Jersey x holstein

[TexasBred]

In Australia they made a study comparing the Jersey x Holstein cross against the Australian Friesian Sahiwal in very harsh environment, the cross outperformed pure Holsteins and Australian Friesian Sahiwal on Milk Yield, pregnancy rate and age of calving.

Over what period of time was the test conducted?

[gaurus]

In Australia they made a study comparing the Jersey x Holstein cross against the Australian Friesian Sahiwal in very harsh environment, the cross outperformed pure Holsteins and Australian Friesian Sahiwal on Milk Yield, pregnancy rate and age of calving.

Over what period of time was the test conducted?

https://clunyexports.com/wp-content/upl ... CATTLE.pdf

"Jersey x Holstein Crossbreds
The success story of the Jersey x Holstein crossbred worldwide in tropical regions is acknowledged and well documented. It includes countries such as Mexico, Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia, it is the Jersey component that provides the heat resistance and the toughness"

[Stocker Steve]

I think it would be difficult to cross a Holstein and not increase toughness.
Profit would be a different thing.

[Stocker Steve]

"Jersey x Holstein Crossbreds
The success story of the Jersey x Holstein crossbred worldwide in tropical regions is acknowledged and well documented. It includes countries such as Mexico, Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia, it is the Jersey component that provides the heat resistance and the toughness"

I feel bad for the Guernsey breeders, but why do you think Normande was not included?

[gaurus]

The Normande is more of a dual purpose breed that leans more to the dairy side, but not as productive as the dedicated milking breeds, I believe that a Jersey/Holstein cross will out do any jersy/Normande or Holstein/Normande cross in term of feed cost milk production specially in the tropics.

[TexasBred]

In Australia they made a study comparing the Jersey x Holstein cross against the Australian Friesian Sahiwal in very harsh environment, the cross outperformed pure Holsteins and Australian Friesian Sahiwal on Milk Yield, pregnancy rate and age of calving.

Over what period of time was the test conducted?

https://clunyexports.com/wp-content/upl ... CATTLE.pdf

"Jersey x Holstein Crossbreds
The success story of the Jersey x Holstein crossbred worldwide in tropical regions is acknowledged and well documented. It includes countries such as Mexico, Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia, it is the Jersey component that provides the heat resistance and the toughness"

Jersey/holstein cross is a great little cow but my experience was the offspring of that first cross had a world of duds.

[Stocker Steve]

Jersey/holstein cross is a great little cow but my experience was the offspring of that first cross had a world of duds.

Did you try any 3 breed rotations?

[TexasBred]

Jersey/holstein cross is a great little cow but my experience was the offspring of that first cross had a world of duds.

Did you try any 3 breed rotations?

Sure didn't. Always figured that 3rd breed was a lesser milk cow than either the jersey or the holstein.

[farmerjan]

Wanted to add my 2 cents since I have been a milk tester for over 25 years and have had dozens of "family milk cows". The jersey/holstein cross has pros and cons; yes they tend to be smaller, tend to have more butterfat, most tend to eat a little less, tend to be more fertile and breed back quicker, than the straight holsteins. Some of the next generation do tend to be less proficient but not all. Have one farmer that has used the 3rd cross to a swedish red and gotten exceptional production with a much "beefier" animal that stays in almost fat condition and breeds back well. They are a good animal to keep a bull calf out of for beef if bred beef. One farmer I tested for also loves them but 3 have hated the original jer/hol cross. Many have crummy dispositions, bad attitudes and tend to be more kicky. I have acquired over a dozen over the years when a holstein breeder was desperate to get a cow bred back and used a jersey as last result and didn't want a crossbred heifer calf to raise.
One of the biggest problems I have seen over the years, including in the ones I have raised, besides the attitude problems, they tend to lose their udder support in the 3rd or 4th lactation. The rear udder drops and the center ligament support goes to be nice and the teats will stick out to the sides when fresh. Since they are often shorter than the holstein, they can't afford for their udder to drop. I always breed my crosses back to jersey to try to breed out the hol. or breed them beef if they are not the best producers and if they have a heifer, she will go into the "beef" herd and they always milk alot, but the next generation beef calf will have some of the "finer" traits and will not sell as well as a straight beef calf. Great to eat yourself.
I regularly test 15-20 herds a month, same herds every month and have seen alot of the crosses come and go. Graziers like the swedish red or other similiar cross because they don't lose condition. Jerseys actually do quite well grazing. The bull calves aren't worth much to sell but they are the BEST beef and will weigh 800-1000 at 2 1/2 yrs and don't have alot of fat on them. Meat is tender, and has a sweeter taste and that is all the beef I have eaten for 20 or more years. My favourite breed is guernsey, but they have tried to breed them into super producers and have lost all the vigor. The old style guernsey was a little coarse and raw-boned, not the best producer but the milk is high in beta-carotene with the yellow color and makes the best butter. I have a guernsey, a 1/2 guernsey/hol that is black&white, and a 1/2guernsey 1/2 jersey that is brindle that is being bred back guernsey, 2 jersey cows, 2 jersey heifers, and a blk&white 1/2 jer 1/2 hol, and her blk&white 3/4 jer 1/4 hol daughter. They are nurse cows and raise an avg 3 calves each per year plus I milk the one jersey once a day for the house with her calf getting the rest. She is a young cow off a dairy that got mastitis as a heifer, lost one quarter so isn't the greatest milker but does all I need for her to do. They get a little grain when I am getting the calves established, and no silage, just mostly hay and also some alfalfa when they are getting established and all the pasture they want. I also have milked an angus jersey cross in the past and some holstein angus and holstein hereford crosses, but mostly get a second calf on them and let them raise 2 per lactation. The holstein crosses get thin on just pasture with 2 calves on them, but the jerseys fare better.
Don't know if this is too much information, I guess I got carried away but I like my dairy cows and wished someone had given me more advice when I was younger. Also, if you are into the caesin thing, guernseys and jerseys are the only 2 dairy breeds that are well known for the A2 beta caesin and it is touted to be more digestible and fewer incidences of lactose intolerance with it; there is an interesting article on DR. MERCOLA's website about the 'devil in the milk' and the guernsey breeders website on the properties of guernsey milk.

