While that does lead to some black animals that you don’t want, it will give you access to better genetics. The talk of the red factor world is your Australian bull Talent. He is widely regarded as the best udder and rump bull of the Holstein breed, and is in such demand around the world that later this year he should become Australia’s first million-dose seller. He is extremely consistent and very reliable with great longevity and fast milking speed. To me, any red son he produces in the Illawarra breed needs to be sampled. September Storm is another red factor Storm son, and the other Storm son I should mention is the Italian bull Ralstorm. He is actually a black/red bull, meaning he was born red and changed to black. All his calves out of red cows would be born red but half would change to black, a gene you would want to be careful of.

Of the red bulls I know that Advent-Red is going to get a lot of use. He is easily the highest type red bull there has been, and will produce show winners. However, to me his proof does not have enough milk to make him a sire of sons – you would be better trying to work with his best daughter.

They are tall, dairy and sharp with good udders but lack width through the front end and spring to the fore rib. From Europe Poos Stadel Classic-Red is their best type red bull, likely with no more production than Advent, but I like the calves, good width and spring of rib, great legs, more strength than dairy.

One bull I should mention is Aggravation Lawn Boy-Red, moderate production with what will be the best bloodlines for the management traits that you will get from the Holsteins. They have good udders and feet and legs, but lack depth of rib. He should add a little strength to some deep, open-ribbed Illawarra’s, and should perhaps have sons sampled. Of interest, he is polled. I know there are one or two good Illawarra families that are polled, so if that is a trait that you want to breed for there are now some options available. The red factor bull Hickorymea Ottawa is a polled bull with high production and moderate type, and then the Norwegian Red breed has a number of their better red bulls descending from the bull Nylokken that are also polled. Of course if you want to be really adventuresome you might even look at adding some tropical red breeds with a Bos Indicus background such as the Red Sindhi from Pakistan or India.

You could add tick resistance and heat tolerance, as long as it doesn’t cost you too much in production performance. In summary, the world needs a better dairy cow for the tropics. To achieve that, I think you need to set your breeding goals and implement them via an Illawarra Profit Index. To me any debate over which breed to introduce is not of value – It’s a case of finding the right balance to give you the kind of Illawarra cow you need in the future. I would see the only threat to overtaking your genetic pool coming from the Holstein, and so could justify retaining the x, y and z to limit that introduction, but I would recognize all other red dairy breeds with reciprocal rights and let your breeders make the most of what genetics are out there. The continued development of young sire programs with major international AI companies certainly offers you improved prospects for international marketing of semen in the future. And as an Illawarra organization I would definitely move to set up a structured embryo balloting program to make better use of the elite cows, and to better distribute the top cow families around the breed. These steps would certainly help you to produce the kind of Illawarra cow that could have considerable opportunities around the dairy world of the future.