Latest news with #Friesian
Agriland
3 days ago
- General
- Agriland
Listen: Producing 530kg MS/cow with pure Friesian breeding in Tipperary
Sam Dudley and his father Henry are milking 82 pure British Friesian cows, where the breed seems to be providing milk solids, fertility, hardiness, and longevity. The father and son duo are milking just outside Templemore, Co. Tipperary operating a spring (80%) and autumn (20%) calving split. Sam Dudley is in his third year of Agricultural Science in UCC and currently completing his work placement with Dovea Genetics. Every chance Sam gets, he is out working on the farm and has ambitions to eventually take over the family business and continue with strong lines of genetics in the herd. Sam's enthusiasm for genetics and breeding, as well as his determination to continue improving the family farm, was evident when he spoke on the latest episode of 'The Dairy Trail' podcast. Click here to listen the podcast. Pure Friesian The pedigree-registered British Friesian herd produced 7,021kg of milk last year with 4.01% fat and 3.54% protein which equates to 528kg of milk solids (MS)/cow through 1.1t/meal per cow, about 700kg of beet-maize/cow and mainly through grazed grass. Sam can not see himself swaying from the pure Friesian genetics, as he said: 'They've worked for my grandfather and my father, so I can't see why she won't work for me.' He admitted that the pure Friesians are good square cows – robust, hardy and last long in the herd, all while having exceptional fertility production without having to push them hard. 'They're a good cow with good solids and cow line is very important. Sam feels it is hard to fulfil the desired genetics 'if you don't have a good cow line behind a bull', The Dekeana herd out grazing after milking The pure British Friesian herd are a strong and square herd of cows He added: 'When you're milking these cows every day, you're seeing them twice a day, every day.' He feels it would be hard to enjoy what he was doing 'if you don't like what you're looking at.' For this reason, cow type, cow families, and producing a well-balanced cow is important to Sam, as he also remarked about his cow type producing a hardy, saleable calf. The calving interval on the farm last year was 355 days. According to Sam, conception rates with the breed are always very good due to the cow's ability to hold condition and turn grass and concentrates into solids and condition. Breeding Traditionally on the farm, the Dudleys used 24 sexed semen Friesian straws and would then follow with an Angus stock bull. However, this year they have put in Moonsyst heat and health detection boluses, which has significantly helped with pin-pointing artificial insemination (AI) serves. As Sam said: 'it's inside the cow, it can't lie to you'. This has paved the way for more AI and sexed semen serves this year and cut out the stock bull utilisation, with the Dudleys using 40 sexed semen straws this year. Sam said that they used 30 sexed semen Friesian straws, using Bradash Patriot Red and Bradash Trailblazer. 'The gene pool for pure Frisians is not big and we look for that outcross bull with good fat and protein,' he said. They also used 10 straws of of a high economic breeding index (EBI) bull called Laharn Bruno, who is 31% British Friesian. The 12-unit DeLaval parlour is kept immaculate, as the herd had an SCC of 98,000 cell/ml last year The Dekeana and Killea pedigrees' plaque at the entrance to the farm There was also a number of conventional straws used and anything not fit for Friesian AI based on milk recording, feet and legs, bad udders, and cell counts were served with an Angus or Hereford straw, with some older cows receiving a Belgian Blue straw. The heifers were synchronised this year with 10 sexed semen straws use and another 10 conventional straws used on the 20 replacement heifers. Speaking about the addition of the bolus heat detection, Sam said: 'It takes the work out of breeding, you might miss a cow before and everyone misses a cow.' However, he said with the bolus, every cow in heat is detected and the timing of AI is precise. Sam also talks about the future plans for the farm, future investments, autumn calving and preparing for drying-off, and grassland management in the podcast.
