Too narrow a genetic focus interferes with extending longevity

When your focus as a monoculturalist is in maximizing pounds milk per day per cow, your genetic selection focus stops with randomly using the highest PTA milk yield sires.   For the average commercial dairy, this may seem to be the practical option, when a cow is only going to complete two lactations anyway (never living to the average age of physical maturity, which in Jerseys is around five years of age).    Compound this thinking over a multiple of generations and you will have nothing but cows who are halfway to dead before their first calf-- what more polite breeders call "faster maturity".   Single trait milk selection becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (the only thing you get "for sure" is milk).   A big part of what makes a bull "high milk" is just that his daughters hit their yield peaks at earlier ages than most other cows.

The Jersey breed already matures quicker than other breeds.   To continue our focus upon that trait in genetic selection may be to lose us other breed advantages (calf vigor, fertility, test% levels, feed efficiency, herdlife) that previously were held in a symbiosis of "balance".   This is what is happening within the herds that have been studied that show "inbreeding effects".   Now that you are a breeder, you will want to think about the kind of cows the market really needs, and reorient your sire selection into a multiple trait selection framework that gives you a chance to overcome developing breed weaknesses (and all breeds have some) as well as preserving breed advantages.   This is the kind of genetic selection approach that purebred Breeders typically follow, and is the kind of thinking behind the AJCA's "Jersey Performance Index" (JPI).                                        

What if the market for Jerseys quits growing?

Before the recent boom times, the difference in value between a grade Jersey and a purebred Jersey was almost 100%. We would have $1000 State Sale averages, and then the next week you could buy $500 Jerseys in the auction barns.   It is even more important to maintain registry when the market is not growing, as the purebred niche markets may be the only opportunities to recover the true rearing cost of a replacement animal.

Many Holstein dairymen who have registered their calves for decades, are now discontinuing the practice.   Why?  "It costs too much"...  "It takes too much time"...  "I can get as much for them as grades."   The Holstein breed suffers from three major forces all occurring together:  (1) The market-- most milk pricing is now multiple component, neutralizing some of the advantage of a high fluid yield cow (given the areas of expanding milk production are distances away from population centers) once costs for transportation and processing are factored in.   (2) Feed efficiency-- you cannot assume the cow who milks the most is the best.   On a calories eaten per pound of milk solids produced, the larger framed, higher milk yield, lower test% cow loses out to the smaller frame, more rumen-active, higher test% cow.    The dairymen who figured this out the fastest are those who buy all their feed.(like the big corral dairies in the western desert) and this is where the biggest switch (Holstein to Jersey) is ongoing.  The next biggest switch is among those who convert to low-input intensive-management rotational grazing, where the "feed efficiency" argument is reinforced by body condition scores and relative conception rates.   (3) Misdirected trait selection-- the Holstein heifer finds it nearly impossible to calve unassisted, resulting in a 15% average calf birth loss.  She has lost so much fertility that most dairies are resorting to "chemical" fertility (routine OvSynch) at great incremental cost.  She has clumsy legs and feet that constantly need trimming to avoid lameness.   She is ketosis and D/A prone after most freshenings. A big proportion of ranking genetics contains the two lethal recessives "Blad" and "CVM" and a majority of the Holstein fraternity thinks this is no big deal (in spite of the links to fetal reabsorption and immune deficiency)..   As a result, this big cow that costs $1200+ to raise has a pretty short functional life.  For too many years we blamed this on "hot rations" and "higher production" but the blame has to be shared by the many Breeders who sold out to the lure of big dollars shipping high-indexing embryos to Europe's single-trait (PTA Protein) selection market.   Now that this market has collapsed, there is nowhere else to go with the "superfreak" Holstein elite. 

Given the Holstein still dominates numbers in the western dairy world, and the Holstein leadership is failing to address its problems, the growth market for Jerseys should last awhile longer.   As a new Breeder of Jerseys, however, it will pay you to keep the dialogue going with old-time Jersey Breeders such that we do not, in our success, repeats the mistakes of the once-proud Holstein breed and become ignorant in our arrogance of the pitfalls of single trait selection and the risks of too narrow a bloodline and trait focus in genetic selection.    The Holstein has one advantage over the Jersey, and that is the beef market.   Holstein deacons bring five times the price of Jersey deacons; a cull Holstein cow brings twice the price of a cull Jersey cow.   This is structural to the veal market, the feedlot business, and the packer industry, all of whom are focused upon carcass size.   This sustains the grade cow floor to the commercial Holstein cow price; most Holstein dairymen are de facto members of the beef industry (40% cull rates will do that to you).

Basically, the beef market sets a floor under any replacement cow market.  This cushions fluctuations in cow values for large-breed dairymen.   In the Jersey business, beef income (unless you sell your steers through a freezer beef market) is not a reliable source of income.   The purebred sector, however, has been, is now, and will continue to be.  Much of the credit for this can go to proactive management of the American Jersey Cattle Association and the Canadian Jersey Cattle Club, who have kept their programs and services "lean and mean" and encouraged original thinking among their membership.   The rest of the credit goes to the Jersey cow herself, who had several advantages the market economics now finds to be valuable.   If you are a competent stockman, don't overlook its advantages.    If you have the inclination, Breeding purebred Jerseys is a sound business decision.