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.
James Warren, Mathew Senior and David Christophers made the long journey from West Cornwall and purchased 21 females between them. Duncan Vincent then bought 10 cows and 5 bulling heifers to partly replace the 18 animals recently lost to TB.
Ken Prestige from North Yorkshire, perhaps our most enthusiastic new member then bought 5 females, later increased to 9 and these included a heifer sight unseen over the phone but on the recommendation of the “old master” John Berry and this heifer traces back to Sunninghill Park.
Ken introduced a new couple Mr and Mrs Marks from Hook in Hampshire who have added 12 Guernseys to their Holstein herd and finally Tony Dallyn from Barnstable has purchased 24 in milk cows, 24 in calf cows and 10 in calf heifers and despite the previous buyers having had a pick there were in my opinion at least a dozen VG cows in this final batch.
These 58 females will boost the Fortuna herd of the Dallyn’s to more than 200 milkers and he has been crossing the Danish Jerseys that he originally imported to Guernsey, in an effort to “civilize” those extreme machines.
I am sorry to see the Foord’s ending a long association with the Guernsey breed and as with so many other “commercial” herds the quality of the stock they have bred may well be better appreciated now that the cows have moved on to pastures new.