Page 68 - Demo

New Zealand Milking
Shorthorn Association
Punased lehmad- meie uhine kirg! Red cows our common passion
- The Estonian slogan for the conference
IRDBF TOUR 2023
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
Shorthorn
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