For the love of cows

Posted on November 23, 2022 by Agmoos

A girl and her heifer in the full-circle of a cow-loving community

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Sometimes you hear something that strikes a chord and you want to know more… As we start this season of thanksgiving, there are young people all over the country who are thankful for the love of cows. They may have parents and grandparents who feel this way too. Some may operate dairy farms, others may rely on the older generation and a tight-knit cow-loving rural community, like the one in Susquehanna County, to make it possible. Such is the story of Delaney Curley and her Red and White winter yearling Curlydell Warrior Summer-Red — each with her own tale that would not be possible except for the love of cows.

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, November 4, 2022

IRISH HILL, Pa. – The past three years have been a dream come true for Delaney Curley as her family moved to Irish Hill just a mile or so from her grandparent’s farm outside of Montrose.

Growing up, she would stay with Bob and Mary Curley for weeks at a time in the summer. Laura, her mother, recalls the crying the entire hour and a half drive home to Mountain Top. The Susquehanna County farm is where Delaney had her 4-H club, her cousins and friends with similar interests and the wide open spaces of the mountains, hunting and fishing, all of it calling her to pursue conservation science after she graduates from Elk Lake High School this year.

“We didn’t always live here. When we lived in Mountain Top, grandma and grandpa’s farm was a magical place for me. I love every part of it – working with the animals especially,” Delaney reflects. “Here, in this tight knit rural community, I found people like me.”

Bob sold his 60-cow milking herd in 2001. He is the fifth generation with 540 acres of crop, hay and pasture land. The main farm has been in his family since the Curleys came to America from Ireland in 1840. Today, he rents corn acres to a nearby farm and he and son Bill, Delaney’s father, manage the hay and pasture land with 20 to 30 heifers on hand, additional progeny of earlier purchases by the sixth generation for the seventh generation to show over the years, and some dry cows.

If not for Bob’s love of cows, this story would not be unfolding. It began when Delaney’s cousin Cali was the first of Bob’s grandchildren wanting show calves but having no home herd to draw from.

While the Jersey, Holstein and Red and White heifers start out at Bob’s farm until they become milk cows, breeding for Red Holsteins has special significance. Bill recalls his dad breeding for Reds before it was cool, but as a youth, Bill never won a class in all of his show years. Back then, Red and White Holsteins showed with Black and Whites, but the industry’s breeding focus for Reds came later.

When his niece Cali started showing, “that’s when our quest to be an owner-breeder began,” Bill reflects. They got her started with a calf purchased at the Nittany Lion Fall Classic, and she raised her to be grand champion Holstein of the State Junior Show. Bill’s son Patrick and later his sister Delaney got started with a purchase of bred Jersey heifers from Luchsingers in New York, and a Jersey calf out of that developed into a champion.

Those heifers calved and the 20 to 30 milk cows they became went to Joe Vanderfeltz’s 400-cow freestall herd for milking, so the Curleys could keep working toward that owner-bred herd, which today includes the Holsteins. Heifers are pasture bred by genomic bulls, and the milk cows at Vanderfeltz’s are AI-bred. Those calves come back to Curlydell.

For the love of cows, they didn’t want to just buy and show, but rather to breed for show. That was especially important to Delaney.

“We’ve always viewed the show animals as 4-H projects to go through to states and have the kids working with them and making those decisions… to take out to show what you are proud of,” says Bill.

Even for Patrick, who gravitates to the technology side of dairy data working for Ever.Ag, showing cows was fun, he says.

In Delaney’s case, however, it’s for the love of cows.

It’s a foggy, drizzly morning on Irish Hill and the family reflects over breakfast on the move here and the owner-breeder herd that’s been developed over the decade of youth shows. For example, Delaney’s first Jersey ‘Ricki’ was purchased as a two-month-old calf and won banners as a 4-year-old in 2018. Today, she is 10 years old in the retired cow meadow.

Yes, for the love of cows they have a meadow for special retirees.

Throughout the mountains of Susquehanna County in Northeast Pennsylvania, there are families who still milk cows, but even more families who still love them, breed them, show them and care for them.

The county show at the Harford Fair in New Milford is always quite competitive.

“Our county show is small, but the quality is always amazing,” Bill relates. “If we do well locally, we know we can be competitive to do well in Harrisburg. The competition is deep with so many top breeder herds right here in our county.”

In fact, three of the animals in the pull for junior champion at the 2022 Premier National Junior Show (PNJS) during the All American in Harrisburg in September came from Susquehanna County.

