Dairy Crossbreeding

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!