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I agree with Doug, have bred top swiss and holsteins, milked "expensive " jerseys , swiss holstein cross, easily the best.

I think as "breeders" we are all done. the AI companies are as much in house now as possible, Brown Swiss are possibly the best all around pure breed, but Swisss x holstein are easily the best cow out there. Jersey has done a great job marketing, and once you use a jersey it is needed to continue to use them, maybe that is where the ugly little genomic holsteins will come into play, as mating sires on the jersey cross cows!

simxangus. Embryos are already in the bottom end. Too tall,too short, too woody, too round, too whatever. Can't catch up in the numbers game. And don't want to. Those things are ugly.

Ayrshire, the Ayrshire cow is medium sized and will fit into any environment and management style. They have higher components and have excellent udder quality. Overall they are trouble free cows.

Jersey. Todays cow has to adapt to freestalls and cement, so not being so heavy helps with mobility. Holsteins have no need to be so tall, they just have to be wide enough on both ends with well attached udders. Breeding better components into the B&W's will keep them transitioning to the cow of the future, because dairymen will be a larger source of beef in the future...my opinion.

Have always been a Holstein breeder but have got to give a great deal of credit to the Jersey people. Over 30 years ago they realized that in order to bring new people to their breed they had to appeal to the commercial dairyman. They adopted the philosophy “identify the high producing, functionally correct cows and learn to like what they look like” and that mind set increased the popularity of their breed dramatically. The Holstein Association is still politically dominated by show ring mentality and the great breeders are leaving the business rather than trying to breed the kind that commercial dairyman want, so very sad. One could speculate that if the Jersey show ring still rewarded the shallow perfect udders that dominated 40 years ago their numbers would be right there with the other colored breeds?