Milking Jersey cows may be the bread and butter of Kings Ville Jerseys but their work in genetics is something to be marvelled at.
Sprawled across hundreds of acres in Drouin West, Kings Ville Jerseys has a long history with the breed and continues to help shape its future with selective breeding techniques using all the latest technology, Gazette journalist NICK SINIS reports.
Rob Anderson is the fourth generation to work with the Jersey breed continuing a proud family legacy.
And it’s still a strong family affair to this day.
“The farms have progressively moved out from Melbourne, the main farm was at Hampton Park (Lyndhurst and Cranbourne), that’s where my father and uncle established the main herds,” Rob said.
“It’s just progressed out, I farmed in Nar Nar Goon with my brother for 11 years up until 2000 and then Kerrie (wife) and I bought here in 2000.”
Rob highlighted it was an ‘interesting point’ in the dairy industry at the time but it all paid off and they’ve continued to grow and expand into genetics as well.
“Jerseys have been the main business all the way through, genetics is a strong focus and I suppose it’s a passion too. It’s about breeding cows and trying to create the next generation or the next A.I bull,” he said.
The farm always presents new challenges each day, especially with the intricacies of selective breeding.
“It can vary, we actually flushed cows today, so an embryo transplant, that’s when we take the embryos out of one cow and put it into surrogates,” he said.
“They’ll get flushed and see how many eggs were actually fertilised in the cows and they’ll go into a dish and put in to surrogates.
“Some people are also doing IVF now, it’s a little bit different, it’s all in the lab. We have done some IVF work but the pregnancy rate isn’t as high, yet. But the technology is advancing.
“It’s more to allow us if you’ve got a very good brood cow to get more progeny out of her.
“If you can super ovulate her 3-4 times a year, instead of just getting one calf out of her physically, with using surrogates, you can get anywhere from 5-20.
“And then that creates your next lot of breeding females or males.”
One of the goals of selective breeding is to improve the genetics and create more efficient and productive cows.
“Our cows, they all have a DNA snip taken at around 2 months of age and from the snip, they’ll tell us how good they are.
“And it’s all about trying to get an animal that’s healthy, has longevity and copes with being on a farm.
“It’s not mandatory that you do the genomic testing, but those animals will get ranked and so people can sell an animal based on the highest numbered cow or these are the traits that we possibly need in our herd.”
Their total herd sits close to around 500 with 280 for milking and 200 youngstock.
“There’s a lot of tools in the industry now and a lot of our cows all have electronic tags, we can actually physically look at whether she is ruminating properly, wherever she’s on heat today or is sick all by the tag in her ear.
“It’s not just milking cows in the morning!”
While genetics is their side business, milking is still the core operation.
“We supply a company in Thomastown called Amore Cheese, there’s only about five suppliers that supply them,” he said.
“We’ve only been with them since last July and prior to that we supplied Bulla Foods.”
There are also many benefits to milking jerseys due to their superior quality with higher fat and protein contents.
“Jerseys are a very efficient cow, they’re not a very big cow. But for a cow that can produce, let’s say, one and a half times her body weight in milk solids per year, she’s a pretty efficient unit.
“My family’s been with jerseys since the 1800s, they’re an easy cow to work with, they’re moderate in size, quite placid and produce well.
“If you look after them, they’ll look after you.”
And with all the technology they utilise, it is paying dividends by making the farm much more manageable.
Their cows are also gaining interest from around the world, with Rob and Kerrie noting it was an exciting time for the jersey breed in Australia.
On a side note, while jerseys aren’t typically used for meat consumption, they claim it is almost just as good as Wagyu.
“They’re very close to Wagyu because they have that lovely marbling, if we were to grow them on and mature, they are actually the closest to Wagyu,” Kerrie said.
“There is scope within the breed to do that but it’s just too long of a waiting process.”
The business was also added to the Genetics Australia Honour Board for bulls that have made a significant contribution to the national herd and across the globe.
And the Jersey tradition appears to be passing on with their youngest daughter taking a particular interest in the farm.
