Paula Hynes: Our hard work pays off at Sedgemoor
Team Panda - Annabell Cobbs, Georgia Hynes, Becky Hynes, Jack Westwood, judge Richard Armstrong, Molly Westwood - pictured at the All-Britain All-Breeds Calf Show. Picture: Eve Thomlinson
With Becky away in the UK preparing for the Sedgemoor Calf Show and UK Dairy Day, we headed to Limerick Show, which was our final outdoor show for the season. The show is held in Limerick Racecourse, which was formerly Greenmount Stud; and interestingly enough, my husband Pete used to work in Greenmount Stud during his school holidays and weekends as a young fella.
The stud farm stood top-class flat bred stallions back in the day and also boarded broodmares for owners across the world, Pete even recalls mucking out and leading a mare owned by ABBA.
It must be a little strange to be back walking on those fields where he previously walked mares and foals and picked ragwort, but now that it is home to Limerick Show, we are always delighted to be back as there is top-class competition there and fantastic prize money which attracts big entries.
Georgie finished the summer shows in style by claiming the top spot in the Junior showmanship class again; Callum was also with us, and on what was only his third show, he also took the red rosette in the Intermediate showmanship class against stiff competition, a huge achievement for him and hopefully a memory that will last a long time reminding him of his summer with dairy cows.
Our January heifers were placed fourth and fifth in class just before the big class of the day, the Kerry Agri All-Ireland Holstein Heifer championship; our entry for the championship was Jones Haniko Fame, an October-born heifer from an outstanding cow family. With a packed ring for the class, Fame walked beautifully for me and truly is a wonderful heifer on the halter.
With the summer shows behind us, it was time this week to let some more young heifers out to grass along with fresh paddocks for the maiden heifers and in-calf heifers, most of which are on after grass now.
The cows have also been grazing after grass this week during the day. Life is never simple on a farm, and we had a brief outbreak of rotavirus among the newborn calves; this added greatly to the workload as not only were the calves being fed twice daily on milk, but they also received two further feeds of electrolytes within a 24-hour period.
We also increased the dosage of Precision Microbes to 60ml immediately, and rather than including it in the milk while calves were sick, we chose to dose them individually with 30ml every 12 hours until each calf had recovered completely. Thankfully, it was a quick recovery for all the calves who are bouncing fit now in their straw pens. Sick calves increase the workload, but it is always worth the extra effort to see them make a full recovery.
With the farm somewhat organised for Pete, Georgie had her first day back at Kilbonane National School after the summer holidays on Thursday morning so that she could meet her new teacher for the coming year.
It was a brief visit to school, though, as I had to collect her at lunchtime in order for us to get an afternoon train to Dublin to catch our flight out to Bristol as the girls were competing at the Sedgemoor Calf show, which is the South West HYB qualifier for the All Breeds All Britain calf show in September.
With Becky already out in the UK preparing the team of heifers at Panda Holsteins, it was just myself and Georgie making the long but brief journey as Pete was looking after the farm at home. Sedgemoor is 30 miles south of Bristol Airport, and show days are always an early rise.
Georgie and I were out of bed at 4am, and Becky and Molly arrived with the heifers at 5am. With the show kicking off at 11am, it was a busy morning for the team, ensuring all the heifers were spotlessly clean, all topped, and constantly eating to ensure they had a good fill. Sparkles, one of the heifers we own in partnership with Panda Holsteins, had greatly improved since her first outing at the New Forrest show a month ago.
They are always cool on the halter and focus on the task ahead in the showring, stress and emotions get dealt with in a quiet corner, back at the cattle stalls. Georgie is no stranger to still competition and has quickly built up a great partnership with Sparkles and kicked off the day with a win in the Junior showmanship.
Becky had Lady Gaga on the halter for the Senior showmanship; Lady Gaga is actually a sister to our heifer Magic, which Becky showed last season. She has put a mammoth effort into Lady Gaga over the last few months, ensuring the heifer was flawless on the halter.
I can honestly say the hours of hard work paid of as the pair were perfection in the ring, claiming the win in the Senior showmanship, judge Richard Armstrong commented that in his opinion it was a foot-perfect display of showmanship.
With the showmanship results in the bag, Georgie was back in the ring with Sparkles for the December-born Holstein class and again took the red rosette, with Sparkles safely qualified, Becky went on to claim first place with Panda Cheesecake Red and Lady Gaga.
Georgie teamed up again with Sparkles to win the Red and White Holstein heifer December born class and the duo had a big team for the heifer championship. Sparkles claimed overall best Red and White Holstein of the show, Becky had the choice of heifers for the championship, Lady Gaga was her selection and as judge Richard Armstrong lined up his final five championship contenders, it was a special moment to see both our girls still in the running. Becky chose wisely as the judge high-fived her to tap Lady Gaga out as champion heifer; Georgie was nipping at her heels, though, as she claimed reserve champion heifer with Sparkles.
There have been tears of joy and tears of sadness on this journey, but as parents, we were are immensely proud of the passion and determination these two girls have; their professionalism shines through in the showring and their passion for working with dairy stock will never be diminished, who knows where the journey will end but all the messages of good luck to the girls were truly appreciated.
Georgie was back out of bed early on the Saturday morning to help at the Eedy sale while Becky remained in the UK and was up again at 4am on the Saturday to wash and top a team of heifers for photographing.
