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COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • JANUARY 2018
Holstein breeders celebrate progressive year Cow of the Year awarded to BC-bred Royal Winter Fair, World Dairy Expo champion
by DAVID SCHMIDT
VANCOUVER – This is an exciting time to be in the Holstein industry, BC Holstein Branch president Brian Hamming told members at their annual meeting in Vancouver, December 6. He noted the year started out strong with the BC Spring Show, the biggest Holstein show in BC since the national convention show a few years ago. With increased sponsorship support, the show not only included most of BC’s top show cows but also attracted cattle from Alberta and Saskatchewan to the east and Washington and California to the south. Despite that, a cow which did not show at any BC
show this year was named the 2017 BC Cow of the Year. That prestigious award went to Meadow Green Absolute Fanny-Red. Bred by Meadow Green Farms of Duncan and now owned by Tom DeGroot and two US partners, Fanny was grand champion of both the Royal Winter Fair and World Dairy Expo red and white shows. “We did not hold a vote this year as this was such
an obvious choice,” BCHB director Matt Langelaan said.
Scholarships awarded As usual, the BC Branch provided a lot of support
for its youth, awarding a $600 scholarship to Douglas Groenendijk and gold watches to Mike Podschadly and Martin Rypma, winners of the grand and reserve champion 4-H calf at the Maple Ridge Country Fair, and again supporting the Western Canadian Dairy Classic (WCC). “We strongly feel supporting our youth is an
important way to keep the dairy industry strong,” Hamming stated. “We have a lot of talented, passionate young people.” WCC proved it, as BC returned from
Saskatchewan with the titles of premier province, grand champion showman and grand champion calf. WCC champion Martin Rypma then went on to represent Canada at the European Young Breeders Conference in Belgium. It’s not just young BCers doing well. In addition to
Fanny, Holstein Canada (HC) president Orville Schmidt noted two BC-bred cows recently topped Mexico’s biggest Holstein show. Canwest DHI manager of marketing and product
As well, 64% of BC DHI cows are on Dairy Comp 305, compared to just 47% overall in Canwest. “We have about 200,000 cows on Dairy Comp, which allows us to do a lot of benchmarking,” Cantin said, adding Dairy Comp works seamlessly with ProAction’s traceability component.
BC also leads
“We strongly feel supporting our youth is an important way to keep the dairy industry strong.”
BRIAN HAMMING
development Richard Cantin said DHI plans to form a “Team Canada” by partnering (merging) with Valacta (the Quebec version of DHI) and the Canadian Dairy Network. A previous attempt at such a merger failed but this one is expected to go ahead.
Schmidt says HC will not be in the new
partnership even though it was aware of the discussions and will have a director on the merged organization's board. “It’s more of a merger of data services,” he told BC
breeders. Cantin said BC lags behind other provinces in the number of herds on DHI but uses more of its technology. Only 59% of BC herds use DHI compared to 72% overall in Canwest’s territory (BC to Ontario). However, 26% of BC DHI herds are using DHI’s mobile app, as compared to just 18% overall.
the way in robotic herds on DHI. Canwest now has about 400 robotic herds on DHI (about 11% of its customers)
including 43 farms in BC (15% of BC customers). “More than
65% of robotic herds are on DHI,” Cantin reported, saying Canwest now serves five brands of robots milking a total of 80,000 cows.
Different relationship
One of the tasks HC recently took on was doing the animal assessments for Dairy Farmers of Canada’s ProAction program. HC chief executive officer Ann Louise Carson admits the relationship with DFC and the government is “different than we’re used to,” but believes it is working well. She notes HC classifiers are trained to look at animals. “We were able to take the fear away” from
producers worried about the assessments, she said, adding it “gets us in the door” of new farms, resulting in new members for Holstein Canada. Although HC only had a one-year contract with DFC, Carson expects it to be renewed with only minor changes.
Automated Control Systems for
Abbotsford, BC | 778-809-4858 |
www.Precisionfs.ca
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