Darryn Hourigan’s Master Breeder award was presented by Jersey Australia Master Breeder Rohan Sprunt (left) and Jersey Australia president Geoff Akers (right).
Farmers from Gippsland and north-east Victoria have been added to the Jersey Australia Master Breeder honour board, while the breed’s first Emerging Breeder has been announced.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
Darryn Hourigan’s Darrynvale Jerseys from Milawa in north-east Victoria and Trevor Saunders and Anthea Day’s Araluen Park Jerseys from Shady Creek in Gippsland were announced as Jersey Australia’s new Master Breeders at a dinner on Sunday, April 13 in Melbourne.
Jersey Australia also revealed Rodney and Stephanie Goode from Boronia Ridge Jerseys at Poowong North in Gippsland as the inaugural Emerging Breeders.
The Master Breeder awards were introduced in 2023 to recognise breeding excellence over the past 20 years and the commitment of farmers to the breed.
The award requires breeders to have been a member of Jersey Australia for at least 20 years and to register 25 animals a year on average across those 20 years along while producing elite brood, type and production cows and elite bulls.
The Emerging Breeder award introduced this year is based on 10 years’ continuous membership, registering at least 100 animals a year under the breeder prefix, breeding two or more cows scoring 90 or more in classification, breeding at least two cows that produce more than 3000 kg/MS, and the breeder must have started genomic testing.
Trevor Saunders and Anthea Day received their Master Breeder award from Brian Leslie (left) and Geoff Akers (right).
Jersey Australia board member and chair of promotions Jane Sykes said the Emerging Breeder award aimed at encouraging and recognising younger farmers advancing the breed.
“The greatness of a Master Breeder does not happen overnight; it takes time and patience,” she said.
Stephanie Goode said she developed a love of Jerseys from her parents and bought them into Rodney’s herd.
“We will keep on trying and hopefully continue to get better and better,” she said.
Darrynvale Jerseys was established in 1970 and is owned and operated by Darryn Hourigan, his partner Rochelle and Darryn’s son Bailey and daughter Ellie are also involved in running the farm.
It has registered 2888 cows and has had 351 classified as excellent.
Darrynvale is a platinum production herd and regularly achieves more than 7000 litres average, with some cows producing up to 11,000 litres.
In the early 1980s, Darryn’s father Keith invested in Big Hollow and Merriland genetics in New Zealand, including the world-renowned Daisy family, which has had an enormous influence in the herd.
Darryn continues to breed award-winning cows with deep pedigrees.
Rodney and Stephanie Goode won the inaugural Jersey Australia Emerging Breeder award.
Trevor Saunders and Anthea Day, both fourth generation farmers, purchased their farm at Shady Creek in 2004, and combined the best from their separate herds to move forward as Araluen Park.
They also incorporated the Stony Run stud prefix into their herd.
Araluen has registered 2757 cows and produced 366 excellent cows.
It has multi-Australian generationally-bred cow families from the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
17°C