Jersey X - breeding

Green&Red

I’ll be going back into dairy after 15 years next spring. We previously had Holsteins but I’m convinced by the argument for jersey X.

Realistically I’ll be working off farm for the first 3-5 years, so I’ll have someone in Monday to Friday.

Is there any case to be made for breeding everything to a beef bull and just buying replacements?

I’ll probably be contract rearing as it is, so I'm told that’s €1.20/€1.30 pw.


What would be the best bull to take what I’ll call the dirty look off the jerseys? Or will they be worthless no matter what?


Cheers

Bass Reeves

You have to look at what is right for your system. If you intend to work off farm is a robot an option as opposed to labour. If lad rings you on Monday night and cannot come for rest of week how will you fare.
What numbers are involved. Remember buying replacement is risky from the veiw the that no farmer will sell his best heifers.

More and more lads are cagey about buying JE breeding in beef. Lads have got used to the colourings. If working you want easy calving so that limits your choice.

Lots of farmers are moving towards an easy care middle of the road FR

Mooooo

Green&Red wrote: »

I’ll be going back into dairy after 15 years next spring. We previously had Holsteins but I’m convinced by the argument for jersey X.

Realistically I’ll be working off farm for the first 3-5 years, so I’ll have someone in Monday to Friday.

Is there any case to be made for breeding everything to a beef bull and just buying replacements?

I’ll probably be contract rearing as it is, so I'm told that’s €1.20/€1.30 pw.


What would be the best bull to take what I’ll call the dirty look off the jerseys? Or will they be worthless no matter what?


Cheers

That would be 1.20 / 1.30 per animal per day depending on when they are taken and coming back could well be more.
Issues that could in your area 're putting all incalf to beef would be tb and having regular buyers and also having a number of bulls on farm. Was on a jersey farm in the UK and they used limo on heifers and bb on cow's and but you have to be around for all calvings then. Don't have first crossbred fr/je milking so dunno what breed would do.

Green&Red

Bass Reeves wrote: »

You have to look at what is right for your system. If you intend to work off farm is a robot an option as opposed to labour. If lad rings you on Monday night and cannot come for rest of week how will you fare.
What numbers are involved. Remember buying replacement is risky from the veiw the that no farmer will sell his best heifers.

More and more lads are cagey about buying JE breeding in beef. Lads have got used to the colourings. If working you want easy calving so that limits your choice.

Lots of farmers are moving towards an easy care middle of the road FR

Would love a robot but budget dictates otherwise. I’m a contractor so can absorb a week off, also have a cousin locally that milks so he’d cover in an emergency. My dad could also do a milking

70 cows

It sounds like you’re saying breed for dairy?

alps

Green&Red wrote: »

I’ll be going back into dairy after 15 years next spring. We previously had Holsteins but I’m convinced by the argument for jersey X.

Realistically I’ll be working off farm for the first 3-5 years, so I’ll have someone in Monday to Friday.

Is there any case to be made for breeding everything to a beef bull and just buying replacements?

I’ll probably be contract rearing as it is, so I'm told that’s €1.20/€1.30 pw.


What would be the best bull to take what I’ll call the dirty look off the jerseys? Or will they be worthless no matter what?


Cheers

If you are going to continue working off farm, I would say it makes most sense to buy in replacements and maximise output from 1 group of animals.

Do the research. Coop performance report will give you some critical KPI's to look out for..

Milk solids delivered...500kg plus
Herd Calving interval not exceeding 370 days
Replacement rate not exceeding 16%

Find the better stock for sale and build relationship with these guys. Give them €100 over market value, so that you have a choice of what they have for sale. Pick February calvers with PD of fat and protein kgs as high as possible in the group(s). Secure these heifers early (mid summer) and can arrange for delivery for winter housing.

The bit more you pay to secure the better stock will pay handsomely.

Consider calf value from the point of ease of calving and demand for animal...the better the demand the quicker and more consistent the buyers will be in moving them on from your farm.

And this ties back to your decision on Jersey. Be sure about this.

There will be very little difference in the euros received for the milk sold from a b&w selling 500kg and a jex selling 500kg of milk solids. The price difference in the litre of milk might seem considerable (this year say 39c v's 34c) but the difference in the value of the milk sold from each cow is very small.

