5.8 - Australian Jersey Breeders Society

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words: Dianna Malcolm (Semex) 2011 Semex-Jersey Australia Great Southern Challenge shows what is possible This year’s Semex-Jersey Australia Great Southern Challenge had the perfect example of what is possible. The Great Southern Champions (for age) were unveiled at the annual luncheon at Witchmount Estate Winery at Melton, Victoria in early December. The day was the culmination of an event, designed to find the best Jersey exponents on-farm without preparation (which limits the farmers’ workload, levels the playing field and finds common ground between commercial producers and breeders who regularly show). It involved an army of volunteers through the preliminary rounds and roughly 1400 cows from Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and southern New South Wales. A well-known name in Holsteins, Lindsay Marshall (Main Beach, Queensland) re-appraised the regional finalists to find the Great Southern champions. The winning four-year-old had one of the special stories of the day. Meldan Country Pharos was bought at the Patch family’s commercial dispersal by Brendan and Melissa Scott, who milk 168 cows at Binginwarri, in South Gippsland. Her breeders knew her background, her sire stack was catalogued (BW Country x Astound x Sooner x a Top Brass son), but she was not registered. Brendan and Melissa subsequently put Meldan Country Pharos through the Genetic Recovery programme. She was then judged in the early rounds by Jugiong Jerseys’ Pat Nicholson, who couldn’t get the cow out of his head. He subsequently bought her. Now, she is heading to International Dairy Week (IDW) in January. Patrick, who also accepted Reserve Champion in the two-year-old class (for the highest pointed PI heifer in their 510-cow herd), said his family was excited to have Pharos to join what described as one of their strongest IDW teams to date. 6 Jersey Journal – January/February 2012 Brendan Scott’s (second from left) winning entry in the Semex-Jersey Australia Great Southern Challenge has since been sold to Jugiong Jerseys and entered for International Dairy Week. Brendan is pictured with (from left) Stu Mackie and Jim Conroy (Semex) and Jersey Australia’s president, Trevor Saunders. Brendan Scott said it was a difficult decision to make, letting their highest protein cow (and second highest milk) go to her new home, but he was looking forward to seeing her in the ring. He said she was on-track when she left their farm to complete a 7500-8000-litre lactation, after peaking at 34 litres (3.8% protein). He was up front that he had paid $4100 when he bought her. He was not so keen to share Pharos’ selling price, joking that some things were better left unsaid. “I’ll let you think about what that might have been,” the delighted dairyman told the audience when he accepted his award. He commented that they knew she was special, which is why they had named her “Pharos” – after one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Semex’s General Manager Jim Conroy said the story epitomised what the competition stands for – to showcase cows that might otherwise be unappreciated by anyone other than the people who milked them every day. “To have a cow with no papers be recovered into the system, and then for her to win and be sold on to one of the country’s premier studs is one of the high points for me this year,” Jim said. Supreme winner The other name to steal the show came from the Broadlin stud of Lynton and Lisa Broad, from Lockington. The couple owned this year’s Champion three-yearold and the Supreme Champion Cow of the competition – Broadlin Constance 2565. Constance 2565 is classified VG88 Max- 2YRS and their highest producing twoyear-old last season with 6947 litres, 3.9% 268kg protein, 4.5% 314kg fat in 305 days. She finished third in the senior twoyear-old at last year’s IDW and she is re-entered this year as a senior threeyear-old. “She is a special cow,” Lynton said. “She’s got a few more brains than the others.” He said winning the top honour from the competition was almost the same as winning at IDW. “I’ve won at IDW and now I’ve won here and the emotions are pretty much the Continued on page 8…
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Page 1 and 2: JERSEY January/February 2012 Print
Page 3 and 4: Vol. 64 No. 1 - January-Feburary 20
Page 5: Colombia invites Jersey enthusiasts
Page 9 and 10: imagined when we started it, and I
Page 11: Goulburn Murray Jersey Breeders Clu
Page 14 and 15: JJ LETTER Letter to the Editor Dear
Page 16 and 17: words: Michael Porteous ‘It’s a
Page 18: ~ For all sale enquiries ~ Contact

5.8 - Australian Jersey Breeders Society

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