“That’s a nice meter stick,” Bill affirms, noting that Delaney’s Summer was one of them. Her first-place winter yearling Curlydell Warrior Summer lived up to her name and gave Delaney a perfect undefeated summer from county to districts to states and nationals.

Further testament to the owner breeder herds of the area, when Delaney’s heifer earned bred and owned junior champion, all but two of the breeds had owner-breeder champions from Susquehanna County.

“They are all friends. To have that competition and friendship starting out in your home county, it really pushes you to up your game,” says Laura.

Summer was taken off pasture just 10 days before the county show, where she won her class and was reserve junior champion. Her dam Scarlet had done okay before her — winning districts and doing well in the state show against 30 other animals.

But then she had this polled Warrior heifer.

“There’s something about when your animal that you own has her calf, it’s just more special,” says Delaney.

Summer did well as a winter calf last year. She started out small, born at 70 pounds as the offspring of a first-calf heifer, but nice and solid with show type. She had placings of 4^th and 5^th in her class and onlookers told Delaney she’d be one to beat the following year.

And so she was, this year winning her classes against Reds and Blacks.

“She’s the kind of heifer that the more you look at her, the more you like her, not a lot of flaws,” says Bob, knowingly.

With Scarlet’s second calf Sage, Delaney was excited to show produce of dam. The best feeling, she says, “is to win when you’re not expecting it.”

When Delaney and Summer entered the PNJS showring in Harrisburg, the judge took one look and moved right on. She recalls positioning Summer for another look, but figured she was written off. Then, halfway around the ring, “he pointed to me for the pull, and I thought he wasn’t interested.”

That’s a thrill that is hard to describe, she recalls with a smile.

For Bill, the win was a full-circle of emotion involving Summer’s story that goes back to Bill’s longtime friend.

“We did the easy thing, breeding Scarlet to Warrior. You would have to go back to Starbuck for a bull that stamps them like that,” he says.

“But David Mattocks bred her mother. He did the hard work,” Bill recalls his good friend who lost his battle with cancer four years ago this month. Summer’s granddam was purchased from the Da-Vue dispersal.

It was Dave’s love of cows, his commitment to four decades of breeding until those last several months of his life, that also live on in this heifer, a heifer that Bill’s father has also bonded with.

Bill had intended to buy her as a bred heifer at the Da-Vue dispersal in 2018. He and Joe had picked two heifers on conformation.

“Then I looked at the pedigrees and saw one traced back to Dave’s first Excellent cow. That cow was all he talked about on our trips back and forth to Penn State,” Bill recalls their college years in the late 1980s.

“Dave had big dreams, we lost him way too soon,” says Bill. While they were in college, Dave was in partnership with his uncle, and he always talked about this cow Scenic-Vue Stewart Starr. She was Good Plus at the time and became his first Excellent cow.

When Bill got to the dispersal at Fisher’s, he ended up missing the heifer that went back six generations to that cow, but he bought three or four others, “just not the one I wanted.”

A couple weeks later Bill got a call from Dave Lentz, that a few animals were left over from the sale, and by some miracle Starr was one of them.

“Dave (Mattocks) and I went down together to pick her up. His health was failing,” Bill recalls, explaining that the heifer represents so many ties – family, friendship, dreams, memories, past, future, all for the love of cows.

It was definitely for the love of cows that Dave knew at age 10 he wanted to be a dairy farmer. He learned from his uncle before him and credited the dairy community around him in his welcome letter for the dispersal, writing: “There is no other industry that so abounds in people that would do anything for you,” thanking those by name who helped when he was down.

The sale was in February 2018 and in November that year, Dave was called to his heavenly home.

That bred heifer Bill bought — Da-Vue Reality Spirit-Red, granddam to Delaney’s Summer — now represents a blending of seven generations of Very Good and Excellent cows from Dave’s herd, his dreams and vision, now part of the owner-breeder herd at Curlydell with Summer and Sage from Spirit’s daughter Da-Vue Fusion Scarlet-Red.

“Her name was Spirit, and she was surely spirited,” Bob recalls the chase when she came off the truck the day Bill and Dave brought her to Irish Hill. Her first few weeks there in the tiestall and pasture, not quite a springer yet, were not without challenges.

“I try not to let any of her calves see an open barn door,” Bob laughs, remembering the time Spirit managed to get into the hay mow through the hay drop, and the devil of a time getting her out. He and Delaney baby the calves that have come from her. Today, Spirit is part of the flow of the freestall herd that suits her as a milking cow, making 40,000 pounds of milk at Vanderfeltz’s.

“He takes care of our milk cows like they are his own, and we consult on the breeding decisions,” says Bill, getting the calves back and returning them as milk cows.