Glasgow Times
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
Clarkston teenager secures place at prestigious horse show
Annie Duffy, from Clarkston, has qualified for the Horse of the Year Show (HOYS), which will take place in Birmingham this October. Riding Neuklear Master Blaster, a skewbald pony owned by Nakita O'Hare-Wilson, Annie earned her place at the SEIB Insurance Brokers Search for a Star qualifier held on July 6 at Greenlands Arena in Carlisle. The pair won the Working Pony class, judged by Michaela Bowling and Hannah Atkinson, securing their entry to HOYS. Read more: Man who was spotted walking sheep at train station speaks out Annie, a student at Hutchesons' Grammar School, said: "I'm so happy, Neuk is such a good boy and I've always wanted to go to HOYS – we've been to watch before. "This was our closest qualifier, so we said we can't not come and give it a go. "My old pony went on loan, and Nakita has now let me ride Neuk for a year now. "Nakita didn't plan to buy Neuk – she bought a mare without knowing she was pregnant. "When Neuk was born, Nakita kept him as company for a Friesian youngster she had. "Neuk and I also compete in jumping and dressage, along with some junior coloured showing classes." Read more: 'People want to leave': Residents claim rats are 'taking over' tenement block Launched in 1996, the SEIB Search for a Star series has given thousands of amateur riders the chance to compete at HOYS. The programme offers opportunities for a variety of show horses to qualify for the championships at both HOYS and Your Horse Live. SEIB Insurance Brokers, the sponsor of the series, has provided equestrian insurance services for more than 60 years. The company offers specialist cover for horses, horseboxes, trailers, riders, and equestrian businesses. Nicolina MacKenzie, organiser of the SEIB Search for a Star, said: "Search for a Star is all about the journey and learning and improving over time. "Our team of judges and stewards is all invested in providing support and encouragement to help competitors and their horses and ponies perform to the best level they can." More information about the Search for a Star competition and entry details is available on the SEIB website.
Irish Examiner
16-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Examiner
Farmers hold all the cards when it comes to beef
Beef processors have been forced to halt price pulling due to dwindling beef supplies. ICMSA Livestock Committee Chairperson, Michael O'Connell, has said some beef processors 'have sought to pull the wool over farmers' eyes' by quoting lower base prices for steers and heifers. Processors have been quoting base prices of €7 for steers and €7.10 for heifers; however, an additional 20-30c/kg is available for farmers. 'Processors should be ashamed to quote €7.00/kg base price for steers when they are giving up to €6.70c/kg flat for P and O grade Friesian cull cows. That leaves a prime underage P+3 Friesian steer at the same nominal value as a P grade cow,' said Mr O'Connell. Mr O'Connell went on to say that for the past 10 days, processors have felt the pressure on supply due to the end of shed-finished cattle and a slow start to cattle coming from grass. 'We have seen in the past month or so, kill plans being reduced as a means of controlling price and supply, but this can't last forever, and the demand for Irish beef across Europe is huge,' cautioned Mr O'Connell. 'I'm sure factories are praying that the 'calendar beef farming' 30-month age limit will convince farmers with January and February 2023-born cattle to consider slaughtering these shortly. But the weather is favourable and cattle are thriving well - there is no pressure to kill them… They'd be much better off just acknowledging the reality that we all see and go out and buy the cattle from farmers as opposed to going into the farmers' yards and looking foolish by offering obviously below-par prices,' said Mr O'Connell. Noting that the numbers of cattle across Europe are at an all-time low, Mr O'Connell stated that Irish live exports have never been as strong due to our Bluetongue-free status. 'We are sure that the volumes of 2023 and 2024 born cattle leaving the country have added to the pressures on processors. Demand for Irish cattle is off the charts and is going to continue with predictions of the EU herd falling by a further 5 to 7% this year,' Mr O'Connell said. The Livestock committee Chair also called for the 'big players' in Irish processing to recognise the value of Irish beef and live exports, with European counterparts able to recognise the high environmental and legislative standards Irish beef meets. 'For the last fortnight, reality reasserted itself, and we see the factories getting nervous about the numbers and unable to pull prices further. The pressure is on them; the old tricks and ruses aren't working because the facts are just overriding them. ICMSA's advice is: keep possession and only sell when they are receiving the true value of the cattle,' suggested Mr O'Connell. Mr O'Connell invites farmers to study their options with finished cattle. He says that loyalty to processors should be gone following the price cuts of the last few weeks, and farmers should not take the first price offered to them by agents. 'The pressure is off farmers with the improvement in the weather; cattle are content and thriving, and the majority of silage has been cut. By contrast, the pressure on processors has increased and we're telling farmers to stand their ground on beef prices in the coming weeks,' concluded Mr O'Connell.
