what you use on jersey cross?

whelan1

out of interest what breed would you use on your jersey cross heifers

stanflt

whelan1 wrote: »

out of interest what breed would you use on your jersey cross heifers

dont have any but would of thought that you cross back with hol/fr to get milk. should produce effiecnt stock with high solids and milk-but thats just my pennies worth

wiggy123

say bf or hol... on them
also heard ppl hav used norweigan red + brown swiss on them

whelan1

would there not be calving difficulty , you will be breeding from a much smaller animal

babybrian

lots of them where I worked in australia, the way it goes is

• fr to je bull so there you get the jersey cross which is a jersey looking cow Image698.jpg
• give her FR and you get a complete black cow Image697.jpg
• FR on her and you get a brown tinted FR looking cow Image694.jpg
• FR on her and you get a black and white cow with high milk and great solids Image695.jpg

whelan1

thanks BUT do you have to use easy calving fr on them... i mean we have spent years building for size etc and this is wiped out in one jersey cross

babybrian

I think they probably did give an easy calving bull to the jersey type ones but no different than what you might use on FR heifers. The farm I was on was 100% Je in the early 80's and is now probably 95% FR with 5% jerseys to keep the cross bloodlines going.

whelan1

i hate small cows , we took out all our mewton rigg cubicles etc , hate them moving up in the parlour , they go against all the things i want in a cow.Was talking about them with vet today and we where wondering why? he was also telling me of a farmer who aborts any cows that havent calved by the end of march:eek: a bit severe me thinks

babybrian

yeah I dont agree with that inducing cows either, its probably a way for bad farmers to get a compact calving. If they spent more time in the run up to the breeding season preparing then they wouldnt have so many problems with later calvers.

And on the small cows, they were a bitch in the rotary parlour as it was a long reach to get at them and they tend to be a bit more giddy than FR's. But super cows when they are back to FR with some JE.

irishh_bob

whelan1 wrote: »

would there not be calving difficulty , you will be breeding from a much smaller animal

a jersey cow has much less trouble calving the likes of a fresian or indeed a limousin than a holstien , two reasons why this is the case , the jersey injects her own genes which reduced the calf size but more importantly , a jersey has a pelvic structure which assists calving

surprised someone in winter milk would want a jersey cow , also surpised why someone in county louth would need a small cow , driest land in the country

whelan1

i would never use jersey just interested in the dynamics of using them , have a br/fr bull which i bought last year and so far i am 200% happy with him

irishh_bob

whelan1 wrote: »

i would never use jersey just interested in the dynamics of using them , have a br/fr bull which i bought last year and so far i am 200% happy with him

crossing a big , high yielding holstein cow to a jersey can produce an excellent cow , medium sized with good yield , very good solids and much improoved fertility and feet

crossing a medium to smallish fresian cow to a jersey gives you a runt

p.s , in both cases , the bull calf is worthless and the cull cow value is greatly reduced although that is unimportant to many people

i think you have the right idea whelan in crossing your holstiens to british fresian , you will still have a decent sized offspring , milk yield shouldnt be down too much , solids should be up and strength and hardiness should be up significantly , plus your pedigree status wont be effected , the holstien crossed with the british fresian seems the obvious choice yet its not being advocated by any so called experts in the dairy industry , i think this is down to the fact that the british fresian gene pool has shrunk and also the fact that the new zealanders are spending quite a bit of money here and they are pushing jersey big time , dont get me wrong , crossing with jersey is fine in many instances but i think crossing with british fresian makes even more sense

hopefully , thier will be an increase in british fresian A.I in the future , all depends on what happens in the uk and from what i hear , its holstien and nothing else over there when it comes to black and white

whelan1

ye the health of the br/fr calvesn is fantastic , they are up and standing looking for a drink in 20 minutes , a bit like an angus , great confirmation on them too , and a better calf price for the bulls

jeff greene

Am I the only one to remember BF and not a nostalgic image of them, there were good ones and bad ones like all breeds. Round, fat cows with meaty bad udders scrapping the floor that would dry themselves off in September.

Some of the best cows ever were the first cross of Holstein on the British Friesian in the 80s, will crossing BF on today’s cows have similar results? Anyone recommend a good BF sire to use on big milky holsteins?


I put 10 units of Breadaker(Swedish Red) in the pot this year, have seen some nice SR crosses milking. Properly won’t use him though:rolleyes:

bogman_bass

We had some great B/fr cows out of DGM out of holstens. And the best cow we ever had was CNZ out of a fr x ho cow.

As for jerseys they have great pelvic size to push out calves.

