[MUSIC] Welcome to Dairy Cattle Genetics.

My name is Chad Dechow and I'm

an associate professor here at Penn State, with responsibilities in teaching and
dairy cattle genetics research. This week, you are going to learn about
genetic progress in dairy cattle. We will examine the process of
generating genetic evaluations and discuss the different traits
that dairy farmers consider. We will look at how dairy cows have
changed in the last half century. And how genomic technologies
are being incorporated into genetic selection programs. We are going to start by
introducing
the different breeds of dairy cows and their characteristics. The most common br
eed of dairy cow
is the black and white Holstein. They originate from Holland and the first
arrived in the United States in the 1950s. They comprise nearly 85% of
the US dairy cow population and are popular because they are the highest
milk producing breed in the world. Holstein cows typically produce around
24,500 pounds of milk per year. 3.7% of Holstein milk is fat and 3.1% is protein
. Holsteins are also large cows and
weigh around 1,500 pounds at maturity. The smaller Jersey cow is the second most
numerous breed in the United Stated, representing approximately 10%
of the dairy cow population and that number is growing. Jerseys originated on th
e Isle of Jersey,
off the Normandy region of France. For many years, they were the most numerous d
airy
cattle breed in the United states. Their popularity is growing again,
because they have high milk solid content in their milk, with 4.8% fat,
and 3.65% protein. Even though they produce less milk than
Holsteins, about 18,000 pounds per year, they are viewed as efficient because th
ey
produce a lot of milk from a small frame. A mature jersey cow weights
around 1,000 pounds. They are also very fertile cows
that give birth to smaller calves, which are more easily born
that larger Holstein calves. Brown Swiss are similar
in size to Holstein. They produce around 18,500
pounds of milk per year. While that is less than Holsteins, they have high milk
solids content
with 4.2% fat and 3.4% protein. They are the third most common
breed in the United States, but only about 1% of US dairy
cows are bronze Swiss. Bronze Swiss have unique behavior
when compared to other cattle breeds. They are generally calm and friendly,
but they're calves are different. Many farms feed calves from a bottle for
a few days after they are born, and then they trained calves
to drink from a bucket. It can take several weeks for a brown Swiss calf to lear
n
to drink from a bucket. This isn't a big problem for brown
Swiss breeders because they've designed their calf management
system with this in mind. The remaining traditional diary
cattle breeds in the US are Ayrshire, Guernsey and milking shorthorn. Collective
ly they represent around
1% of the US dairy population. Each of these breeds maintain
a loyal following and can be competitive in specialized markets. But they lack t
he of Holsteins or
the fertility and milk solids content of Jerseys to be as
competitive in a mass production system. There's one additional group of cows th
at
we have ignored to this point, crossbreds. Crossbreds are cows that
are a mix of two or more breeds. We don't know the exact number of
crossbreds in the United States, but 5% is a reasonable approximation and
their numbers are growing. In some instances, farmers have crossbreds because th
ey
are transitioning to another breed of cow. For instance, if I have Holsteins and
decide I would like Jerseys, I have two choices. I can go and buy Jerseys cows.
Or I can breed my Holsteins
to a Jersey bull and can continue breeding those
descendants back to Jersey. I may also just decide that
I want to milk crossbreds. Crossbreeding allows me to combine
attractive characteristics of multiple breeds and take advantage of hybrid vigor
. Here at Penn State, we conducted
a research trial that examined brown Swiss by Holstein crosses on
commercial dairy farms. The pure Holstein cows produced 717
pounds of protein per lactation. The pure brown Swiss produce less,
691 pounds. However, the crossbreds actually
produce more than pure Holsteins or pure Brown Swiss,
at 748 pounds of protein. That boost was due to hybrid vigor. Over the last deca
de, we have also
begun to see semen imported from foreign breeds for crossing with Holstein. The
most popular breeds for importing
are two related breeds from Scandinavia, the Norwegian red and Swedish red,
and the Montpellier breed from France. The Norwegian and Swedish red breeds are
known for having excellent cow health and fertility and good fat and protein yie
ld. Crosses of Montpellier with Holstein have
also shown excellent fertility with very good production. While crossbreeding ha
s many advantages,
there are some challenges including determining what breed to
mate with our crossbred cow. Most geneticists recommended
a three breed rotation. Now that you have a sense of
the different dairy cow breeds, we will be shifting our attention to
genetic evaluations in the next lesson. [MUSIC]