By Danielle Nauman
Nestled in the scenic mountains near EskDale, UT the community owned dairy by the same name can be found. Operating under the slogan ‘Rivers of milk in the desert,’ EskDale Dairy is unique in that it came into existence in the early 1960’s as a group of six to ten mixed breed cows, whose purpose was to provide milk for the Christian and Messianic community. A love for the dairy industry, and the people involved, have prompted this growth and development of this herd from its small beginnings.
Veterinarian John Conrad oversees the health of the herd and does much of the breeding and embryo transfer work for the dairy. John’s son Ben acts as the herdsman and is charge of much of the individual cow care requirements and calf rearing. Ron Eldridge serves as the dairy manager, and is in charge of most of the dairy equipment maintenance as well as purchasing. Ron also does much of the feeding. David, another of Dr. Conrad’s sons, helps with feed preparation, feeding and corral cleaning. Two additional Peruvian milkers are hired to do the milking.
Dr. Conrad grew up milking cows by hand at EskDale, and developed an affection for cows at a young age. He notes that his father was an educator and an accountant, and never shared his love of bovines. After spending one year at the University of Utah from 1969-1970, Dr. Conrad knew that his calling in life was to be connected to cows. At that time, he switched schools to the Utah State University and become a pre-vet major.
While Dr. Conrad was pursuing his degree in veterinary medicine, great changes began to occur at the small Utah dairy. In 1972, a decision was made to build the commercial dairy, where the first cows were milked in the barn on January 1, 1973. This barn is still in use, although Dr. Conrad notes that it is ready for retirement.
At that time in 1973, the herd was made up entirely of 40 commercial Holsteins. Progression from that day has been made to the present, where more than 95% of the 350 milking and dry Holsteins are registered.
The current-day focus of EskDale Dairy is breeding profitable cows. To those at EskDale, this means that they like both show cows and index, or genomic, cows. Dr. Conrad is quick to point out, “It also means that we skeptical of marketing ploys that are based upon marketing whims and not upon actual data.” He goes on to say, “It is a scandal right now that a genomically tested bull at +2450 is seen as superior to the progeny-proven bulls like Dorcy, Robust, Facebook and Bookem.”
Dr. Conrad feels that most bovine geneticists are not emphasizing to dairy farmers that their genetics bases would have been higher if they had kept using Shottle, then it is by jumping on hot bulls such as Domain and Boxer. He points out that these bulls carried genomics of over 2400, but now their daughters are all right around the 1900 range.
EskDale enjoys breeding high type, and their herd BAA is consistently well over 106% on 300 cows. Another source of high-type pride are the two All-Americans who have carried the EskDale prefix, both in 2007. EskDale Dundee Marcia Mona was named All-American Junior 2 Year Old, while EskDale Stormatic Legend was selected as the All-American 4 Year Old.
The EskDale breeding program works hard at continually improving the genetic base of their herd. Each year, five to ten females are purchased, from good cow families. Descendants of cows such as Adeen, Alicia, Dellia, Monique, Gold Deb and Durchan all live in the Utah mountains. Mating decisions are thought of as an art, and the aAa evaluations are used as mating tools.
“We view the DPR index as very useful, and we see the NM$ as wildly inaccurate. In general, we are always more interested in what the bull’s daughters have actually done, than in what someone predicts they might do.”
“We like to breed great ones,” smiles Dr. Conrad, “but we are always looking for representatives of cow families we admire.”
A goal for the future of EskDale is to breed a bull that would be thought of as a ‘game-changer,’ an individual who would significantly impact the breed for the better. In Dr. Conrad’s mind, this would mean he would sire plenty of milk and components with good type.
“His daughters would be those who are pleasing to milk,” sums up Dr. Conrad.
Dr. Conrad adds, “An interesting feature of our breeding program is that we don’t hesitate to use high index bulls on show cows, and vice versa, if we think they will work.”
An example of this is the result of Stormatic Legend. The All-American 4 Year Old in 2007, Legend was the result of an ABS bull contract, mated by Paul Trapp.
“Paul mated this nice young Convincer, Ever-Green-View Legacy, to Stormatic. We got four heifers and no bulls,” explains Dr. Conrad. “We sold the first and second choice heifers. Legend was the second pick that went to Buttardell Farms in Lewiston, UT.”
Another exciting young cow living at EskDale is EskDale Bolivar Rose-TW. Rose is scored VG 87 as a 2 year old, and at one time was +1900GTPI. She was mated to Boxer for the high numbers. The resulting calf was EskDale Boxer Bouquet-ET EX 90, who still retained high numbers, even after Boxer crashed.
“She is easily one of the best show cows we have bred in some time,” says Dr. Conrad of Bouquet, “being second in the Richmond Futurity this year, and then second Senior 3 Year Old in the open show.”
EskDale enjoys competing in the showring, and also had great success at the recent Utah State Fair. Bouquet was second in the Senior 3Year Old class; they exhibited the winning 5 Year Old Ms EskDale Dundee Lola-ET. Lola went on to be named the Reserve Senior Champion and Honorable Mention Grand Champion. Lola is a granddaughter of Gloryland Lana Rae EX 94, and together with her maternal sister, won the produce of dam class.