have a field day with Normande values

Thursday August 19 – 11 am to 3 pm
Mark and Jeannette Fellows
Warwick, Massachusetts
The 2010 Normande Field Day is heading east. After a couple of editions in the Midwest/Wisconsin, there are now enough herds and interest in the Northeast to move it to that region. The hosts will be Jeannette and Mark Fellows of Warwick, Massachusetts. Their 300-acre operation is a perfect illustration of the qualities of the Normande breed: adaptation to grazing and sustainability, along with added value, especially cheese quality. The Fellowses, who have been farming for more than 25 years and started breeding Normande in 1997, graze about 30 cows. They give no grain, do seasonal calving, and outdoor wintering. They started breeding Normande in 1997, and today each cow is at least 50% Normande. Mark and Jeannette use all the milk raw, selling some directly, since on-farm sales are legal in Massachusetts. However, the bulk is turned into great aged cheeses. More information about their farmstead cheeses can be found on their website: www.chasehillfarm.com. Address: 74 Chase Hill Road, Warwick, MA 01378 (90 miles W of Boston, 20 miles SE of Brattleboro, VT). Phone: 978-544-6327

2010 summer proofs are here

There are three proofs per year in France, and the summer one is the major one, when most of the new bulls come in for the first time. To see the brand new proofs, check out the Normande Genetics catalog page and click on "download current Proofs and Price list". You’ll find the proofs presented under our usual format, i.e. as a PDF form you can print out. Beneath this link, another link will take you to the bulls’individual proof sheets, featuring their pictures and their daughters’pictures. Those sheets are still being updated, but we expect fully accurate numbers in a few days.

Many new bulls make their entry into our lineup: Most notable are Viveco, a well rounded component/type bull, but Vitriol, Uperise (the number one bull of the breed today), UTC, Unog and Ulozon need some close attention. Comments on each bull will be posted on the website. As for our more senior bulls, please note the rise of Royal Holl's milk proof, which in turn propels him at a much higher rank in the full listing. With 763 daughters in milk, he now stand at 761 lbs of milk, while preserving his remarkably high components (.27P and .32F) as well as his exceptional type and calving ease. The other main confirmation is Redondo, who seems to be never bothered by additional daughters: he still hovers at 2814 lbs while keeping his great type. Those interested in well confirmed medium size bulls will check Hollydays, Idris and Messager, all sure values. The more adventurous ones will look at newcomers UTC, Ucany,Viveco, Uperise, Ulozon and Unog, as well as Tricorne, Tetrapak and SaintYorre.

Visit the Catalog page to see and download the new July 2010 proofs

the Normande option for sustainability and added value

Normande Genetics was created in 1997 to bring the top dairy genetics of the Normande breed to the American grassland. Because the U.S. dairy industry had long since cut its grass roots in favor of intensive, high-energy, grain-based systems, we believed that genetics here were no longer well suited to grass-based operations. That insight has been confirmed consistently in interactions with American dairy farmers, whose herds are suffering loss of functionality in fertility and longevity, owing to over-selection for productivity, and secondarily, “dairyness.”

While the U.S. dairy sire selection process has changed its position on these issues, it will take time to see results in the field. In-breeding and a narrowing gene pool for most dairy breeds worldwide contribute to the problem, so there is no easy answer to the loss of functionality.

That’s why crossbreeding or switching to another breed, better suited to low input operations, makes sense. After all, when dairy farmers switch to grazing, they want low-cost operations and low input, which means profits and margins replace production as the main benchmarks of success. In turn, genetic traits that contribute to the bottom line become essential, while selecting for milk production becomes less important.

The Normande’s traits serve the objectives of grass-based operations in two ways: lowering costs as much as possible, while adding value whenever possible. Does this mean the Normande is perfect? No, and there are some other viable options for graziers, but the Normande has outstanding attributes as a purebred or in a cross-breeding program. The breed has shown successful examples with all U.S. dairy breeds and is often included in three-way crossbreeding programs. The University of Minnesota’s new experimental organic herd will include such a cross.

Whether crossbred or purebred, Normandes in America are descendants of a well-adapted breed, developed for centuries on the permanent pastures of Normandy and bred for high-quality dairy products to serve the demanding, food-savvy Parisian market. Therefore, when evaluating the breed’s genetic traits, the Normande excels in terms of both sustainability and added value criteria. And those are the two categories most relevant to grass-based dairies.