There is considerable and growing resistance to calves with any percentage of jersey and I can't see this improving in future.

B&W gives you more choice when sourcing
B&W gives better prospect of moving calves quicker after birth
B&W gives option of using easier calving sires relative to calf value.

JEX for sure have advantages too
Lower liveweight
Lower winter feed requirements
Generally can walk further
Better capacity to calve bigger calves (but relative)
Herds you're buying from typically larger and may source all your requirements from the one herd
C deduction on milk price may increase further(And should)

Good luck with your endeavour

Green&Red

Cheers Alp, theres a lot in that and the first half ties in with what I've been thinking

What would a B&W bred with say a charlaois or angus get, say one month old? Heifer or bull.

I know as a suckler man going buying one I'm paying €200 but I presume thats cause I'm stuck that day and that wouldn't be the average price

cosatron

Green&Red wrote: »

Cheers Alp, theres a lot in that and the first half ties in with what I've been thinking

What would a B&W bred with say a charlaois or angus get, say one month old? Heifer or bull.

I know as a suckler man going buying one I'm paying €200 but I presume thats cause I'm stuck that day and that wouldn't be the average price

with the amount of lads getting into to milking its very hard to forecast what calf prices will be going forward as the market will be saturated with calves in feb and march due to the majority of farmers not having adequate facilities to raise there calves to an acceptable standard.

Mooooo

Green&Red wrote: »

Cheers Alp, theres a lot in that and the first half ties in with what I've been thinking

What would a B&W bred with say a charlaois or angus get, say one month old? Heifer or bull.

I know as a suckler man going buying one I'm paying €200 but I presume thats cause I'm stuck that day and that wouldn't be the average price

If you're gonna be working and considering charlaois calves I'd encourage you to think again. No value of calf will cover the cost of an injured cow after calving, either the loss of the cow or the time required to mind them. Also on xbred being able to calve bigger calves I have my doubts. Agree with everthing else alps said above. If getting beef breeds, even blues or whatever pick for calving ease and gestation length as well. Also get facilities right, if you are coming back from off farm work or the lad working for ya is in poor facilities both of ye won't be long getting tired and that's when corners end up being unintentionally getting cut.

Green&Red

Mooooo wrote: »

If you're gonna be working and considering charlaois calves I'd encourage you to think again. No value of calf will cover the cost of an injured cow after calving, either the loss of the cow or the time required to mind them. Also on xbred being able to calve bigger calves I have my doubts. Agree with everthing else alps said above. If getting beef breeds, even blues or whatever pick for calving ease and gestation length as well. Also get facilities right, if you are coming back from off farm work or the lad working for ya is in poor facilities both of ye won't be long getting tired and that's when corners end up being unintentionally getting cut.

Well set up on that front, good calving facilities. Bit of work to do for bucket feeding

Buford T. Justice XIX

Green&Red wrote: »

Well set up on that front, good calving facilities. Bit of work to do for bucket feeding

Buy one or two 10 nipple teat feeders. Calves naturally suck on teats so it's the simplest thing to do with them.

Nothing on heaven or earth would get me to return to bucket feeding calves.

K.G.

With 70 cows and working -poke out someone to supply you 15 in calf or better calved heifers every year and buy.a.hereford bull.sell your calves and you ll have no problems. Your scale its not worth contract rearing as you havent enough scale for most rearers.in my opinion fr s have improved fertility so.much there is no benefit to them in sub 100 cow herds.maybe in large operations yes

Green&Red

K.G. wrote: »

With 70 cows and working -poke out someone to supply you 15 in calf or better calved heifers every year and buy.a.hereford bull.sell your calves and you ll have no problems. Your scale its not worth contract rearing as you havent enough scale for most rearers.in my opinion fr s have improved fertility so.much there is no benefit to them in sub 100 cow herds.maybe in large operations yes

Cheers, that’s what I’m thinking myself.

hildywildy

I'm starting calving in a few weeks and i'm in the same boat as the OP. I will be milking OAD, I bought 40 high EBI Jersey cross heifers, all due to be calving in a three week block. Average EBI is €187

I'm running a flying herd, as I dont have the land to rear replacements. Even if I had the land i'd still buy in replacements, I'm trying to make a system work for me, so I can earn off farm and get a return on farm. Rearing heifers would add additional complications for me.

