Take a walk, discover dairy

|

Take a walk, discover dairy

THE South Gippsland Sub-branch of the Holstein Friesian Association will be having a twilight farm walk at the Footes’ family farm in Fish Creek on Friday, January 23.
This is a free night for all farmers to attend, starting with a free barbecue and drinks from 6.30pm at the Cornwalls Road property.
The evening will feature two guest speakers from World Wide Sires (WWS) USA and a display of milking daughters of Lauthority, Altaiota, Zelgadis, Dempsey and Snowman.
The Footes farm 1000 acres and milk 700 cows, which on average produce 9500 litres and 650kg of solids per cow annually.
Rowen Foote said there would be a selection of registered cattle, included imported heifers on display on the evening.
“We will also have a couple of heifers on display from one of the bulls we have predominantly used for the last couple of years,” he said.
Mr Foote said the family mainly breeds for its own stock and said, “We like to breed functional cows.”
They like their cows to be able to walk long distances, maintain good production, have good fertility and to be long lived.
The Footes are members of the South Gippsland Sub-branch and have a small portion of their herd registered.
“Over the last five years I have been getting into the breeding side of it a lot more,” Mr Foote said.
One of the guest speakers will be Rebekah Mast, who is the genetic director for World Wide Sires and has years of experience in the dairy and AI industry.
She is responsible for managing WWS’s international bull programs and travels through western Europe buying future sires on behalf of the company.
Ms Mast also assists with genetic training and advising for the implementation of successful breeding strategies in WWS’s key accounts and markets.
She is included on the Holstein Association USA qualified judges list and has judged numerous shows in the states of California, Idaho, Texas and Washington, as well as international shows in Japan and Russia.
The second guest speaker, Brian Albertoni, has worked for WWS since 1988 as area director of marketing.
He represents WWS in Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Slovak Republic, Cyprus, Turkey, Israel and other Mediterranean countries.

Come along: Rowen Foote from Fish Creek is looking forward to welcoming any farmers who would like to attend the farm walk to be held at his family’s farm on Friday, January 23.

Come along: Rowen Foote from Fish Creek is looking forward to welcoming any farmers who would like to attend the farm walk to be held at his family’s farm on Friday, January 23.

Short URL: /?p=13416

Posted by on Jan 13 2015. Filed under Rural News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Share your love
Facebook
Twitter

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *