british friesan v holstien

jimmytrigs

Hi all
I have a herd of dairycows mainly british friesians. They are generally strong and healthy and usually last for about 10 lactations. They are only fair milk producers. they produce nice calves and i sell the bulls at 3 wks old. This system has worked well for the last number of years. Now however the situation is changing. Calf and milk prices are down and milk quota is almost gone. Should I change to holstiens

John_F

Hi jimmytrigs i would say it depends on land type, availability of feeds and if you are wishing to run a totally spring or a split calving herd.... and if you want to stay black and white

leg wax

hols need 1 ton of top range nut at least more milk more meal up to 2 tons for best cows, if you dont put it in one end you wont get it out the other. will this pay at low milk prices.

jimmytrigs

Hi
Land type is heavy dark soil north of cork city, good grassy ground. Not affected by drought in a dry year but the last few wet years had a big effect on grass production. It is a spring calving herd and colour of cattle is not an issue.

John_F

ya see are ya looking for litres or solids? Holstin cow has a big role to play in irish dairying but then teagasc are pushing towards the cross bred cow as the only option. whats your opinion on the cross breds? Biggest trouble with the holstein is calving interval and in a spring calving system they can get very thin very quickly unless they get the right level of feed, whats the yard setup like i.e. any diet feeder in the yard?

jimmytrigs

no diet feeder but i have a pretty good set up with a shed with cubicles and slats and easyfeed system.

John_F

well if you were willing to spend money on a feeder thenn going down the holstein route may be the way to go, however many farmers can do without a mixer, and if your breeding off of good british friesan cows then surly the 1st cross would be a beefier animal.. if your complaining of poor calf value with b fr. then i dont know what youd do if you had a jersey bull calf at foot :eek:

jimmytrigs

Thats the bit Im trying to work out. Holstiens = more milk with less cows but higher feed bills and more replacements and worthless calves or stay with british friesans

red bull

I changed from br. fresian to montbeliarde. Some say they are too large a cow but Ive been breeding them for 8 years and have ones similar in size to br fr. High solids and good calf prices are a plus

John_F

horses for courses. I for one wont be telling ya what to breed (unlike teagasc :rolleyes: ) but if you want yield no doubt holsteins are the way to go for ya, they are a good cow that once you feed it they will give it, but if you wont feed it you wont have it

John_F

maybe look at the ICBF website for the list of bulls (active bull list) and pick out a few that arnt 100% HOL such as GYK which is 78%

dairygene

I dont like the way people tar all Holsteins with the 1 brush, I think they are the most diverse breed,from low input(DEU) to milk + fertility(Oman), and all inbetween, many of which score high (and better than BF) for body condition and of course EBI. Its about careful selection and individual mating and you can't lose. I wouldn't mind even helping choice.

djmc

I would say start using good AI bulls you could get a good holstain bull from a good herd AI bread and cross with british fr
I would not go pure bread holstain unless you have good land.
I am moving away from them as they are not suited to my farm high hilly ground problems I found with them were getting them in calf,keeping weight on them,mastitis,grass tecney or milk fever,and if they sliped in house or went
down after calving the stayed down and it always seemed to happen the best purebread cows.
As said horses for courses if you have the right setup
New Zeland type freisans or rothbunts could be worth a try also.

leg wax

djmc wrote: »

I would say start using good AI bulls you could get a good holstain bull from a good herd AI bread and cross with british fr
I would not go pure bread holstain unless you have good land.
I am moving away from them as they are not suited to my farm high hilly ground problems I found with them were getting them in calf,keeping weight on them,mastitis,grass tecney or milk fever,and if they sliped in house or went
down after calving the stayed down and it always seemed to happen the best purebread cows.
As said horses for courses if you have the right setup
New Zeland type freisans or rothbunts could be worth a try also.

if the man has a herd of british freisans i would not start crossing with rothbunts or the like, whats he going to improve? . like every farm a plan has to be put in place and followed 100%, if not you will be neither one place or the other and you will be back on here woundering what to do now, in a couple of years time.

djmc

He would improve Heterosis or Hybrid vigour with any crossbreed and if he wants to improve milk yeild he should go for a high yeild breed I have seen rothbunts yeild 1400 gals with little imput norwegian red, montbeliard,etc and back to holstain again keep crossing high milk breeds and keep getting hybrid vigor.
I have nothing against pb holstains either best milk yeilding cow in the right farm (setup) and should be a part of any cross breeding plan.
http://www.dairycrossbreeding.com/

browned

before u consider changing from british fresians to holsteins have a look at the potential (PTA) of your herd on herdplus if ur a subscriber. it'll tell you if the milk potential of your herd is low or not. u'll also get an idea where your herd is in terms of protein and fat production as well. a cow with a PTA of zero should be able to produce 1100gal at over 350kg of milksolids in her first lactation given correct managemant for example.

as for should u use holstein on ur herd, i wouldn't see the issue wit it, ur first crop of calves in 2011 would be only 50% hol and they wouldn't enter the milking herd till 2013 and at best they'd only make up 20% of the herd at that stage. my only advice on it would be to choose hol bulls with modest milk production less than 200kgs. milk yield should be built up gradually.

jimmytrigs

hi all
Thanks for the good advice lads. It is definitely a long term project. I will take on board your advice browned. I suppose the first step is to purchase a good holstien bull this year. I have bought purebred holstiens into the herd in the past with poor sucess, They milked well but tended to be bullied by the other cattle and did not thrive. none of them lasted longer than 4 lactations. I would not be inclined to use the AI for several reasons, I used it in the past and the calving pattern got very despersed, Also the number of live friesian heifir calves was dismal. And the work load at the moment wouldnt allow me to inseminate all the cows. I will need to look at the other breeds that were mentioned, I didnt realise that they have such potential. There is alot to be known about dairy breeding, So next step is to source a good holstien bull

irishh_bob

jimmytrigs wrote: »

hi all
Thanks for the good advice lads. It is definitely a long term project. I will take on board your advice browned. I suppose the first step is to purchase a good holstien bull this year. I have bought purebred holstiens into the herd in the past with poor sucess, They milked well but tended to be bullied by the other cattle and did not thrive. none of them lasted longer than 4 lactations. I would not be inclined to use the AI for several reasons, I used it in the past and the calving pattern got very despersed, Also the number of live friesian heifir calves was dismal. And the work load at the moment wouldnt allow me to inseminate all the cows. I will need to look at the other breeds that were mentioned, I didnt realise that they have such potential. There is alot to be known about dairy breeding, So next step is to source a good holstien bull

while you will without doubt get less heifers ( regardless of what the farmers journal says ) from using A.I , you will have far superior stock , its really this simple , if a stock bull is good enough , he will be in an ai station , also , ai if done properly will result in a more compact calving pattern , you need to have a proper heat detection system in place in order to take full advantage of ai

djmc

I would agree with irish bob about useing AI
If you are buying a stock bull log onto http://www.icbf.com/ and enter tag number of bull on bull search to get his detals breeding etc.

browned

would agree with irish bob and djmc with their comments about a.i. its the best way to improve the genetics stock on your farm. if your time is limited around breeding them tailpainting at the start of the breeding season could be very useful to ya, their should be enough cows bulling at the start of the breeding to easily see which cows are fit for insemination at both milking times. u could then use the stock bull after 6 weeks of a.i when heat detection becomes difficult.