Making the move three years ago to Irish Hill was Delaney’s idea to be where her cows are, along with her 4-H club, her cousins and friends, her grandparents and the hunting and fishing.

“If we were going to do it, that was the time, before she started high school,” says Bill. Leaving Mountain Top, where Laura grew up, was hard, but her parents had passed away and Bill’s parents are like her own.

The entire family moved, first renting a place, then buying a home just down the road from the farm.

For the love of cows, Delaney is where she wanted to be, where she could double-down on her 4-H projects – her Jerseys and Holsteins, especially the Red and Whites.

“We’re glad we’re here on Irish Hill. It’s a place where life really hasn’t changed much. There is a good core of families and kids here all engaged in showing cows, a place where we can wake up and take the 4-wheeler to the barn. It’s hard to describe what that means,” Bill explains.

For the love of cows, they are home and the outdoors from the cow pastures to the mountain wilderness are what steer this Elk Lake High School senior to take her basketball skills and interest in conservation to Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondacks next fall.

While some cattle from the heifer meadow will be sold, Delaney wants to keep a core herd of pedigreed Jerseys and Red and Whites, to keep showing as an owner-breeder – even after 4-H.

“My grandfather did it all before we moved up here,” says Delaney.

“None of this would work without Dad. We could only do this with him. Some would call that elder-abuse,” Bill laughs, adding that living here gives him time he’s glad to have, even if it’s just 45 minutes a day doing chores with his dad and hearing stories… for the love of cows.

Laura relates how her father-in-law loves the baby calves, “even after they are weaned and two months old, he’s bringing warm water to them twice a day.”

Quietly listening, Bob puts it all into perspective.

“I’d be lost if I didn’t have it to do,” he said.

For the love of cows, adds Bill, “this is how we end up with retired cows living in a pasture.”

But more to the point, he says as the rest of the family nods in agreement: “Every single thing that we have here, or that the farm has, is owed to the cows. Period. I can’t imagine not having at least one, and so we do things that might not make sense but that we feel good about.”

If only the generations removed from farms could have this shared experience, to get in touch with this feeling… For the love of cows, they might not believe the cow blame-game regarding climate and the environment.

With her eye toward a future in the open spaces and conservation science, maybe this young lady — and others of her generation like her — can bring that love of cows to others and keep it going.

For the love of cows, family and friendships — three generations reminisce: Bob Curley and granddaughter Delaney with her undefeated homebred polled winter yearling Curleydell Warrior Summer-Red, and Delaney’s parents Bill and Laura with Summer’s dam, Da-Vue Fusion Scarlet-Red. Her dam Da-Vue Reality Spirit-Red is a productive milk cow at the nearby Vanderfeltz farm that Bill purchased as a bred heifer from the Da-Vue herd dispersal in 2018. She goes back to the first Excellent cow his longtime friend, Dave Mattocks would talk about during their college years driving back and forth to Penn State in the 1980s. Dave was called to his heavenly home in November 2018, nine months after the herd dispersal and his courageous battle with cancer. Photos by Sherry Bunting

A plea for Eve: ‘She deserves our every consideration. She earned it.’

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Agmoos

Eve Project seeks 200,000-pound record for Elevation’s dam: Relocated from Pennsylvania to Canada for trailblazing ET surgery in 1974 left 8^th lactation incomplete

For George Miller, Eve is special. He is pictured here at the 2011 National Convention in Virginia. He was recognized in 2019 by Holstein USA for distinguished service, noting his vision, leadership, determination and advocacy for the Holstein cow and the people behind her. Today, at age 94, George is under nursing care, residing with his wife Pippin. (Cards and well wishes can be sent to the Millers at 5675 Ponderosa Drive, Apt. 304, Columbus, OH 43231) Sherry Bunting photo

By Sherry Bunting, published Farmshine, January 15, 2021

BROWNSTOWN, Pa. — Less than 4000 pounds. That’s what separates Round Oak Ivanhoe Eve’s recorded lifetime production from the 200,000-pound mark she is believed to have earned but for the circumstances of her relocation and donor cow surgery at the peak of her eighth lactation.

Aptly named ‘Eve’, the dam of the one and only Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation has touched over 95% of the Holstein breed — given Elevation’s more than 100,000 recorded offspring and around 9 million descendants, worldwide.

In fact, her son’s growing impact was part of the reason she was relocated for several months in 1974 from her last owners in Pennsylvania to Modern Ova Trends, Norval, Ontario, Canada for superovulation and embryo recovery transfer surgery to attempt a multiple repeat of the mating that had produced Elevation a decade earlier.

