Dairy Crossbreeding

270 participants (dairy farmers, advisors, representatives from the milk industry and editors) from all over Europe attended the EDF congress in Cork, Ireland. What is needed in Ireland, and the animals that were showcased in visits to 3 farms, are “easy care,” long lasting animals that are capable of producing large quantities of milk from grazed grass consumption (average over 60%) and that produce a calf every 365 days. And, to be able to utilize the grass as efficiently as possible they need compact calving.

Farm visits: During the congress all participants visited 3 farms with Norwegian Red (NRF) crosses. This was done in groups of 20 – which gave people the chance for dialouge (and there were A LOT of questions !!!).

One farmer hosting a tour, Tom Dunne (200 cows, started crossbreeding in 2000) finds that the NRF crosses are back in calf at a much higher rate than Holstein, they are easy calvers and the calves are quickly on their feet and ready for life. Incidents of mastitis were around 5-6%. He also has no problem with legs. He started breeding with Swedish Red in 2000 – but in his opinion the NRF are better for fertility so now he only uses NRF. His intention was to use 2-way cross (Holstein x NRF) but has decided to ONLY use NRF since fertility is the main focus for him. This spring has been terrible in Ireland (cold with a lot of rain) putting stress on the cows – all the purebred NRF cows (he had a few from the trial) were in calf after 1st insemination. In the rest of the herd he was having problems this year. One of his purebred NRF cows was now in her 7th lactation – and pregnant again after 1st insemination.

Tom noted that his bull calves were sold to Italy at a price between 80-120 Euro (which was a low price compared to last year). This made the UK farmers almost weep – they have to pay 8 Euros per bull calf (Holstein) to have them slaughtered.

Another farmer on the tour, Shane Fitzgerald (160 cows) started crossbreeding in 2002 due to infertility problems. Shane was (as he stated himself) VERY skeptical to crossbreeding. When he started he tried various breeds in his herd. He started with 15 NRF crosses and of these he still had 14 of them now in their 4th lactation. He said the NRF had highly improved his fertility and he now had a calving interval of 368 days. He had also noticed a health benefit in the herd after starting crossbreeding. For the future he would continue to crossbreed with NRF, Jersey and Holstein.

A report from a third farm that was part of the tour was provided by Rasmus Lang-Ree, chief editor for BUSKAP as follows:
Joe Mulcahy and his son John operate a farm with 156 cows and 90 ha of land. They practice intensive grazing with a grazing period of 308 days. The milk yield is 5,177 kg ECM and the break-even point low because low cost production. The farm participates in the Moorepark study and Joe said that the Norwegian red cows are very impressive because of overall health status and fertility. Their milk volume is as good as the Holsteins and the solids are only very slightly behind. – The Norwegian red crosses are very good animals for a big herd because they are low maintenance and go back in calf with very little effort and cycle apporox 19 days after calving, Joe told the EDF- members during the visit at his farm.

I had a very nice Email from Gerry Plester, owner of Chemainus Farms Ltd., who is participating in a major way on the Canadian Norwegian Red x Holstein vs. pure Holstein comparison trial. Gerry and family have a beautiful dairy on Vancouver Island. He is currently milking 27 Norwegian Red x Holstein heifers, and sent me their projected records with the following comments. “This represents all of our Norwegian cross cows to date, except for one heifer who got mastitis and was only slightly below the others. And will have to be culled. We have 6 more that were too fresh to project on test day Mar. 2, 2009, and 3 more to calve. All these heifers are great to work with, conception is excellent, notably better than Holstein first calvers.”

The records on the 27 crossbreds average on a Canadian age-adjusted basis 270, 318 and 280 Breed Class Average using the Holstein age adjustment factors. These convert to a very high Mature Equivalent average for our American friends of 31,482 lb ME milk, 1364 lb ME fat and 1016 lb ME protein. More impressive is the comparison of actual 305-day milk fat and protein of these Norwegian Red crosses to their Holstein first lactation herdmates. They average +814 lb ABOVE their Holstein first lactation herdmates for milk, 48 lb of fat for actual 305-day fat, and 26 lb higher for actual protein yield in 305 days. Little wonder that Gerry is ordering Norwegian Red semen from our elite Norwegian Red sires!