Breeds of Cattle: Jersey

So we've handled several breeds of cattle for milking. When we first started we got a Jersey because that's what I could find. The interesting part was that I'd managed to stumble across Old World Jerseys. Though our first was conventional genetics our next was not. Granted we obtained a couple of Milking Shorthorns between the two. We were told you need to barn the cows and all kinds of crazy things that a girl from a Montana cattle ranch (AKA moi) looks at you cross-eyed about. Unfortunately, there seems to be something to that advice. What we bought, without realizing it until $$$ later, were Jersey's with the 1950s calf mortality issues among other things. Americans cross bred and graded up for multiple reasons. While I don't have any pure Jersey's left, sold our two 3 yro bulls last summer, we do have two Jersey X cows that we raised. The older being a Milking Shorthorn X who is an amazing cow! Her mother was difficult to say the least but the New Zealand Jersey genetics mellowed that. The second a first calf heifer that is a Milking Devon X. She's a little thing and a bit of a spitfire! She had a heifer calf, Daphne, that is 3/4 Jersey and a remnant of one of the bulls we sold. My crosses are hardy and milk on grass alone but the drought forced me to feed grain. I feed for health, not production and genetics do matter especially when it comes to dairy. Allen Nation once said in his Stockman Grass Farmer column that Americans don't know how to properly grass finish beef.. well, we are awful at 100% grassfed dairy, too! But we keep trying and learning from our mistakes!