NRF 5723 Ølberg-daughter grazing at Essink farm. The picture is organized by Xsires, Holland.
Superior Norwegian Red crossbred – Freek and Sandra Essink in Aalten, Holland
The Essinks in Aalten, Holland were looking for a more trouble free cow, and they implemented a crossing strategy at their farm.
By Hans Kerkhof, Xsires, Holland
The farm has 85 dairy cows and 60 heads of young stock on 45 ha of land. The cows are grazed day and night as much as possible. The herd average is 9.000 kg milk, 4.46 % fat and 3.52 % protein. Replacement-rate is 21 % (average in the Netherlands, approx. 35 %).
All breedings are done with the aAa-system.
Freek is running the farm on his own, and because of the farm size, he was looking for a more troublefree cow. After reading about the Californian-trial he started to use some Swedish and Norwegian Red. Freek was so impressed by the yearlings that he from that time on used only Scandinavian Red. The average weight of those animals was about 30 % higher than the Holstein yearlings.
Freek is doing the 3-way cross: As a third breed he is at the moment using Fleckvieh, Montbeliarde and Brown Swiss. After getting them in milk he will decide which breed will be the third breed for the future. «Looking at the youngstock, the Fleckvieh-crosses out of the Norwegians are looking the best», Freek said.
On the question what the difference is between Swedish and Norwegian, Freek says that the Norwegian crosses are showing more strength in the frame compared to the Swedish crosses. So Freek thinks that the NRF is a perfect cross on the Holstein cows.