You will have to make up your own mind about what breeding you go for. I went for Jersey cross as I want hybrid vigour, hardiness, fertility and a cow that is easy managed.


I have bought an easy calving Limmy bull. I would think I will have no bother selling limousin calves from jersey cross cows. All my dairy bull calves this year are going to a neighbour who is in calf to beef.

I plan on selling my heifer calves.

Green&Red

hildywildy wrote: »

I'm starting calving in a few weeks and i'm in the same boat as the OP. I will be milking OAD, I bought 40 high EBI Jersey cross heifers, all due to be calving in a three week block. Average EBI is €187

I'm running a flying herd, as I dont have the land to rear replacements. Even if I had the land i'd still buy in replacements, I'm trying to make a system work for me, so I can earn off farm and get a return on farm. Rearing heifers would add additional complications for me.

You will have to make up your own mind about what breeding you go for. I went for Jersey cross as I want hybrid vigour, hardiness, fertility and a cow that is easy managed.


I have bought an easy calving Limmy bull. I would think I will have no bother selling limousin calves from jersey cross cows. All my dairy bull calves this year are going to a neighbour who is in calf to beef.

I plan on selling my heifer calves.

Good luck with that, I'd be interested to hear how you get on with the calves € wise

patsy_mccabe

What's the calving % figure for the Limousin bull?

_Brian

hildywildy wrote: »

I'm starting calving in a few weeks and i'm in the same boat as the OP. I will be milking OAD, I bought 40 high EBI Jersey cross heifers, all due to be calving in a three week block. Average EBI is €187

I'm running a flying herd, as I dont have the land to rear replacements. Even if I had the land i'd still buy in replacements, I'm trying to make a system work for me, so I can earn off farm and get a return on farm. Rearing heifers would add additional complications for me.

You will have to make up your own mind about what breeding you go for. I went for Jersey cross as I want hybrid vigour, hardiness, fertility and a cow that is easy managed.


I have bought an easy calving Limmy bull. I would think I will have no bother selling limousin calves from jersey cross cows. All my dairy bull calves this year are going to a neighbour who is in calf to beef.

I plan on selling my heifer calves.

Will lads know they are from jersey cows or will you be doing as OP suggested and hiding that piece of information ?

I know a few people rearing sucks, we used to rear lots here too, nobody I know would willingly buy a suck calf with jersey breeding

carrollsno1

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Lots of farmers are moving towards an easy care middle of the road FR

Was in deep conversation at about cow type before in NZ and the other lad said ah sure the friesan are grand for a 60 cow herd bit of maintenence with them whereas the JEX are ideal for large herds less maintenence etc

Couldnt make head nor tails of that statement and he couldnt make head nor tails of my point that the JEX would be ideal for a 60 cow herd aswelll.

We would both be fairly interested in crossbreed as opposed to frieisans too for the record.

jaymla627

carrollsno1 wrote: »

Was in deep conversation at about cow type before in NZ and the other lad said ah sure the friesan are grand for a 60 cow herd bit of maintenence with them whereas the JEX are ideal for large herds less maintenence etc

Couldnt make head nor tails of that statement and he couldnt make head nor tails of my point that the JEX would be ideal for a 60 cow herd aswelll.

We would both be fairly interested in crossbreed as opposed to frieisans too for the record.

Maintenance sub-index and the higher it goes on ebi equals dwarf cows that will struggle to give a viable beef calf no matter how good a beef bull is used, irrevelant if it's a Jersey our high ebi freisan
Have a lot of crossbreed jersey cows here that are 600kgs plus liveweight that throw super beef calves, as they give a good frame to the calf and the beef bull gives a bit of power,
the drive to breed lighter 500kgs mature weight grass based cows, means your beef calves of these ladies are crap, and its further compounded with using easy calving beef bulls that have poor traits for carcase/weight gain

Mooooo

jaymla627 wrote: »

Maintenance sub-index and the higher it goes on ebi equals dwarf cows that will struggle to give a viable beef calf no matter how good a beef bull is used, irrevelant if it's a Jersey our high ebi freisan
Have a lot of crossbreed jersey cows here that are 600kgs plus liveweight that throw super beef calves, as they give a good frame to the calf and the beef bull gives a bit of power,
the drive to breed lighter 500kgs mature weight grass based cows, means your beef calves of these ladies are crap, and its further compounded with using easy calving beef bulls that have poor traits for carcase/weight gain

Whats your output percentage compared to the liveweight?

jaymla627

Mooooo wrote: »

Whats your output percentage compared to the liveweight?

