dairy bulls

whelan1

starting serving again in a few weeks , what do ye plan on using, non oman please

flat out !!

Do u use the sire advice on herd plus. ?

whelan1

flat out !! wrote: »

Do u use the sire advice on herd plus. ?

yup, but wanted to see what other people are using

flat out !!

Ok. All spring calving myself so didn't look into that yet.

mahoney_j

have a look at goldwyn or some of the goldwyn sons ive used some of axn and pdw on my spring herd this year.Goldwyn or some of his off offspring have the potential to be the next oman

funny man

whelan1 wrote: »

yup, but wanted to see what other people are using

if you have a high enough pd for milk i'd suggest keep to the British friesian.

Miller80

im looking at lhz jkf zpb and pdw

funny man

all oman related bar LHZ, do you think his pd for kgs of fat & protien are a little low.

whelan1

funny man wrote: »

all oman related bar LHZ, do you think his pd for kgs of fat & protien are a little low.

used lhz last year

Miller80

sorry op, forgot about the no oman! Will use lhz on the high yielders with milk pd of +500kg hoping to improve solids.

Timmaay

Afew I picked out of the PG catalog included CHQ, MZK, LZO (HO-FR), and then RHS and GTW which are mostly FR. All over the 200ebi, and fairly reliable. To be honest I'm only dipping my toes in the whole breeding end of things yet, it was something I left up to my dad and the AI man before! We are mostly Holstein at the min, but I'd be aiming to introduce hardier lower maintenance FR into the herd which will suit my setup better moving forward.

red bull

I have been breeding montbeliarde x friesian holstein for 10 years, yields ok solids great , but very bbig cows took their toll on my land in 2012. Looking at Swedish Reds maller cows + for pr & fat. Limited bulls available only ones I can see are from Sligo AI. HELP

whelan1

will use fae- good protein and milk is ok, ebi 193
hyz,rpz...

freedominacup

Timmaay wrote: »

Afew I picked out of the PG catalog included CHQ, MZK, LZO (HO-FR), and then RHS and GTW which are mostly FR. All over the 200ebi, and fairly reliable. To be honest I'm only dipping my toes in the whole breeding end of things yet, it was something I left up to my dad and the AI man before! We are mostly Holstein at the min, but I'd be aiming to introduce hardier lower maintenance FR into the herd which will suit my setup better moving forward.

Before you run away from the Holsteins look at bulls with lower scores for stature, and that score strongly for chest width, depth of rib and wider pelvis. They don't have to be 6 footers to milk and those coarser ones are tougher and better built for walking. You get the milk without the problems the extreme dairy types bring.

Timmaay

Forgive my ignorance, but what is Oman? Also, I see there is a small bit of UN in some of the cows we have, what breed is that, google doesn't tell me much!

Just looking through the suggested Bulls on ICBF, TFT and LWR are suggested with all the cows, and DFF for the heifers.

freedominacup wrote: »

Before you run away from the Holsteins look at bulls with lower scores for stature, and that score strongly for chest width, depth of rib and wider pelvis. They don't have to be 6 footers to milk and those coarser ones are tougher and better built for walking. You get the milk without the problems the extreme dairy types bring.

Yeh I'll admit lameness has been a serious problem last few years. I'm trying to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater as I know a big contributory factor has been the cow lanes, and then calving the heifers down to old and ending up with them too big.

whelan1

oman is a very high ebi bull that has been used for the last 5 or 6 years, very hard to get high ebi bulls that are not oman related hth... i used an oman stock bull 4 years ago so am limited to the bulls i can use, thats why i bought a br/fr stock bull 2 years ago as an outcross

mf240

whelan1 wrote: »

oman is a very high ebi bull that has been used for the last 5 or 6 years, very hard to get high ebi bulls that are not oman related hth... i used an oman stock bull 4 years ago so am limited to the bulls i can use, thats why i bought a br/fr stock bull 2 years ago as an outcross

Give dovea ai a ring they will send you out a catalogue you might see something you like. They have a good selection of br fr.
This year i used tsk hmy axn from pg first two are non oman.

whelan1

mf240 wrote: »

Give dovea ai a ring they will send you out a catalogue you might see something you like. They have a good selection of br fr.
This year i used tsk hmy axn from pg first two are non oman.

