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SWEDISH RED BREED INFORMATION
One efficient breeding program with strong emphasis on health, calvings and fertility has made the Swedish Red world famous as a functional and profitable cow - the Crown Jewel of the Red breeds. Swedish Red is a robust and healthy dairy cow, with an excellent fertility, health and tremendous calving ease. In addition to that Swedish Red is the only Red breed in the world that can compete with Holsteins when it comes to production.
The Swedish Red cow is a red medium sized cow, about 140 cm tall and about 550 kg mature weight. Swedish Red is successfully used as a breed improver not only in other red populations world wide, but also for cross breeding with Holstein to improve fertility, calving ease and udder health.
Breed statistics Swedish Red 2008
| Trait | Value |
| No. of cows | 125 878 |
| Milk | 8 730 kg / 19 229 lbs |
| Fat | 375 kg / 826 lbs |
| Fat % | 4,3 |
| Protein | 304 kg / 670 lbs |
| Protein % | 3,5 |
| Fat + Protein | 679 kg / 1 496 lbs |
| Still births % * | 5,36 |
| Difficult calvings % * | 3,46 |
| Calving-first ins | 86 days |
| Calving interval | 13,1 months |
| Ins/pregnancy | 1,75 |
| SCC | 81 000 |
* All records from first calvings
The Swedish Red cows can compete with Holsteins when it comes to production. The fact that the Swedish red bulls ranks highly according to Interbull. Their foreign daughters in countries world wide also shows the excellence of the breed. The higher components make the breed a excellent choice for producing milk for cheese production, which is the case in Italy were Swedish Red cows produce milk to produce Parmesan. Breed Statistics
Easy Calvings
Swedish Red is probably the best breed in
the world when it comes to calving ease. The Outstanding easy calvings
in combination with the low incidence of still born calves – is
a good ground for a good economy of the herd. This does not only give
the heifer a good start of her lactation but also more calves for replacement
and sale. For pure bred heifers the average for calving problems is only
about 4% and some SRB sires give as low frequency of calving problems
as 1%. SRB is therefore a excellent choice for insemination of heifers.
Female fertility
Cows that get pregnant and calve every year
are important for the economy of the dairy herd. Geneticists confirm that
selection sole for production will lead to loss in the ability to concive.
Female fertility has been included in the Total Merit Index since 1972,
facilitate a combination of a tremendous positive trend for production
with maintained fertility.
Udder health
Mastitis and high cell counts are causing big economic losses in high-production
dairies. The Swedish Red has substantially lower cell counts compared
to Holsteins and very low incidence of mastitis. In the breeding program,
information on cell counts and clinical mastitis (compulsory reported
by vets) are included.
Longevity
Traits like udder health, fertility, calving abilityand
udder conformation all have a proven effect on longevity. Healthy cows
live longer, it is as simple as that. The Swedish Red cow are healthy,
have easy calvings and are able to resist stress caused by high production
– giving you room to sell animals or growth of the herd.
