The South West Herds competition was this year judged by John Berry, who retired in 2001 when his Sunninghill Park Guernsey herd at Windsor was sold to the Thomlinson family in Cumbria to restart their dairy farm having lost their Black and White herd to Foot and Mouth.

John has visited 14 farms from Cornwall, Devon ,Gloucester, the Isle of Wight, Somerset and Wiltshire, judging the herds, youngstock and cow family and bull progeny groups. In each herd the Judge is asked to pick an "individual" best cow and before the final results are announced, I thought it might be a good idea to showcase some of these individuals.

Our first visit was to Berkeley Farms at Wroughton near Swindon where Nick and Christine Gosling are milking around 80 cows with all of the milk bottled on the farm and delivered to as part of an "Organic" box scheme byAbel & Cole.

The cow that caught John's eye on the day was

Artis A Melanie 75 who is the dam of the young stock bull Artis Edward that is being reared for use in the herd. 

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