used tsk ,hmy and lhz last year

Min

whelan1 wrote: »

oman is a very high ebi bull that has been used for the last 5 or 6 years, very hard to get high ebi bulls that are not oman related hth... i used an oman stock bull 4 years ago so am limited to the bulls i can use, thats why i bought a br/fr stock bull 2 years ago as an outcross

High EBI non oman

WLY - 309 Eurogene
LHZ - 266 NCBC
DGC - 262 Dovea
GXY - 258 Eurogene
KPV - 256 NCBC
FLG - 249 Dovea

Not sure about the availabilty of all of them, some of them were born in 2011.

stanflt

pbm, obo ksk oyz xpd sze jkf dgc and of course FLT is what i have already in the tank- will prob buy another over 400kg milk bull with high type just for selling heifers

bogman_bass

If I was still milking I'd be using ABO and PBM. huge PDs for solids
They are Oman grandsons but so would your heifers and it would be an exceptable level of inbreeding IMO

RVJ from Dovea seems a cracker on the BF front

where do you feel the herd is weak?

whelan1

really want to work on the protein, i have a br/fr stock bull so i can use him to clean up and use holstein ai

bogman_bass

the two I mentioned are +17kgs protein and over 260 EBI. not to be sniffed at!

funny man

bogman_bass wrote: »

If I was still milking I'd be using ABO and PBM. huge PDs for solids
They are Oman grandsons but so would your heifers and it would be an exceptable level of inbreeding IMO

RVJ from Dovea seems a cracker on the BF front

where do you feel the herd is weak?

big reason why the breed is failing people. fully agree with you on RVJ

really want to work on the protein, i have a br/fr stock bull so i can use him to clean up and use holstein ai

if your really serious about protien you need to select bulls like lhz, i'd suggest pick a team with +.20% for protien, otherwise you wont see improvements quick enough.

funny man

Timmaay wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance, but what is Oman? Also, I see there is a small bit of UN in some of the cows we have, what breed is that, google doesn't tell me much!

Just looking through the suggested Bulls on ICBF, TFT and LWR are suggested with all the cows, and DFF for the heifers.




Yeh I'll admit lameness has been a serious problem last few years. I'm trying to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater as I know a big contributory factor has been the cow lanes, and then calving the heifers down to old and ending up with them too big.

cow tracks are always a problem but the two bulls mentioned (never heard of lwr) are going the wrong way to reduce lameness.

stanflt

funny man wrote: »

big reason why the breed is failing people. fully agree with you on RVJ



if your really serious about protien you need to select bulls like lhz, i'd suggest pick a team with +.20% for protien, otherwise you wont see improvements quick enough.

that would be less than 6% inbreeding- do you think this is unacceptable

ever wonder how some people get way ahead and others lag behind listening to sales pitches

freedominacup

stanflt wrote: »

that would be less than 6% inbreeding- do you think this is unacceptable

ever wonder how some people get way ahead and others lag behind listening to sales pitches

I was never a big fan of inbreeding but there are often gems hidden in the long grass that no-one is pitching. Maybe if you're in the top end recogniton wise you have to be on trend all the time but if you are just breeding for yourself and your farm/system you can ignore the sales pitches completely.

funny man

Not a big fan of sales people unless they aren't pushing anything, will lend my ear to see what they have to say.don't see the need to inbreed when there are loads of other bulls out there, with figures to back them up, Oman was a great bull but most of his sons/grandsons sell on his reputation.

i've travelled to open days/farm walks the lenght and breth of this country over my life time and the ones that were away ahead then have all fallen behind due to no successor/off farm debt etc., we are paid on the A+B-C system and all processors will move to this system eventually so no matter what sales pitch you hear it comes down to increasing milk price by improving milk solids. All the top farms i've visited lately are concentrating more milk solids.

stanflt

funny man wrote: »

Not a big fan of sales people unless they aren't pushing anything, will lend my ear to see what they have to say.don't see the need to inbreed when there are loads of other bulls out there, with figures to back them up, Oman was a great bull but most of his sons/grandsons sell on his reputation.

i've travelled to open days/farm walks the lenght and breth of this country over my life time and the ones that were away ahead then have all fallen behind due to no successor/off farm debt etc., we are paid on the A+B-C system and all processors will move to this system eventually so no matter what sales pitch you hear it comes down to increasing milk price by improving milk solids. All the top farms i've visited lately are concentrating more milk solids.

