Last Saturday the Pedigree Cattle breeder’s society of Ireland held its much-anticipated Showing and Grooming Spectacular in Tullamore Mart. Throughout the day about 400 people made their way through the GVM mart facility doors, attending a mix of both live demos and technical talks. These demonstrations were undertaken by the best in the business, with onlookers hanging on every word. This was the first event of its kind in Ireland, with enthusiasts from all corners of the country making their way to Tullamore.

Kicking off the morning, Basil Bothwell gave a comprehensive talk about selecting and judging show cattle, using four young Charolais calves to point out the finer points. After a number of questions from the crowd, the head linear scorer also went through the most important traits he looks for when scoring cattle.

Sioned Timothy, ruminant technical manager with Merial Animal Health, took everybody through idealistic health programmes for show cattle and indeed show herds, to ensure everyone’s show animals keep driving forward. Technical support manager for GAIN animal feeds Martin Ryan was next in line to finish off the morning technical conference. Martin was one of the driving forces behind the whole day as GAIN feeds also used the day to launch its newest ration range aimed solely towards breeders of show cattle. He spoke about this range, and different nutrition and management techniques used by top-end breeders to keep their animals looking fresh all year round.

Information

While plenty of information was obtained by everyone who attended in the morning, the favourite parts of the day for many were the hands on tutorials on animal handling, clipping and grooming.

For this, each of the breed societys provided cattle to work on along with young handlers to exhibit them. The breeds were then split up and assigned to some of the country’s best clippers and groomers. This attracted much attention, showing exactly what proper hair management and clipping can do to increase your chance of a rosette in a show ring.

The day ended with a full show of the groomed animals being exhibited by the young handlers present, with spectators shown how to best stand and show an animal. For both the audience and the people involved, the whole day proved very beneficial.

The Irish Farmers Journal was delighted to have been able to join forces with GAIN, Alltech and Merial in helping to make the day happen, and hope a similar event can be run again soon.

Days likes these are crucial to ensuring Ireland remains one of the best cattle breeding countries in the world. Without a strong younger generation of breeders coming up through the ranks, Ireland could quite quickly fall to the wayside when it comes to exporters looking to source stock. Having days like last Saturday ensures younger generations are best advised on how to select stock for breeding as well as how to manage them throughout their lifetime.

And even if attendants learnt nothing, it proved a great place to meet like-minded people of all ages, which may stand to be more beneficial than anything for the summer show season ahead.