Fleyas Holsteins

Where has 2012 gone ?

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 03:45:00 +0000

How quickly does 2012 seem to be scooting past us ?

Our baby girl, who arrived Australia day - is 9 months old today, and I have been quite remiss in updating the webpage.

We are calving down our part 2 mob of milkers, with an outstanding heifer rate so far. We are welcoming Ginary Jacks, Marcellus, Shottle, Red Ferrari, Armstrong and crossbred & jersey heifers in abundance.

We are casting our eyes forward to our next joining in January, and wondering if we can manage to work it out around IDW. Still deciding on that one, but having made more friends and business connections in previous months we are quite keen to go.

Flushing & Embryos - we are constantly on the update for the right flush to take place, or embryos to purchase for Fleyas Holsteins and everything looks to be shaping up well. I am keeping mum about it all until we have heifers on the ground, but big things happening here!

Life can be heartbreaking!

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:25:00 +0000

A quick update from me, as Cohan has woken up and its time to get stuck back into some work!

Life has been busy.. which is an understatement.

Our next baby is due in 15 days - 24/1/12, and has already made an attempt to come early (Dec 3rd 2011), so my farm duties have been greatly reduced which has left me bored, frustrated and contemplating doing more housework.

Our classification in October went fantastic! Fleyas Holsteins had their first 2x EXCELLENT cows - with the Fleyas pre-fix. A very exciting time.
Unfortunately, we lost our beautiful big Fleyas Donor Buddy the other day after she fell in the dairy and damaged her back. She was on her way to breaking the Fleyas Holsteins 305 day completed lactation record - she was currently on (as of October herd test)
DIM 153 - 6829L 270kg F 207kg P PI 126
And she was in calf to Shottle - due in May.

A very sad day, where a lot of tears were shed for the loss of such a beautiful big girl - but this is dairy farming, and life on the farm is never easy .. and rarely the cows we love are the ones which remain accident free.

Too much time between posts!

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 23:30:00 +0000

Wow - and firstly apologies for not posting since July!

It has been a busy year - Fleyas Holsteins are expecting another baby - due January 2012.

And our son Cohan has turned ONE!!

We are back into the middle of calving our spring portion of our herd down, which has been stress-free compared to the Autumn calving. And we have also welcomed 30 + new heifers to the world. Several are out of registered dams, so the Fleyas Holsteins continues strongly.

NEWS

October 2012 Classification

Fleyas Holsteins celebrated their third classification with style - TWO cows going to EX-90 !
Fleyas Donor Mel - EX90 on 7th Lactation
Fleyas Donor Buddy - EX90 on 6th Lactation

A very proud moment all around the farm that day - especially as Buddy as a last minute inclusion to the classification (and was only registered the same week!)

We also had several purchased cows move up well, one of my favourites (and not my husbands) Cobbobonnee Gibson DeeJay 3rd - ET has moved upto VG89 on her 3rd Lactation.
A fantastic find - we paid $2000 for this cow as a second calver in 2009, and after testing empty several times, decided to spell her out with the bulls. 9 months later, she delivered a beautiful healthy heifer - who will go on to be DNA tested and registered.

Just why is this cow so special? She is a part of Australias most FAMOUS cow family - her great-grandmother is Lengora Sultan Ding !!!

I will post classification scores soon - so check back!

Purchases

Fleyas holsteins have also been purchasing several cows in to help make up numbers in late 2011.
Whilst we are currently awaiting the rego papers from cows purchased from Nelson, Fleyas Holsteins had the opportunity of purchasing more cows from local breeder Lyn Logan.
Lyns cows are known well and wide, with impeccable breeding going back many years, it was a true honour to be able to buy into her cows.
We purchased 10 new girls, all who have since calved and joined the milking herd. We are extremely happy and satisfied with these cows, and i will post photos soon!

Wrapping up calving

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 06:39:00 +0000

Well its raining, cold and muddy..

