The 2009 “Cow Camp” has just been successfully completed at Overton Farm, Babcary hosted by David and Rosie Paull, but supported by Brian and Sheila Adams and Matthew and Coral Senior. Brian and Sheila had selected and trained 12 bulling heifers in the 14 days before the camp. Matthew and Coral arrived on Saturday evening and turned their hands to any and everything that cropped up to help ensure the smooth running of the event.
Morgan Senior had been on the farm for 10 days “work experience” in his holiday from Brymore School and made a great impression on this observer with his willingness, enthusiasm and appetite for hard work. The late Tom Emm once observed that “every farm needed an Open Day on a regular basis ” as then all of the maintenance jobs that get overlooked on a daily basis finally get done and Morgan and Dave got through a great deal of work in the week leading up to the Cow Camp.
Laura Sales in her first year as FGB Co-ordinator organised the training elements of the Camp and it was a pleasure to see how the more experienced Campers, Jeremy Hichens, Morgan and Bethan Senior plus Jenny and Chloe Paull were eager and able to help the debutants about 10 of whom had never been involved previously.
The normal disciplines were practised, washing, clipping and handling but for the first time a session with a Professional photographer was organised who demonstrated just how a “team” of handlers can present an animal and grateful thanks to Lucinda Morgan for her help and enthusiasm.
On Tuesday the South West Association arrived for their Annual herd visit and the calves were paraded and the showmen were able to demonstate their skills and the standard is rising year on year, unfortunately a wet summer day rather restricted the activities and meant that the Milking herd were inspected in less than ideal conditions and the youngstock which are such a feature of the Hurdlebrook herd were not seen at all.
David Paull processes some of the milk on the farm into Milk, Cream and Yoghurt and has Cheese made locally which is sold through a series of Farmers Markets and other outlets and as ever their are time constraints although David supported by Rosie and his parents Mary and Ken fits more into a day than most people I know. I have enjoyed milking the herd on a fairly regular basis this summer and produced a herd list for the Open day and it was interesting to see how the young bulls from the GGBP scheme have worked. I selected 12 of the better cows for a stock judging exercise at the Tuesday morning milking and was then pleased to find that 9 of the 12 were daughters of GGBP graduates, with perhaps the best being a Brymor Stingboy who will take her chance in the show ring in October.
Laura had been keeping a total of points accrued by the FGB members for the various activities over the weekend and whilst Jeremy was judged to be the best at Clipping, and Morgan was judged as the best of the senior handlers it was Jenny Paull who emerged with the highest aggregate score and this was well deserved particularly as she and Chloe were so instrumental in making everyone so welcome at Babcary.
Finally mention must be made of the efforts of Rosie and her helpers, Sheila, Coral and Jackie Langley and Jane Eddy who kept the tables laden and the host of hungry youngsters fed and watered.
It was in April 2005 that the first FGB gathering took place at Tredinney and only Jeremy, Alex Marks and Laura were present in 2009 but this remains the most important part of EGCS‘s activities and the Society need to provide more support in both cash and kind to this project as at every show this summer Guernsey calves and handlers have outnumbered other breeds despite the numerical advantage of those breeds. If the Guernsey breed is to survive and to expand then it will be these young people who will be the ones doing the work, they ably demonstrated their worth this weekend.