Cork Summer Show: A classic win for the Murphy family
Breeder Noel Murphy and family, from Ballinhassig, Co Cork with Ballyelan Shottle Dellia.
It’s not just wines that get better with age. Of a certain vintage, the weekend’s Cork Summer Show dairy champion will be notching up an impressive 11 years on her birthday in October.
A showring veteran featuring in numerous championships over the years, it was all in a day’s work for Ballyelan Shottle Dellia on her first day out of the season.
Judge, Lisduff man Victor O’Sullivan, explained he was impressed by the productive track record of his champion, who was homebred as an embryo from Ballyelan Pronto Dellia.
“She is a tremendously bred animal from the full-proven Dellia family. They had the advantage in terms of conformation, pedigree, genetics and production.
“For a mature cow, she has everything you like to see in the breed; she has strength, she has depth, she has a great set of legs and feet and a really quality udder,” he told the Irish Examiner.
However, despite her youthful looks, breeder Noel Murphy, from Ballinhassig, Co Cork, insisted she’s a working girl, not treated any differently from the rest of the 140-strong Holstein Friesian herd.
The herd averages 8,500 litres per cow per year and 620kg of milk solids with around 85% calving in the spring.
With six lactations completed, and 95,000 litres behind her, he’s hoping Dellia will hit the landmark lifetime achievement of 100 tonnes of milk later this year.
“Three years ago, she was the oldest cow in the showring then, but you wouldn’t think it,” Mr Murphy said.
“She hasn’t aged at all in those three years,” he joked. “She’s really one in a million.
“She only got pulled out from the field two days ago. She’s a character of the cow – she’d prefer to be running with the herd and is first into the parlour every morning.
“She is a special one, and the boys [Micheál (10) and Cathal (8)] really love her and love helping me get her ready for the shows,” he said.
“Having her and working with her has really given them an interest in the herd and an interest in dairy breeding.
But she’s not the oldest in the herd, with a handful of pen mates aged around 13 and 14.
When breeding for the next generation, Mr Murphy says he prioritises looking for a balanced animal.
“A cow that ticks all the boxes with milk fat, protein and fertility,” he said.
More results to follow, pictures and Cork Summer Show coverage in Thursday’s Farming Examiner.