And we have 4 cows left to calve !!!!!!!!!

it feels as though this calving has stretched out for many months.. indeed it has - with our first calf arriving 22nd of April.. (And we were meant to start on the 9th of May!)
We have had triumphs, tears, mud.. we have helped cows birth heifers, bulls and even a few sets of twins!

We always pray for lots of heifers.. and although this year our rate wasnt too bad - we made the extra effort to find long lasting homes for our bull calves - with the majority going to be grown out for 2 - 3 years, and others going to homes to be special pets. A huge thank you to those who have taken on some of our bull calves. Im very appreciative.

I will make a gallery link soon, (under blog) and post pictures of our lovely baby girls - and some other girls around the farm.

And i plan on posting more.. i do promise! Although im not entirely happy with the settings on the blog part here, i will be investigating how to change it around.

Jess

Autumn Calving

Tue, 24 May 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Wow!

Things have been busy - can we blame the season ?

We have some absolutely beautiful heifers on the ground this year, predominantly CRV-Australia semen (previously known as BOS-Trading)

Please see the new page under "The Girls" - its titled 2011 Heifers.

This photo, i DO have to post - this is our beautiful red+white heifer. She is a second generation R+W Friesian, her sire is Trendsetter (Son of Poos Stadel Classic), and her mother is a "Red Beauty".

Introducing - Fleyas Trendsetter Scarlette

We had a very sad day a couple of days ago, with the loss of two beautiful older cows - "Amy" & "Amanda", and a young calf called "Mel". Absolutely breaks my heart when we lose our girls thru illness, and it doesnt get any easier.

Babies!!

Sun, 01 May 2011 20:03:00 +0000

The calving season has started, and a few weeks early just to add to the chaos !!

A couple of cows surprised us with little babies (4 - 5 weeks early), whilst the other are around 3 weeks..

We are slowly getting prepared, this week we are cleaning out the calf sheds, and spraying with a special disinfectant - then laying down scoria, shade cloth and then a nice thick layer of sawdust. Lucky babies :)

This year, we also have someone buying our bull calves - they get to go to someones house, and eat grass and play in the sun..

Of our registered girls - we have 40 in calf to AI.. so fingers crossed for many heifers.

So forgive me if you dont hear much from me, or get many site updates in the next month or two, calving is a very busy time on a dairy farm, with cows not too fussed if its 2am, or 4pm (milking time) to have their precious bundles!

Classification April 2011

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:22:00 +0000

Classification went well !
Shame the rain couldnt stay away, but what is Portland with out atleast a decent drizzle of rain ??

We had 20 girls classed, for an average of 84. Quite happy with the results, as a lot of these were older cows. i will be popping up the classification results, and pictures soon - so check back!

In other news - i have been invited by Dairy Australia, to a seminar in Melbourne early May, about promoting and protecting the dairy industries reputation. It will be a welcome break if i can organise a baby sitter.

New Puppy & Classification

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 12:23:00 +0000

Hey All !

Things are progressing slowly but surely on the website. Life is super busy at the moment with farm, easter coming up, Cohan and our new puppy Subi !
Shes a 9 week old Border Collie X Kelpie, who we purchased from the RSPCA. Very cute, full of life - and loves the look of my chickens.. Uh Oh !!

Classification is happening this week - we have approximately 20 girls going up on Tuesday. Not our best lot (they were classified last time) but we have an honest bunch of girls up for class, and im looking forward to seeing how our girls go.

Welcome!

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:12:00 +0000

A quick note to say WELCOME to Fleyas Holsteins!

Construction will be slow on this website - A new member recently joined the Fleyas Holstein family business - our beautiful bouncing baby boy Cohan Darby.

And in true dairy farming style - my waters broke in the springer paddock and Cohan was born on the 27th September 2010.

Any questions = please dont hesitate to drop me an email on fleyasholsteins@hotmail.com

Cheers

Jessa Fleming