That move at 12 years of age, in peak lactation, created a lapse in milk recording that shorted Round Oak Ivanhoe Eve’s lifetime record to be 3,970 pounds shy of the 200,000-pound mark at 196,030M 4.1 8070F.

This shortfall is believed to be milk Eve made, or would have made, in the second part of her eighth lactation had she not been a trailblazer. She was housed several months mainly with beef animals as the only lactating animal in a facility without milk-recording and submitted to embryo transfer, which in those days was major surgery, especially for an aged lactating cow.

Round Oak Ivanhoe Eve EX94 4E was making 100 pounds of milk a day when pictured in September 1971 at Willsholm Holsteins, Berlin, Pa. at around age 8. She had already had at least two lactations over 1000 pounds of fat by that point. Photo courtesy

Bred by the Ron Hope family of Round Oak Farms, Purcellville, Virginia, Eve produced Elevation in 1965 at age 3. She was sold at age 8 in the 1970 Round Oak dispersal to the late Calvin Will of Willsholm Holsteins, Berlin, Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The sale occurred when her son was still a young sire, before his prowess for transmitting that rare combination of production, conformation, fertility, and longevity had the world clamoring for Elevation.

For 2019 Holstein USA distinguished service award winner George Miller, Eve is special.

George Miller spent his lifelong career in Holstein genetics, 17 years with Virginia Artificial Breeders Association (VaABA), which merged to become part of Select Sires, Inc., with Miller serving as director of marketing from 1973 through retirement.

Miller grew up helping at his uncle’s Round Oak farm and had early involvement with his cousin Ron Hope’s development of the Holstein herd, even while earning his Master of Science at Virginia Tech. Recognized as instrumental in directing the development of ‘do-it-yourself’ insemination programs to propel A.I. and genetic progress cost-effectively for dairy farmers, Miller’s keen eye for cattle and knowledge of bulls as a sire analyst in those early days of A.I., led to his participation in a series of decisions at Round Oak.

Key decisions included the purchase of Ivanhoe semen in Lancaster, Pa. in 1958, which led to the mating that produced Round Oak Ivanhoe Eve as well as Miller’s suggested mating of Eve to Tidy Burke Elevation that produced Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation.

The rest, as they say, is history, except for a bit of unfinished business for Eve.

During a December 2020 conversation between two 1974-78 University of Guelph classmates, the Eve Project was born. The Eve Project is a proposal to Holstein Associations USA and Canada, requesting Eve’s legacy be reviewed for special consideration of her lifetime milk record based on her circumstances in 1974.

Not long ago, Miller inquired about Eve’s production record. Miller, 94, has been retired from Select Sires since 1996, but continued active in Holstein genetics. He is currently in nursing care, residing with his wife Pippin at Friendship Village in Columbus, Ohio. Eve is on his mind.

A close friend Mark Comfort, co-founder of Udder Comfort and founder of Transfer Genetics, which became TransCanada Select Sires, Ontario, discovered last month that there is more to Eve’s story after communicating with classmate John Birks of Modern Ova Trends, Via Pax Corp Ltd., and TRIAD ET Ltd., Ontario.

As a college student, Birks was a weekend herdsman for Modern Ova Trends in 1974. He remembers Eve as the “iron lady” because of her strength, production and easy going, undaunted nature.

Birks also began looking into Eve’s production record, recently finding that almost half of her eighth lactation is missing.

In a December 2020 letter to Holstein Associations USA and Canada, Birks makes the strong case. Unlike many cows that had trouble coming back after what was major ET surgery, Eve not only continued to milk, she went on to breed back and have a ninth lactation at 14 years of age!

The Eve Project is simply a request to respect her legacy and review her production history, “that she may be awarded the 200,000-pound lifetime record, which she deserves,” Comfort relates in an email.

“George and Eve have influenced the Holstein breed,” Comfort explains. He says Miller’s impact on him and others of the Select Sires family “is absolutely appreciated. We are thankful for the influence he has had on our lives, causing us to be better people. His ideals and principles are second to none.”

Gathered in 1979 to commemorate Elevation at Select Sires, Plain City, Ohio are (l-r) Ronald and Marjorie Hope of Round Oak; Robert H. Rumler, executive secretary Holstein Association USA; Richard Chichester, Select Sires general manager; and George A. Miller, Select Sires director of marketing. Photo courtesy Select Sires

At the same time, Miller’s work with Eve touched so many in the Holstein breed.

Nowadays, a breeder can request a ‘special consideration’ waiver from the DHIA company to calculate unrecorded milk for sick cows or traveling cows for up to two milk tests of up to 75 days each. If Eve were alive today, relocating for surgery or traveling on extended show circuit, a qualified waiver could be requested and potentially approved.

