Jersey bull for dairy breeding

Enderol

Could anyone tell me any experiences with jersey bulls for breeding with freisens. I.e. Temperment, any susceptability to illnesses/injuries, success rate, ease of calving, good points/ bad points, opinions .... Etc.
I'm asking because for the past number of years we've been using an Angus bull for the maiden heifers and clean up in the main herd after AI. the bull has produced some good calves for the beef side of the business but know I want to focus more on the dairying side.

Attended a teagasc meeting last night where some of the discussion was on the results of trials of jersey freisen crosses that teagasc have been researching and it looks very promising for the next few years.

This is more of a dairy question then a beef question as I know that jersey cross bull calves are fairly useless for beef but that is not my focus. I think getting the few extra replacements from jersey crosses would far outweigh the loss I make on the sale ( even I laugh at the word "sale" and maybe "giving away" is more appropiate) of those jersey cross bull calves.

Thanks for any comments

John_F

With regards to the cross breeding... the hybrid vigor gained from the first cross is going to give you an unreal sh1t hot cow... but this vigor is going down wards after the first cross... and from what i could gather from the dairy conference last week all the figures are form the first cross. I would question the profitability of subsequent crosses as even if you cross back you wont get the same as that first cross. From my time in New Zealand and seeing the cross breed there they look a fine cow to hold condition and go back in calf, but they had shag all milk.

And while i know too much milk impacts on reproductive performance and that your aiming for milk solids per hectare but if your having o dry up the cow a month before she should be then your loosing again. You must feed the cow in order to get her to do what you want her to do. I am sick of Teagasc bringing over New Zealanders to tell Irish farmers to use an all grass diet, starving cows with our predominantly Holstein Herds. I know for a fact you can get single figure empty rates but you must have the correct type of cow for it and we dont yet have enough cross breeds in our herds for it to work. There are two ways to increase milk solids...increase the % or increase the volume of milk.

The empty figure in Moorepark this year (who have all the resources available) is proof of the pudding... you wont feed it you wont have it.

Anyway rant over...

greysides

Enderol wrote: »

This is more of a dairy question then a beef question as I know that jersey cross bull calves are fairly useless for beef but that is not my focus. I think getting the few extra replacements from jersey crosses would far outweigh the loss I make on the sale ( even I laugh at the word "sale" and maybe "giving away" is more appropiate) of those jersey cross bull calves.

You could open a Pet Shop.......you never know it might take off.....they're so cude and cuddly......

They are smaller than we're used to and stand a long reach from the pit.

They suit the NZ system but........................Ireland? You could say we're poles apart.

irish_bob

cross breeding is the name of the game right now in teagasc circles , who knows what will be the flavour of the month in another while

my brother brought a bunch of jersey cross heifers into his herd earlier this year , results overall are disapointing , while they do go in calf , they give a lot less milk , you dont automatically get high solids either , unless you good at grass managment , jersey crosses wont drive protein and butterfat sky high on stemmy grass and unlike with holstiens , if your not a master manager of grass , you cant just compensate my shovelling extra meal into them , jersey cross wont pay you back for feeding them meal , they work in conjunction with a low cost well managed grass system only , i also think they should only be used on very high yielding large holstien cows , that way you still end up with a medium sized off spring with decent volume and good solids , if you put a jersey on a medium sized average yielding holstien , you end up with a runt for offspring , personaly , i think if fertility is a problem and you dont want to have to shovell over a tonne of meal into high yielding holstiens , the best cross is with a british fresian , that way you end up with a robust relativley big offspring , you also get a decent bull calf and a saleable cull cow , im not saying jersey do harm but as other posters have stated , this is not new zealand where you can stock as heavy as you want and never have to feed them meal in bad weather