April/May 2010 - Australian Jersey Breeders Society

Northern Hemisphere Jersey trip of a lifetime
By Adam Gavenlock
After I won the 2008 NSW scholarship and Shane Oslear
winner of the 2009 scholarship we set off the USA and Canada
for a 7 week trip. 22 hours later we arrive in Madison, Wisconsin
for World Dairy Expo (WDE) where more than 2600 head
were shown.
There were 482 jerseys which were led by Stephan Sparkler
Vera winning the supreme champion jersey title. The size and
the quality for all the classes were overwhelming with some
classes having 40 plus animals in them. The cows were large
frame dairy cows with high wide rear udders, with the heifers
being very tall and extremely stylish and dairy. It just wasn’t
about the cows at WDE there was a large range of commercial
exhibitions from AI company’s, hoof trimmers, breeds societies,
dairy company’s had working dairies on show to demonstrate
the new technology that is on offer.
After the show we hopped back onto the plane and headed
to California. We stayed with Tony DeMello. Tony and his work
colleges gave us a tour through the Handford and Hilmar areas
where we seen the extreme side of the dairy industry with
farms milking up to 3000 jerseys. Most farms were milking for
20 hours a day. Housing the cows in free stall barns, feeding
the cows total mixed rations with the base fodder being corn
silage with a mix of bi products, grains and minerals. We visited
Ahlem farms; they were milking 2500 jerseys and have bred
close to 1000 Ex cows. The herd was very consistent being
deep open framed cows with well attach udders. Some of the
stand out bulls at Ahlem farms where Golden and Implus were
good solid milking commercial cows and we found him to be
very consistent.
Visiting Hilmar cheese factory was another stand out for us
when at Hilmar. The factory is one of the biggest cheese factories
in the world processing 7.1 million litres of milk per day. After
spending 5 days in California looking at more than 10,000
jersey cows we hired a car and braved the roads and headed
for Oregon to stay with the Silva family the home of Sunset
Canyon jerseys. Stopping at Brentwood farms where we looked
through his top producing
cows and his 2 year
old groups seeing BW
Centurions Iris the dam of
Surefire and Renegade. We
stayed with the Silva family
for three days seeing
the famous Nadine still
looking great at age 18 and
a half and visiting the local
farms. After 3 entertaining
days at the Silva family we
headed off for a weekend
in Las Vegas and well what
happens in Vegas stays in
Vegas.
From Vegas we left the
United States and headed
off for Quebec, Canada to
stay with Steve Borland
the owner of Rapid Bay
12
— JerseyJournal April / May 2010
jerseys. We stayed with Steve for 8 days, for myself and I’m
sure Shane as well this part of the trip was very inspiring and
very motivating, the herd at Rapid Bay is an exceptional herd of
cows. We had the honour of seeing Rumour, Gorgeous, Jonquil
a daughter of Duncan Bell and all the up and coming stars.
The next stop off was the Jarrell Family from RJ farms/jerseys.
Spending only four days at the Jarrell’s they made sure we seen
everything we could that their local area had the offer. We
started with a tour of their own property, seeing some really
good Iatola milking two year and a daughter from the 2008
RWF and WDE champion jerseys Alexvale Made me Giggle Ex
97. They also took us to experience our first ice hooky match.
Avonlea was another farm we visited when at the Jarrells, it
was a very well set up farm, we were lucky to see more famous
cow families a Comerica daughter out of Veronica, Members
from the very well know “K” family.
Russell Gammon is the secretary of jersey Canada also known
as the jersey guru. We stayed with Russell for ten action packed
days visiting more than 20 farms in 5 days the highlights were
Huronia Farms, Waymar jerseys, Bridon Farms, Maple Ridge
Jerseys, Rexlea jerseys, Roselea jerseys and Jaspar jerseys.
Sultans daughter impressive they had well attached udders
with high wide rear udders with nice frames to go with them.
Then travelling with Russell we went into Louisville, Kentucky,
USA for the all American show. It’s the strongest jerseys show in
the USA. Centurion and Comerica were the two standout bulls
of the three day event. Heading back to Toronto, Canada for the
last stop for our trip at the Royal Winter Fair where we were
extremely fortunate enough to work with the Rapid day show
team. This was a great experience we learnt all the technique they
use to get the cows out to the ring. Rapid bay had a great show
winning Grand Champion with Vandenberg Amedeo Gorgeous
also winning Premier Breeder and Premier Exhibitor.
We would both like to take this chance to thank all the
people that opened their doors for us and making us
feel so welcome and going out of their way to make our
trip so enjoyable and
memorable. We would
also like to thank
Brian Albertoni from
Worldwide sires,
Shane Oslear with April Jarrell and Adam Gavenlock in the
awesome Jarrell family kitchen.
Russell Gammon
from Jersey Canada
and Brad Gavenlock
from Agri-Gene for
all their efforts to
organise the trip, and
finally we would like
to thank the sponsors
Dairy Express, Jersey
Australia (NSW) and
the Hunter Valley
Jerseys cattle club
without all these
people and company’s
our trip wouldn’t have
been possible.