ABOVE LEFT Recently purchased
and currently on flush is Luck-E NM Contender Auelia, a daughter of Luck-E Advent Atlanta EX94.
ABOVE RIGHT Farnear-BH Jeeves Blissay VG86 is housed in the USA, she is a granddaughter of Regancrest Brasillia and has daughters at Crystalclear by Atwood and Dempsey.
BELOW RIGHT Auctioneering has given Mark many exciting opportunities including selling the 90,000gns Willsbro Emilyann.
was able to secure enough credit with them to get going. “That was key to starting up, but I knew once we got milking and got cashflow going it was all going to come together. “That first milking saw us milk 24 cows, having collected up the 40 cows I had dotted all over the country. Obviously that wasn’t enough to keep us going, so I was still working for Norton and Brooksbank and was buying cows wherever I could. While originally I’d set the herd up with top end cows with the need to put milk in the tank I was buying anything with decent yielding potential and often used them as recipients for embryos from our better cows,” he says. “Getting milk in the tank was key to cashflow and to building the herd. We were also selling embryos on a regular basis and put all that money back in to the herd by buying cows whenever the right type of thing became available.
“I’ve always been a fan of different pedigrees and try whenever possible to get in to families before they become fashionable. As a result we’ve sourced cows from all over Europe and have also bought a number of cows in the USA in partnership with David and Anne Kulp at Kulpdale Holsteins and Stuart and Sandra Wood at Manorhaven Holsteins. “We’ve always bought these cows with the intention of flushing them to sexed semen and shipping the
THE JOURNAL APRIL 2015 35
embryos back to the UK. Luckily Anne Kulp is an ET technician and the Kulps have an EU approved ET unit on their farm, so it all fits together well. They house the cows and flush them and then we import the embryos to the UK,” says Mark.
“The key has always been to sell these cows on again once we’ve got the embryos we want from them and reinvest the money in another cow,” he explains.
A recent purchase in America was a Shottle daughter out of Apple herself which should give some exciting progeny, says Mark. “We also bought a Sanchez out of Juniper Goldwyn Wistful which we flushed as a maiden heifer. She has four Braxton daughters currently milking in the herd and two daughters in the USA too and we subsequently sold her on.”
Back at home Mark says the continuing improvement of the herd has been done through judicious purchasing whenever possible. “We’ve bought cows for as little as £250 on the off chance we’d be able to flush them and get high quality embryos to move the herd forward. “Importantly investing in top quality genetics has meant we’ve been able to significantly increase our capital base compared to a commercial herd and the extra income from stock and genetic sales has helped build
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116