In retrospect, this is all that would be needed to account for her time off-test during the ET work in Canada; however, Eve lived almost half a century ago.

“George thinks the Eve project is a long shot, but his love for this cow is undeniable,” Comfort says, relating a recent conversation in which Miller recalled visiting Eve at Willsholm after she returned from Canada.

He had been impressed with her care and how beautiful she looked at 14, how she had thrived after the surgery, breeding back with a Fond Matt bull calf.

“This is a testament to her iron will. All we want is a chance to be heard, to plead our case. In my letter to the associations, I emphasized that Eve had a major surgical procedure. Few people today realize how challenging surgical embryo recovery was then,” writes Birks in an email, listing several top-of-mind examples of high-profile Holsteins that died shortly after this surgery.

Birks observes that Eve’s time under care for ET surgery in Canada easily equates to the special consideration given today to sick cows or show cows away from home for extended periods of time.

“The reality is, Eve did produce these 4000 pounds of milk during her several-month relocation,” writes Birks in his letter. “Please focus on Eve’s eighth lactation starting June 26, 1973, which is recorded as 181 days, 14,949 pounds 4.2% ending January 23, 1974. Obviously, this is an incomplete record, but there is a logical and verifiable reason.”

Birks explains that in the second half of 1973, two embryo transfer facilities were established in Canada, one being Modern Ova Trends. They were initiated to fill a North American demand to reproduce exotic beef imports from Europe. The technology was equally applicable to dairy cattle, but new.

“The owners of Round Oak Ivanhoe Eve chose to submit her to this ground-breaking, cutting edge procedure. In January or February 1974 at 181 DIM, Eve was sent to Modern Ova Trends… to undergo superovulation and embryo transfer,” Birks writes firsthand as he worked there at the time.

“Eve was attended to by a very capable herdsman, Ron Westgate, a former employee of Romandale Farms Limited. Eve was the only lactating cow at Modern Ova Trends in 1974. Ron and I were hired by Dr. Donald C. Wilson (1941-2020) a veterinarian with G.D Stirk and Associates, Brampton, ON,” Birks recalls, stating that Westgate can “verify Eve was milking during winter and spring. He worked with her daily. I was weekend barn staff.”

Birks goes on to explain that, “Official milk recording was not provided to the embryo transfer industry in Canada until 1977 at Via Pax Corp. Limited Woodbridge, Ontario. It was recognised in 1977 that many seedstock cows were away from home and were absent for two or more official tests leaving gaps in their official records. I know this to be factual because I worked at Via Pax at the time.”

Eve’s ET time in Canada was three years earlier. She arrived in mid-winter 1974, was superovulated in early spring 1974 and inseminated to Tidy Burke Elevation by Modern Ova Trends veterinarian Dr. Casey Ringleberg, now retired, according to Birks, who assisted.

“By today’s ET standards, surgical embryo transfer was a laborious and challenging procedure,” he writes, explaining the procedure in detail in his letter. “Eve recovered and continued to milk. She was also able to return to the U.S…. and completed a ninth lactation starting May 4, 1976. This iron lady finished her career with a 14 year 305-day record of 20,000 pounds and 25,000 pounds in 519 days. With the completion of this record, her official lifetime total is 196,030 pounds.”

Dan Will also has great respect for Eve. He recalls the day 51 years ago when his father paid $11,000 for her at the Round Oak dispersal, where Eve was among 15 Ivanhoe daughters sold.

“That was back when a unit of Elevation was still $1.50 and plentiful. Neighbors thought we were nuts, but she was worth that, probably 20 times over. She helped spark my interest in the registered Holstein business, brought people in the driveway, and made dairy farming very interesting for me. We loved that cow,” Will relates in a Farmshine phone interview this week.

When Elevation earned his Gold Medal on first provings in 1971, Holstein World featured Eve and Elevation on the cover. Courtesy photocopy

From 1970 until 2016, when Dan and his brother John dispersed the Willsholm herd, their North View Farm in Berlin, Pa., was known as “Home of the Eve family.”

Will visited Eve while she was in Canada. “She looked really good and well taken care of,” he recalls.

“She was a tremendous milk cow. She was a strong cow, big framed, a real good eater. The challenge was always to keep the feed in front of her,” Will says. “Eve gave a lot of milk, never kicked, milked out clean in all four quarters. She was a real pleasure to work with. I don’t recall her ever being sick and I don’t recall her ever having mastitis.”

Birks puts the Eve Project into perspective as boiling down to respect.

