All Breed Access: What has been the most challenging aspect of working in the registered dairy cattle business and what opportunities do you foresee in the future?

Ryan Barrett: BSE has been a major challenge for the dairy industry in Canada; however, both the Jersey and Milking Shorthorn breeds will come out of this period stronger then when it started. The Jersey breed has taken off with dramatic fashion, with membership and transfer levels as high as they””””””””ve been in many years. With the US border closed to live animals, it has allowed individual herds to improve through selective culling, but has also helped to grow the domestic market across the country, by making quality genetics available at a reasonable price.

With regard to Milking Shorthorns, it is always a challenge working in a breed with a small population and membership. To add to this, between 2002 and 2004 we lost at least 5 of our best herds due to retirement and other issues. However, these herds dispersed, and this access to top genetics attracted many more new breeders getting into the breed. In the past few months, demand for cattle has often been higher than cattle availability. Also helping this is an increase in availability of Milking Shorthorn AI sires, with most AI companies offering a selection of quality sires. The CMSS is also involved in getting more Canadian sires sampled, and there is an expectation to have the first sire from this program released later this year.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 9:11 am by sschmidt and is filed under Guest Blogger Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.