A26—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 11,1984
Hostetter breeds Maplebound Holsteins for balance
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BY TRISH WILLIAMS
PARKESBURG Successful
breeding of dairy cattle has earned
Maplebound Holsteins many
ribbons and trophies, high
classification scores and respect
for their owner, Donald Hostetter.
Don and Dorcas Hostetter and
their children won the Premier
Breeder award at the Farm Show
this year, exhibiting their
Maplebound Holsteins.
Maplebound Rex Ivory, a
homebred 4-year-old won the
grand and senior champions in the
Holstein classes, as well as the
champion udder. Hostetter has
recently leased Ivory’s sire,
Maplebound Starlight Rex, to
Select Sires. Called Maple for
short, Select Sires made his semen
available for purchase on Feb. Ist.
Hostetter bias a well trained eye
for selecting oustanding dairy
cattle. He has purchased 20 cows
that were later classified ex
cellent. He has bred 22 cows with
the Maplebound prefix that were
also classified excellent. The
National Holstein Association has
presented the Hostetters with the
Progressive Breeders Award for
the last four years. These kind of
results from his breeding program
have earned him recognition
among his piers as a superior
Holstein breeder. In fact, Hostetter
has many requests from nearby
breeders to advise them on their
breeding programs.
But Hostetter’s success has not
come as a result of the usual
contemporary methods of mating
selection.
“I don’t breed for the numbers
game,” Hostetter said candidly,
but quickly tempered the
The Hostetters are a family of animal lovers. Don is pic
tured here with his youngest daughter, Missy, and a few of
the family’s pets.
statement with, “indexes and
predicted differences are im
portant today for the marketability
of an animal, but I don’t base my
sire selection only on numbers. I
try to look at a cow and decide
which bull is best suited for the
cow.
“Before I use a bull 1 like to go
out and see his daughters. I can get
a pretty good pattern of the bull
after I look at about 10 of his
daughters,” Hostetter said. “I also
take the word of other dairymen
that I respect, as to how a bull is.”
There is no denying that high
milk production is important, says
Hostetter. Afterall it pays the bills.
But he contends that a cow should
be well balanced and have the
strength that provides longevity
for high lifetime production.
This premise is evident in his
own herd. Maple’s dam,
Maplebound Standout Rhonda, is
11-years-old. She is still in the
milking herd and showing the
tremendous strength that has
made her life a long and produc
tive one.
Rhonda is classified 2E at 92. She
has four lactations over 32,000
pounds of milk and a lifetime
record of 218,000 pounds of milk
and 6407 pounds of fat. Rhonda has
passed her good genetics onto her
son. Maple is rated at +7O6M
+ .04%F +32F PD$lOO +l.o7type
and has a 46% repeatability for
milk and type.
Rhonda’s sire, Vigo Standout
Reflection, was proven by Bran
dywine Valley Breeders, a bull
proving syndicate Hostetter and 11
other Chester County Holstein
breeders established in 1970. The
Brandywine Valley Breeders
leased Vigo Standout Reflection to
Curtis Breeders.
The syndicate purchases two
young bulls each year to prove.
BVB presently owns eight bulls.
Three of their young sires have
gone into A 1 studs.
Hostetler has sold six young
bulls into A 1 service himself. He
raises about 80% of his bulls to sell
overseas or to local farmers. Last
year alone the Hostetlers sold 25
bulls and five heifers for export to
South America. They have also
started selling embryos abroad.
Much of Hostetter’s success, he
credits to his father, who helped to
get him established and to his
uncles John Umble and Wilmer
Hostetler, who taught him a lot
about purebred cattle. Both uncles
are also members of Brandywine
Valley Breeders.
Sugar, an outstanding cow bred
by John Umble, was recently
purchased by Hostetler at Umble’s
Swampy Hollow dispersal. He has
/. v ,
. . L:
The Donald Hostetter family was awarded the Holstein
premier breeder award at Farm Show. Pictured with their
grand Champion, Maplebound Rex Ivory, are family mem
bers, from left, Kim, Jay, Sue, Don and Dorcas.
Jay Hostetter keeps the herd looking good for visitors by
vacuuming the cows to remove dust. The cows really enjoy
this special attention, says Don.
flushed her three times already
and has obtained 29 embryos.
Good feeding, health care and
management by Hostetter and his
family have also contributed to the
herd’s quality. Dorcas and the
children, Beverly, Jay, Kim, Sue
and Missy have taken an active
role on the farm. Jay now works
fulltime with his father.
The DHIR rolling herd average
for the 90 cow herd is 20,343 milk
3.6% 725 F. They feed a cow
milking 60 pounds a ration con
sisting of 25 pounds of corn silage,
15 pounds of hay, 16 pounds of high
moisture pround ear com. and 6.5
Importance of milker
stressed
BY IRISH WILLIAMS
NEW HOLLAND - The man
milking the cow is more important
than the milking equipment itself
in maitainmg good udder health
and high milk production.
This is the message Lancaster
County Extension Dairy Agent
Glenn Shirk told a group of farmer
students attending a two day
milkers school Wednesday and
Thursday at the New Holland
Farm Credit office.
"A good milker on a bad milking
system can often do a better job of
milking a cow than a poor milker
on a good milking system," Shirk
said.
Because of the important role
the milker plays on the dairy farm,
Shirk, Bruce Kreider, Dauphin
County Extension Agent, and
Larry Kennel, a Gap Veterinarian,
have conducted two milking
schools this year in the area. Don
Robinson and Bob Anderson,
agriculture teachers at Eastern
Lancaster County School District
helped to coordinate the facilities
for the school. Other milkers
pounds of concentrate. AlOO pound
cow will receive 25 pounds of com
silage, 18 pounds of hay, 29 pounds
of high moisture com and 14.5
pounds of concentrates. The
concentrate contains soybean
meal, com distillers and a
balanced mineral mix.
All this care to breeding and
feeding has allowed Hostetter to
merchandise half of the
Maplebound offspring and has kept
the cow turnover rate to about 16
percent a year. Not bad for
someone who doesn’t play the
numbers game.
in school
schools are being earned out
throughout the state.
Thirty-three farmer-students
attended the school in New
Holland. They were given a pretest
to determine level of subject
knowledge and what areas of in
struction should be emphasized. A
test was also given at the end of the
two-day session to determine what
they had learned.
Students learned about both the
anatomy and the automation of
milk production. Each student
received a packet of educational
materials, which covered
everything from bacterial
organisms causing mastitis, to
guidelines from designing a
milking system.
Kreider explained the growth
and development of the mammary
system from the fetal stages of
development through the first
lactation and dry period. He also
explained the how the milk
secretion process occurs.
Speaking on “How the Milking
Machine Works,” Shirk discussed
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