Legendary Holstein Bull Dies

[Thanks for the Crepes]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2909723/Holy-cow-s-lot-mouths-feed-Toystory-bull-sired-500-000-offspring-dies-making-owners-tens-millions-dollars.html

 

This guy is responsible for so much dairy production worldwide. I'm very interested in this topic, yet I've never heard of him before.

 

Anyone here ever heard of Toystory before?

 

I'm aware that Holsteins produce inferior milk to Jerseys and others. Holsteins are known for volume output only. Holsteins are the workhorses of the dairy industry. Still this is very  interesting to me.

 

When I was a child in Vermont, we sometimes bought Holstein male calves and raised them for meat. They weren't wanted by the dairy farms they came from.

 

Once we got a black angus male calf, or at least as presenting as so. He may? have been a cross, but I'm here to say, he was SOOO much smarter than the Holsteins.

 

You have to wrestle them up to paint their navels with disinfectant. Clean after them. Feed them. At least we got to send them off to a commercial slaughter house.

 

I'd left home before Blackie (the black angus maybe blend) got slaughtered. If I was in charge he'd be a pet.

[Martin Fisher]

Most certainly have heard of him...I'm trained in cattle AI.

[Lisa Shock]

I had not heard of him, but a quick look at the photo reminds me of how much has changed since I was a kid and was around farms. Farmers have been doing a lot of interbreeding of cattle types lately, and many are almost unrecognizable to me anymore. (familiar coats on different frames) Toystory there seems shaped a lot more like an Angus than a Holstein (although he is marked like one) I guess I'm used to seeing them with longer legs and necks.

 

Same thing with beef cattle breeds. It's weird seeing the Brahmin mixes.

[Martin Fisher]

Dairy cattle have been bred for femininity (that's no surprise since femininity naturally goes hand in hand with milk production) more and more over at least the past 150 years...that's why they look the way that they do.

[IowaDee]

Many years ago I can remember pouring over a catalog of bulls.  You placed your order for seman according to the traits you were looking for in calves.  These were not dairy bulls but big beefy critters.  Once you found what you hoped would be your cows' heart throb, you ordered through your local A.I.tech. and settled in to watch for signs of heat in the ladies.  I'm sure the actual delivery system left a lot to be desired for her.  Let's just say in involves very long gloves!  

 

Around here most beef raisers still keep bulls around but dairy farmers have gone the A.I. route.  Dairy bulls are considered mean and unpredictible compared to the beef breeds. I suspect that frozen bull seman is one of the few things you still can't order from Amazon yet.