Brahman-Holstein cross

[whitewing]

What the heck does one of those critters look like?

 

[TexasBred]

What the heck does one of those critters look like?

Depends a lot on the bull but you can imagine the brahman influence. Beautiful cattle and very good cattle. Once in a while one will come along that will be black/white spotted and yep....that is one ugly looking cow. A friend breeds red brahman to jerseys....has a very good herd of crosses.

 

[whitewing]

What the heck does one of those critters look like?

Depends a lot on the bull but you can imagine the brahman influence. Beautiful cattle and very good cattle. Once in a while one will come along that will be black/white spotted and yep....that is one ugly looking cow. A friend breeds red brahman to jerseys....has a very good herd of crosses.

Interesting, thanks for the response TB. I was reading some of the older threads here and a reference or two to this cross and it got me to wondering what the cross might look like.

I bought a group of bulls to finish about a month ago and in the group are several young Holsteins. There's nothing special that I can see about any of them but I was still thinking of hanging on to them a while to see how they develop. In your opinion, would a Holstein bull crossed with a Brahman cow produce some of the same advantages as the other way around?

 

[TexasBred]

Can't answer that quesiton. We always bred brahman bulls to the holstein cattle. The cattle will look brahman.. a lot of ear, not quite as much hump as the brahman, full bodied and good udders with a lot of milk. Gentle enough to handle easy but also good mothering instincts. We milked a group for awhile....when the holsteins were literally dieing in the heat and laying in the shade the crosses would be out grazing.

 

[whitewing]

Can't answer that quesiton. We always bred brahman bulls to the holstein cattle. The cattle will look brahman.. a lot of ear, not quite as much hump as the brahman, full bodied and good udders with a lot of milk. Gentle enough to handle easy but also good mothering instincts. We milked a group for awhile....when the holsteins were literally dieing in the heat and laying in the shade the crosses would be out grazing.

Pretty good testimonial TB. Our summers (Jan - May) are brutal down here. No rain for months. The heat's not really that bad but we have very intense sunshine. I've also got a lot of acerage on my place that I consider marginal, forage-wise, and I'm thinking a decent Brahman cross might take advantage of some of that.

 

[novatech]

They have been crossing Brahman with Holstein in the south American countries for years in the dairy herds.
I was very impressed with an F1 Holstein /Brahman cross bull a neighbor used on his commercial herd a few year back. He was massive, thick and deep. Looked like a paint horse in color. The owner claimed he produced some very fast growing calves.

 

[Caustic Burno]

They have been crossing Brahman with Holstein in the south American countries for years in the dairy herds.
I was very impressed with an F1 Holstein /Brahman cross bull a neighbor used on his commercial herd a few year back. He was massive, thick and deep. Looked like a paint horse in color. The owner claimed he produced some very fast growing calves.

How did they sale? I love the Brimmer girls and would have a pasture full of them if you didn't get hammered so hard on the steer calves. Over here it had better look heavily Angus,Herf, or Char influenced.

 

[pdfangus]

I am not going to knock the cross......
but a holstein bull is a murder looking for a place to happen......
use a brahma bull on the holsteins.
I worked in the dairy business for over twenty years and know too many horror stories about dairy bulls.
and it is never the bad one that gets you.....
it is the one that has never shown any agression....
gal i work with who is also a neighbor.....
they were dairying ....
husband had a young holstein bull get after him when he was gathering cows for milking.
only reason he survived is the bull knocked him in the pond and did not come in after him.
if I were dairying I would AI and if necessary use a beef bull for cleanup.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

no offence,, but from your pictures,,, you need to add more meat to your cattle,, not take away brahman give adequate milk by theirself

 

[TexasBred]

The brahman/holstein crosses that we milked would top out at around 60 lbs. of milk per day but the butterfat and protein levels were awesome. With the bonus for those components it was like getting paid for about 85 lbs. of 3.5% BF milk. Would milk them 2 lactations and sell them bred. Instead of the $400 a holstein packer cow would bring they'd bring $1000 as a good stocker.

 

[bishopcattleco]

we have some bra holstein cross alot of people like these cattle.I think they are some of the best crossed cattle in the world.kinda overlooked by some people.when i was a kid we used them as nurse cows.Some took 6 to 7 calves at a time.when breeding time come around these cattle didnt run around the field for three days with 5 bulls running them down.You would see them cows bulling and they would just stand there for the bull.Not playing hard to get you might say.

 

[whitewing]

no offence,, but from your pictures,,, you need to add more meat to your cattle,, not take away brahman give adequate milk by theirself

No offense taken, but adding meat is more difficult than you think.

This is not Angus country here, nor is it Southern Brazil or Argentina where the climate can be much like the Northern US or Southern Canada. I'm only 11 degrees north of the equator. There is no real winter here....it's either wet or dry. And the summers (the dry period) are nothing short of brutal. It's not the heat so much, temps are relatively moderate, it's the intensity of the sun's rays.

Cattle here have long been bred to survive with little or no help.....they can walk long distances, get by with little water, eat just about anything (they have to because most ranchers plant no grass), most don't know what grain tastes like, and they do it all with every tick in the country trying to attach itself to their rears. They're tough animals living in a tough climate.

I'm actually amazed at how well my Charolais do without any significant grain input.

The crosses I'm doing between Charolais and mestizos are producing some impressive animals though I admit I'm still relatively new at the game. The first cross was born on my place (by accident) in September 2006. She's a very impressive cow today and is carrying her third. The offspring of these crosses seem to grow at double the pace of a purebred Charolais and I'm betting that the carcass yields will be way above the average for the mestizos.

Just doin' my best with what I've got. ;-)

 

[Texas Gal]

Years ago we bought some heifers that were out of Holstein cows and gray Brahman bull. The neighbor's kids had bottle raised them. They were mostly black baldies with more white on their legs and bellies; several were tiger stripe, minus the zero to hot in 2 seconds factor. Those were some of the best calf raisers we ever had, especially when bred to a polled herf, with excellent longevity and great udders. I liked them so much almost 75% of our momma cows are out that bunch of heifers if you looking back far enough in their family tree.

 

[Third Row]

We used to have a few that came to us as bottle calf heifers my dad would buy from a local dairy.

They were just about as good a cow as a person could hope for. The calves out of Simmental bulls didn't show any dairy influence and were actually in the upper end of weaning weights each year.

I kind of feel sorry for the feeders that ended up with them. It must take several years to finish a Simmi/Brahman/Holstein cross.

 

[Dixieangus]

Would anyone happen to have a pic of some of these cattle????

 

[Dixieangus]

I kind of feel sorry for the feeders that ended up with them. It must take several years to finish a Simmi/Brahman/Holstein cross.

Why??? Holstein are big cattle and brahman ,and from what little i know of simmi x's they are big cows....

 

[Santas and Duhram Reds]

Size is part of the problem. maturity rate and growth curve too.

 

[tsmaxx47]

I am not going to knock the cross......
but a holstein bull is a murder looking for a place to happen......
use a brahma bull on the holsteins.
I worked in the dairy business for over twenty years and know too many horror stories about dairy bulls.
and it is never the bad one that gets you.....
it is the one that has never shown any agression....
gal i work with who is also a neighbor.....
they were dairying ....
husband had a young holstein bull get after him when he was gathering cows for milking.
only reason he survived is the bull knocked him in the pond and did not come in after him.
if I were dairying I would AI and if necessary use a beef bull for cleanup.

total agreement