Twenty-five hundred cows, and in one sense, you could say they’ll all be winners. But one cow will be the biggest winner of all.

 

They’ll all be paraded before the judges during the 44th annual World Dairy Expo, Sept.

28-Oct. 2 at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin. The anticipated 65,000 visitors from across the U.S. and over 90 other countries will see the commercial exhibits of 750 companies, numerous competitions, virtual farm tours, seminars, award ceremonies—and, of course, some of the very best dairy cows the industry has to offer.

 

Things get started Tuesday morning with the International Junior Holstein Show. Lindsey Worden, communications manager for Holstein Association USA, expected entries in the Junior Show to be comparable to last year’s 177; the open show begins at noon Friday for heifers and Saturday morning for cows and groups, with 2009 entries at 415.

 

“We have eleven shows that we designate as ‘National Shows’ each year,” reports Worden, “and one of them is the International Holstein Show at World Dairy Expo; it’s the largest of our National Shows. The International Junior Show at World Dairy Expo is one of our four Junior Holstein shows that we designate as National Shows as well. We do sponsor that program; we help provide awards, and provide the recognition to the animals there that participate in those shows.”

 

Is WDX the top competition in the country? “A lot of people view it that way,” she says. “As far as Holstein USA’s official stance, we don’t elevate one National Show above the other. But Expo is the biggest of the shows, and it seems like it’s the most competitive annually.” It also, Worden adds, seems to be the show that garners the most attention.”

 

A total of 760 Holsteins were represented at last year’s Expo. Other breed totals were, Ayrshire –235; Brown Swiss—382; Guernsey—199; Jersey–482; Milking Shorthorn—213; and Red & White –336. The breed shows and sales also brought 912 exhibitors from 35 states and seven Canadian provinces. “We have members from California to New York and New England that take cattle out there,” says Worden. “From New Mexico and Texas. People come from all over.” And although Worden has never exhibited there herself—she grew up on a dairy farm in New York—she adds, “Maybe some day.”

 

The Ayrshire show begins right after the Junior Holsteins; the Central National Jersey Show for heifers is Tuesday afternoon and the show for Jersey cows and groups is the next morning, with the Top of the World Jersey Sale held Tuesday evening. At times, Expo cattle show manager Laura Herschleb notes, “We have parts of three different shows that take place at one point in time. But our breed associations are such fantastic supporters of the show and help us out tremendously, so we kind of choreograph all that’s going on and make it all happen.”

 

Herschleb does a lot to help make the livestock shows happen, too; her job doesn’t end when the show starts. She’s there each morning helping the superintendents—there’s one for each breed, plus an overall dairy superintendent—get their shows underway. If there’s an issue with electricity, she helps take care of that; if exhibitors are having problems, she works with them and with the grounds crew to get them solved.

 

She also helps out with the show’s many youth contests—everything from the National 4-H Dairy Cattle Judging Contest, 90th Intercollegiate Dairy Cattle Judging Contest and 22nd International Post Secondary Dairy Cattle Judging Contest, all of which take place Monday before Expo officially starts, to activities during the run of the show like the 4-H Dairy Quiz Bowl, Youth Showmanship Contest, and National FFA events. The latter include dairy cattle judging, dairy products judging, showmanship, and the Forage Management Cup.

 

Herschleb also assists the many volunteers, for whom she has great praise. “We are so fortunate to have so many fantastic volunteers and supporters of our cattle show,” she says. “They’re involved in all sorts of different sectors of the dairy industry, both from here and outside of Wisconsin. We’re just so lucky that we have such wonderful supporters of the show, and all of our efforts wouldn’t be possible without the fantastic exhibitors that we have that come out each year and bring their cattle looking in the finest form possible.”

 

Although the repeat exhibitors, says Herschleb, are “really the foundation for what got our show started,” there are also new ones every year.   Cherie Bayer, director of development for the American Jersey Cattle Association and National All-Jersey Inc., says the number of new faces representing their breed at WDX has risen quite a bit over the last six or seven years. Expo, she says, “is the meeting ground of everybody.”

Bayer offered a long list of Jersey related activities in addition to participation in the shows and sales. “Our association will have exhibits in the coliseum; there’ll be member service, and also breed promotion there. Then, we will be producing what’s called a ‘virtual farm tour’ on Wednesday afternoon at 2 o’clock, where we’re bringing in a young couple from Ohio, Alan and Sharon Kozak, to talk about their operation.”   That will include a PowerPoint presentation and video footage of the Kozaks’ farm; it’s one of several virtual tours at this year’s Expo, all of which will be archived at the world-dairy-expo.com website and available for retrieval as podcasts.

 

The theme of this year’s Expo is “Crowning Achievements—Golden Opportunities”; this year’s Recognition Award winners are Liz Doornink of Baldwin, Wisc. as Dairy Woman of the Yea, Donald Bennink of Bell, Fla as Dairyman of the Year, Tadanaga Komori of Japan Livestock Trading Corporation as International Person of the Year and Horace Backus of Backus Pedigree Co. as Industry Person of the Year. The National Dairy Shrine also holds its awards ceremony Wednesday evening, and Bayer says past Jersey Association executive secretary Calvin Covington will be this year’s Guest of Honor recipient.

 

At the breed’s arena-level exhibit, she says, they’ll be providing information on “where Jerseys are today, the economics of Jersey dairying, and some of the more exciting news that we just had released [in July].” This was a lifecycle assessment of cheese production, conducted by Washington State University dairy scientist Jude Capper and Roger Cady of Elanco, who found Jerseys’ carbon footprint to produce a pound of cheese is 20% smaller than that of Holsteins.

 

This leads to the inevitable question—do the breed associations actively compete with one another? Bayer laughs, and says, “You know, we’re all involved with developing the best dairy cow that we possibly can to produce high quality dairy products for American consumers and make them available for export. Each of our breeds has a unique place in the dairy industry, and we all work together. On the other hand, we kind of feel like the Jerseys have some real advantages to offer dairymen, and also folks who are making manufactured products, and so we work on identifying and documenting what those different advantages are, and communicating them to the industry at large.” And, she adds, to the bankers whose credit availability keeps the industry in operation.

 

And so, everybody will be gunning for the grand prize on Saturday, when the Parade of Champions takes place and the Supreme Champion is selected. The prize last year went to a Holstein, as was the case in 2008…but a Guernsey was honored in 2007, and a Jersey in 2006. “I guess you can say that we do go head-to-head,” says Bayer, “and see who’s got the best dairy cow in North America.”

 

And Worden says, while the shows are more important to some dairymen than others, “I think in general the majority of people who have registered Holsteins keep an eye on the show ring maybe a little bit; it piques their interest. It’s always nice to see the beautiful Holstein cows out there.”