THE Jersey Cattle Society of the UK hosted its 139th Annual General Meeting at
Culter Allers, home of Kingsbeck Jerseys and Jon McCosh and his team on August 2.
Celebrating the ability of the Jersey breed throughout the day,
specifically in terms of milk production with combined fat and protein levels that the breed is recognised for, the morning was dedicated to the formalities of the JCS AGM led by outgoing Society President John Stubbs of Coldeaton Jerseys, Derbyshire, who opened the meeting with thanks for the support he had received over his term of presidency – a role unfortunately he had accepted earlier than expected due to the sad passing of friend and hugely respected breeder Frank Poskitt (Rockcliff Jerseys) in 2019.
JCS chairman Mark Logan opened proceedings on the day “following an absence of face-to-face meetings over the last two years with the 2020 and 2021 AGMs both held virtually on the Zoom platform, it is with a huge amount of pleasure we welcome members to the 139th AGM in person.
“I can only express gratitude and congratulations to Jon McCosh and his team at Kingsbeck Jerseys for hosting the event.”
Seizing the opportunity, Mark went on to congratulate them on their journey over the past five years to their success last autumn in being the highest placed Jersey herd in the NMR RABDF Gold Cup Competition, securing the Lilyhill trophy.
Heather Pritchard (Company Sec-retary of JCS) proceeded to read the notice of the 139th AGM meeting convening the meeting open and welcoming society President John
Stubbs to chair the meeting forth-with.
Mr Stubbs opened with an over-
view of his term as society President, including the events he had thankfully attended over the past 12 months when the pandemic had allowed. He extended thanks to the support he had received over his term, both from Emma Horn and her team at Jolly British, Field Officer for the Society, Becky Hurd and especially to Chairman of the Board Mark Logan and his fellow board members.
JCS Chairman Mark Logan provided his annual report, commenting on the challenge the board had faced in March when Emma Horn had decided to step down following 10 years of commitment to the JCS Company Secretary role – finding a replacement for her and her team at Jolly British was difficult at the time with the board welcoming two applications, resulting in the
team at Pedigree Livestock Services, owned by Andy Ryder with Heather Pritchard, assuming Emma’s pre-vious role as Company Secretary duly appointed. Mark thanked the team for the manner in which it had quickly and efficiently continued the smooth running of the society.
Next followed the presentation of the society’s annual production awards, including, in terms of lifetime production of fat and protein, Potterswalls Juno Glamour 2 EX94(7) from the Fleming family, who took the Secretary’s trophy.
The afternoon brought about a chance to really appreciate the journey of Kingsbeck Jerseys since 2015 when the decision was made to return to dairying on the 6,700 acre mixed estate at Cutler Allers. Progression of the Jersey herd received recognition in the 2021 NMR Gold Cup with them being recipients of the Lilyhill trophy for the highest placed Jersey herd with the highest combined fat and protein of 816kg.
Expanding the cubicle housing by adding another bay to the existing shed, installing a fourth A4 Lely robot, an extra 103 cubicles and a spacious straw yard over the past couple of years has seen the herd grow to 290 cows with around 250 milking.
Enjoying a well ventilated envir-onment, the milkers are housed all year round and the impressive LED automatic lighting system in the shed sees the lights trigger on if light levels drop below 200 lux with the “blue” lights operating for 18 hours through the day, and “red” lights operating at night between 9pm and 5am at 50 lux to allow safe navigation amongst the herd at night.
For Jon McCosh and his dairy manager Leanne Bertram, minim-ising the stress on the cows is at the forefront to achieving high performance. Jon has always fol-lowed the philosophy that healthy soil grows healthy crops to feed healthy cows, which in turn result in happy and healthy staff and in the past 18 months he acknowledges the hard work and input of Leanne and the team of Ali, Ruby, Jenny and Łukasz to achieve this.
Diet consistency is paramount, and the herd is fed a grass silage based TMR (currently 39kg silage/cow plus blend) that equates to maintenance +19kg milk in the passage, with the feed pushed up hourly by the Lely Juno robot.
With pregnancy rates running at 22 per cent, fertility is also important as Jon and his team strive towards a low replacement rate of 20 per cent and a goal of cows averaging 5.5 lactations in the herd. Current sires used on the herd are selected on improving udder quality alongside maintaining frame, production and components.
Using primarily World Wide Sires and Semex – Victorious, Matt, Lemonhead, Lightning, Moonlight and Boomerang (from Blondin) are all in the flask currently, whilst heifers calving into the milking herd include daughters of Barcelona, Dakota and Video. Heifers receive two chances of sexed semen with the aim to calve at around 24 months with Beef Shorthorn used to sweep up.
Leanne’s belief of giving the youngstock the best possible start has seen improvements and changes implemented to the calf rearing and youngstock housing. Moving to a more ventilated shed and installing LED lighting, the calves are no longer fed by a machine, but penned in twos before being grouped into fives and fed by a milk bar twice daily and then at weaning two groups are combined to make a batch of 10 in which they remain until going out to graze through summer.
Colostrum management has also been improved with colostrum tested using a refractometer and none below 25 fed. The new routine for the calves and improved clean-liness of the calf environment has seen the use of prophylactic antibiotics virtually eliminated, a
notable cost saving, whilst the calves are visibly thriving. There are plans to start selling surplus in calf heifers in the near future.
With the estate at Culter Allers also including a pedigree flock of 1,600 Blackface and a further 400 drafts that are bred to Bluefaced Leicester with the resulting Scotch Mules sold on for breeding stock, there are several other operations and projects in action across the estate.
Initiation of a long term forest plan will see 18 months of cutting trees and a further 18 months of replanting ahead to reduce disease risk in the Larch on the estate.
Encouraging biodiversity is al-ways at the fore, for example, the noticeable improvement in the pastures has seen a return of grass hoppers that haven’t been present for nearly 20 years, while on the hill and inbye grazing, consistent habitat management efforts are seeing a welcome return of red listed bird species (ring ouzels, lapwings, golden plover, black grouse and curlew).
Finally, there are plans to install wind turbines with a neighbouring farmer which would cover the electricity for the estate and provide surplus energy back to the grid in a huge sustainability step.
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