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VikingNews AU 02 2018
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4 vikingnews | september 2018 ?we were experiencing
fertility
challenges and improved
fertility
was `the carrot´? tom and bev phelan, in partnership with their son leo, run dalmore dairy in tasmania. this is bev?s story of their breeding journey searching for the most profitable cow, the one they founded by
cross
ing their friesian with vikingred and vikingjersey. by bev phelan ?dalmore?, dairy plains, tasmania. ?tom, leo and i began our ?viking? journey in 2006 when we were in- spired by steve snowdon to consid- er three-way
cross
breeding and us- ing red genetics. why? we were experiencing
fertility
challenges in our mainly friesian seasonal calving herd. so, improved
fertility
was the carrot. hybrid vigor, feed conversion efficiency with sim- ilar kg production also appealed. the breeding strategy has evolved over time. red / friesian
cross
, monty
cross
and pure
reds
have sidetracked me. now i have settled on the three-way
cross
using friesian,
reds
and jersey. however, given my passion for
reds
, i do put some of my best red
cross
es back to
reds
. the three- way
cross
gives me a cow that suits our system and drives profit ? me- dium frame and benefits of hybrid vigor, particularly in the early years. with
cross
breeding, the kg/ milk solids (ms) per cow may have dropped slightly compared to our straight friesians, but they do not need as much feed and the ?not in calf? (nic) rates are significantly
fertility
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