The European Union Nitrates Directive stipulates mandatory measures that must be included in national action programmes, one of which involves a limit on the amount of livestock manure which may be applied to land each year, set at 170 kg organic nitrogen (manure N) per hectare. This limit will have very significant implications for stocking rates on intensive livestock farms. Consequently, there is increasing interest in developing mitigation strategies to reduce N output in faeces and urine in animal production The objectives of the present study were to evaluate the effects of cross-breeding of Holstein cows with Jersey sires on the efficiency of N utilisation and manure N output.