whelan2 wrote: » What bulls are ye planning on using this year?
Gawddawggonnit wrote: Off tonight to E. Europe on my quarterly reminder of the fragility of W. European family farms...
mahoney_j wrote: » Fr2298 Fr2239 Fr2314 Fr4513 Fr4532 Fr4510 Fr4337 Fr4482 Lwr
mf240 wrote: » No Jersey or Scandinavian reds. ?
visatorro wrote: » Listening to the rain battering my window tells me girls won't be out for a walk tomorrow!
kevthegaff wrote: » I was in poland before visiting a dairy farm with 50 cows, so we wee invited into the house, and 2 of the sons appear hungover in their late 40s single, our translate r told me they prefer the drink than milking. Father was nearly seventy doing most of the work!
alps wrote: » Hate this number bull identifier...just can't remember them and they give me no sence of identity like the 3 letter code, and could always link that code in my mind to a bull name... Absolutely lost now, but part of me thinks that that may have been a little bit of the purpose of the change..
whelan2 wrote: » Fair play to pg with the top 6 dairy bulls in the country.
yewtree wrote: » We use a good bit of their stuff, very happy with their crossbred and Jersey bulls particularly the stuff from CRV
Mooooo wrote: » yewtree wrote: » We use a good bit of their stuff, very happy with their crossbred and Jersey bulls particularly the stuff from CRV What Jersey bulls would lads use as a first cross? May try a few this spring,
jaymla627 wrote: » Have some lovey vj link cross heifer calves here, don't know if he's still available though
Gawddawggonnit wrote: I’m going further east. Hippy, hoppy, happy, families. All’s good and dandy!
Gawddawggonnit wrote: Are you content with that spiel?? Really?
Mooooo wrote: » What Jersey bulls would lads use as a first cross? May try a few this spring,
yewtree wrote: » We used a lot of okm, pka and lxk as frist cross, probably used to much okm. Have some nice npy and hkk heifers and 2nd lactation cows now. At this stage we are using a lot of b+w bulls on the jex cows Will use triplestar as a pure Jersey this year
alps wrote: » You are going seriously hard with Oman there Mahoney......including several of them with Oman on both the Sire and Dams side....would you be concerned at all about that? I refused to breed cows here to suggested bulls that were really closely related, mainly were Oman and Dano...
mahoney_j wrote: » Not one bit tbh ,inbreeding check on sire advice covers it and I’m happy to go with it ,Oman and most of his offspring are breeding seriously good stock
alps wrote: Can't argue with a master Mahoney, especially with the figures you are achieving, but the fact that line breeding is the inverse of hybrid vigour, are we now not far away from the point of most of our top gene pool being related?
alps wrote: » mahoney_j wrote: » Not one bit tbh ,inbreeding check on sire advice covers it and I’m happy to go with it ,Oman and most of his offspring are breeding seriously good stock Can't argue with a master Mahoney, especially with the figures you are achieving, but the fact that line breeding is the inverse of hybrid vigour, are we now not far away from the point of most of our top gene pool being related? You will have to search extremely hard to find any bulls not related to Oman, Hugo, Dano and Keet, and am concerned that inbreeding is being overlooked to an extent in the pursuit of the genomic figure.. However, when we see the achievements of the likes of yourself, following this route to the letter, it's probably foolish of the rest of us not to have more confidence in it. I do suspect that you do a lot of research on the bulls you end up choosing and this may take out the random risk of just using the top bulls. I have been on farm's where the operator have felt they were doing the right thing by blanket using the top bulls year after year without being targeted, and without aimimg for any real animal type. I've seen some poor results from this type of usage, with huge variation in animal size, type and production, and would be suggesting that many of these operators would see better whole herd gain if they used proven bulls. It's stunning to see the amount of guys that do not know what kind of cow they want, what she may look like, and how to go about breeding to get her.. I can't understand using "bull of the day"
Mooooo wrote: » Do you find the udder holds up as number of lactation increases? Would there be many to avoid on that front?
Timmaay wrote: » Last 3 cows happily calved outside here, all them sitting in the sun happy out with their calves all day, no need for me to interfer with anything, you can talk all you like about 6wk calving targets, 1 2 3 rule etc etc, but hard to beat letting mother nature get on with itself when it allows!
blackdog1 wrote: » I love when people talk about hybrid vigour. I was in a meeting in West Cork when a farmer who was crossing with Jerseys stood up and said he had Jersey milk and holstein solids.. doesn't always work. They're plenty of outcrosses out there but you'll have to use foreign bulls more as they have a bigger selection but lower ebi. Then again how many people would bite your hand off to get Lord Lilly or Hairybreeze straws? And they were all foreign bulls with low ebi.
whelan2 wrote: » All's good when it goes to plan. Just be careful if weather changes.
Timmaay wrote: » Yeh I thought about putting all the drys on the maize stubble and draw silage to them, but too far away and fair bit of effort if the weather changed, instead the springers are in a paddock beside the shed and can pull the pin quick if needed.
