News

The Royal Bath & West show has for many years been the “major” summer show for the Guernsey breed and it is disappointing to report that it is losing that position as next week’s Royal Cornwall promises to be the most competitive of the summer.

Given that the Royal Bath & West falls during the school half term holidays there is an opportunity to reverse the decline in the Guernsey fortunes and geographically Shepton Mallet is reachable from Wales, the Midlands and the South East all of which areas have lost their Guernsey classes at the shows.

23 females from 5 Exhibitors provided Colin Evans from Bancyfelin, Carmarthen with a challenging mornings work at this years Devon County Show. Once again Guernsey numbers were better than the Holstein or Jersey breeds combined and none of the adult Jersey classes had more than a single entry and five of the Holstein classes were contested by just 2 animals.

The cattle shed was however full but with mainly Beef animals with 10 different breeds in contention.

This good herd has now been dispersed privately with 7 buyers taking females in the last 6 weeks as the farm at Barcombe Mills Lewes has been sold as falling milk price and rising costs persuaded Phil and Poppett Foord that it was time to take things easier.

Six young handlers represented the breed at the North Somerset show with calves from Devon and Cornwall as well as the locals from Somerset.

Brian and Sheila Adams purchased 4 bulling heifers at the Shalford dispersal sale to graze on their smallholding at Curry Rivel in Somerset, one of these produced a heifer calf Wiltown Jay and she was the first female to be registered with the Wiltown prefix.

She is now part of the Hurdlebrook herd of David and Rosie Paull at Babcary in Somerset and Brian and Sheila regularly prepare and take animals from Hurdlebrook to support the local and national shows.

The 150th show organised by the North Somerset Agricultural took place on 4th May at Wraxall, near Bristol.

The Guernseys with 24 females forward from 6 exhibitors were the most numerous of the dairy breeds, outnumbering the Jerseys by 8 to 1!

The show has for many years been supported by the Durbin/Sales and Parfitt families, and once again it was these two families with Bickfield and Graylands animals that provided the majority of the animals forward, but it was good to see Caroline and Emma Greenslade present with adult animals for the first time and to see the Adams’s, plus Norman & Mills supporting the Maiden heifer and Calf Handling Classes.

David Mann, from Zennor in Cornwall was the Judge and confirmed his growing reputation as a confident and accurate adjudicator, but he was I think surprised to start his day with 8 maiden heifers, most of whom were in the ring for the first time.

Cracker Noel Ex 90 was named as the leading individual production cow in the Dorset and Somerset Annual competitions, she is a daughter of Shalford Luxury and out of a Pedigree Jersey bred by Mrs Emma Crouch’s parents.

Noel is a sixth calver and has regularly given over 9000 litres and has a H85 three quarter bred daughter Cracker Noel 4 that has given over 7000 kg as a heifer.

At yesterdays AGM of the SWGA the results of the annual competitions that had been judged on farm last Autumn by David Crouch were announced and the trophies were presented.

21 herds took part, some for the first time, and included herds in Cornwall, Devon, Gloucester, Isle of Wight, Somerset and Wiltshire. David Crouch commented on the quality of the cattle seen and in particular the young stock.

These competitions are decided by a combination of inspection points and production points plus points for regular calving. The young stock are judged seperately and the points are added for the overall prizes. The herds are split into 3 sections according to herd size.