best place to buy dairy farm

[TexasBred]

You're right but sometimes it's better just to cull.

Oh yeah, there are some that just need a new home. Had a friend that milked about 100 Holstein/brahman crosses along with his Holsteins. He loved them. No super high milk production but high components and production didn't fall off so much when the heat came. After about 3rd lactation he would breed them and haul them to the beef cow sale and get double or triple what he would have got for a dairy cow as a kill cow.

[frieghttrain]

You're right but sometimes it's better just to cull.

Oh yeah, there are some that just need a new home. Had a friend that milked about 100 Holstein/brahman crosses along with his Holsteins. He loved them. No super high milk production but high components and production didn't fall off so much when the heat came. After about 3rd lactation he would breed them and haul them to the beef cow sale and get double or triple what he would have got for a dairy cow as a kill cow.

Now that would be the way to go if you're down south

[Stocker Steve]

Dairy producers are accustomed to stillbirth rates in excess of 8% for pure HO calves.

What causes this ?

[regolith]

Dairy producers are accustomed to stillbirth rates in excess of 8% for pure HO calves.

What causes this ?

Huh? I'd like to know where he pulled that statistic from.
That poster is pushing crossbreds, of course.
I personally, would not put an average calving difficulty Holstein bull over a yearling Holstein - I mate all mine to Jersey for that first calf; and I've seen calving problems with farmers using straight Holstein over 2 yr olds that have been half-starved all their life and nowhere near big enough at 3 yrs to have the calf. Basic good management (without the need to resort to crossing with Jersey) will mostly prevent that problem and even under poor management I'd call 8% high losses. My (xbred) herd probably runs 2 - 4% stillbirths and calf size or lack of vigour is very rarely the cause unless the weather is terrible.
Young Holstein heifers you do have to be a little bit careful how big a calf you get out of them; they're not built for pushing out a calf 10% of their own weight. Wheras a Jersey could.

[cbcr]

Dairy producers are accustomed to stillbirth rates in excess of 8% for pure HO calves.

What causes this ?

Huh? I'd like to know where he pulled that statistic from.
That poster is pushing crossbreds, of course.
I personally, would not put an average calving difficulty Holstein bull over a yearling Holstein - I mate all mine to Jersey for that first calf; and I've seen calving problems with farmers using straight Holstein over 2 yr olds that have been half-starved all their life and nowhere near big enough at 3 yrs to have the calf. Basic good management (without the need to resort to crossing with Jersey) will mostly prevent that problem and even under poor management I'd call 8% high losses. My (xbred) herd probably runs 2 - 4% stillbirths and calf size or lack of vigour is very rarely the cause unless the weather is terrible.
Young Holstein heifers you do have to be a little bit careful how big a calf you get out of them; they're not built for pushing out a calf 10% of their own weight. Wheras a Jersey could.

If you read the report from the study from the Minnesota study, on page 5 you will see that from the participating herds that the Holstein had a stillbirth rate of 9% compared to 4% for Holstein x Montbeliarde and 5% for Viking Red x Holstein. Here is the link to that report: http://www.ansci.umn.edu/sites/ansci.umn.edu/files/procross_final_f1_first_lactation-lb.pdf

The bottom line for any dairy producer is making a profit.

Health traits are an important factor in being able to contribute to the bottom line profits. One of the reasons that crossbreds have better health traits is due to the hybrid vigor from cross breeding. Their is no way to tell how much, some of the traits have been given a 4% improvement but many feel with some of the crossbreds the improvement is 10%.

Another factor is that many of the foreign countries even with Holsteins ( many of these countries have pedigrees that are full of US Holstein genetics, have concentrated considerably on health traits. In this area the US dairy breeds, this has not been a big priority but is becoming moreso now.

With our breeds, Coopex out of France is now looking at Montbeliarde cows that have been born from ET and cows that have been bred to purebred status here is the US to genomic tests for possible bull mothers.

