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Show Report,
International Dairy Week
Shepparton VIC, Australia
Alta Mae Core did a fine job of placing the animals at the 2008 IDW Jersey Show. Although I must admit I tend to evaluate judges ability by how closely they follow my eye, and in that regard, Alta Mae did just fine. Good clean dairy cows at the top of each class.
Corrie & Carrie Couch won Intermediate Champion with a Renaissance that has won a few ribbons before today, and the BW Parade daughter from Kaarmona, Kaarmona Parade Babe 2 was Honorable Mention Int. Champ. Had she been milked down a bit more she could have won the class and given the eventual Champion a run for her money.
Good four and five year old classes. Very nice tight uddered Sambo won the class over a beautiful Astound with a tremendous rear udder. A bit of a weak 6 year old led up to the best class of the day, the 7 and older. Leading the pack was the eventual Grand Champion, a “Lester” from Bushlea. The reserve Champion was the Sambo 5 year old that kept looking better as the day progressed.
They have an interesting way of sponsoring the classes at the show. A company sponsors the class and then the announcer gives a two or three minute commercial over the speakers for that company, while the show goes on. Time for the Cow TIVO I think! It was fun hearing our guys Country, Seville, Carrier, Scout, Special Forces, Primer, and Finalist heading the “commercials” it didn’t even matter that our name became Biganiny in Australian!
The weather was cool, about 85 today, and the stands were completely filled with interested spectators. I would guess well over 1000 spectators. All the Feed, AI and Banking companies surround the show ring with their booths; it makes everything rather compact and interesting.
This is our 4th trip to the Shepparton area, and each time we see more good jerseys. The breeders are keenly interested in bloodlines and functional type. Last year was really tough as a drought had devastated the region, and while this year isn’t a great deal better, it is better, and the cattle and farms look much more prosperous.
As usual Daryl Brown and Tony Simpson were great hosts as well as Jim Conroy from Semex. Gary Bowers was there from Quebec, representing Semex Alliance and we had a good conversation on his promising new sire “Blackstone”, a BW Parade son. He is currently ranked #3 in the USA and numbers coming in indicate he could go higher. We thank them for their informative time with us. World Wide and Agri Gene are also marketing BW prefix sires and their enthusiasm for our breeding is truly gratifying.
Our daughter Wendy lives in Melbourne and was with us most of our stay. On show day she picked up a Jersey Australia 2008 calendar, and found 6 pages (Months) devoted to Brentwood cattle, with more than 8 of our cows featured and many daughters of our sires. BW Parade seems to be very popular, and BW Finalist brandy was on thecover! Very nice indeed!
Our trip this year will conclude with a brief stay tomorrow at the beach and then its back to raining (that’s good) cold (not so good) California. - Bob Bignami 24-JAN-2008
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