Young Breeders Excel at YBS

At the end of August, a team of Holstein Young Breeders travelled to Battice, Belgium, to compete in this year's Young Breeders School. The event has now established itself as the international reference for the training of young breeders who are passionate about Holstein cattle. Whilst at YBS, the team participated in three days of training where they learnt the steps of animal preparation for shows and theoretical courses such as marketing. Following the training, two days were spent competing.

There was a fantastic atmosphere throughout, and Holstein UK are extremely proud of how the team worked together and performed overall. We would like to thank the host families, the instructors for their mentoring of the young breeders and YBS who put on such a wonderful event.

The team was made up of:

• Frank Griffin from East Midlands
• Ollie Hay from Border & Lakeland
• Liam Poyser from Staffordshire
• Ellie Saxby from Yorkshire
• Hannah Shepherd from Derbyshire
• Jess Thorpe from Cornwall

Throughout the week the team members had workshops on bedding, washing, feeding, clipping, showmanship, stock judging and marketing. Each member was judged on their attitude, performance and ability to work as a team during each section. The week was finished with calf conformation classes on the Saturday where Team UK had a 4^th and four other top ten finishes. In the showmanship, Team UK had the following results

Ellie Saxby – 2^nd

Ollie Hay – 2^nd

Hannah Shepherd – 4^th

Jess Thorpe – 5^th

Liam Poyser & Frank Griffin – top 15 finishes

The finale of the week is the team parade and results, where the top 3 for each section and top 3 teams are announced. The top 20 individual competitors are also announced, where Team UK member, Ellie Saxby was 19^th overall.

We look forward to seeing what knowledge and skills these Young Breeders bring back to apply to their clubs and herds in the upcoming months.

Keep an eye out for Edition 4 of the Journal which will feature a full write-up.