At the other end we have the Jersey, well known for it’s good fertility. Right there at the same level as the Jersey is the Aussie Red, while the Illawarra is about half-way towards the Holstein figure. It stands to reason, if you use a significant Holstein infusion you are not only going to benefit from its superior performance but you will bring in some of its weaknesses too. It’s a warning sign. To continue on and use more and more crosses of red Holstein will eventually give you a Red Holstein breed. And given your smaller numbers, you would not be particularly competitive with the much larger populations of Red Holsteins that already exist in other countries.

To me it’s a question of striking the right balance, of capitalising on the improved performance, but also ensuring that you improve the traits that will make you a more viable breed for the tropics – better fertility and calving ease, better skin pigmentation to avoid eye and skin cancers, and general hardiness to withstand the heat. You can have too much of a good thing. The history of livestock breeding is littered with examples of people who thought that since one cross was good, two or three more crosses must be better.

When the Australian Poll Hereford breed first saw the progeny of the imported American bull Beartooth Advancer 12H back around 1980 they were amazed. They were a foot taller and two feet longer than the thick, lower-set cattle that Australia had before. The results were so impressive that they followed it with another and then another cross of American blood. By then the cattle had so much frame that they didn’t have the thickness to fatten in the paddock and required concentrate feeding to finish. With the extra bone and size they had calving difficulties, a real problem with paddock calving. Had they been a little more patient and gone back and consolidated their gains in size by adding back more thickness and muscling they could have better capitalized on the advantages of the introduction and still maintained a breed better suited to the Australian environment. So how do we go about consolidating gains?

To me the key is to worry less about what the source of genes will be, and to concentrate more on setting breed goals and then using whatever genetics will help get you there. If improving the fertility along with the performance is a goal, then use the genetics that can make that happen. To go back to use a ‘traditional Illawarra’ might help the fertility but the performance will suffer – and we really don’t want to go back there.

There has been no bull with a ‘traditional Illawarra’ pedigree emerge with a competitive proof over the past decade or two. And if one hasn’t appeared in that time it certainly won’t in the future as the infused bloodlines have moved ahead while the traditional lines have not had enough numbers to drive competitive genetic gains.

Indeed, even sampling a ‘traditional Illawarra’ pedigree today is simply wasting a sampling space. Cattle breeds are always in evolution and you can’t go back or even stand still. The concept of using the best genes from whatever source to reach breeding goals is not new. One of the early Illawarra breeders is quoted as saying that ‘a good Illawarra is a red or roan Shorthorn with as much Ayrshire as can be hidden under its Shorthorn skin.’

The modern version of that after seeing the cattle yesterday is ‘a good Illawarra is a red or roan Illawarra with as much Holstein as can be hidden under an Illawarra skin’, and in some cases it is not quite so well hidden.

However, the performance of your breed has come a long way. If we go back further in history to the 1700s, it was red and white cattle from Holland, forerunners to the Holstein, that went to England and became the basis of the Teeswater cattle. The Teeswater had a heavy influence in the North Country English Dairy Shorthorns, and also formed part of the basis of the Ayrshire breed. Breeds are always in evolution and genetic infusions are not new.