GLENBROOK JERSEY STUD
Old herd grazing at GLENBROOK December 2007. These cows average over 700 kgs milk solids highest records. This photo won the Alpha Herd scene contest for jersey NZ in 2008
The breeding of better dairy cattle is an art as well as a science. The art of
breeding cattle is both the inborn and developed sense of judgement as to which
animals to mate to each other with the hope of anticipated results. The master
breeder may not always be able to tell you all the specific reasons why he makes
certain matings which may result in individual offspring superior to their
ancestors. However, his ability to make such matings stamps him as an artist
just as truly as the masterpiece marks the master painter. By intelligent and
skilful selections and matings, he puts together both the known and unknown
factors of inheritance in such a way as to sometimes create animals of greater
worth.
A review of the history of the breeding and development of better livestock,
reveals that the most successful breeders, the ones who have made some definite
and lasting contribution to breed improvement, have almost invariably achieved
success through a program of close breeding of related animals. They have
practiced line breeding and in breeding to intensify and strengthen the desired
character and abilities which the parents possess.
The object of these matings is not alone to establish the character of the
immediate animal produced, but also the development of "breeding power" which
will carry on for successive generations and which will dominate over the
character of other lines of breeding when out cross matings are made in one's
own herd or in the herds of others who purchase our cattle.
Now, no one has a greater appreciation than your author of the absolute need of
finding, through records of production, just what is the apparent breeding worth
of our animals. Yet, having established the productive and reproductive worth of
our cattle, then our policy of mating such animals should be guided by the past
history of successful breeders, many of whom achieved improvement without the
complete production records that we demand today. Many cases could be recorded
of the failure of breeders who have simply mated production with production,
without regard to the principles of the relationship of blood lines, and perhaps
many more failures will be recorded by promiscuous mating of reproduction with
reproduction, as indicated by indexes or formulas, of whatever we call them.
Down through the pages of the history of livestock improvement, we find the most
genuine contributions have been made by a relatively small number of outstanding
animals in the hands of a few master breeders who have invariably intensified
the blood of these great breeding animals through close matings of their
offspring.
COWPHILOSOPHY by Mark Keeney 1940
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New Zealand's new record breaking JERSEY herd.
Highest all-time, any-size herd averages
for fat (364 kgs), protein (241 kgs) &
milk solids (605 kgs) 2003-04 season.
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Please feel free to copy and/or print off any of the information on these pages for your own interest.
Please email us with any further records that you know of that are not on this web site especially the NZ records section.
The GLENBROOK JERSEY STUD is located in Taranaki, New Zealand
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TOP producing JERSEY herd in NEW ZEALAND in
1987-88, 1997-98, 1998-99, 2001-02, 2002-03, 2003-04 & 2004-05
SECOND TOP producing herd in NEW ZEALAND
2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08
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TOP producing cow in NEW ZEALAND
GLENBROOK SILVER CHIME 1998-99
GLENBROOK CANDYS CELLO 2002-03
SECOND TOP producing cow in NEW ZEALAND
GLENBROOK OCEAN COAST 2004-05
GLENBROOK CRY COTTONSEED 2005-06
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