Roughly 108% I'd reckon, will do around 665kgs ms delivered on co-op report with another 20kgsms gone to calves averaged out, their been well fed though
The lady below is my ideal cow

jaymla627

This is her 1st lactation daughter the daddy is a American holstein, their is some power to her

Gballs

Hey lads/ladies,

Just wondering how "Green&Red" and "Hildywildy" are getting on after the first year.
Are both of ye working off farm and if so are either of those jobs a PAYE rather than self employed.

Thanks...

Green&Red

Gballs wrote: »

Hey lads/ladies,

Just wondering how "Green&Red" and "Hildywildy" are getting on after the first year.
Are both of ye working off farm and if so are either of those jobs a PAYE rather than self employed.

Thanks...

Hey Gballs, meant to get back to this earlier, thanks for asking

Going great here, almost finished first calving season, couple of stragglers

plenty gone right and plenty gone wrong. Had a four cows holding their cleanings at the start, heifers that calved early and weren't on a pre-calver long enough. Tough couple of weeks around the middle of feb, long days, all heifers in the parlour, cows calving and calves to feed.

We had a baby at the end of November, that cut into the sleep at times but it meant Mrs G&R was there to do the evening calf feed which took a lot of pressure off.

I had a man lined up to take my beef calves and he brought another three men to take FR calves, he also took all my JEX bull calves, almost all calves left the farm 7-14 days which eased the work load. Remaining few went to the mart.

Very happy with how the calving went, lost three that were dead a few days before calving, nothing to be worried about according to the vet, lost a couple more at calving but again nothing out of the ordinary. Lost one bull calf to scour, but other than that all healthy.

My work finished up when covid came, I'm a site engineer at a pharma plant, all non-essential build work has been stopped. The timing couldn't have been better, did lots of jobs I'd have otherwise contracted out. No sign of my work starting up again but I will go back for a few years when it does. I'm a contractor rather than PAYE, it goes through a company which is owned by the farm company. Its very tax efficient, any money that I earn engineering can be used to pay off the farm loan without paying myself, paying tax and then paying off the loan. It also means I've been eligible for the PUP payment which has been great. Its definitely given me a great opportunity to know exactly what I need from someone coming in. Also gives me a good idea of what I need to improve for someone coming in. I know some on here scoff at lean models but thats my background so I'm hoping that will help improve things.

Getting ready now for breeding, about half the cows are cycling again which is great, going to try some sexed semen this year. Also looking at breeding some heifers of a neighbours high milk yield herd, I think the calves could be great when I just concentrate on a cow with high milk yield + high fertility.

Teagasc get a bad rap but I've found them great, the amount of material they have readily available is massive if you're willing to look for it. Huge amount of podcast material, lots of webinars and they're more than happy to answer questions if you drop them a line.


In terms of numbers February was 3.65 protein, 4.68 fat and 41.6c/litre, March was 3.42 protein, 4.96 fat. 95% six week calving


Its great being back milking, I love the structure to the day, I've been very lucky that it was a great time to get out of beef, the demand was massive, had a line of fellas looking for springers, didn't have near enough. Compared to winter 2019 when I couldn't give springers away and got cleaned out on what I sold. Milk price is great, well above what went into the business plan so thats compensating well for the reduced output from the heifers

trg

Fair play G&R, seems to have worked out in your favour.

How do you apply the LEAN model practically to your farm work?

What are lads paying for year old Ho/Je X heifers?

