2009 NHBC Herd Competition Results

Last night , at the Northumbria Holstein Breeders Club AGM , the club also held their prize giving for the annual herds competition , which was judged way back in August 2009 . As ever ,i tried my best to put forward a strong team of cows and i was very pleasantly surprised with the results .
Our successes were as follows ;

1st place in the Large herds class (BOCM trophy)
2nd place in the Cow on Inspection class with Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious
1st place in the Super Cow class with Chloanne Webster Gracious (Barclays Bank trophy)
1st place in the Heifer in Milk class with Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious 2 (Alan Jackson trophy)
3rd place in the Heifer on Inspection class with Ellenneff Crest Becula 11
1st place in the Cow Family class with the Gracious family (Hunday trophy)
Top Herd on Production (Chas Halliday trophy)

The above results were fantastic .

Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious 2 has once again held up very well in the Top 1000 cows in the UK on PLI , holding a VERY respectable 74th place with a PLI of £228.
Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious is also still in the Top 1000 , with a PLI of £206 , which places her in 211th .

With figures like that , i am very much looking forward to hearing from Cogent Breeding Ltd in the next week or so about if they would be interested in perhaps contract mating Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious 2.

The classifier is due here on the 2nd Feb , so fingers crossed that some of the girls move up , it would be great to get Chloanne Hanno Gracious done again, but also to see how Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious does , she is really looking well just now , and always raises a smile every time she comes into the parlour for milking.

I will post the full set of results for the herd competition in the next few days !

Uncovering the Cars

The cars finally emerge from their snowy tombs !

Snowy Scene's of Northfield !

Some wintery scenes of the weather we are experiencing at the moment !

BBBBRRRRRRRRRRR ! ! !

Well it's the 5th of January , and the Met office are telling us that this is the most prolonged cold spell for over 30 years , and God , is it cold .
Snow has fallen daily since before Christmas and if it wasn't for the fact that i have to work in the stuff, it would be fair to say it was impressive . But now , a joke is a joke , and the novelty is wearing off rapidly.
I had entered the Chloanne embryo's for a sale on Thursday , but that has been postponed until later in the month. The catalogue was online and hopefully this should supply a link

http://www.wrightmanley.co.uk/agricultural-livestock/sale-catalogues/files/January(1)%20Club%202010.pdf

The waiting game has started for Frankham Sept Storm Ethel , as her due date approaches, fingers crossed and all that !
The main herd themselves are doing away reasonably well , could do better i suppose but until the weather improves , there's little more i can ask them to do . They are actually averaging just under 29 ltr/hd/day , so all things considered , not bad .
We have just finished calving our latest batch of young heifers , which were in calf to the Aberdeen Angus bull. Whilst the last 2 batches have calved down fairly easily to this bull , the last batch have involved more assisted calvings than i would have hoped for , and as a result of this we are looking into getting rid of the Angus bull and just continuing to use our black and white young bull , Chloanne Hannover !
The snow is playing havoc with trying to get staff here to work , and it's just anybodies guess as to when this cold snap will ease.I suppose it is healthier for the livestock than the usual wet , damp conditions , and hopefully it will thaw GRADUALLY so as to spare me the job of dealing with burst pipes next week. We have around 300,000 gallons of slurry waiting to be spread on the grass , but as it's not the best practice to spread in the snow , we are waiting for a break in the weather.

