Is KiwiCross™ the way to improve your herd?

The article discusses the trend of including functional traits such as fertility, welfare, and health in the breeding objectives of dairy producers worldwide. In South Africa, dairy farmers are under pressure to increase production efficiency and are adopting more pasture-based and seasonal farming systems. The article introduces the KiwiCross™, a cross-bred sire line breed developed in New Zealand, which has become available to South African farmers. A recent study compared the performance of KiwiCross™, Holstein-Friesian, Jersey, and nondescript breeds and found that crossbred animals raised in pasture systems had production figures comparable to Holstein-Friesians and higher than Jersey pure breeds, while also showing slightly higher values in reproduction, health, and welfare traits. The article concludes that cross-breeding has the potential to improve difficult-to-measure low heritability traits and improve the economic situation of dairy herds. [Extracted from the article]