Bangkok Post
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Bangkok Post
Funny old world: the week's offbeat news
PARIS - From a hero lapdog Lassie to why tennis stars can't stop pinching Wimbledon towels. Your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world. - Chihuahua to the rescue - A chihuahua saved a hiker who fell eight metres (26 feet) into a glacier crevasse high in the Swiss Alps. The lapdog's "extraordinary" heroics surely saved his master, the Air Zermatt rescue service said, refusing to leave the spot where the man disappeared into the crevasse, leading rescuers straight to him. While the man was able to call for help with a walkie-talkie, rescuers struggled to locate him. "The glacier surface was wide and the hole was barely visible," they said. But then they spotted the tiny shivering chihuahua perched on a rock, refusing to budge. "Thanks to the dog's behaviour, the crew was able to abseil down to the casualty and save him." - Doggone luxury - In the past, stricken alpinists could count on a sup of warming brandy from a St Bernard dog. But these days, the gentle giants are more likely to be getting a massage, a manicure or a spot of hydrotherapy at the new Barryland theme park over the mountains at Martigny, where Switzerland's national dog is a major tourist attraction. Helicopters have now taken over their mountain rescue role, allowing the St. Bernards to enjoy their retirement as pampered pensioners or care dogs. - Leaping mad - Life can get a little dull on the flat Friesian polders, which may explain why the Dutch came up with one of the world's maddest sports, "fierljeppen". This involves crossing canals by clambering up a 12-metre (40-foot) pole -- roughly the height of a four-storey building -- so you can land (or be catapulted) to the other side. The uniquely Dutch sport combines pole-vaulting, long jump and, when misjudged, some unplanned swimming in the soup. Farmer and fierljeppen world record holder Jacob de Groot told AFP that the sport may not have caught on elsewhere because "in the rest of the world there are not so many canals and also maybe the people are not so crazy". - Centre Court steal - Polish tennis ace Iga Swiatek powered through the women's singles at Wimbledon, bagging as many of the tournament's trademark towels as she could carry. "No one talks about it, but we love your towels," she admitted after dispatching Russian Polina Kudermetova on Monday. "Every time I come back 10 members of my family want the towels. Sorry Wimbledon, I am not sure if I'm allowed." But the 24-year-old makes sure to keep some for herself. "I have lots at home. If I play on the circuit for another 15 years, I will have to build another room to keep them in," she laughed.
Otago Daily Times
02-07-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Concept of landscape beyond the picturesque
INNERLAND Making sense of landscapes is more than an academic exercise for Matt Vance's Innerland , and it is certainly not a travelogue about New Zealand's top scenic trails. This collection of essays is a personal journey marked by the spaces and places of Vance's life — landscapes of childhood memories, intellectual wit and critique and adventures through southern countrysides. Landscape is not a purely technical or artistic category. Vance, a Banks Peninsula-based writer, sailor and architecture lecturer, does give time to landscape as a historical concept or thing of political economy. The word itself is from the Dutch, "landschop", and was used to refer to dykes and canals and picturesque Friesian scenes where sea and land meet. But landscapes are so much more than that painting on your grandmother's wall — the rolling hills and fluffy clouds, nicely framed. "The picturesque is artifice masquerading as nature", he writes. Artifice is a major theme of the essays, though — how landscapes are produced in a personal memory or by the impersonal broad strokes of society. Later in the book, suburbia is observed as a landscape defined by fences, presenting a monoculture of well-cut lawns. The surreal landscape viewed from a car on an Auckland motorway also receives sharp observations from Vance. "An automobile removes the need to observe or engage the senses. Its speed turns the richness of experience into an abstract blur." But our idea of landscape is never pinned down too much anyway. Vance targets futile attempts by humans to make sense of every landscape. Antarctica, which Vance returns to throughout Innerland , is viewed as a landscape that refuses to be interpreted. It is a grey non-space that refuses human connection. Innerland frees landscape from its technical or artistic bounds, instead considering landscape like one might generally with spaces and places. However, it certainly doesn't lose sight of the specificity of landscapes. Canterbury and Otago are recurring settings throughout Innerland — the marginal muddy zone of the Avon/Heathcote estuary and the desert-like crossing of the Mackenzie Country feature in vivid detail, not as neutral landscapes to be framed, named and conquered but as landscapes Vance has related with, moved through or viewed as monuments to the past. Landscape is a slippery, personal concept. A collection of essays, sometimes ethnographical but often narrative-based, is a better way of handling that slipperiness than a unified theory. It allows the reader to wander around their own landscapes and ponder their — often inexplicable — relationship with spaces and places. A particular street corner in Wellington's CBD repeatedly occurred to me as I read Innerland . There's not much going on, it's an urban roadside, a simple kerb and towering building that disappears into the night sky. The landscape provides so many memories — and that perversely attractive mixture of joy and loss called nostalgia. I am sure, as Innerland would have it, it is not just the backdrop to a memory. But I can't help shaking a feeling Vance also elicits, that this particular roadside landscape stares back like the Antarctic landscape would — with total indifference. George Elliott is an ODT subeditor
