The Montbeliarde Society had a phenomenal open day at the beginning of September, welcoming around 70 people to their annual farm open day, this year by kind permission of JTH Farms near Wigan. The Society extends huge thanks to James, Sheila, Jayne Hodge and the whole team for hosting the day, welcoming everyone and making it such a success, as well as acknowledging the event sponsors Norbreck Genetics, Alta Genetics and Actionfarm (ACT Ltd).
Thanks also those who took the time to join the visit – admiring a hugely uniform Montbeliarde herd, housed in great facilities and tremendous fertility and cow welfare – we had a very interesting visit seeing the benefits, financial performance and the fit for purpose nature of the Montbeliarde breed!
The Hodge family displayed an excellent example of the progress made following 20 years of crossbreeding on Holstein to breed pure bred Montbeliardes exclusively using Coopex Montbeliarde genetics since 2003 – with progeny groups and a selection of the cows and heifers were pulled out of the main herd and showcased in the collecting yard, with progeny sired by Ogive, Omelo, Omalet, Overboard, Onemillion, Noelcerneu, Nekfeu, Milton, Millenium, Julko, Juoforez, Homygod, Hallez and Urbaniste, all on display to showcase the stamp of the herd and the improvements they have made. Their intention is to breed a medium sized cow with plenty of chest width and capacity, quality through the udder traits and in particular good legs and feet are all prioritised. Current service sires include Rooftop, Skiper, Soyans, Syrocco, Trevillers, Tox Tesincourt and Telido. The longevity of the herd was also apparent with a group of older cows in their sixth lactation and above highlighting the breeds lifespan.
James Hodge welcomed visitors and gave an overview of how the farm enterprise and herd had grown and expanded over the years highlighting the below key figures:
535 milking cows and heifers
Averaging 9385kg Milk, Fat 4.71%, Protein 3.61%, SCC 150
Calving interval 366 days
72% Submission Rate (versus UK average is 45%)
42% Conception Rate (versus UK average is 37%)
30% Preg Rate (versus UK average is 16%)
Average days to 1st breeding : 54 DIM
The family also operate a highly succesful beef enterprise alongside the dairy unit using Angus as the chosen breed. The Angus crossed Montbeliarde calves are producing great results with an average daily gain of 1.3kg/day, they are reared to around 11.5 months old with a target average weight of 500kg, they are then moved off farm to a finishing unit in Selby, East Yorkshire before been sold to direct to slaughter. Current beef prices of around £5/kg means these animals are at the moment providing a good return on investment and again the stock on display were admired.
In the youngstock shed, the uniformity of the next generation of heifers was equally impressive, sired by Piaggio, Pancho, Pittsburgh, Pompilop, Roannais, Rinvader, Recordman, Rooftop, Rustic & Rusky, the target is to calve heifers in at between 24 and 30 months. The consistency between the groups was admired with healthy well grown and well-tended to stock at every turn.
The day was a huge success and a great advert for the breed on this well run efficient family farm in Skelmersdale.
