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TOP LEFT Crystal Clear Braxton Wishing Well is one of four full milking sisters at Crystal Clear, her dam is a VG two year old Sanchez from Juniper Goldwyn Wishfull EX93.
TOP RIGHT NH Ralma Million Cream VG87 one of four daughters of Ralma Goldwyn Carmel EX92 milking in the herd.
ABOVE Crystalclear Shottle Harley Ex 91 is a member of the prominent Harley family at Crystal Clear, this family start from a cow purchased for £250.
RIGHT Bontemps Planet E-mail VG88 is a daughter of Smithden Goldwyn Alexandra EX94 that was purchased from France.
looking for a more permanent job and it was an opportunity that was too good to turn down. I came home and moved to Cirencester, all the time still buying cows and housing them with friends.
“I was still relief milking and working for contractors at weekends to keep the funds coming in order to afford cows, but I was growing the private sales register all the time and eventually took the step on to the rostrum to start selling, something I’d
THE JOURNAL APRIL 2015 33
I was working anywhere doing anything to get the cash together to start buying the right sort of cow to build a herd with
never conceived would be part of my life.” Having rented a cottage in Great Brington, Daventry, for many years Mark had always kept in touch with the land agent for the Althorp Estate and knew that one of the Estate’s tenant dairy
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farmers was likely to want to pack up in the near future. “I’d been with Norton and Brooksbank for four or five years when the agent called to say the tenant was looking to cease his tenancy early and ask if I’d be interested in taking it on,” he explains.
“That was a massive moment for me and an opportunity I felt I couldn’t afford to turn down. I was being offered 250 acres of land, buildings and a parlour, it may not have been the best farm when I took it on, but it was a great chance to get all my cows together in one place and start putting in to practice everything I’d been learning over the last seven or eight years.
“By this time I’d met my wife Anne and together we set
AN ELITE HERD WITH TOP QUALITY GENETICS
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