Green&Red

Lots of practical ways

Communication
So Mrs G&R is feeding the calves in the evening, theres a whiteboard with a grid saying what calf is in what shed, what stage they are at and what date they move to the next stage, she can easily see that I've moved calves from the previous evening and she now needs 10L of replacer in shed 1, 6L of cows milk in shed 2 etc. No need for me to spend time explaining who is where.
Also helps with standardisation, so I've taken what Teagasc have said for how much milk they get, thats all there, means I'm not short changing any calf or keeping them on milk longer than they need to be

Mapping tasks, you should know how long each repeatable task should take you, like milking, it should take an hour, why did it take 70 minutes today and then how can I stop that happening again. How many times did I get out of the pit, how can I minimise that

They talk about the five S in lean, sort, set in order, shine, standardise, sustain. So tidying out sheds and then arranging them in a logical way. For example we always kept the tags in the house, tagger & iodine in the shed, now they are all kept in an old filing cabinet in the dairy along with everything calf related.

Lots of waste on any farm, if you dont have a standard way of doing something and look at how youre doing it you'll miss lots of the waste

Edit: I should say you'd think reading that my farm is in pristine condition, its not, it looks like a farm that has been run by an fella with a full time job and an OAP for 10 years. But it is getting better bit by bit and thats the whole concept

Green&Red

trg wrote: »

What are lads paying for year old Ho/Je X heifers?

Not sure this year but I paid €850-920 last year

carrollsno1

Green&Red wrote: »

Lots of practical ways

Communication
So Mrs G&R is feeding the calves in the evening, theres a whiteboard with a grid saying what calf is in what shed, what stage they are at and what date they move to the next stage, she can easily see that I've moved calves from the previous evening and she now needs 10L of replacer in shed 1, 6L of cows milk in shed 2 etc. No need for me to spend time explaining who is where.
Also helps with standardisation, so I've taken what Teagasc have said for how much milk they get, thats all there, means I'm not short changing any calf or keeping them on milk longer than they need to be

Mapping tasks, you should know how long each repeatable task should take you, like milking, it should take an hour, why did it take 70 minutes today and then how can I stop that happening again. How many times did I get out of the pit, how can I minimise that

They talk about the five S in lean, sort, set in order, shine, standardise, sustain. So tidying out sheds and then arranging them in a logical way. For example we always kept the tags in the house, tagger & iodine in the shed, now they are all kept in an old filing cabinet in the dairy along with everything calf related.

Lots of waste on any farm, if you dont have a standard way of doing something and look at how youre doing it you'll miss lots of the waste

Edit: I should say you'd think reading that my farm is in pristine condition, its not, it looks like a farm that has been run by an fella with a full time job and an OAP for 10 years. But it is getting better bit by bit and thats the whole concept

Worked on a LEAN focused farm in Tasmania for the guts of 6 months, youd only really realise the benefits of it when you head to a different farm. Cleanliness on the farm was huge it was treated as a production line in a food processing plant, everything scrubbed after milking walls and all and walls were given a deep clean rwice a week too. Dairy was spotless as well, any inlet/outlet for milk i.e. bulk tank, milk sock towers were scrubbed amd rubber O rings soaked and cleaned before the rinse was ran through, pipe that fed into the bottom of the bulk tank was stripped and steeped in detergent once/twice a week. The concrete yards outside ive just done a quick measure up were .025/ha i thought it was more but it was washed down daily after milking utilising the recycled floodwash system where possible this had to be hosed down daily as rhe weather was against us between the norwester winds and the warm temperature and sunshine. There was some awful c#nts of cows and heifers in the herd after calving who wouldnt settle, some of these heifers youd swear were never handled in a yard before but the worst were sent off to get young again and thar knocked two hours off milking alone

I suppose it was easy do it when we were on OAD but still there was 1500 odd cows and those practices were carried put throughout calving too. Despite all this there was a faur problem with SCC in the herd which we (all a new team for that half of the season) managed to get down by over 100,000 after a few months in but after no thanks from the owners, and a complete lack of respect for us from them despite them paying huge penalties the previous season for SCC it gradually went back up. TBC was pretty good throughout.

It was a fair wake up call coming home here and doing relief milkings for a few lads around the place and im still not over my short lived return to giving the auld fella a hand and thats nesrly a year ago now, if i hadnt got the start at what im at now and had to stay farming at home there id have been sent away to the big house for a while.