“Eve left the U.S. at 181 DIM for a procedure that was in the best interests of advancing the Holstein breed. She was absent from her home and official milk recording during the peak of lactation in a country (Canada) and facility (Modern Ova Trends) being submitted to a procedure (superovulation and surgical embryo recovery). Official milk recording was not considered,” Birks explains.

“She was stuck in limbo because she was a trailblazer,” Birks writes. “The stark reality is that the donor population at Modern Ova Trends at the time was almost exclusively European beef imports, many right off the plane or boat, subject to strict quarantine requirements. Eve could not have been sent to an Export/AI herd such as Rowntree Farms Limited for milk recording.”

With a “keen sense of duty to a great cow,” Birks respectfully proposes special consideration for extending the eighth lactation of Eve starting July 26,1973 by a suitable number of tests to “credit this great cow with the additional 4000 pounds. God knows she deserves our every consideration. She earned it,” he writes.

Others have described Eve’s strength in historical writings of the Holstein breed.

During the Century of Holsteins celebration, the Virginia Holstein Association wrote: “No one Holstein animal can claim the impact worldwide as Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation. His dam, Round Oak Ivanhoe Eve (4E-94) was a big, tall, open-ribbed Ivanhoe daughter that traces 20 times to Johanna Rag Apple Pabst.”

Former Loudoun County, Va. extension agent Walter S. McClure, Sr. writes: “Eve was sired by Osborndale Ivanhoe, who was quickly becoming the most exciting bull in the Holstein industry. Over the next few years, I watched her develop into a tremendous cow both in production and type, producing a maternal line 6 generations of Excellent dams.”

McClure was with VABA by 1966 and recalls the day the Holstein Sire Committee agreed to go to Round Oak after the annual field day to see Eve’s yearling son Elevation. “Today, his influence, and that of his dam, is in the pedigree of over 90% of recent Holstein bulls in almost every major dairy country worldwide,” wrote McClure in 2016.

During a 2013 Farmshine interview, Miller recalled the path to Elevation really started for Round Oak with the Hope family’s interest in the line-bred Rag Apple family of Mount Victoria in Quebec. The line descended from owner T.B. Macauley’s purchase of Johanna Rag Apple Pabst in the 1920s.

Eve’s dam came from this line.

“Ivanhoe was the most extreme bull we ever saw,” Miller recalled the stop made in Lancaster at Southeast Pennsylvania Animal Breeder’s Cooperative (which became Atlantic Breeders) on the way to the National Convention in Boston in 1958.

“Ivanhoe was taller and longer, a breed-changer in my opinion. My cousin (Ron Hope) ordered 100 units of Ivanhoe that day for that reason,” said Miller.

Hope had been using two bulls from Glenafton Farms in Canada. One was Glenafton Gaity. “I suggested they breed Gaiety daughters to Ivanhoe. As those Ivanhoe daughters started freshening, they were impressive,” Miller related.

One of those impressive Ivanhoe x Gaity daughters was Eve.

Round Oak’s first significant outcross in 20 years was the mating suggested by Miller of Round Oak Ivanhoe Eve to Tidy Burke Elevation that produced Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation.

In fact, the surgery on Eve at Modern Ova in 1974 was an effort 9 years later to repeat and multiply that breeding. No fertile embryos were recovered.

Eve recovered and thrived according to first-hand accounts of those who cared for and worked with her. The procedures did not keep her from milking. Had she been able to transfer to a facility with milk recording, the remainder of her eighth lactation would have been recorded.

With great respect for George Miller and his love for this beautiful ‘iron lady’, those involved in the Eve Project are hoping the Holstein Association USA and Canada will consider Birks’ letter and proposal. Holstein enthusiasts who are interested or able to provide further details or information are encouraged to contact the association, and/or the Eve Project via John Birks at john.birks@live.com and Mark Comfort at comfort@ripnet.com.

Fans of Eve are also hoping those associated with the former Pennsylvania DHIA, which Will says did the official milk recording at Willsholm in those days, could posthumously evaluate her eighth lactation for special consideration waiver almost half a century later.

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A Select Sires ad in March 1971 Holstein World featured Eve and Elevation. Volumes have been written about Elevation’s impact, worldwide. Courtesy photocopy

This highway marker in Virginia signifies the birthplace of Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation EX96 Gold Medal, Bull of the Century. Photo courtesy Virginia Holstein Association

‘Bred-and-owned’ declared best of best at 50th WDE

Posted on October 24, 2016 by Agmoos

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Oct. 14, 2016 (Photos by author except where noted)

MADISON, Wis. — As the World Dairy Expo celebrated 50 years earlier this month, nostalgia could be found both in and out of the showring. For starters, the five days of shows for seven breeds yielded grand champions that were predominantly bred-and-owned, many with their breeder-owners at the halter.