[regolith]

That's an interesting link - and curiously, the increased stillbirth rate is not linked to calving difficulty, although in all three breeds/crosses is far higher for bull calves than heifer calves.
The 'healthier due to crossing' seems as good an explanation as any; the report doesn't adequately explain the difference.
The genetic haplotypes causing infertility have probably been discovered since this study was completed, and it would be expected that crossing would nullify their effect however a) their known presence among the Holstein breed is at levels where impact should be minimal... unless one was line-breeding and b) generally the affected pregnancy is lost well before it reaches a stage where it can be recorded as a full term stillbirth.
The comparison is for first-time calvers. I still don't see how it justifies the statement that dairy producers are accustomed to those high rates - sure, it matches the percentages in the group surveyed but you couldn't extrapolate results from a group of in-calf heifers across a whole breed of mixed-age cows, so you'd presume it comes from external data which isn't referenced.

[regolith]

I misread, the study isn't completed it was begun eight years ago and is still in progress.

[TexasBred]

Dairy producers are accustomed to stillbirth rates in excess of 8% for pure HO calves.

What causes this ?

That's pure horse shyt. cbcr read the numbers wrong I'm sure since he has no on farm experience with dairy cattle. Stillbirths were all but nonexistent on our dairy and calf deaths for any reason were rare.

[cbcr]

Dairy producers are accustomed to stillbirth rates in excess of 8% for pure HO calves.

What causes this ?

That's pure horse shyt. cbcr read the numbers wrong I'm sure since he has no on farm experience with dairy cattle. Stillbirths were all but nonexistent on our dairy and calf deaths for any reason were rare.

As a matter of fact I did grow up on a dairy. Even milked 3 times a day. Over 40 year experience as an AI technician.

Some people argue just to argue. The information that we report is correct. Look at the Minnesota report, did you see where the Holsteins had a 9% stillbirth rate? That is fact, unless you want to try to say that it is a lie.

The breeds that we represent continue to grow, with many producers breeding up to purebred status. So many studies don't want to include our breeds because our breeds would show much better. There was a trial on the crosses that was done a few years ago in California, but many didn't or refused to believe the results. This Minnesota study with different herds shows that these breeds do perform very well.

But again there will be some that will still want to discredit the results and not believe them. To each his own.

[Son of Butch]

The information that we report is correct. Look at the Minnesota report, did you see where the Holsteins had a 9% stillbirth rate? That is fact....

But again there will be some that will still want to discredit the results and not believe them. To each his own.

You are correct sir.
When Stillbirth is defined as a calf born dead or dies within 48 hours of birth.
In 2006 The Holstein Breed Average was 8% in the usa based on 6 million stillbirth records of Holsteins from 1980 - 2005

[Son of Butch]

Dairy producers are accustomed to stillbirth rates in excess of 8% for pure HO calves.

What causes this ?

A.I. success and popularity has certainly contributed.

Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation born in 1965 and Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief born in 1962
It was documented in 1990 that these 2 bulls, Chief and Elevation accounted for nearly 25% of all the genes in the
Holstein cattle population in North America at that time.
Both were great bulls and Elevation himself was a highly inbred "Burke" bull with many crosses back to Wis Burke Ideal.
While they were influential in the vast improvement of both type and production of the breed, they also both
contributed to the decline in Holstein breed fertility and increase in stillborn birth rates.
For awhile it seemed every A.I. sire graduate from a young sire program was an Elevation son from a Chief dam or
vice versa and a couple were even from tightly inbred father daughter matings and 3/4 brother 3/4 sister pedigrees.

I read somewhere a few years ago that it was estimated that 94% of holsteins in the usa in some manner trace back
to both of these sires. It should be a warning to other breeds not to fall to in love with just 1 or 2 A.I. sires.

[dun]

Dairy producers are accustomed to stillbirth rates in excess of 8% for pure HO calves.

What causes this ?

That's pure horse shyt. cbcr read the numbers wrong I'm sure since he has no on farm experience with dairy cattle. Stillbirths were all but nonexistent on our dairy and calf deaths for any reason were rare.

It's an interesting statistic but sure doesn;t jibe with my experience. I wonder how much of that has to do with bull calves being knocked in the head at birth because of limited value. Easier to report still born rather than clubbed. Particularly on the mega dairys

[cbcr]

What causes this ?

That's pure horse shyt. cbcr read the numbers wrong I'm sure since he has no on farm experience with dairy cattle. Stillbirths were all but nonexistent on our dairy and calf deaths for any reason were rare.

It's an interesting statistic but sure doesn;t jibe with my experience. I wonder how much of that has to do with bull calves being knocked in the head at birth because of limited value. Easier to report still born rather than clubbed. Particularly on the mega dairys

Dun, I would have to agree with you. That was not the experience that we had either. I think that if research was done that you would find that many smaller family farms didn't have a high stillbirth rate. But as dairy's began to get larger and and many of these, outside help had to be hired, then these rates went up. Very few employees will take care of cattle as the owner or family member does.

