Death by a thousand cuts – the Jersey breed in New Zealand?
The biggest challenge I see for the Jersey breed in NZ is not how they remain relevant to farmers with their own Jersey/Jersey-cross herds, but how they remain relevant to farmers who own Crossbreed herds. With Crossbreed herd ownership making up approximately 60% of the national dairy herd (2023/24 Dairy Statistics), the Jersey breed is missing out on an opportunity to arrest their falling market share because of the type of bulls being bred by breeders and purchased by AB Companies.
As I see it, the current BW-based model of our herd improvement industry rewards smaller-framed, lower liveweight Jersey animals with a good combined Fat and Protein score. This (BW) reward is centred around the efficiency piece of the breed – more MS produced per kg of liveweight and feed consumed. Because the BW-model is an ‘across breed’ evaluation system, it makes makes a lower liveweight penalty hard to implement, particularly on those smaller Jersey bulls. Consequently, bulls are purchased by AB companies on the basis of the BW figure of that particular type of animal – smaller framed, lower liveweight.
However, I feel this has done the Jersey breed a massive disservice. The upwards trend line of the liveweight of Jersey bulls entering Sire Proving Schemes has been slow at best because of the reluctance to move away from the BW model rewarding smaller, potentially more efficient animals. This is in spite of farmers’ (both Jersey and Crossbreed) repeatedly asking for, over a long period of time, higher liveweight Jersey bulls.
As a result, the Jersey breed hasn’t grown much beyond its current market share of approximately 7.5% nationally (2023/24 Dairy Statistics); there haven’t been enough of the sort of Jersey bulls who Crossbreed herd owners would have been happy to use over their cows. Most Crossbreed herd owners are getting Jersey blood into their cows somewhere because a Crossbreed bull has both Friesian and Jersey components of its ancestry, but that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that the Crossbreed herd owners who choose to nominate their bull team are simply opting out of the Jersey breed altogether. It has, in their eyes, become unattractive and irrelevant to their herd because of the type of progeny that the low liveweight, smaller framed Jersey bulls produced.
The lack of relevant, productive, and high liveweight Jersey bulls isn’t helped because of a liveweight penalty attached to their BW if they became ‘too big’. If a ‘big’ Jersey bull made the catalogue then you could be assured that against some not-insignificant odds, he would probably be a cracker. I certainly never regret abandoning BW as a means to select Jersey bulls for our own herd, and we loaded up on Bell’s OI Floyd (who was one of the biggest Jersey bulls of his era). Once his daughters hit the ground, we never looked back.
At 500kg liveweight, Floyd was absolutely suitable to use over Crossbreed animals – no drop in liveweight of the corresponding offspring, and probably better udders and fertility to boot. What’s not to like about that?! A good friend and I still laugh about his decision not to use Floyd in his Crossbreed herd because of his perceived lower efficiency and lower BW due to his liveweight. His attitude changed the following year however when he saw my calves on the ground! Unfortunately, animals like Floyd were few and far between at that particular point in time.
There is absolutely a case for the need to have a strong (and some might say increasing) national Jersey herd. For my mind, there are 2 key roles that the Jersey breed has to play in our national herd – the heterosis (hybrid vigour) afforded through the F8J8 cross, and the relatively higher fertility compared to other breeds.
Addressing the heterosis piece first then. Without a strong Jersey breed, Crossbreed bulls run the risk of diminished heterosis simply because the breed split shuffles back and forth between F10J6 to J10F6 depending on which Crossbreed bull was used over which dam; there is no real hybrid vigour created by mating a crossbreed to a crossbreed. The Crossbreed animal is now a breed in and of itself, if that makes sense? The only true F8J8 bull to feature in LIC’s Alpha Catalogue last season that was a direct result of a J16 x F16 cross was Gordon’s Flash Gordon, a bull purchased in 2019. There is free money on the table for Crossbreed farmers through using rotational crossing to maximise heterosis; there are likely benefits in efficiency (GHG) and known fertility benefits. If you look at chickens and hybrid maize for example, you can see the benefits of using purebreeds to create elite cross genetics.
With respect to the Jersey breed and their fertility BV, one of the fascinating pieces of data I gleaned from our Wingman herds this season was the significant increase in the fertility BV of animals who were between F10J6 to F13J3 compared to the animals who were F14 or greater. A little Jersey went a long way, and all it required was 3-6 parts Jersey to increase the fertility BV 1-2%. Doesn’t sound a great deal of difference I know, but when you consider the breed average for fertility for Friesian is -0.8% versus Jersey at 3.4%, it becomes clear that those animals with more Jersey in them should (statistically) get back in calf easier.
If the Jersey breed wants to remain relevant, then we need to consign the prevailing thinking that Jerseys are “too small, too weak, and not capable of competing well enough in my Crossbreed herd” to the rubbish bin. The only way we will achieve this is through the AB Companies listening to the farmers who buy their semen, and choosing NOT to diminish their Sire Proving Scheme intake of Jersey bulls simply based on breed market share. At what point do Jersey breeders and AB Companies address their responsibility to the NZ dairy industry, and 60% of its national herd? Because without a strong Jersey breed, where does that leave all the Crossbreed animals?
