Question about breeding a Jersey

[Katie]

I have a jersey and 2 Braunvieh x Minuture Jersey heifers that I will be AIing next spring. I was thinking about breeding them to a Brahman. I am going to see how big the Braunvieh x ones get before I am for sure, but has anyone had experience with this cross good or bad? I am located in Texas and will probably retain any heifers they have.

 

[chippie]

I would be cautious and be sure to find a low birth weight bull. We used a low birth weight Brahman bull once on one of our Jersey cows and the calf had to be pulled. For our first calf heifers, we use a low birth weight Angus. We use the same on our full blood Braunviehs too.

 

[regolith]

If these are yearling heifers, best bull for them would be a Jersey.
I do cross Angus over Jersey, but only cows not heifers. Don't know anything about the Brahman sorry.

Braunviehx Jersey is probably going to get fairly big, though I don't know if the minaiture Jersey would pull the wight back any. Mine are about 450 - 500 kg at 2 years old, whereas the pure Jersey are 350 - 380 kg at the same age.

 

[TexasBred]

If these are yearling heifers, best bull for them would be a Jersey.
I do cross Angus over Jersey, but only cows not heifers. Don't know anything about the Brahman sorry.

Braunviehx Jersey is probably going to get fairly big, though I don't know if the minaiture Jersey would pull the wight back any. Mine are about 450 - 500 kg at 2 years old, whereas the pure Jersey are 350 - 380 kg at the same age.

Know a man with an all jersey dairy that regularly uses red brahman bulls on some of his jersey cows. Has one of the most beautiful herds of jersey/brahman cross cattle you'd want to see. Red brahman usually don't throw big calves but there is always the exception.

 

[Katie]

Thanks! Might wait for their second calf to breed to a brahman to be on the safe side. Do some of you that deal with jerseys have any recommendations on a "Good" jersey bull I could AI these girls to for their 1st calf? I normally get my Semen from Bovine Elite, but they don't have a good selection of diary breeds and I am not familiar with all the EPD's on diary bulls. The heifers are not registered so don't really have a lot of info on them.

 

[regolith]

Why not check out some of the dairy semen companies and ask us about any bulls that catch your fancy... you know what you're looking for & I don't know if there's many still on the boards that breed US Jersey, but there are several that can help you read the proofs.

I've only milked heifers to NZ genetics thus far, and of the bulls I've picked the only one I'd use again is still Hermans Red Ribbon, though Orbin gave me two very nice heifers a sample of two isn't much to rate the bull on.