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AGM
A most enjoyable meeting was held at The Hunters Inn, Tewkesbury, with a good crowd requiring extra tables to be set for lunch! Our retiring President presented the Bull progeny cup to the Spicer family, and the Club award to Patricia Allsopp. Willie Bell was thanked for his term as President and Mr Spicer thanked him for all he had done for the British Friesian cause over these past few years. Ivor Davies takes over as President, otherwise the officers remain the same.
HERD VISIT
A last reminder for the herd visit to the Jenkins family’s Ember herd on 29th April 11 am at Stember Farm, Poyston Cross, Haverforwest. SA62 6JG, telephone 01437 763239. To find the farm, take the A40 Haverfordwest to Fishguard. Go past airfield on the right, turn right, signposted Clarbeston Road. Travel for 1.5 miles and the Farm driveway is on the left, sign for “Ember Herd” immediately before village sign Poyston Cross. This visit is promoted by HUK and the Club, and is the first herd visit of the Centenary year, appropriately to a British Friesian herd.
CENTENARY CELEBRATION DAY
June 24th at Home Farm, Churchdown, Glos.10.30am. Please watch out for your invitation for the Members Celebration lunch, which will be by ticket only. Alternative catering will be provided for other visitors which we hope will be numerous. Full details also in the June Newsletter.
INCREASING DEMAND
The market for breeding bulls and semen continues to grow. However we have a real difficulty in establishing the British Friesian position.
BCMS registered about 63,000 males and 61,000 females in 2008. These figures reflect the natural ratio of male to female and prove how suitable the British Friesian male calf is for rearing as clearly most of them are tagged.
Data for Jerseys show about 2,000 males and 20,000 females.
However Milk Records collated by the CDI show lactations for 17,000 Jerseys, but only 6,000 British Friesians as they will only include them if they are pedigree. These figures are misleading and mask the true picture. We are delighted to learn that a major AI company reported that semen sales from a British Friesian bull, recently outsold all their other UK proven dairy bulls.
CAMPSIE SHOW
Campsie Show, Glasgow, 6th June, are holding classes for British Friesians to mark the Centenary.www.campsieshow.co.uk
THE SOCIETY 1909 to 2009
part 2
The Early Years – Getting started
The need to establish a Society for the registration of black and white cattle was becoming clear, as although herds were mainly established in the south east near the lucrative liquid market in London, the growth of large towns and extension of the railways led to a remarkable expansion and increased demand for the liquid market. Pioneers could see opportunities for their breed.
Better standards of production were needed and the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society had initiated classes for butter in 1903, and milk yield in 1905, for each of the then recognised dairy breeds.
A meeting at the Gloucester Royal Show in July 1909, attended by Mrs. Agnes Brown, Mr. Hugh Brown, Henry Ratcliffe, C H Westropp and William J Clarke, set the plan in motion and following a meeting in London on July 21st, a set of rules was adopted. These included the herd prefix and the provision that only the actual breeder of the animal might register its entry in the herd book.
William J Clark was appointed the first secretary until 1911 when George Hobson took over for the next 35 years!
Another important reason for the formation of a Society was the lucrative export trade and the need to provide guarantees of pedigree. Only the breed societies could hold the big collective sales that could attract the foreign buyers. Other breeds were exporting and the British Friesians were already developing a good reputation. In fact Mrs Agnes Brown (Hedges) sent cattle to South Africa, Japan and Chile as early as 1911.
So began the daunting task of entry to the herd book, by means of inspection of animals nominated by their owners. This work was carried out by the honorary inspectors, Hugh Brown, Henry Ratcliffe, Gerald Strutt and CH Westropp. By the end of 1912 they had approved 6,000 females and 1,000 bulls. From 1st Jan.1913, entry was by pedigree only. Membership rose from 245 in 1912 to 2,098 in 1924. Local Breeders Clubs began to be formed.
In 1921 a grading up scheme was launched. A cow could be entered as Class A on inspection as typical of the breed, with minimum requirements for yield and butterfat. Her offspring by a pedigree bull entered Class B. After four (!!!) such crosses and production standards (700 galls as a heifer and 1,000 for a cow) females qualified for full pedigree status. The eventual introduction of AI made it easier for the smaller farmers to go through the grading up process.
Type was a constant concern and a trip to Holland organised by George Hobson in 1912 and again the following year, made useful contacts with Dutch Breeders. Bulls admired were Albert, Ceres and Jan 2nd and so discussions led to the importations of 1914. Although The Royal Show of 1911 offered classes, the show ring was not exactly the black and white’s forte, as they struggled to establish type. However demand was there in the sale ring with the first three figure sum of 115 gns being paid for the bull, Hedges Bonnie Laddie in 1913.
The 1914 importation was critical for the breed as 22 years had passed without any new blood and numbers had shrunk. Special permission had to be obtained and the cattle arrived three days before the outbreak of war. This importation would greatly improve the physical characteristics and gave breeders a standard to aim for.
A uniform type for the breed needed to be fixed, if progress was to be made, but for now further imports were obviously impossible. Suddenly food supplies became a priority and grassland was ploughed up to provide potatoes and cereals at the expense of meat and livestock products. Milk production was substantially reduced and price controls were introduced at all stages of distribution. A shortage of expensive feed with inadequate milk prices, led to many cattle being sent for slaughter and a shortage of supplies developed in the winter of 1918-19 until the government increased the ration allowance for cattle.
The number of cattle had fallen by 700,000 between 1917 and 1921. Consequently as farmers sought to rebuild their herds after the war, there was a surge in the price of pedigree cattle. This undoubtedly encouraged the importation of new blood from South Africa for onward sale. However, these animals and their progeny proved disappointing, with the notable exceptions, of Terling Marthus and Terling Collona. Terling Marthus was to make a considerable impact on the breed, descended as he was from the great Dutch sire, Ceres 4497. “Marthus bred beautiful cattle, noted for long deep bodies, long and level hind quarters, good wearing qualities, pleasing udders, high milk yields and satisfactory butterfat” Gerald Strutt had paid the enormous sum of 3,900 gns, but what a good investment it turned out to be.
Society membership stood at 801 at the end of the war, reaching just over 2,000 in 1922.However there were turbulent times ahead with increased production once again competing with imported cheese and butter and rock bottom prices for milk. In 1923 a top price of £1,680 had been achieved at auction for a Friesian, but in 1929 it had fallen to £250.
In some years Society sales were cancelled and in 1935 the membership had fallen to 1,371 a reduction of 35% over eleven years. Towards the end of the 30s, things started to pick up. The establishment of the Milk Marketing Boards and general recovery after the war, led to better prospects for the Society. By 1938 membership stood at 1,879 the highest since 1926 and prices for cattle had improved. The Society continued to urge improvement and to educate and encourage the members through the pages of the Journal, with George Hobson as editor.
However, poor butter fats attracted much derision from critics, and so in 1936, off to Holland once more, were Gerald Strutt, GB Radcliffe, EB Hall, A Weightman, F Gilbert and George Hobson, with a determined effort to seek improvement. This time they were much more successful with 29 out of 49 bulls gaining Register of Merit and further improving type.
The British Friesian was once again gaining ground, but uncertainty lay ahead.
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