Seven Ontario farms earn Master Breeder shields

BLOOMFIELD — Dairy farmer Jasen Kuipers figured he’d be winning a Master Breeders shield. He just wasn’t expecting to quite so soon.

The 37-year old took home his first Master Breeders shield for Kuiperscrest Holsteins last month. There were four other Ontario first-time winners and two Ontario farms that won their fourth shield. Winning a shield means breeding generations of long-lasting, show-class animals that can pump out milk with the best of them.

The 50-cow tie-stall dairy is a three-time-a-day milking operation that was started by his grandfather in 1972. Kuipers left the farm to work as a herdsperson for a neighbour at age 16: with two brothers in the picture, there just wasn’t enough room on the home farm for him.

He spent 11 years at his neighbour’s farm and started buying into their herd. Then, around nine years ago, there was an opportunity to go back to the home farm. His brother was looking to get out of the dairy business and his father was getting older. So he took the best of his herd and his father’s and mixed them together.

Kuipers is a regular at the local shows and has always had a passion for breeding good cows and buying into good families. He knew he wanted a Master Breeder shield someday, but it wasn’t until he’d taken over the home farm that he saw a path to the shield. Tracking his herd’s progress after buying cows from Master Breeder herds, he started to realize he had a real shot at winning a shield of his own.

Winning a shield is often thought to be about breeding a pretty cow. But it’s more than that. It’s just as much about production. Having started milking three times per day about seven years ago to meet fall incentive days, Kuipers realized it was helping bring the farm closer to a shield. His brother helped out for a year then called it quits. His mom helped for a few years before she retired. So Kuipers, with the help of a Holstein Canada graph of their progress, convinced his wife and young kids to help out. He did the milking but they took care of the other chores. “I don’t think I’d have gotten it without their help.”

Kuipers is hoping to ease off the workload. Dairy farms are time-intensive at best. He’s hoping to build a robot barn someday. “I would love to have a nice, packed robot barn.”

Six other farms took home shields:
• Altona Lea Farms at Blackstock (4th shield)
• Clayhaven at Wallenstein
• Drewholme Holsteins at Gowanstown
• Dualane Farms at Ingersoll
• Ferme Mirella Inc. at St. Bernardin
• Ronbeth Holsteins, Hastings (4th shield)