Better health and profit with ProCROSS

15 years of experience with ProCROSS

Ben Andersen is a dairy farmer driven by profitability. With his family, he manages two dairy herds (Andersen Dairy & Seagull Bay Dairy) in Idaho, USA, for more than 2,200 milking cows, including 592 Holsteins and 1,679 ProCROSS cows.

The Holstein herd is well-known amongst pure Holstein breeders. Seagull Bay Dairy Inc. is well-known for Shauna, a famous Holstein All-American brood cow. She won the prize for Holstein International Cow of the Year in 2015. Shauna is also the dam of Holstein bull SuperSire – another celebrity for Pure Holstein dairymen – and GrandDam of Silver.

In 2002, Seagull Bay Dairy counted around 500 milking cows, with an average production of 40kg of milk per cow per day.

In 2003, they started to crossbreed in the second herd with different breeds. Following their visit to Oakdale, California, they introduced the VikingRed breed into their herd in 2005 and the Coopex Montbeliarde in 2006.

At that time, they took the decision to crossbreed 100% of the commercial herd. Afterward, they kept some Holstein cows to compare their performance with the ProCROSS herd.

Better health and reproduction

“What I really like about the ProCROSS is their tremendous feet and legs. They have super locomotion and less lameness," says Ben.

Ben continues: “The level of production between Holstein and ProCROSS herds is similar. On the other hand, I noticed a higher level of fertility, a decreasing of stillbirth and a higher level of survival for ProCROSS cows.

So, my replacement rate dropped. When you add up all these figures, the impact on my profitability is important. Finally, my quality of life has improved.”

“They have really good reproduction. We don’t see much difference in milk production between our Holsteins and the ProCROSS cows, but the crossbreds stay in the herd longer. About 80% of our herd are ProCROSS and 20% are Holsteins right now.”

	2002	2016	2019
Cow Death Loss	10%	5.50%	3.70%
Stillbirths	10%	4.50%	3.60%
Displaced Abomasum	3.50%	0%	0%
Herd Turnover	40%	35%	28%
Preg. Rate 21-d	12-16%	23-27%	36-40%

Andersen Dairy Inc:

• Owned by Ben Andersen & his family
• Around 1,679 ProCROSS cows
• Performance: 12,164 kg MEM, 4.1% Fat / 3.2% Protein
• 15 years of experience with ProCROSS

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