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Craigalea Profile
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New breed "Kiwipole"


This ones making the rounds at work:

Dairy cows bred specifically to be able to achieve high milk production levels under heat stress have been developed by Waikato company Dairy Solutionz.

Called the kiwipole, the new composite breed is conditioned to thrive in lower elevation tropical climates.

Over time, Dairy Solutionz chief executive Derek Fairweather hopes to have the kiwipole bred into New Zealand dairy genetics.

"That's definitely what the prize is - to put that heat tolerance into mainstream New Zealand breeds."

The breed could have value in some parts of New Zealand where heat stress was an issue for cattle, but the kiwipole was not necessarily more drought tolerant than other breeds, he said.

"The key thing that cows don't like is heat and humidity. Generally when we have a drought here, it's hot but the humidity's also lower."

However the new breed did not have the same grass-to-milk conversion efficiency as a standard kiwicross dairy cow, which was unparalleled with any other breed in the world, he said.

"No-one can get close to the kiwicross, it's a remarkable animal."

The kiwipole's heat stress tolerance came from the senepol, a cattle breed that originated in the Caribbean.

The research is based in part from years of research at the University of Florida, who bred a recently discovered "slick locus" (genes) into American holsteins.

"The Dairy Solutionz team has now taken the slick locus and introduced it into New Zealand pasture genetics for the first time as part of what is now a seven-year programme," Fairweather said.

He believed the kiwipole would have the same levels of efficiency as the kiwicross.

"These animals will basically be kiwicross animals, but with a heat tolerance."

Kiwipole numbers would further increase next year as more of the cows were mated, meaning there would be "literally hundreds" of these animals next spring, Fairweather said.

Fairweather believed the real potential of the breed was in the export market where it could be sold into countries with a tropical climate, which were looking to grow its dairy industry
This was a "mind-bogglingly large market".

"I'm not 100 per cent sure how much dairy production is done in the tropics, but it's enormous and that's what this particular cow is targeted for - people with grass systems in the tropics."

None of the existing dairy farming in the tropics was done particularly well because farmers tended to use American holstein cows, which did not have heat tolerance.

The kiwipole will be used on demonstration farms in Colombia and Ecuador by the end of this year. These farms would be run in partnership with governments and land owners.

Over the next five years, Fairweather hoped to improve the performance of the progeny within the tropics.

That would allow those farmers to buy with confidence knowing those animals do perform, he said.
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Got a few reservations about this, being that plenty of the advertised "high fertility" kiwi bulls end up below 100 for fert here (look at what happens when you push more milk through cows bred for low input systems!).

Rather interesting about how its done though, maybe need to make a line of Holsteins like this?

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28/10/2014, 2:17 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
bazza20 Profile
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Re:


The kiwis are great salesman. They will try and convince you everything in NZ is better.

Heat tollerance for New Zealand. Lol. Are they serious. Some one needs to tell them holsteins are fine with mid 20s a couple days per year.

"Nothing beats the kiwi cross for efficiency". Need to add in NZ nothing may beat the kiwi cross but the rest of the world they don't come close.

Agree their fertility is good under kiwi systems but when you actually feed cows their production can't hold up and their fertility isn't that great.

They live in their own little bubble down there.
28/10/2014, 2:34 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
smous Profile
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Re: New breed "Kiwipole"


quote:

Craigalea wrote:
However the new breed did not have the same grass-to-milk conversion efficiency as a standard kiwicross dairy cow, which was unparalleled with any other breed in the world, he said.

"No-one can get close to the kiwicross, it's a remarkable animal."




This bloke is a victim of his own propaganda.

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28/10/2014, 14:22 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
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Re:


That's the general thought here too, the "slick" gene itself is the interesting part.

Evidence was found that supports the existence of a major gene (designated as the slick hair gene), dominant in mode of inheritance, that is responsible for producing a very short, sleek hair coat. Cattle with slick hair were observed to maintain lower rectal temperatures (RT). The gene is found in Senepol cattle and criollo (Spanish origin) breeds in Central and South America. This gene is also found in a Venezuelan composite breed, the Carora, formed from the Brown Swiss and a Venezuelan criollo breed.

from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12597376

As a side note, I pulled a heap of the "high fertility" kiwi bulls data out a while back, they just cant hack the production and keep that fertility.

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28/10/2014, 23:05 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
Barry99 Profile
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Re:


Craiglea the research was done at the University of Florida and they bred the gene into American Holstein's. So it is already in the Holstein gene pool if you want it i am not sure if they are selling semen.
Sounds like they have used semen from this source to add it to the Kiwi cross. From here on it will just be a marketing exercise as they have done in the past. At one stage they were encouraging farmers to mate cows to Sahiwal bulls to produce cattle for export to tropical country's.( a few of this cross were milked in nz production was very variable).
The papers this week are about them isolating a gene in a line of Herefords that have a gestation length 30 days shorter than normal cattle, the calves are born completely normal. this is intended to be marketed to help shorten gestation length in late calving cows.
29/10/2014, 20:40 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
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Re: Re:


quote:

Barry99
The papers this week are about them isolating a gene in a line of Herefords that have a gestation length 30 days shorter than normal cattle, the calves are born completely normal.



Now that's very interesting, I know some were looking at Yaks for short gestation, having it in a more mainstream breed is a great thing.

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31/10/2014, 0:07 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
Barry99 Profile
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Re: New breed "Kiwipole"


The Yak trail was discontinued due to the low fertility experienced with the Yak semen. They did get some calves on the ground, with a shortened gestation. But the lower in calf rates made it uneconomic to continue.
3/11/2014, 19:17 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 


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