Saint John’s Brown Swiss cows grazing on fresh Spring pasture.
by Claire Dill
We have Brown Swiss cows. My grandparents had Holsteins with a few Jerseys and the odd Brahma, but when we moved, my dad, (Claire writing) wanted to transition to Brown Swiss. So we bought Napoleon, a purebred Brown Swiss bull, in 2001, and began the years long journey of changing the herd from black and white Holsteins to the Brown Swiss.
Generations later, and half a dozen purebred Brown Swiss bulls, (Major, Galileo, Sitting Bull, Monarch, Banner, Icarus, and now Maximus :) ), our herd is Swiss. Not registered, but pretty well full Swiss.
In 2017, Banner was giving us some trouble with attitude, so we sent him to the butcher and borrowed a friends' Angus bull (Pumpkin) to finish out the season. Then we decided to try another beef breed, the Red Devon, for a couple of years. My brothers named him "Red Bull". :) He was a decent bull, but his kids were wild and rangeminded and not very impressive. Even though we handled the calves the same, and the moms were the same Swiss, the red calves were really different, just from their daddy's genetics!
When we went back to having a Swiss bull, it was absolutely great, and also really interesting to see the calves again exhibiting the typical Swiss gentleness and amiability. (Funny sidenote on the curiousness of genetics, of "nature versus nurture" and how much temperament the daddy can contribute; where, with animals, the daddy doesn't raise the kids. Here, the moms didn't change, and the handling of the calves didn't change, but just simply changing the daddy from Brown Swiss to the beef bulls, gave consistently rangeminded calves. !)
We like the Brown Swiss because of their temperaments, dual ability for milk and beef, and milk quality and taste.
Their temperament as a breed is "phlegmatic", laid back, mellow, thoughtful, gentle, curious, calm, and reasonable.
There's plenty of individuality in the herd, but as a broad brush description, this is the expectable norm.
They are good mothers, but also in general happy to have people around and are good for working with the cows and calves.
Some bovine breeds are focused on beef, and some on milk production, the Swiss are quite balanced. They give lots of milk (often 7 or 8 gallons per milking at their peak), but they also put on muscle and weight well for the beef side of things.
And they are bred to thrive on pasture, and do not have to be fed grain to reach peak condition for butchering.
Their milk is one of the best in the world for cheesemaking, with a very balanced fat/protein content, and a good amount of butterfat for cream.
The American Brown Swiss is descended from the Braunvieh from Switzerland. Documents dating from the late fourteenth century at the Benedictine Monastery of Einsiedeln in the Swiss canton of Schwyz in Central Switzerland record the export of grey-brown mountain cows from medieval bloodlines to Vorarlberg, now part of Austria.
The first known herd book for a cattle breed was the one kept at the monastery for the Braunvieh from 1775 to 1782. Most dairy historians agree that Braunvieh cattle are the oldest of all dairy breeds.
Braunvieh were imported to the United States in the 1860s and while American breeders generally focus on milk production, some of the draft and beef strengths do remain.
Also, many Brown Swiss have the A2A2 genes, producing A2 beta casein protein in their milk. This is the same beta casein as human milk, and sheep and goat milk, making A2A2 milk apparently easier for many people to digest than A1A1 milk.
Dairy breeds from Northern Europe tend to have more of the A1A1 genes, and are bred for large volumes of production. This has been popular with many modern dairy farmers, but may have contributed to the high rate of dairy allergies/reactions today.