Bitten & Hisses

Montbeliarde x Limousin gives an excellent suckler cow, too.

Tipp Man

red bull wrote: »

Been at dairyiny a long time, changed my breeding from fresian to montbeliarde a few years ago. yield down a lot but solids up. No co-op wants watery milk anymore, great price for my bull calves. Did I take the right choice ? what you think :pac:

We have a few fresian and holstein MB crosses, huge cows in the parlour, fond of throwing a kick, eat about as much as 2 Jerseys/NZ Fr and quite poor in milk quantity

We're not breeding from them

irishh_bob

Tipp Man wrote: »

We have a few fresian and holstein MB crosses, huge cows in the parlour, fond of throwing a kick, eat about as much as 2 Jerseys/NZ Fr and quite poor in milk quantity

We're not breeding from them

IMO , montys are bad tempered , have poor udders and are prone to lameness , they are also hit and miss as regards milk yield , they are also as big as a bullock and therefore unsuitable to heavy land , the breed had a massive marketing campaign behind them from around the mid nineties to the mid noughties , that has all changed as farmers have found out for themselves how inferior to black and whites they are

snowman707

a big fan of the montys here

constant milk curve, no mad peak but produce more milk in the second half of the year with higher solids

demand for Lm X yearling bulling heifers exceeds our supply
bullocks at store or forward store stage worth more than fr by far

cull cow prices often reach €1k

we have cows 10/11 years old with no more feet problems or cell count than fr

we originally started with holstein fr but quickly learned that profit is what counts , not putting gallons of milk in the bulk tank

montys are big cattle with an ability to conserve vast amounts of forage look after them and they will look after you

with the declining suckler herd and the exporters taking the cream of what's left the beef farmer will have to turn to the dairy herd for stock, mo and mox calves should be ideal for his needs

zetorman

Another Monty fan here. like them for their power especially if i can get them Red. Has anyone out there any info on the best bulls to use this year.

bealaha

We have about 25 mont x fr. very big cows, but must admit that quite a few had lameness problems. on the plus side the have excellent fertility and give very good calves. a few have been a bit cross in the parlour nd a small bit nervy.
But we are now looking at breeding down the kiwi friesian route. anyone else goin this route?

scaniaman

Montbelliard= Whitehead =Suckler Had a few years ago sold on High fertility,solids blah at the time as big as two cows eat as much as two cows.
They were headstrong sank to their knees and would go back in calf in their own sweet time.Needless to say they did'nt stay around the place long:D

red bull

I have 45 mox now, some 9 years old no lameness problems, great on fertility.
average yield 960 gals
bf 4.2
pr 3.4
bull calf price avg 193
heifer calf price avg 156
meal 350kg in 2009
big differance on avg yield. high of 1440 low of 760
Find the red ones better yielders also better calf prices.
Have used stock bull for last five years very happy with progeny compared to ai.AI cows very big but have lovely stock out of stock bulls similar to british friesian type.
Not sure im a full monty fan yet, but certaintly not going back to holsteins:)

snowman707

as a foot note there are good and bad in every breed, our first 10 incalf heifers & 1 bull cost €23K circa '97/98 , we have sourced the top bulls available for initially crossing on our own cows and for replacements even since,

we do not milk record but from the milk statement sheets,

average per head, milk sold to creamery (ex. feeding calves etc) 5340 ltrs

average (11 months) b.f 3.97% protein 3.39%

no problem with fertility and we feed a 16/17% basic ration. presently costing €175 per ton delivered.

pajero12

irishh_bob wrote: »

IMO , montys are bad tempered , have poor udders and are prone to lameness , they are also hit and miss as regards milk yield , they are also as big as a bullock and therefore unsuitable to heavy land , the breed had a massive marketing campaign behind them from around the mid nineties to the mid noughties , that has all changed as farmers have found out for themselves how inferior to black and whites they are

We bought a few of them to replace cows that died at birth,
Have to say we never had any bother with temperament,udders or feet

st1979

I have about 15 of them i bought in and i will only buy them if they are a good bit cheaper. Thats not to say i don't like them but they usually are cheaper in a mart and are very flighty when first being milked fat and protein not much better than well bred holstein (balanced breed holstein). But calves are great and culls. Also like the idea of you need just 1 stockbull and gives you replacements as well as beef bull calves. But don't think i will go down that route.

red bull

Why not st 1979