The Stuff of Legend

Following on from the last post on this site , I have signed a contract with Cogent Breeding Ltd for a Morningview Legend pregnancy with Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious. She is safely in calf now for this contract and if the resulting calf is a bull , then hopefully he will go on to be tested by Cogent in the same way that Chloanne Gallagher was.
Chloanne Hanno Gracious has calved , she had a heifer calf on the 27/11/09 and the sire was Ensenda Taboo Planet , the calf therefore being called Chloanne Planet Gracious. Also , on the 09/12/09 , Chloanne Tulip Gracious calved , this time resulting in a heifer calf by Robthom moscow , so the calf has been named Chloanne Moscow Gracious.
Chloanne Dolman Ethel is nearly at the stage to breed again , and at the moment I am trying to choose a suitable sire , most probably sexed too , as I really do need more members of the amazing Ethel family .
Talking of the Ethel family , Frankham Sept Storm Ethel is the next Chloanne cow to calve and she is due 16/01/10 and the sire is Golden Oaks Alexander , a heifer calf would be the best possible start to the new year !
Chloanne Magna Gracious has been dried off , in readiness for calving down in early March , i know this is a bit early to be drying her off , but really she has worked so hard through her last lactation , that she has earned a good rest .
In 2 weeks time I am going to try to sell the embryo's that we flushed earlier in the year .
There is a sale at Wright Manley's down at Beeston Auction Mart , Cheshire on the 7th Jan , and it will be an interesting experience and really the first time that i have offered Chloanne genetics for sale , so fingers crossed that the breeding is the type of thing that other breeders will want in their herds.
Looking further ahead , it will be the annual herds competition results again soon , and i am keeping all fingers crossed that we can even do half as well as we did last year .

Winter Starts Here !

Well, I have just brought the cows in from the field, ready for milking , and i think that is going to be the last time they are out , until the spring.
The ground conditions are such that it is getting so sticky and muddy out there that it can't be much fun for the girls , so hopefully they will be happier inside all the time now .
The milk yields will hopefully improve too , as at the moment they have been worse than bad !Really , i think they just need that little bit extra pampering and things will improve , we shall see in the next couple of days.

I attended a meeting the other day in North Yorkshire about dry cow and late lactation cow management , and it was surprisingly interesting , and hopefully , by making just a few little changes around the place , our dry and close to calving cows will calve down and join the milking herd with little or no difficulties , last winter went very well , so a repeat of that would be ideal.

We have had some new heifers join the herd and they are just looking a million dollars, they have settled in well and are lying in their cubicles too, which is a bonus !
The youngstock remain out for the next couple of weeks hopefully, weather permitting , as there is still plenty rough grazing to be eaten off and they are just the animals to do it !

Oh the Chloanne cow front , Frankham Sept Storm Ethel has been dried off , ready to calve in mid January , Chloanne webster Gracious is safely in calf to Morningview Legend, and this month should see Chloanne Hanno Gracious calf to Ensenda Taboo Planet .

Long Overdue Update

As usual , i have left it way too long since i updated the goings on and happenings with the Chloanne herd and indeed the main herd too !
Well , as mentioned in the mini-post about Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious 2 , she calved and produced a great little heifer calf , definitely one to watch in the future .
She really is starting to milk well and i suppose pretty soon i will need to turn my attention to the thought of "Do i flush her" or not ? Still have a bit of time to decide but these things always have a habit of creeping up on you .
Also to calve was Chloanne Dolman Ethel , she had a bull calf , but she is really looking smart , having been calved a fortnight now . Once again , i am hoping for big things from her , and also the Ethel's in general.
Both Chloanne Hanno Gracious and Chloanne Tulip Gracious have been dried off and they are now due to calve 29/11/09 and 07/12/09 respectively.
The whole herd have been in at night now for nearly 3 weeks and they do seem to be responding well to the extra food and the comforts of a dry , warm bed at night.
The weather here at the moment is horrible and field conditions are starting to look a bit dodgy , so it won't be long until they are in all the time , just a matter of days i would have thought.

I have re-designed the calf unit a bit , i was never very happy with the little individual pens that they were in , they were a bit old and i do like to see little calves running round , showing off their natural ability to run riot !
Therefore , we have got hold of some multi-calf feeders that feed 5 calves at a time and they just suck their milk , all standing in a line , at the same large bucket .
Early indications are excellent , i am really happy with the quality of the calves and like i say , they are running around , stretching their legs and not in a confined space.

At the moment the herd are averaging 27.4 litres/day which is pretty good going for an all year round calving herd and for the time of year too . Hopefully , once they come in all the time ,. that figure will increase by , hopefully , another 2 or 3 litres/day !