[regolith]

I'm pretty sure there's a few Friesian bulls here in NZ that are A2/A2 - it's not something I specifically breed for, too many other traits that are more important. So while it is often linked to the Jersey it can be found in the black and whites too for people who wanted to breed that way.
My crosses don't generally have udder collapsing issues, but then, they're grassfed and not pushed for high production either. We lose the occasional one that the ligaments go at around five years old or less. Interestingly, I had a daughter and now several grand-daughters of a cow I bought whose udder collapsed like that and they have all been fine, the daughter was seven last year when I culled her for having a sniffle when there wasn't enough grass to feed everyone, still had an udder like a 3 yr old, and her sire wasn't a particularly good-uddered bull either.

[farmerjan]

There's always some that will defy the odds and any good uddered ones are the ones to keep. If you were going strictly by "genetics" you probably would not have even bred those animals, all the more reason I am not into all this genomics...I want to see some "real" records. I believe that the Fresians you have in NZ are a little different bred than the american holsteins and probably better for grazing and components than here. The new sire summaries are touting the A2/A2 in the jerseys and guernseys but I didn't see it on any of the holsteins, brown swiss or ayshires although it could be there. Since I don't do much relief AI breeding I don't keep up on it as much. How are your milk prices there? I have heard that you guys were really suffering; we went from $22.+ cwt down to $14.50 cwt. and it is breaking the farmers backs. Alot of the farmers that I test for are in their 50's and 60's and several have no one to take over and I look for more to sell out in the next couple of years. Can't say that I blame them. So many of the younger generation don't want the 7 day a week commitment. There's not the "love" of dairy cattle that there seemed to be 40-50 years ago.
I have a couple of farmers that like the "lineback" cattle, they milk pretty good and are beefier and are usually pretty quiet. To each his own. I won't tell anyone mine are better or yours aren't good ones, only try to share what I've seen over the years. I get picked on all the time by several farmers about why I would want a "useless" guernsey.... even though I mostly get my paycheck from "holsteins" they are not my favourite dairy cow.

[ohiosteve]

That cross makes a good dairy cow but their offspring are generally duds

I agree. I had a few in a herd I bought and they were really good dairy cows I liked them a lot. The ones I had had great udders. I bred them back Holstein and the calves were nothing special. They would not be a good beef cow in my opinion, but probably a great nurse cow.

[regolith]

There's always some that will defy the odds and any good uddered ones are the ones to keep. If you were going strictly by "genetics" you probably would not have even bred those animals, all the more reason I am not into all this genomics...I want to see some "real" records. I believe that the Fresians you have in NZ are a little different bred than the american holsteins and probably better for grazing and components than here. The new sire summaries are touting the A2/A2 in the jerseys and guernseys but I didn't see it on any of the holsteins, brown swiss or ayshires although it could be there. Since I don't do much relief AI breeding I don't keep up on it as much. How are your milk prices there? I have heard that you guys were really suffering; we went from $22.+ cwt down to $14.50 cwt. and it is breaking the farmers backs. Alot of the farmers that I test for are in their 50's and 60's and several have no one to take over and I look for more to sell out in the next couple of years. Can't say that I blame them. So many of the younger generation don't want the 7 day a week commitment. There's not the "love" of dairy cattle that there seemed to be 40-50 years ago.
I have a couple of farmers that like the "lineback" cattle, they milk pretty good and are beefier and are usually pretty quiet. To each his own. I won't tell anyone mine are better or yours aren't good ones, only try to share what I've seen over the years. I get picked on all the time by several farmers about why I would want a "useless" guernsey.... even though I mostly get my paycheck from "holsteins" they are not my favourite dairy cow.

