Three-way crossbreeding with ProCROSS gave Kelly and Christy Cunningham of Iowa, USA, the boost they sought for their dairy herd. They now enjoy healthy, fertile cows without compromising milk yields.

American dairy producer Kelly Cunningham and his wife Christy milk 3,400 ProCROSS cows in Atlantic, Iowa, in the Midwest’s ‘corn belt’.

ProCROSS is a 3-breed rotational crossbreeding system combining VikingHolstein, VikingRed and Coopex Montbéliarde.

They are part of four investors in Milk Unlimited Dairy Farms and are among a growing number of dairy producers milking more than 1,000 cows. In the US, 14% of farms are now milking 1,001-5,000 cows.

“I used to think I was a big dairy, but I’m not a very big fish in the pond any longer. Just last week, a new dairy was announced in the Midwest, with a capacity of 25,000 cows. Units of 12,000 are becoming common every day,” explains Kelly.

Rising build costs don’t appear to deter producers from getting bigger either; pre-COVID build costs averaged $6,000 a cow, but they have since skyrocketed to $10,000 per cow place.

Holsteins are still the largest breed, with an 81% market share compared to crossbreds at 5%. The most popular crossbreed is the Holstein x Jersey, but Kelly and Christy buck that trend, having converted to ProCROSS nearly a decade ago.

Switching to ProCROSS

After their fluid milk processor served notice, Kelly and Christy found a new home for their milk with a cheese maker. This became the catalyst for them to start crossbreeding in favour of higher components.

Cows are housed in sand cubicle sheds, and 65% of the cows ­– first and second lactation animals – are milked three-times-a-day through a 30/60 double up BouMatic parlour. This is ‘maxed out’ milking 305-310 cows/hour and only turns off for two daily washdowns, taking 40 minutes each time.

The Cunninghams own 1,100 acres and grow exclusively maize. However, they use winter cover crops of oats and no-till cultivation to achieve yields of 24t/acre. Maize silage makes up the bulk of the milking ration alongside purchased alfalfa, soya bean meal, maize grain and cotton seed.

Their milk is sold to Associated Milk Producers in Minnesota. Currently, the price is 39p/litre, but haulage is his third biggest cost at 2p/litre behind feed and labour.

 How to breed the best cows

Milk Unlimited operates a three-way breeding programme: VikingHolsteins are bred to Coopex Montbéliarde, and Holstein-Montbéliarde crosses are bred to VikingRed and then back to VikingHolstein.

“ProCROSS is more than just semen; it is a programme. Each of the three breeds has positive aspects,” says Kelly, who aims to breed medium-sized cows with good components, health and longevity. “We have no desire to milk giants. US Holsteins just keep getting bigger, but VikingHolsteins can help me with my height,” he adds.

Kelly does not scrounge on semen costs, with that being “twelfth” on his list of highest costs, saying: “In the grand scheme of things, you can’t save enough on semen to move the needle, so buy the best semen you can buy.”

Currently, heifers are served two times to sexed semen, and 85% of cows are served to Aberdeen Angus.

Elite cows in the top 25% of the herd must have no health issues and give 43kg of milk to be eligible for sexed semen, and even then, they only get one chance.

Different KPIs than the rest

Unlike most all-year-round calving herds, Kelly does not use pregnancy rate as a measure of success. Instead, he prefers to focus on two KPIs: the percentage of cows bred by 150 days and the number of cows not bred by 100 days.

“I want to have less than 20 cows per month not bred by 100 days and 85% of my cows pregnant by 150 days. So, I want 50% of my cows pregnant at any given time or a little bit more. On average, I can get there. On my hotter months, I go a bit below my goal,” he explains.

Kelly is also moving against the grain when it comes to blanket use of hormones. While he said many US farmers use electronic heat detection and double ov-sync as standard breeding practices, he still chalks cows and does not intervene with ov-sync unless cows are not pregnant by 100 days in milk (DIM).

“I want a cow to come into heat on her own, number one. Number two, we have such good reproductive success with ProCROSS that I’m not worried if she gets a little longer in milk,” he says.

Improvements in health and fertility

When comparing data from his Holsteins to the current performance of his ProCROSS cows, Kelly reckons the benefit has been fourfold.

The most noticeable initial improvements were milk components, with fat levels jumping from 3.60% to 4.36% since 2015.

Despite reservations he would take a hit on production, Kelly says energy-corrected milk (ECM) for the first five months of this year averaged 44kg daily.

“Neither one of us thought we would get this kind of milk when we made this switch to ProCROSS. So, we are getting the flow and the components.”

Fresh cow health has improved over time, with Ketosis falling from 4.04% to 1.40%, displaced abomasums lowered from 2.17% to 0.58%, and the cull rate dropped from 40% to 25%.

The future looks bright

The Cunninghams are a ‘hair away’ from breeding all cows to beef in the not-too-distant future if he can lower the cull rate to 20%. Then, dairy replacements will be bred exclusively using virgin heifers.

This will allow him to capitalise on strong beef prices. In fact, he says beef calf sales, along with cull cow sales and milk price hedging, now account for 40% of total income.

His most recent batch of 8,000 calves was sold at 308kg. They cost $930 to grow and yielded a profit of over $1000 a head. “With ProCROSS, we can create higher rear quarter muscling closer to a beef animal,” he says.

Kelly believes the future of dairying in the US is bright and has just invested in a third unit. “I’m in pursuit of more cows as we speak, and I’m evaluating investing in a fourth dairy,” he ends with a smile.