I would love to see what a monty would look like out of one of them

funny man

Did a bit of looking in to all this cross breeding with jersey and the train of thought in New Zealand is they use a cross bred (fr x je) back on the jersey cross, i think it's to do with keeping the hybrid vigour, others put a friesian on her if she looks like a jersey and visa versa, i'm going down this road in the spring and intend to serve everything to jersey and when the cross breds come along i'm going to put them all back to high yielding Ho/fr bulls.

what happen

hello whelan 1 off topic but a jersey is a great cross with a angus even better if angus is pure bred

whelan1

what happen wrote: »

hello whelan 1 off topic but a jersey is a great cross with a angus even better if angus is pure bred

i could see the auld lad having a heart attack at the suggestion:p

browned

guess it all depends on the direction u want to take ur herd. i'd be breeding for a medium to small stature herd due to farming on soft land so the jersey cross suit my system just fine. i'd usually just breed them back to high ebi nz fresians and have sometimes breed them back to jerseys again.

i don't think there's any set rule for wat u want to breed them to as i've often seem calves that were 3/4 fr bein smaller than those that were 3/4 jr. if size doesn't bother u then you should just use bulls with the traits that u desire in ur herd.
the only thing i'd be wary of is putting high yielding bulls on these crosses. would be of the opinion that milk should be built up gradually in a herd to avoid fertility issues.

irishh_bob

what happen wrote: »

hello whelan 1 off topic but a jersey is a great cross with a angus even better if angus is pure bred

jersey x angus = runt

jeff greene

irishh_bob wrote: »

jersey x angus = runt

Jersey x Anything = Runt

As a dairy farmer with limited land I know I’m biased but a correctly bred and managed Holstein still has alot more to off Irish farms than Jerseys. The rubbish advice Irish farmers get isn’t suitable for their management so lets get rid of them, but wait, Oman is a big frame, high milk, high fertility Holstein and his sons dominate the EBI lists. As said its horses for courses but while I’m milking my 70 cows, I’m not jealous of my neighbour milking 140 for the same milk,

irishh_bob

jeff greene wrote: »

Jersey x Anything = Runt

As a dairy farmer with limited land I know I’m biased but a correctly bred and managed Holstein still has alot more to off Irish farms than Jerseys. The rubbish advice Irish farmers get isn’t suitable for their management so lets get rid of them, but wait, Oman is a big frame, high milk, high fertility Holstein and his sons dominate the EBI lists. As said its horses for courses but while I’m milking my 70 cows, I’m not jealous of my neighbour milking 140 for the same milk,

plus thier is so much variety within the black and white breed nowadays , its not in anyway a case of big tall american - dutch holstien or nothing

funny man

jeff greene wrote: »

Jersey x Anything = Runt

As a dairy farmer with limited land I know I’m biased but a correctly bred and managed Holstein still has alot more to off Irish farms than Jerseys. The rubbish advice Irish farmers get isn’t suitable for their management so lets get rid of them, but wait, Oman is a big frame, high milk, high fertility Holstein and his sons dominate the EBI lists. As said its horses for courses but while I’m milking my 70 cows, I’m not jealous of my neighbour milking 140 for the same milk,

I agree with you on the limited land, advice given is just that and it's up to the farmer to make up his/her mind what animal suits their system, i have gone down the RBI system too far to my mind and selecting bulls now to bring back fertility is too slow so one cross with a jersey will help to turn around my situation alot quicker, i am not limited for ground around the parlour so i can get alot of grass into cows if i set the farm up for it, but at the moment i can't push my cows as they are high yielding holstien herd that don't take to eating grass down to the clay. On Oman his daughters are not big frame and while they have plenty of milk and good fertility i wonder how many of his sons will deliver the same qualities. on the milk sold argument; 70 cows V 140 cows, i say it's profit and lifestyle that matters as in our discussion group of 20 farmers, numbers of cows dosn't follow any pattern to relate to profit or hours worked.

keep going

what happen wrote: »

hello whelan 1 off topic but a jersey is a great cross with a angus even better if angus is pure bred

not that i would dream of doing it but i remember being on a farm with 800 cows in nz and being told that there was angus blood in 30% of the herd, anythin from 1/2 to a1/8. they reckon if you think jersey cross are hardy you aint seen nothing yet.on anorther point i dont see any point in crossing a good fr if fertilty is good and she is calving early.cows that are late will be helped by crossing ,easy birth slightly shorter time and if infertlity is breed prob the cross will get it out faster. how valuable are late calves anyway(they always seem to give the most trouble)

whelan1

our pedigree angus are canadian they have a serious amount of milk- wonder should we try milking them:D

irishh_bob

whelan1 wrote: »

our pedigree angus are canadian they have a serious amount of milk- wonder should we try milking them:D

i like angus cattle but im serious when i ask , is thier any money in them unless your breeding to sell pedigree bulls for sale as stock bulls , do angus weanlings not get completley overlooked at autumn sales alongside contententals

whelan1

we have 20 pb cows ... tbh they are alot of work , they are really my dads , we have repeat customers coming back for bulls all the time , we are hoping to have a reduction sale later in the year.... ye the bulls are the bread and butter of them ... we have 8 calved so far and we have 8 bulls and 1 heifer - one set of fm twins:rolleyes:

Bodacious

what happen wrote: »

hello whelan 1 off topic but a jersey is a great cross with a angus even better if angus is pure bred

I read about this cross on some U.S cattle site and the guy was raving about them reckoned the weanlings were bigger than the cows when crossed back with a Ch and of good quality, cant find the article now though:mad:

whelan1

just had my first norwegian red calf , a heifer

Miller80

Nice one, what does calf look like?
do you know what the ai code of straw used?
wouldnt mind trying NR.

whelan1

nzt... a nice calf its black and white , up and sucking very quickly