More animals in a confinement operation contribute to this. Dairy animals on many of these large dairy's aren't run out on pastures. The land is utilized for producing the forage that is fed.

A.I. success and popularity has certainly contributed.

Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation born in 1965 and Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief born in 1962
It was documented in 1990 that these 2 bulls, Chief and Elevation accounted for nearly 25% of all the genes in the
Holstein cattle population in North America at that time.
Both were great bulls and Elevation himself was a highly inbred "Burke" bull with many crosses back to Wis Burke Ideal.
While they were influential in the vast improvement of both type and production of the breed, they also both
contributed to the decline in Holstein breed fertility and increase in stillborn birth rates.
For awhile it seemed every A.I. sire graduate from a young sire program was an Elevation son from a Chief dam or
vice versa and a couple were even from tightly inbred father daughter matings and 3/4 brother 3/4 sister pedigrees.

I read somewhere a few years ago that it was estimated that 94% of holsteins in the usa in some manner trace back
to both of these sires. It should be a warning to other breeds not to fall to in love with just 1 or 2 A.I. sires.

When registering crossbred animals with Holstein parentage, we find tremendous influence from Elevation and Chief and their sons, grandsons, and so on in every generation.

In North America, it seems that when certain pedigrees become popular then all of the bull studs jump on that bandwagon and offer bulls with the same pedigree. This not only happens with the dairy industry but Angus and many of the other beef breeds are just as bad. Breeders fall into this trap as well because they want to have daughters of these bulls in their herds.

In the Fleckvieh breed, there are some 17 different lines. In Germany we know that a producer cannot breed more that 10% of his herd to one bull. This keeps the level of inbreeding to a minimum. From what we have heard, many foreign countries follow this breeding practice to some degree, as breeding is more of a socialistic system.

[TexasBred]

What causes this ?

That's pure horse shyt. cbcr read the numbers wrong I'm sure since he has no on farm experience with dairy cattle. Stillbirths were all but nonexistent on our dairy and calf deaths for any reason were rare.

As a matter of fact I did grow up on a dairy. Even milked 3 times a day. Over 40 year experience as an AI technician.

Some people argue just to argue. The information that we report is correct. Look at the Minnesota report, did you see where the Holsteins had a 9% stillbirth rate? That is fact, unless you want to try to say that it is a lie.

The breeds that we represent continue to grow, with many producers breeding up to purebred status. So many studies don't want to include our breeds because our breeds would show much better. There was a trial on the crosses that was done a few years ago in California, but many didn't or refused to believe the results. This Minnesota study with different herds shows that these breeds do perform very well.

But again there will be some that will still want to discredit the results and not believe them. To each his own.

Just giving you my experience while owning and operating a dairy. As I said still births were almost non existent and we calved close to 600 a year.
The information is little more than the results of "that" study. Stillbirths may have been 9% with the cattle used in the study but in overall in the american dairy industry it's a LIE!!!! You're saying some of today's dairies would lose to 5000 calves annually that are stillborn and that just does not happen and stay in business. Yes I question your quoted study, it's horse shyt as I said. But then maybe it's a Minnesota thing.

[frieghttrain]

What causes this ?

That's pure horse shyt. cbcr read the numbers wrong I'm sure since he has no on farm experience with dairy cattle. Stillbirths were all but nonexistent on our dairy and calf deaths for any reason were rare.

As a matter of fact I did grow up on a dairy. Even milked 3 times a day. Over 40 year experience as an AI technician.

Some people argue just to argue. The information that we report is correct. Look at the Minnesota report, did you see where the Holsteins had a 9% stillbirth rate? That is fact, unless you want to try to say that it is a lie.

The breeds that we represent continue to grow, with many producers breeding up to purebred status. So many studies don't want to include our breeds because our breeds would show much better. There was a trial on the crosses that was done a few years ago in California, but many didn't or refused to believe the results. This Minnesota study with different herds shows that these breeds do perform very well.

But again there will be some that will still want to discredit the results and not believe them. To each his own.

What do you do now? Swedish red Brown swiss,and jersy my boss likes but not the Monblierd(can't spell that right )