Livestock Event: Brown Swiss scoops interbreed champ
The St. Andrew’s flag is flying high over the National Dairy Show ring at Livestock Event, NEC, after Brown Swiss breeders Robert & Sheila McColm of Wigtownshire, South West Scotland, took the Dairy Interbreed championship with their mature cow Soulseat Jublend Beatrice.
That put A & S Lawrie of Kinross’s Ayrshire third calver Cuthill Towers Radar Ray 13 into Reserve Interbreed Champion spot having narrowly slipped past the sweet young Jersey heifer Fourcrosses Tequila Black Rose from the Wright family that made Honourable Mention.
Other breed champions included ES Burroughs British Friesian cow in-milk Oakalby Rebel Cherry 115; EG Griffin & Son’s Guernsey cow in-milk Briddlesford Laredos Bluebell; and Colin Laird’s Holstein cow in-milk Blythbridge Goldwyn Rosalee ET.
In a change to the Inter-breed judging format of previous years – which saw all individual breed judges mark out of ten each breed champion to give a cumulative total – the final decision was left down to just one person. This year the responsibility fell to US-based Brown Swiss judge Jake Hushon.
He said of his champion: “I just love the style, balance and openness of rib; she has so many gains. My Reserve Champion has an incredible mammary system and the Honourable Mention – in another lactation or two – will be up here (with these other cows),” he said of the heifer.
ENDS