A nine-year-old cow sired by Jeeves was crowned the overall champion at this year’s Leading Edge Genetics On-Farm Competition.
The Armstrong brothers have been in involved in the dairy industry for 30 years, working on their 138ha family farm where they milk 320 Holstein cows.
They said their winning cow was an easy cow to maintain and the ideal cow to breed.
“The cow comes in, does her job, then walks back down the paddock. She doesn’t get any special treatment,” Colin said.
“She is on her sixth calf and just keeps on going.”
Mr Armstrong said the cow’s udder was exceptional.
“You enter into these competitions and it takes a lifetime to get where you want to and you just keep aiming high and it gets you out of bed each morning,” he said. “It was a shock. We are ecstatic.”
Judge Michael Halliwell, from the UK, said as soon as he saw the cow, he knew it was exactly what he was looking for.
“For her to still be looking in that shape after several lactations, she was going to be tough to knock off the top spot,” Mr Halliwell said.
“She had the perfect balance of angularity and had the refinement that we want in a dairy cow which they need to survive and produce heavy quantities of milk.
“She was a complete cow.”
After seeing the Armstrongs’ cow on only the second day of judging, and with two more to go, Mr Halliwell said all cows following were being benchmarked against her.
“Overall, I am impressed with the quality of everybody’s cows,” Mr Halliwell said. “The consistency was exceptional and I was very impressed with the feet and legs of the cows.
“Obviously, with the Australian dairy system of grassland cows walking a long way, it makes sense that those mobile cows are the ones that the breeders need — they were excellent in that regard.”
This year, 381 cows were entered in the competition by 55 different farmers.
Colin and Dale Armstrong also came out in the top spot in the four-year-old and over class, beating almost 100 entries.
The two-year-old class was won by Lancey Farms with their animal TN 30 sired by Fever, and the three-year-old class was won by entry 2969, sired by Denzel and owned by Ashley and Jane Harrison from Nerrena.
In the group class — three animals sired by the one sire — the winning pen was owned by the Loughridge Family, of Poowong North, with daughters of Genervations Epic.
Other awards presented on the day included the most successful exhibitor to Luke and Mel Wallace, of Wallacedale Jerseys, from Poowong North. The highest placed non-registered Holstein was awarded to first time exhibitors Mark and Trish Hammond, from Labertouche.
