The dairy farmer is accustomed to high production levels, with a rolling herd average of 13,600 kg of milk at 4.32% fat and 3.62% protein. Nevertheless, Nothing Else’s milk production continues to surprise him. Her genomic breeding values, still currently at 514 euros Inet and more than 2,400 kg of milk, already predicted high production, but the heifer is also proving this in practice. After being intensively flushed as a heifer, the daughter of the German sire Sunrise calved for the first time at the end of May last year, at the age of two years and eleven months. After 453 days in milk, she has now produced 22,088 kg of milk with 3.91% fat and 3.40% protein. That is an average of almost 50 kg of milk per day. Her lactation value is 125. “And just before she reached 305 days in milk, she even had an average top production as a mature equivalent of 110. Those are incredible figures,” says Van Middelaar. “It shows that we are still making genetic progress.” Despite her drive for production, Nothing Else has maintained her condition. Van Middelaar looks up the weight of the Sunrise daughter. “Look, at just under 100 days in milk she weighed 770 kg. Now she weighs 804 kg. Just by looking at her you’d never guess she produces so much milk. She also produces very consistently. Apart from two milk-recording days, she has always produced between 46 and 54 kg of milk.” The dairy farmer never has to fetch the cow for the milking robot. “She calmly visits the robot more than thirty times a day,” he says. He is also enthusiastic about the heifer’s conformation. “She is simply very well built. She is a long-bodied heifer who was classi fied by the inspector with 87 points for overall conformation and even 88 points for feet and legs.”
A leap forward in time with Nothing Else
After 450 days in her first lactation, Nothing Else is still producing almost 50 kg of milk per day. ‘Her production shows that we are still making genetic progress,’ says owner Hans van Middelaar about the dam of Delta Time Jump P. She never ceases to amaze. A group of visitors from South Africa was also surprised by the production of WKM Nothing Else (Sunrise x VH Crown x GGA Gordon) last month.“Anyone who sees her expects her to produce about 35 to 40 litres of milk. Nothing Else is a large, well-developed heifer with a relatively small udder,” says Hans van Middelaar, who milks 135 cows at CRV’s test farm in the southern part of the Netherlands. “But in reality, she produced 49.7 kg of milk yesterday, even though she has been lactating for 453 days now.”
Average top production as a mature equivalent of 110
From the Rudy Missy family
The Sunrise daughter did not inherit her production talent from a stranger. She descends from a German branch of the renowned Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy family. The American Rudolph daughter is the foundation of an extensive cow family that has previously produced sires such as Mogul, Supersire, Sid and Silver. Nothing Else was born from this family at Westrup-Koch Milch in Bissendorf in mid-2022. She did not remain on the farm for long. The farm, with around 600 cows, is one of the largest farms in the area. At barely six months old, with a high German total index of 164 RZG, she became the top seller at the auction during the Osna brücker Schwarzbunt-Tage and moved to CRV’s Dairy Breeding Center in Wirdum. A flush with Delta Universe P produced, among other offspring, a young InSire sire with the fitting name Delta Time Jump P. With a score of 20% for CRV Efficiency, more than 1,900 kg of milk and almost 150 kg of combined fat and protein, his breeding values are in line with his dam’s production. His full sister Delta Elsie and maternal half-sister Delta Nakatomi (by Real Syn), like their dam before them, are both housed in Wir dum and are among the highest-ranking offspring of their respec tive sires. Back in Sterksel, Van Middelaar has a Statement daugh ter of Nothing Else from natural gestation. “She also scores 400 NVI and has now been inseminated.” According to Van Middelaar Nothing Else herself is now 150 days in calf to the component sire Sterksel Simson. “She became in calf relatively late. We first flushed her with the red-and-white sire Delta Bonfire P, in order to introduce the red factor into this family as well. That could be interesting.” The dairy farmer does not mind that Nothing Else is extending her lactation. “If she continues producing at this level, she will eventu ally have produced 26,000 kg of milk as a heifer. With that kind of production, she certainly does not need to calve every year.” Van Middelaar is still amazed by her performance. “If you had told me twenty years ago that a heifer would be able to achieve this level of production, I would have thought you were crazy. Back then, we were happy if a heifer produced 40 kg of milk occasion ally. “Nothing Else averages almost 50 kg and is therefore making a significant leap forward.”