and oman grandsons will be the best at achieving this- high volume * high solids* high fertility

funny man

stanflt wrote: »

and oman grandsons will be the best at achieving this- high volume * high solids* high fertility

Don't misquote me it's A+B-C, i never mentioned high volume (water), this is only a cost to processors of manufacturing milk. Just because Oman had good survivability dosn't mean his grandsons has let alone crossing them on Oman grand daughters. All i was saying was there is better bulls with high milk solids out there including British and Kiwi friesian without going in-breeding.

bogman_bass

funny man wrote: »

big reason why the breed is failing people. fully agree with you on RVJ

find me a breed that doesnt have this issue. Try finding a top British friesian bull that doesnt have Glenalbyn or Gornal Pegasus in the pedigree somewhere or a montbelliard with no Bos le Vin


on A+B-C remember that your A and B are worth a lot more than your C. If you can get solids AND volume then you have a cow that is making money.

like anything with Breeding its all about balance

stanflt

funny man wrote: »

Don't misquote me it's A+B-C, i never mentioned high volume (water), this is only a cost to processors of manufacturing milk. Just because Oman had good survivability dosn't mean his grandsons has let alone crossing them on Oman grand daughters. All i was saying was there is better bulls with high milk solids out there including British and Kiwi friesian without going in-breeding.

which would you prefere

pta 350kg milk +0.06fat and +0.1prot
hols@ 9000litre delivered @ 4.15%fat and 3.65% prot total ms sold=702kg ms


pta -100kg milk +0.45fat and +0.1prot
jer/hol@ 6000l delivered @ 5.5%fat and 3.65%prot total ms sold 549kg


far better chance of getting 702kg/ms sold than 549kg as lads will always have excuses like "it was a wet year"

cow a will generate 3214in milk sales, second will generate 2400. cow a will need 500kg more meal so there is still 600more profit from cow a on a good year. maybe 1800 on a year like this

funny man

bogman_bass wrote: »

find me a breed that doesnt have this issue. Try finding a top British friesian bull that doesnt have Glenalbyn or Gornal Pegasus in the pedigree somewhere or a montbelliard with no Bos le Vin


on A+B-C remember that your A and B are worth a lot more than your C. If you can get solids AND volume then you have a cow that is making money.

like anything with Breeding its all about balance

I'm not disagreeing with your point on inbreeding, but i'll say it again there are a lot of other good High EBI High milk solids bulls out there without inbreeding.

if i understand A+B-C payment system the A+B are what your paid on the C component is liquid so it is a minus hence -C, volume comes at a cost to both the processor and the producer. As producers we can see the cost at farm level in profit monitors in producing high volume and at processor level there is a marker for on price for producing liquid and as the cost of energy increases you can be sure the (-C) will increase in the future.
I agree with you that breeding is about balance, so after years of chasing volume at the expense of fertility we need to address the imbalance.

funny man

stanflt wrote: »

which would you prefere

pta 350kg milk +0.06fat and +0.1prot
hols@ 9000litre delivered @ 4.15%fat and 3.65% prot total ms sold=702kg ms


pta -100kg milk +0.45fat and +0.1prot
jer/hol@ 6000l delivered @ 5.5%fat and 3.65%prot total ms sold 549kg


far better chance of getting 702kg/ms sold than 549kg as lads will always have excuses like "it was a wet year"

cow a will generate 3214in milk sales, second will generate 2400. cow a will need 500kg more meal so there is still 600more profit from cow a on a good year. maybe 1800 on a year like this

Two very different systems, the answer to this question is quite complicated and cannot be answered by multipal choice.PTA's are one thing but volume delivered is a more accurate way to work from, both examples given above seem on the high side, i think if the truth was told probably neither is been achieved consistently at herd level.

On the face of it your argument stands up, but you 500kgs of meal is only part of it, what other feeds has to be bought on top of this, how many lactations will you get out of each type of cow, as farmers expand how suitable is the 9k litre cow to walk maybe 3km in a day, i'm not saying the first type of cow has no place, deffinetly in all indoor and liquid milk herds she will excell in production and with high milk price/ low meal price, but under 28c/l the other lady wins hands down.

stanflt

funny man wrote: »

Two very different systems, the answer to this question is quite complicated and cannot be answered by multipal choice.PTA's are one thing but volume delivered is a more accurate way to work from, both examples given above seem on the high side, i think if the truth was told probably neither is been achieved consistently at herd level.

