Page 68 - Shorthorn Magazine

68
Shorthorn
New Zealand Milking Shorthorn Association
IRDBF TOUR 2023
Punased lehmad- meie uhine kirg! Red cows our common passion - The Estonian slogan for the conference
Pre conference tour of Denmark included visiting the National A&P show at Herning which is in the middle of the mainland Jutland. It
a was very impressive show with fantastic facilities with cows housed in multiple barns with a vacuum line above the stalled area where cows could be milked by plugging in. The big main show ring with grand stand alongside of ring for crowds to watch with Holstein Jersey and Red Dane breeds shown in evening the Viking Genetics trade stall turned in to beer tap room socializing area.
There was farm machinery displays, beef cattle and sheep. These were more hobby shown apparently. The main agriculture in Denmark is Dairy, pigs and arable then horses with around 50 heavy horses been shown. Breeds were Jutland(local) Shire, Clydesdale, Punch and Cob types/ breeds.
They was big engagement for kids and young people for outdoors and rural experience with school groups and families taking part in many activities. Wood carving with knives, camp fire making, hand milking cows and clay target shooting. There was big hunting and fishing site with deer carcasses hanging up which we were treated to as roast venison over wood coals for dinner at show.
Our guides for the tour were Lars Inversen who was former president of Viking Genetics and involved
in the merger to bring the Nordic Red Breeds together and current president of Danish farmers union. He also runs dairy and bull fattening farm on island of Funen. Our other guide was Bjarne Serup Pedersen who had retired from farming
but still takes keen interested in farming in Denmark and Red Dane cows. He currently runs a furniture construction and firewood business from Danish oak grown on Funen and before retiring from farming was running two dairy farms. They were
great, very knowledgeable for all the many questions asked by the curious New Zealand farmers.
We visited two farms on the island of Funen on way to overnight stay in Copenhagen.
Farm one was Bjanes family farm where he grew up and is now run by his nephew Jacob who is on Viking board. Milking 400 Red Dane cows 3 times a day it was a very modern well run farm with Jacob hoping to increase to 600 cows in near future. Government rules are in place to set stocking rate at 1 cow per hectare this farm is spread over 20 km ground is used for growing crops and silage to feed the cows. Jacob discussed concerns about environmental restriction in future with CO2, his plan is to be in top ten percent to survive what the future throws at him.
The cows were housed in mix cubical stalls and straw free barn sheds.
Milk is supplied to Arla milk co-op. Rules discussed with us was a “heart system” and for every heart rating achieved they are paid extra. For example calves have to be housed
in pairs and have play stimulation in form of two rubber teats to suckle on. Cows have to have access to outside which Jacobs did but they prefer to stay in barn where it is very comfortable for them. The farm has to have certain amount of calving pens per number of cows.
Jacob has 3D cameras in barn along the feed passage and is involved
in a study with Viking, the study measures the TMR in front of cows, how much is eaten and by what
cow. It reads cows ID and monitors cows condition and weight gain or loss. The information is fed into a data base where it compares milk yield and builds data on cows feed efficiency by intake and output. Really impressive set up, apparently they use the same cameras on Xbox game consoles! There is hope to develop
cameras for grazing system by having cameras put in the cowshed to measure weight or condition changes on cows during milking .
The second was a real family enterprise run by Johan Bebe and wife Anne Katherine with the help on both their fathers. Johan’s looks after the young stock and Annes takes care of the cropping and cultivation on farm. This farm had best maize crop I saw on my travels through Europe.
Then on to the Baltic part of the
tour starting with hosts Estonia with conference business meeting in the capital Talin which started off with a guided city tour of the old part of city. With different architecture introduced by different areas or empires that
had rule over Estonia (only having
50 years independence in last 100years) like Denmark, Sweden, Germany the Russian Empire and Soviet Russia they have certainly
all left there distinct marks on the city. We enjoyed great evening of entertainment from our hosts as well as touring the hotel which had a KGB spy Museum.
Business meetings consisted of welcoming and opening presentation from ministry of agriculture. Host Estonia cattle breeders association CEO Talel Bultiko gave a outline
of how agriculture dairy industry
and trade was given and how it
has changed over last 30 years of independence from USSR followed by two presentations from Australian data gene on there roll out of red genomics across the red dairy breeds there, then a professor from a la Trobe university on breeding a bright red future.
This was followed by German re diverse study program showing research being done by a German professor with smaller populations of red dual-purpose and dairy breeds across France, Belgium Netherlands and Germany then coffee break. After the break we had