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UNLIKE his neighbours,many of whom are now con-vinced about cross-breeding,Pete Verberg remains a Hol-stein enthusiast.

His herd is one of the highestyielding in Oakdale and heknows cross-bred cows willnever match the milk outputfrom his pure Holsteins – cur-rently 9.8 gallons a day.

Where he will acknowledgethey have a role to play is inimproved reproduction, andso changed his breeding poli-cy five years ago.

Now every cow on his farmis served twice with Holsteinsemen (heifers with sexedHolstein semen) and, if theyfail to conceive, subsequentlyinseminated with colouredsemen until their daily yielddrops below 72lb and theyare sold.

However, Mr Verberg is veryproud of the excellent repro-duction on his farm (2.2 serv-ices to conception and 110 daysopen) and so of his 1,100 milk-ing cows only 56 are crosses,some in their third lactation.

These cross-bred heifers aremilked alongside the pureHolsteins and continue to becrossed throughout their life-time.

Mr Verberg manages his2,400-head of cattle in 17 differ-ent groups fed 17 differentrations (many are differentages of heifers) and keeps thecross-breds in the same group

as heavily pregnant Holsteinsreaching the end of theirlactation.

He said they yielded around25 per cent less than his Hol-steins – but were considerablyeasier to get back in calf.

The Holsteins were not givenmany chances to get in calf,because of the cut-off point onyield. However, they generateda good income, as were usuallysold to other dairy farms.

“When I cull a cow it’s rarethat she goes and gets herthroat cut,” said Mr Verberg.“Because I cull at 72lb most ofmy cows that I cull end up insomeone else’s herd.”

That meant the herd’s cullrate was 34 per cent with 2.4average lactations and an aver-age age of 48 months. Thosefigures included the cross-breds and Mr Verberg said itwas too early to see if thecoloured breeds would outlastthe Holsteins.

He was quite happy with hisoperation and said yield wouldalways be the driver – therewas no point breeding for pro-duction then selling replace-ment heifers and keepinglower yielding adult cows.

Although the unit wouldsupport 1,500 milking cows hewas reluctant to increasenumbers further, ‘because I’m66 years old and I’m not thatdumb’. For the same reasonhe left all his nutritionaland breeding decisions to con-sultants, Mike Osmundsonbeing one of them.

While Mr Verberg was happyhaving a few coloured cows inhis herd, and acknowledgedthere was a place for entirelycross-bred herds, he wasadamant it was not for him –or a large chunk of the Ameri-can dairy industry.

He said production wouldalways be the driver and cross-bred cows could be very incon-sistent: “The problem is you’veeither got a good one or a pieceof shit. She’ll either be apretty damn good cow or theclear opposite.”

Unlike many Californian dairy farmers, Mr Prins grazes hisherd. This is a typical looking Montbeliare cross Holstein.

The successful use of sexed semen means a large number ofheifers on Pete Verberg’s farm.

CROSS-BREEDING DAIRY CATTLE IN THE USA – CALIFORNIAN CASE STUDIES

Study 3 – Peter Verberg

interval was 12.6 months.The pure Holsteins had been

taking three services toconceive and Mr Prins said hewas pleased to have nowalmost cut a whole service off.

In addition, he was no longerusing hormone injections toaid conception, something heused to reply on very heavilyat a cost of $10-15 per cow perconception, not includinglabour.

“We kept adding shots andadding shots, but as thecrossbreds entered the herdwe started taking shots off,”he said.

Although it was too soon tobe certain of improvedlongevity Mr Prins said he

had cross-bred cows in theirfourth lactation ‘that lookedas young as a Holstein in hersecond’.

And more lactations meantmore calves being born andreplacements coming into theherd. Within eight months ofcross-breeding Mr Prins saidhe had surplus heifers.

Initially he had takenadvantage of this to increasefrom 500 to 700-head, 580 ofthem currently in the milkingherd.

Mr Prins said he had alwaysstruggled to keep the cubiclesfull before but was now in aposition where he could bepicky about which females hekept, while also selling some

replacement heifers to otherdairy farmers – 115 in the lasteight months.

Cull cows were also worthmore per head. The cull ratewas currently 30 per cent,including the replacementheifers sold.

Mr Prins is in the minorityin California in that he grazeshis milking herd for a part ofthe day for seven months ofthe year – something thatappears to suit the cross-bredcows better than it did thepure Holsteins.

Mr Prins said he had alwaysprioritised udder compositionwhen selecting bulls, andcontinued to do so. He waspleased with the udder quality

of the cross-bred cows butalso their legs and feet andforage conversion ability – thecows were better able to walkto the 470 acres of grazingeach day and utilise the grassonce there.

He continued to supplementthe cows when they wereindoors but was feeding lessquality feed while keepingbody condition on the cowsand maintaining yield at 72lba day at 4 per cent fat (0.5 percent higher than theHolsteins) and 3.52 per centprotein.

“These cows are geneticallyprogrammed to have bodycondition, so you don’t have tofeed for it,” he said.