On the face of it your argument stands up, but you 500kgs of meal is only part of it, what other feeds has to be bought on top of this, how many lactations will you get out of each type of cow, as farmers expand how suitable is the 9k litre cow to walk maybe 3km in a day, i'm not saying the first type of cow has no place, deffinetly in all indoor and liquid milk herds she will excell in production and with high milk price/ low meal price, but under 28c/l the other lady wins hands down.

just after doing the calculations on 27c a litre base price, still the same difference in profit except at this price the lower volume farmer wont buy any meal and this is where it all starts to fall apart, bcs fertility cull prices etc etc

funny man

stanflt wrote: »

just after doing the calculations on 27c a litre base price, still the same difference in profit except at this price the lower volume farmer wont buy any meal and this is where it all starts to fall apart, bcs fertility cull prices etc etc

Oh yea dismiss all the other stuff

but your 500kgs of meal is only part of it, what other feeds has to be bought on top of this, how many lactations will you get out of each type of cow, as farmers expand how suitable is the 9k litre cow to walk maybe 3km in a day,

stanflt

funny man wrote: »

Two very different systems, the answer to this question is quite complicated and cannot be answered by multipal choice.PTA's are one thing but volume delivered is a more accurate way to work from, both examples given above seem on the high side, i think if the truth was told probably neither is been achieved consistently at herd level.

On the face of it your argument stands up, but you 500kgs of meal is only part of it, what other feeds has to be bought on top of this, how many lactations will you get out of each type of cow, as farmers expand how suitable is the 9k litre cow to walk maybe 3km in a day, i'm not saying the first type of cow has no place, deffinetly in all indoor and liquid milk herds she will excell in production and with high milk price/ low meal price, but under 28c/l the other lady wins hands down.

good quality silage is all that is needed, along with strict calving pattern, 365day calving interval- cows shouldnt be walked more than 2km total per day as longer has proven to restrict yield. the first type cow has more of a place in a good grassland managed farm. ive cows doing 13000lts calving in january and only geting 1.6ton of meal in total. these cows are also very capable of doing 8+ lactations

stanflt

on profit monitor side of things

assume 2 100cow herds have the same fixed costs of 60000
herd a will have a fixed cost of 6.66cent per litre while the lower yielding herd will have fixed costs of 10cent per litre

funny man

stanflt wrote: »

good quality silage is all that is needed, along with strict calving pattern, 365day calving interval- cows shouldnt be walked more than 2km total per day as longer has proven to restrict yield. the first type cow has more of a place in a good grassland managed farm. ive cows doing 13000lts calving in january and only geting 1.6ton of meal in total. these cows are also very capable of doing 8+ lactations

four points there stan
1 good quality silage, are you saying that you don't grow maize, don't buffer feed with other feeds.

2 strict calving pattern according to icbf as a country we are on aveage calving cows at 400 days with liquid milk farmers at 436 days (where most of these high lactation lassies live)

3 walk less than 2k a day that is four 500m trips to and from the parlour each day, all i'll say is you wouldn't want to go expanding above 100 cows and have a parlour centrally located

4 capable of doing 8+ lactations don't have the figures for here but in Northrern Ireland it's 3.5 lactations, in the uk it's 3 and the us 2.3, you may have a few capable of doing more but thats not the country average.

on profit monitor side of things

Typical fixed cost; bears no relevence to type of cow.

bogman_bass

as regards the a+b-c element, there is a production score that is part of the overall ebi. use that to tell you which bull give sthe best mix of solids and volume.

of corse production isnt everything and dont select for this alone at the expence of things like fertility

freedominacup

If we think that NZ type levels of output per farm are where we'll need to be to make our farms viable are we more likely, as a group, to get to a situation where we can carry 185 of stanfits 9000kg cows or 385 of the NZ type cow? You're looking for an extra 200 acres beside you that's going to cost north of €2 million just to buy never mind stock and develop. I think many if not most fulltime dairy farmers have a block of 100+ acres that they are milking from. With winter milk which is almost inevitable with higher yielding cows a certain portion of your milk will be produced from silage which can be hauled in from outfarms. From early spring until second cut is taken grazing areas are normally stocked at upto 5cows/ha. Once grass growth slows in late summer and going into autumn you are drying winter milkers anyway so reducing pressure on grazing.

