FAR LEFT Margaret
and David Booth with their daugh- ters and grandsons Thomas, Oliver and Joshua.
LEFT The new feed barriers wait- ing to be installed.
feet and legs, a top priority due to the harsh terrain and hill walking. David selects the sires and now runs Promate to best fi t the sires to the cows as he fi nds it invaluable from an inbreeding perspective.
Currently Knowledge, Mr Sam,
Damion, Bolton and Bueno are in
use, with the best heifers served to sexed semen (Mr Minister and
Durham Ross). Although the odd
female is introduced to the herd, the Booths now prefer to introduce new bloodlines through ET work, enabling diseases to be kept to a minimum. 30% of the homebred heifers are used as recipients and David feels that it’s the best way to stop breeding from poorer families, which always seem to have heifers. The latest family which the Booths hope will yield offspring is Weeton Gold Oralie VG86, who has Buckeye and/or Atlas embryos recently bought from the Weeton sale. However, it was the purchase of Holmland Storm Pamela EX at the 2000 Holmland Sale for 2000gns that has had the greatest impact on the Shawdale herd. She descends for the well known Wiseburrow Roland Pamela and went EX as a third calver before sadly becoming ill and leaving the herd. She did, however, breed three EX daughters, the eldest of which is Shawdale Mandelin Pamela who was sold to the Mainhill herd at the 2004 Genetic Elite Sale. Shawdale Mandelin Pamela 2 EX92-2E provided the family’s fi rst major show ring success when she was crowed Exhibitor Bred Champion at the Great Yorkshire Show in 2007 and she led her herd mates to win the Exhibitor Bred group of three at last year’s show. Her Weeton Jackson sister is one of the herd’s current stars as an EX91 third calver. They have daughters by Mr Sam, Bolivia Allen and Empire and there are seven members of the Pamela family milking in today’s Shawdale herd, all of which are VG or EX. David and Margaret wholeheartedly extol the virtues of an easy and simple farming system, as the farm’s situation and labour limitations have made it a necessity. As they say, they are now looking to make it easier still as they advance in years and their cheap sources of labour have all but dried up (gone onto to farm elsewhere!). The herd has been fed self-feed silage with the introduction of whole crop alkalage in a 50:50 ratio during winter for the last 20 years. Ongoing building work will see some new cubicles and the provision of more trough space, plus automatic barriers installed which the cows will push forward to eat to the centre of the trough, reducing the human drudgery of forking silage and feed. This has been a necessity after three wet summers and will allow the cows to be housed and fed under cover. All cows get 6 kg of 21% concentrate in the parlour, with 18% fed through the out of parlour feeders to yield. There is also buffer feeding
alongside the grass in summer with a clamp of alkalage saved especially for this purpose. With all youngstock also on the farm, housed under one roof (albeit one of multiple additions and modifi cations), the slats, cubicles and yokes for them also aid minimal staffi ng. Striving to improve the herd and replace poorer performers with new genetics sees the use of 40 doses of test bull semen per year and no stock bulls. Heatime was installed over 18 months ago with pleasing results as the calving interval is a constant battle with the high yields and accompanying system, but like every aspect of the business David and Margaret are always looking to improve rather than rest on their laurels.
Shawdale Marcus Chance 15
EX90 by ABS Marcus typifi es the kind of cow they want in the herd at Shawdale, at 259 days into her fourth lactation she has a Lifetime Yield to Date of 54,422 kg and calving every July for the last fi ve years , only losing 17 days from her fi rst to fi fth calving. “Profi table milk production pays the bills at Shawdale”, points out Margaret. She also goes on to say how proud they are of Jennie, Claire, Diane and Helen; as all parents are of their offspring. Milking pedigree cows at Shawdale seems to certainly have paved the way for tremendous female lines in more ways than one you could say!
30 THE JOURNAL JUNE 2010
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