Jersey cow breaks world milk record

REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio – She’s been a star since the beginning, shooting to the top of the yearling National Class Leader list in 2000 and winning the National Jersey Youth Production Contest for her young owner.

Now, not only has the 2002 President’s Trophy winner set an all-time record for milk yield, she also becomes the first Jersey cow to complete two consecutive records over 40,000 pounds milk in the history of the American Jersey Cattle Association.

Mainstream Berretta Joy, bred and owned by Melissa R. Kortus of Lynden, Wash., is the new U.S. and World Milk Champion.

Records. On her third lactation, calving at 4 years, 9 months of age, she produced 44,930 pounds milk in 365 days on twice-daily milkings.

Based upon Pacific Northwest Federal Order prices, the value of this lactation was $5,893, for average gross income per day of lactation of $16.15.

It’s in the feed. The peak for this world record was made on the herd’s winter ration.

It’s based on 27 pounds of corn silage that includes about 10 percent beet pulp, with 6 pounds of a mixture of cottonseed, beet pulp, distiller’s grains and soybean meal.

The rest is 10 pounds alfalfa (22 percent to 24 percent crude protein), 10 pounds grass hay, 2 pounds oat hay, the 0.6 pound niacin pellet and Fastrack probiotic.

In the parlor, cows are fed one pound of grain for every 3 pounds milk.

From April through mid-October, the Kortus herd – 55 Holsteins and 20 Jerseys – is on supplemented rotational grazing.

Scores. Joy scored Very Good-88 percent, and her dam, Lagerweys 285 Silky, Excellent-90 percent, are the kind of cows that excel for the dairy, according to Randy Kortus, Melissa’s father.

Now eight years old, Silky is on schedule to complete her fourth record over 32,000 pounds milk. Her dam lived to be 10 years old and had records exceeding 20,000 pounds milk.

“Joy’s three nearest dams average 40 on width and dairy form,” Kortus pointed out, and both cows “are never off feed. They start out strong and you would think they would peel off more weight than they do. But they stay in good condition.”

One of three. Mainstream Berretta Joy is one of three U.S.-bred world record Jersey producers, two of them sired by Mason Boomer Sooner Beretta.

The fat production record of 2,421 pounds was set in 2000 by Golden MBSB of Twin Haven-ET, Excellent-94 percent, bred by WF/L&M Jerseys, Clear Brook, Va., and owned by David Franzer, Coldwater, Ohio.

The protein champion is Butterfield Reward Caladium, Excellent 91-3E (Canada), who produced 1,642 pounds in a record completed at Piedmont Jersey Inc., Coaticook, Quebec, in April of 2002.

She was bred by Roger Mabry, Bentonville, Ark., and is now owned by George Jutras, La Visitation, Quebec.