I think we are going to end up with a hybrid of Dutch and NZ production systems. We will get as much from grass as possible probably 4000 litres per cow from grass and silage with grass the bigger contributor and feed on from there then. Difference being that you can turn back the merchants lorry but the bank manager will be there regardless of milk price. The NZ system and the cows we have been steered towards assume that land is not limiting. Looking around my own situation. I am bounded by 4 dairy farms and one suckler. The oldest dairy farmer is 47 the youngest is in his early twenties. Go beyond them and it's a similar situation age wise. We would be milking the smallest herd at around 50 cows. 100 would probably be the biggest. I don't see any prospect of any land coming up which would be useful to me as a platform for milking cows in the next couple of decades minimum. So where does my capacity to expand come from?

funny man

This tread was started on suggestions for bulls for whelan1, she said " No Oman Please" which clearly meant no in-breeding, i was agreeing with her stance as i would be of a similar opinion (maybe more extreme).
now i have got that out of the way, now cup i'm not nor have i ever suggested or endorsed a complete NZ system here or have i stated that every farmer must expand, if you have 50 cows and it is standing on it's own two feet and you don't want to expand good for you.
I now how winter milk works (have the badge), the problem is most guys that is at it don't.

Finally stan, i have been at your type of farm, hell i ran one here for years, i know the figures so you won't bullsh!t me. I was on a grassland walk last year with a serious good operator probably one of the best (Thats why he was picked) and it showed how run well with high milk/low grain price it does return high profit, but no better than a irish system low in-put high solids out-put.

http://www.farmersjournal.ie/site/farming-Clear-direction-or-confused-message-at-IGA-summer-tour-13528.html

mf240

But in a low input system you need a big land base and then you really need to include some kind of cost for this be it rent forgone or opportunity cost .
Also when milk price and meal price stack up high yielders can pull the throttle and get even more output.

And now the child in me would like to say if you get a bad grass year on a very low imput set up what do you do, if you feed meal to jerseys all it does is change the colour of their excrement.

Timmaay

funny man wrote: »

cow tracks are always a problem but the two bulls mentioned (never heard of lwr) are going the wrong way to reduce lameness.

Why would you say TFT and DFF are going in the wrong way for lameness? (As I said before, my knowledge of dairy breeding is very poor!)

funny man

But in a low input system you need a big land base and then you really need to include some kind of cost for this be it rent forgone or opportunity cost .

define big

Also when milk price and meal price stack up high yielders can pull the throttle and get even more output.
]

I agree

if you feed meal to jerseys all it does is change the colour of their excrement.

Speaking from experience or got hard proof.

whelan1

meant to post on this earlier, wasnt going to start serving til next week but had 5 cows in heat last night, so wanted pbm for them , ai man didnt have him:mad: used lhz and he will have him tomorrow

mf240

funny man wrote: »

define big

Big enough that low input makes more sense than high input, ie labour being the limiting factor instead of acres

Speaking from experience or got hard proof.

No experience or proof so its quite possible that it stays the same colour.:D

bogman_bass

whelan1 wrote: »

meant to post on this earlier, wasnt going to start serving til next week but had 5 cows in heat last night, so wanted pbm for them , ai man didnt have him:mad: used lhz and he will have him tomorrow

nout wrong with LHZ

funny man

Timmaay wrote: »

Why would you say TFT and DFF are going in the wrong way for lameness? (As I said before, my knowledge of dairy breeding is very poor!)

I used to look at feet & legs, now locomotion in the new EBI system, just go onto the icbf web-site search key in your bull code look for a positive score on locomotion, or alternatively do a sire select including only bulls with positive for locomotion.

whelan1

bogman_bass wrote: »

nout wrong with LHZ

no but i used him last year and possibly the year before.. like to move with the times and use a new set of bulls if possible each year

whelan1

ok so ai man still didnt have pbm today:mad: so used umg and abo .. have 18 served since start of the week