Brown Swiss

The American herd starts small and stays closed: seven cows and one bull imported to Belmont, Massachusetts in 1869, an association formed in 1880, a first herd book in 1889, and imports cut off by disease restrictions in 1906. The whole American breed descends from 167 imported animals, and intensive selection since has narrowed that base further. It became widespread across the country around 1940.

They are large and solid gray-brown, from nearly white to dark brown, with the black muzzle rimmed in cream. Cows run 1,300 to 1,410 lb and bulls around 1,980.

Production is serious: about 22,600 lb of milk in a 305-day lactation, by a 2013 average, at roughly 4 percent fat and 3.5 percent protein, with a slightly higher share of long-chain fatty acids than Holstein milk. That fat-to-protein ratio is what cheesemakers specifically want.

The cows are long-lived and structurally sound, with good feet and legs and a docile temperament that shows up in how they handle. They also tolerate heat better than a Holstein, which stretches the breed's map southward.

Cheese-driven dairying above all: the components and the fatty acid profile suit a vat better than a bottling line. The longevity and soundness make them a lower-turnover herd than the volume breeds.

Not much in the way of climate. The Brown Swiss association says the breed is very heat tolerant and also does well in the cold, and Michigan State University Extension agrees that it holds its production in hot and cold climates alike. It came out of the Alps, and the association says it adapts well to high altitude.

Strong feet and legs suit either grazing or confinement, and the association describes a low-maintenance, long-lived cow that fits any modern dairy setup. Its gestation table runs 290 days.

What a Brown Swiss does need is genetic testing. The breed carries recessive conditions that genetic tests can find, among them spinal muscular atrophy, spinal dysmyelination and Weaver syndrome, a progressive degenerative disease of the nervous system, plus haplotypes linked to stillbirth and to early pregnancy loss. The association requires an SMA test for any bull going into AI, and in April 2022 the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding counted carriers of the pregnancy-loss haplotype, BH14, among 6.9 percent of the genotyped US animals in its data.

The trade is patience. Brown Swiss mature slowly and reach their best production later than other dairy breeds, so a heifer costs you more time before she starts paying, and a farm turning stock over quickly will not see the return.

The Brown Swiss association has kept the book since 1880 and registers about 10,000 animals a year. Ask for production records and age at first calving, and with a genetic base this narrow, ask about the inbreeding coefficient before you pick a bull.

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