In fact, six of seven open grands and four of seven junior grands were bred and owned. Let’s take them in alphabetical breed order!

Throughout the week, judges recognized how difficult it is to get to this show and win, and even more so to breed the animal and get her here and win. Exhibitors, judges and breeders, alike, point out in their own way that there is as much art as there is science to breeding a top cow… but also a bit of luck.

Take for example, the grand champion of the International Ayrshire Show: Margot Patagonie was bred, owned and exhibited by Expo first-timer Ferme Margot of Ste Perpétue, Quebec, Canada.

The striking thing about this grand champion is that not only did Ferme Margot breed the winning cow, they also bred her dam and her sire! What an achievement for the visiting World Ayrshire Conference to witness during their time in Madison, where they also saw the Expo’s largest Ayrshire show ever, with 321 entries, reportedly 60 more entries than the previous record.

In the junior Ayrshire competition, Erin Curtis-Szalach of Cedarcut Farms, Cazenovia, New York, knabbed grand champion honors for the second straight year with her bred-and-owned Cedarcut Burdette Clove Colatta.

She also made a strong honorable mention grand champion and total performance winning in the Open Show where entries were up by 60.

In the Brown Swiss competition, which also topped previous records with 385 entries, both grand champions were repeat show-toppers as well as bred-and-owned with owners at the halter.

Brown Heaven Glenn Fantasy topped the open show with Josee Charron from Ferme Brown Heaven, Vercheres, Quebec at the halter.

Kyle Barton, grandson of Ken Main of Elite Dairy, Copake, New York, earned the grand champion banner in junior competition for the second year with homebred Cutting Edge T Delilah (below).

She went on to be reserve supreme of the Junior Show, and she was reserve grand champion of the open Brown Swiss Show, second only to Fantasy (above).

Kyle and his older brother Mickey have done quite well over the years and their grandfather is pleased that they enjoy the cattle among their other activities.

Among the Guernseys, it was bred-and-owned Flambeau Manor Ro Lauren-ET to go grand in the Open Show. With Tracy Mitchell again at the halter, Lauren repeated her 2014 performance as grand champion for Gary and Steve Van Doorn of Flambeau Manor, Tony, Wisconsin.

Among the juniors, Austin and Landen Knapp of Epworth, Iowa threepeated with the homebred Knapps Regis Tambourine-ET. The Knapps are premier breeders.

A large field of Holsteins narrowed down to grand champion Sheeknoll Durham Arrow. She impressed judge Pat Conroy as a cow that “lets you know she does not need to be pampered.” With Jeannette Sheehan at the halter, the aged cow moved through the ranks to achieve a storybook ending for her leadswoman, whose father Vernon Hupf — a lifelong farmer who attended every World Dairy Expo but this one as a spectator — had passed away in June.

“To win the show that Dad idolized is just amazing,” said Jeannette after “Thomas” (as the cow is affectionately known to all after a grandson dubbed her as a calf in honor of Thomas the Train) went reserve supreme of the International Open Shows Saturday night.

“Each time the judge picked her out, I was surprised, but I didn’t have time to process what was happening. I was pretty much just trying to hang on to the cow. At one point it just felt like Dad was here, on my shoulder telling me what to do, right down to that look out of the corner of the eye.”

Not only did the Sheehan family have a winner, they did so with a bred and owned animal in a highly competitive Holstein show. “We are still a little stunned. You don’t come here with expectations because this show will humble you in a hurry,” Jeannette’s husband Robert added just after her reserve supreme honors were awarded Saturday evening. “The whole thing is unbelievable. We like to breed nice cows, the kind of cows we like to milk. Breeding is science and art with luck involved. The match has to work and every once in a while you get a cow like this.”

Thomas has shown a lot in the last 4 to 5 years. “This year she blossomed and matured into the kind of cow we thought she could be.” he added.

Robert and his brothers Jim and Jerome and their wives Karen, Mary and Jeannette are partners at Sheeknoll Farms, with the next generation also involved. They milk 300 cows at the farm in Rochester, Minnesota, and are known by their peers to treat them all like queens with great cow comfort and attention to detail. In fact, the mantra on their Facebook page says it all: “If we take care of the cows, they will take care of us.” They were thankful for the total team effort taking care of the EX 96 97MS Thomas in her grand journey to this surreal finish.