Milk price has made things very tough here. Fonterra recently announced a 50c lift which will help a lot if it comes through (we still haven't had full payment for last season's milk, it takes about seventeen months for them to fully pay up and anything can happen to the milk price in meantime), but is still below cost of production for a lot of farmers. Debt free and all-grass, I've been pretty much breaking even and no more for the last two years. As most farmers carry some debt, it'll be pulling them down, and if they're locked into irrigation or feed costs it'll be even worse.

Yes, I love the coloured cows and now that I've got a good internet speed have seen a lot of photos of linebacks, flecks, gyr-influenced, Monty's as well as the Red breeds, Swiss, Jersey and Holstein.
Just flicking through the NZ Friesians in LIC catalogue, Beamer is A1A2, Grandeur A2A2, Fire-up A2A2, Hothouse A2A2... so yes, it's definitely available in black and whites if someone wanted to breed them that way. The majority of the daughter proven Jerseys are A2A2.

[farmerjan]

Neat to know about the fresians and the caesin A2 thing. There have been some studies on it, of course they are not "conclusive" but it seems that there is alot of lactose intolerance and I think there might be something to the switch to confinement and silage feeding etc and away from pasture/grass based dairies. And the possible influence with diabetes and other things. The genetic pool here is getting so inbred, the guernseys are awful, but I just put 10 straws of an outcross in my tank to use even though he isn't one of the "better" bulls that select sires has. I am also waiting on a catalog from an independent that carries alot of different "odd" breeds and hope to find some other outcross guernseys, and maybe some other colored breeds. I like the dutch belted cows and they are supposed to be good graziers. There are so few of the guernseys that they are actually on the endangered watch list of the American Livestock Breeds Conservatory. Maybe one day the semen will be in demand as Elevation is here now. And people find out that I have jerseys and guernseys and they are looking for family milk cows. That is what I hope to be able to do, provide some in the future when I retire from my milk testing job in a couple of years.
There are several purebred Hol breeders actually looking for some of the older bulls as they are thoroughly fed up with everything based on these new genomics, with studs flushing heifers to these young bulls and all, and no proof that the bulls daughters have done/will do anything. It's all "on paper". Then when these daughters come into the milking herd ,they are nothing special and the bulls disappear from the studs. Our newest catalog of the "component breeds",; as anything not holstein is now classified, doesn't even give any lactation records on the dams or daughters, it has all these % comparisons and I am honestly going to have to learn how to read this stuff because I don't understand it at all.
I enjoy hearing from you and some of the differences from here to NZ.

[farmerjan]

There's always some that will defy the odds and any good uddered ones are the ones to keep. If you were going strictly by "genetics" you probably would not have even bred those animals, all the more reason I am not into all this genomics...I want to see some "real" records. I believe that the Fresians you have in NZ are a little different bred than the american holsteins and probably better for grazing and components than here. The new sire summaries are touting the A2/A2 in the jerseys and guernseys but I didn't see it on any of the holsteins, brown swiss or ayshires although it could be there. Since I don't do much relief AI breeding I don't keep up on it as much. How are your milk prices there? I have heard that you guys were really suffering; we went from $22.+ cwt down to $14.50 cwt. and it is breaking the farmers backs. Alot of the farmers that I test for are in their 50's and 60's and several have no one to take over and I look for more to sell out in the next couple of years. Can't say that I blame them. So many of the younger generation don't want the 7 day a week commitment. There's not the "love" of dairy cattle that there seemed to be 40-50 years ago.
I have a couple of farmers that like the "lineback" cattle, they milk pretty good and are beefier and are usually pretty quiet. To each his own. I won't tell anyone mine are better or yours aren't good ones, only try to share what I've seen over the years. I get picked on all the time by several farmers about why I would want a "useless" guernsey.... even though I mostly get my paycheck from "holsteins" they are not my favourite dairy cow.

Milk price has made things very tough here. Fonterra recently announced a 50c lift which will help a lot if it comes through (we still haven't had full payment for last season's milk, it takes about seventeen months for them to fully pay up and anything can happen to the milk price in meantime), but is still below cost of production for a lot of farmers. Debt free and all-grass, I've been pretty much breaking even and no more for the last two years. As most farmers carry some debt, it'll be pulling them down, and if they're locked into irrigation or feed costs it'll be even worse.

Yes, I love the coloured cows and now that I've got a good internet speed have seen a lot of photos of linebacks, flecks, gyr-influenced, Monty's as well as the Red breeds, Swiss, Jersey and Holstein.
Just flicking through the NZ Friesians in LIC catalogue, Beamer is A1A2, Grandeur A2A2, Fire-up A2A2, Hothouse A2A2... so yes, it's definitely available in black and whites if someone wanted to breed them that way. The majority of the daughter proven Jerseys are A2A2.

Read some stuff about Fonterra on a recently discovered site called Bullvine which has all sort of dairy info. I think you guys are really getting screwed over down there if I am even half understanding what I was reading. Used to be farmers and ranchers were considered among the more affluent of the people because of the assets they had, today we are the dregs of the world. Tired of supporting everyone else on my back and all the ones getting a handout on my long hard hours.