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Bethany (l) and Vikki (r) with this year’s calf show hopefuls, Littleweir Haddin Flossie and Littleweir Hunger Unice
young as possible.”
But, while the herd is currently using a breeding programme to aid bull selection Stephen still pays close attention to bull choice and relies heavily on a stock bull to chase up after DIY AI. “We AI heifers to sexed semen initially, with all cows AI’d too. But those not holding after a couple of services are put with the bull. We’ve bred some good cows from stock bulls in the past, with Thurborough McDermot from the Ley family being a particularly good bull over recent years. He’s a McCormick son and has left a lot of heifers for us.” Current bulls in use include Goodwin and Camelot as well as Gaboric and Gallatico. Electron has also been used to good effect in the herd and while genomic bulls are breeding well in the herd Stephen doesn’t anticipate
increasing the percentage of genomic sires being used in the short to medium-term. “I still like to use a good proportion of proven sires and my concern with genomics is that the pace of change has picked up rapidly meaning we’ve often never heard of the sires of these young bulls and know precious little about them.”
When it comes to bull selection Stephen emphasises the need for a balance between production and type as well as management traits and constituents. “In recent years I’ve looked for higher butterfat sires and have paid close attention to management traits such as SCC too, although you have to be careful with that as higher SCC sires can leave slow milkers.” A successful show herd in the past the family don’t
currently show cows as the time required exceeds that available with a small team on the farm, explains Stephen. “I like to support the local herd competitions and we’ve been the second placed small herd in the North Devon Holstein Club’s a number of times and last year were the first placed herd on genetic merit. “We also won the Devon Holstein Club’s herd competition progeny group class with a group of Gerard daughters.”
“These days though I leave the showing to our daughters Vikki and Bethany, both of whom are keen participants in HYB calf shows and showmanship competitions and qualified for last year’s All Britain All Breeds Calf Show at Malvern. We bought them a pair of red and white calves for their Christmas presents in 2014 and they had
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