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Club News
Warm Welsh welcome for Louise Hartley Award winner Will
Towards the end of August, Will Horsley set off to West Wales for the Alta Advantage Tour as part of his prize for winning the 2017 Louise Hartley Award. We caught up with Will to find out how the tour went…
First of all, I would like to thank the Hartley family for creating the Louise Hartley Award and giving me the opportunity to go on this trip. I was deeply honoured to be the first person to win it at last year’s All Breeds All Britain Calf Show and hope that this year’s recipient has as good a time as I did. I’d also like to thank Alta Genetics for organising the tour and their generosity throughout the trip.
On Tuesday 28th August, I met up with some other guys from Cumbria and Lancashire who were also going on the tour – David Graham, Joe Metcalf and Roger Thompson – and we set off down to Wales. We eventually arrived at Tortworth Court where we were staying that night and we all agreed it was probably too fancy for a large party of farmers.....but we weren’t going to complain!
We headed to the bar and were introduced to some of the other guests, then enjoyed a great evening meal. I was amazed to find out that there were around 200 people from 16 different countries present.
The next morning we were up bright and early, ready to get on the buses to head off to the first farm of the tour, Haregrove Farm, just west of Cardiff, where they milk 500 cows. We toured several stations of talks on everything from building your own genetic index to management areas like ventilation and nutrition.
We then travelled to Manor Farm which milks 300 cows. Here we had lunch and enjoyed looking at the first of the three performance groups of the tour, which were very well organised by Mr Alan Timbrell. I was impressed by the bulls and their daughters, Alta Iota, Alta 5G and Alta Oak to name just three.
The last visit of the day was to the largest unit on the tour, Langdon Mill Farm, with 2,300 milking cows. Here we had more talks and demos, as well as getting to look around the unit and see their impressive new dry cow shed and calving barn.
Next port of call was The Vale Resort where we stayed for two nights. It was equally as impressive as Tortworth Court and is apparently where the Welsh rugby union team stay while on international duty. Here we had another good evening reception.
Again we were up bright and early the following morning to get breakfast and set off to the most westerly farm on the tour, Velindre, which is on the south-west coast. For me, this was the most impressive and well run unit on the tour. The family milks 800 cows, achieving a 30% pregnancy rate across their cows, and 35% across the maiden heifers. It was also good to see that, although primarily breeding for production and health traits, they weren’t totally disregarding type and conformation.
We had further interesting talks on foot health, calf rearing and dry cow management. After this, we moved on to the 400 milk cow Littlehook Farm for lunch. There we saw what I thought was the most impressive of the three performance groups with a great second lactation cow by Alta Oak, which was the stand-out animal in my opinion.
After lunch, when the Latvian group finally got its bus pushed off the stubble field on which it was parked, we moved on to the final visit of the tour – Fforest Farm, who milk 400 cows, again right on the coast.
We had some more talks and a question-and-answer session with some other Alta Advantage partner farmers (solely Alta breeding farms) and then it was time for the standard big group picture taken by drone-mounted camera, before heading back to The Vale Resort for an evening meal and a few drinks which escalated to a night out in Cardiff. And, no, we weren’t up that bright and early on the Friday to come home!
Once again I would like to thank The Hartley Family, Holstein UK and Alta Genetics for making this possible and I wish this year’s recipient, whoever it may be, all the best with their chosen prize.
Holstein Young Breeders launched the Louise Hartley Award in 2017, to honour passionate Holstein breeder and dedicated Lancashire Club member, Louise Hartley, who sadly lost her battle to cancer. As a remarkable ambassador for British farming, with a passion for livestock, HYB felt this Award provided ongoing recognition of the inspirational talent shown by Louise. The Louise Hartley Award is sponsored by Alta Genetics, in conjunction with the Louise Hartley Memorial Fund, and was awarded to the first-ever winner, Will Horsley in 2017.
Photograph taken of the 2018 Alta Advantage Tour delegates at Fforest Farm, Wales (Credit: Ellen Kadijk)
For further information, please contact:
Naomi Lewis, Holstein UK Marketing Coordinator
Tel: 01923 695348
Email: naomilewis@holstein-uk.org