Sheeknoll Durham Arrow (aka Thomas) had an exciting path to her grand champion honors at the 50th World Dairy Expo, having won the 2016 Minnesota State Fair and other shows leading up to it.

Photo courtesy Randy Blodgett, Blodgett Communications

The Sheehan family, friends and Thomas’ fans watched as judge Pat Conroy and his associate Yan Jacobs placed Thomas first aged cow, best bred-and-owned, best udder, production cow, senior and grand champion, over a competitive field including last year’s supreme champion Katrysha and over this year’s reserve and honorable mention grand champions, the latter exhibited by Glamourview Farms of Walkersville, Maryland.

In the junior Jersey competition it was Cora and Cari of Darlington, Wisconsin. The homebred Red Rock View Cari was the grand champion Jersey of the Junior Show, with Cora Carpenter at the halter.

The Carpenter family was overjoyed to see their daughter and homebred Jersey do so well.

Earlier in the week, the grand champion Milking Shorthorn of the open show was Cates Ruben Tulsa-Time-EXP, bred, owned and exhibited by Peter Cate of Cornish Flats, New Hampshire for the second straight year.

The Milking Shorthorn Show at World Dairy Expo has grown and lasted into Wednesday evening, but was quite exciting.

In the International Red & White show, Pheasant Echo’s Turvy-Red-ET was grand champion with breeder-owner Kenny Stambaugh, Westminster, Maryland, at the halter.

When Kenny Stambaugh’s homebred Turvy was named grand champion of the International Red & White Show on Friday, his sister Crystal Edwards was there in person to celebrate. Most of the rest of the family could probably be heard hooting-and-hollering over a thousand miles away in Westminster, Maryland as they gathered around the television to watch Kenny show and be victorious in the online live-feed of the showring proceedings.

What they did next, as you might imagine, is figure out how to get everyone out there by the next afternoon to see Kenny and Turvy vie for supreme in the closing ceremonies Saturday evening.

By 9:00 p.m. Friday evening, they had secured a flight that got Kenny’s parents, siblings and spouses to Madison by 2:30 p.m. Saturday — just three hours before the closing ceremonies – to surprise Kenny, who had no idea they were coming out.

The Stambaugh family (photo by Sherry Bunting)

Kenny confessed he was pretty nervous in the ring, but it never showed because he had faith his cow stacked up pretty well against the competition.

When asked what gave Turvy the edge in a competitive Red & White class, Kenny and Crystal agreed: “It was her youthful udder and big frame,” said Kenny. Turby is classified EX-94 with a 96-point mammary system.

“She also walks on an awesome set of feet and legs,” Crystal added. “But after three calves at five years old, to have that youthful udder is pretty special.”

What makes the win even more special for the family is that Turvy’s dam was the Stambaugh family’s first homebred Red & White Holstein. To have a World Dairy Expo grand champion in a daughter of their first homebred Red & White just makes the win belong to everyone on the farm.

When Barney and Debbie Stambaugh started farming on their own in 1991, they purchased some Red & Whites and over the years bred them to some top black and white Holstein genetics, which yielded a red line within the herd.

“Dad had worked for Peace and Plenty as a kid, and that really sparked it in him,” Crystal recounted.

She describes the breeding philosophy at Pheasant Echo’s as one that allows them to have “a lot of old cows. We are fortunate that way,” she said. “Between the genetics and cattle care, we want cows that hang around, breed back and have productive life.”

The family sold an Armani heifer out of Turvy in the Apple Mania Sale and another out of this family at the National Red & White Convention Sale when that sale was hosted at the farm during the convention week in Maryland last summer.

Turvy had previously placed second in the junior competition at the 2014 World Dairy Expo and 7^th in the open competition that year. “She has really come into her own,” said Crystal of the cow that likes to swish her tail.

“Nothing makes me happier than being able to come out and look at good cows when it’s time to milk,” said Kenny. “It sure makes it easier to get up at 3 a.m.,” Crystal added.

Kenny and Crystal agree that this will now be their favorite show memory. Prior to this win, it was the grand champion win at the 2014 All-American Dairy Show in Harrisburg.

But nothing tops winning at the 50^th World Dairy Expo with a bred-and-owned cow, and being the leadsman at the halter to boot.

Kenny Stambaugh and his wife Nicole and homebred WDE grand champion Pheasant Echo’s Turvy-Red are flanked by parents Byron (“Barney”) and Debbie (right) and siblings and spouses from left, Bud Stambaugh, CJ and Tanya Miller and Dan and Crystal Edwards. Photo by Sherry Bunting as appeared on Cover of Farmshine Oct. 14, 2016

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