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Club News
Australian Exchange 2025
The Holstein Young Breeders (HYB) Australian Exchange returns for a sixth time, with a passionate HYB member awarded the trip of a lifetime down under in January.
Boarding a flight to Australia in early January 2025 will be Holly Bickerton, a member of the Western HYB Club who has been selected for her passion for the dairy industry.
The month-long trip down under will see 24 year old Holly gain first-hand experience of the Australian dairy industry. Her visit will include the National Dairy Youth Camp, staying on Holstein Australia member farms and participating in the International Dairy Week (IDW). The trip is an all-expenses-paid adventure and a once in a lifetime opportunity with the opportunity to gain knowledge and experience of other cultures. As part of the exchange, an Australian young breeder joins us in the UK each autumn to coincide with some of the UK’s leading dairy events, such as UK Dairy Day, the Dairy Show and the All Breeds All Britain Calf Show.
We caught up with Holly to find out why she applied and what she’s looking forward to…
“As a fairly new member of HYB, having only joined two years ago at 22 years old, I feel I should be considered for the trip to prove to others you do not have to come from a farming background and have been showing since a young age to be a successful member of HYB.
Having taken a keen interest in dairy farming during Covid-19, I have since left the hospitality industry to become full time on a local dairy farm and started up my own small pedigree herd. This year we have successfully shown at local and national level gaining Honourable Mention calf at the Royal Cheshire Show, Champion Calf at The Nantwich Show and qualified two calves for the ABAB Calf Show where we were delighted to place 5th and 7th.
What makes this year even more special is the fact I have learnt to clip and fit my own calves and achieved some really good results! I’ve gone from never having held a pair of clippers 18 months ago to clipping all my own calves and fitting half of Western HYB’s ABAB team. I feel this is such an achievement in its self and I would love to expand and improve my fitting skills.
At the start of this year I was given the opportunity to travel to the Netherlands and work with Nico Bons and his family at Bons Holsteins. This was such an incredible experience where I learnt so much about dairy farming in the Netherlands and what it takes to breed some of the best cows in Europe. This trip made me realise how much I love to travel and how passionate I am about learning about the dairy industries in other countries including the challenges they face and teaching other countries what dairy farming is like in the UK. I would love to expand my knowledge further and discover some of the positives and negatives of dairy farming in Australia and the similarities and differences between them and the UK.
Upon returning to the UK I would use what I have learnt to improve many things including my day to day routine jobs where I could adapt a different Australian approach to my jobs to make my day more productive and efficient. I would also take what I have learnt to improve my clipping and fitting skills for next year. The best way I’ve found to learn is to take small parts of what everyone else does to make my show team the best it can possibly be. I would also like to improve my stocking skills while in Australia to enable me to make better breeding decisions on my own animals. I’ve bought into some top families and I would like to learn how to selectively breed to produce the best possible calves for the future. I would also like the blog to be published professionally to enable HYB members to read it at and hopefully expand their knowledge, whilst showing them different approaches to the same end goal… to breed the best possible cow.
Flying the flag for British dairy farming is a really important topic to me! I would like to express to anyone in Australia how important our family farms are and how they are the backbone of British agriculture. I would like to express how strong of an industry we are and no matter what, we will all stick together to save the future of our farms. I would do this by talking to any Australians who will listen, as well as posting appropriate content on social media.”
Naomi Lewis, National HYB Coordinator commented, “We wish Holly the very best on her travels and hope she has the trip of a life time! The Australian Exchange is a fantastic opportunity to see first-hand how the southern hemisphere dairy farming industry operates and the experience will be hugely beneficial - not only from a social and personal development point of view, but, most importantly, to develop breeding, husbandry, showmanship and dairy management skills. Seeing first-hand how Australian dairy farmers run their businesses and breed productive cattle, with different climates and production methods, is the best way to develop Holly’s knowledge, skills and experience, which she can apply in practice on her return to the UK.”