Swiss judge for National Dairy Show, Millstreet

THE National Dairy Show returns to Millstreet on Saturday, October 19, with Switzerland’s Erhard Junker confirmed as judge.

Junker owns a dairy farm of ‘Mattenhof Holsteins’ together with his dad and brother, and is a part-time cattle dealer where up to 10,000 cows are traded every year. His main activity is the purchase and sale of dairy cows - for this activity he spends at least four days a week, every week, driving through Switzerland and buying the animals directly on the farms.

Many exhibition winners in Switzerland were bought by Erhard as young cows and then sold to other show herds, where they brought them to success.

Apart from the cattle trading, Erhard and Marc run a farm with c. 60 hectares of land and about 80 cows and heifers that feature show animals under the name Mattenhof Holsteins.

Hosted by the Cork Holstein Friesian Breeders Club, the National Dairy Show is a premier event on the European circuit with trade stand and visitor enquiries from Britain, France, Holland, Germany, Italy and North America seeking to promote innovative agricultural and farm accessories.

Apart from the cattle, the show is a family day out with gardening, floral arrangement exhibition, local crafts and best dressed events also on the programme. While the dairy show incorporates all aspects of dairy farming, showmanship and dairy cow classes (Holstein Friesian and Jersey) form a major part of the event, with a prize fund of €30,000 in 25 classes.

The show always offers a wide range of attractions with over 150 trade exhibits, marketing agricultural based products and equipment. A new addition to the Show this year are the informative, bite-size seminars from leading companies in the agricultural industry offering further advice and insight to help farmers in their day to day business.

The National Dairy Show is designed to attract an audience throughout the farming community and on the day live demonstrations will promote the latest in hoof care and restraining equipment as well as up to date hoof pairing technology.

Tractor and loader demos and bale slicing demos will also feature.

Farm safety will also be included, particularly in relation to prevention of farm accidents, which is always close to the public’s hearts and Gardai will also be on hand to discuss rural crime prevention.