HYB WEEKEND RALLY
More than 200 young dairy cattle enthusiasts descended on Devon in August for the annual Holstein Young Breeders Weekend Rally sponsored by Semex who are National sponsors for the organisation. The judges pick of the heifer class was
Loford Lauthority Devine, a VG86 classifi ed heifer that goes back to Snow-N Denises Dellia. While top of the line in the class of cows was Willsbro Jeeves Licorice who was purchased as a calf at the Willsbro sale. During the offi cial placings and reasons there were plenty of questions from competitors, but also Brian and Matthew gave pointers on reason giving, with them looking for relaxed reasons with comparisons and less use of notes.
The winning stock judging team were Carys Jones, Dan Bown, Hannah Bown and Matthew Jones from the West Midlands Club, while the individual winners were Carys Jones in the senior section and Lancashire’s Thomas Hull in the juniors. During the stock judging, other young members benefi ted from four workshops organised by Philip Cookes. Jan De Jong from Holland took a workshop on health management, as well as demonstrating foot trimming with the message that healthy cows have better feet, lower cell counts and higher fertility. A calf rearing workshop was taken by Duncan Findlay who is from The Vale Veterinary Group and works closely with the Cooke family. He went in to detail on feeding and growth rates explaining the practise at Sutton Barton where calves are fed 200g of milk powder per litre of water. Calves are still fed the same quantity of powder per
day, but in less litres of water, to encourage higher intakes of forage and concentrates. A breeding workshop was held by Andrew Axford, regional manager for Semex in the South of England. He explained programmes that Semex are using to select bulls to meet the customer’s criteria. The fi nal work shop was taken by Philip Cooke who took a farm tour looking at cow management.
Following on from the stock judging on Saturday was a visit to Denis Smith’s Oakroyal herd. This Master Breeder Herd of 65 cows is averaging 10,000kg at 3.8%bf and 3.17%p has been in the fi nal for Premier Herd three times, coming third on two occasions. Members were all impressed by the quality and with 30 Excellent, 28 Very Good cows and seven Good Plus two year olds it was no easy task to select the best six cows for a side competition judged by Holstein UK President Elect Randolph Miller and won by Laura Sales from South and Wiltshire. Kayaking, raft racing, archery, a treasure hunt and a lorry pull were the activities for Saturday afternoon with the winning team being a combined team from East Midlands and Cornwall.
After a barbeque members dressed up to the theme of “Anything But Clothes” for a fancy dress disco. There were plenty of feed bags worn and some interesting costumes, but after a parade of clubs there were several prizes awarded. The best pair was won by Michael Whittaker and James Doherty from Shropshire in their tuxedo suits made from black silage sheets and feed bags, while the four South West boys Max Davies, Chris Lockyer, Andrew Clements and Matt House dressed in their tote bags won a special prize for effort. The overall winners were the Western Club with their skirts made from AI gloves and carrier bag tops. The highlight of the weekend for all competitors is the Field to Foto competition with 19 A teams and 11 B teams competing. Offi cials for this competition were Roland Ley and Steve Green who scrutinised the competitors clipping during the
THE JOURNAL OCTOBER 2014 75
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