October 2018

Nestled in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains at Hudson Falls, New York, is Ideal Dairy Farms. Ideal has been operated by the same family since 1908 and today milks 2,400 cows with an impressive average of over 30...

Holstein International regularly receives tips from readers, from all over the world. We are always pleased because the tips are frequently valuable. And so at the beginning of this year, we received an almost secretive...

40 minutes west of Quebec City and within 20 km of the south shore of the St. Lawrence River is one of Quebec’s largest dairy operations, Ferme Drapeau. The farm is run by Dominic Drapeau and his wife Celia Neault, toget...

Roylane Robust: Roylane Jordan: Roylane Mindy: Three giants in Holstein breeding. And in their wake are strong transmitters like Roylane Bob and Roylane Punch, all originating from the Roylane herd. However, you hardly r...

It has happened! Eight giants have preceded him. One of these weeks, Ensenada Taboo Planet, more than 15 years old, will become the world’s ninth bull to reach the gigantic milestone of 1.5 million doses of semen sold. A...

Despite his age of three years, he still possesses outstanding numbers with 3315 gLPI and 2734 gTPI. His owner Semex alone has 12 sons with over 2850 gTPI and 17 sons with over 3500 gLPI in their lineup. His influence wi...

Mogul sons abound among the top ranks on daughter-proven sire lists around the globe. Which one is the best? A strong contender for that title now would be the bull that currently sits at Nr.1 on the TPI charts, EDG Rubi...

In 2012, Muri Popsy created a stir as the nr.1 gTPI cow of Europe. Now, six years later, the Planet daughter from the deep Italian cow family is in the limelights again. Her Doorman son Poison – never in the top as a DNA...

From time to time a generational sire appears that is a cut above the rest. In the world of red & whites, Westcoast Swingman appears to be such a bull. He is currently being heavily used as a sire of sons by owners Semex...

Two years ago, his debut created quite the stir. Westcoast Styx-Red broke through with strong DNA total indexes in various countries; in his homeland of Canada, he was nr.1. That led to immediate action, especially in Ge...

‘Even though it is still early in his career, Luster has rapidly risen to become one of the most popular polled sires in our program,’ says Rick VerBeek from Select Sires, who indicates that the nearly two-year-old son o...

For anybody studying the current bull catalogues will notice a severe lack of sires that inherit a high overall genetic level while also correcting for the increasingly short teat length in the Holstein population. Here...

The ultimate goal for many high-ranking index families is the breeding of numerous popular sires. This task can be confidently entrusted to the family of Freurehaven Shottle Lautella. Her descendant Peak AltaLawson, good...

The Kings-Ransom herd at Schuylerville, New York, is especially dazzling at present, home to the EX-95 full sisters Cleavage and Cleo, and also the 94-point dam-daughter pair of Dextra and Diva. It is the family of this...

Progress for longevity in the Holstein world is clearly visible. So much so, that it is sometimes invisible. That may sound contradictory, but this is what we mean: in HI’s August edition, we featured Heinz Meyer’s Bucke...

In the Netherlands and Flanders, Etazon Renate is a household name. Thanks to the combination of a superior NVI and abundant embryo production, the O-Man daughter with French roots has become the most influential foundat...

‘We do not breed a cow like her every day!’ These are the opening words of Sylvain Pioud from Ferme du Moulin Gallet in eastern France, about Laitwis Dorothee. This strong EX-92 Roumare daughter is no longer on the farm,...

‘Stress reduces the resistance of cows, causing the likelihood of infections to increase. And the number of stress moments is quite high actually; cows are like people with autism, they do not handle changes well.’ Speak...