Herd of the Month
The Trewarnevas Herd
By Digby Gribble
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:17:00 AM

The TREWARNEVAS herd -- owned by Morris Grose and his family -- forms a central part of a very well managed farming operation on the Lizard Peninsula. The 160 cow herd is made up of 120 Guernseys and 40 Holsteins for having achieved his ambition of 40 years to win the Royal Championship with a Guernsey, Morris harbours the dream of breeding a Holstein Champion of the same show.

The cows are enjoying new facilities as a new 16/32 Westfalia herringbone parlour has been installed this summer, which has reduced milking times by 3 hours daily. The new parlour and dairy were installed in the old silage pit area on the outside edge of the unit, which means that Milk tankers and Cake lorries no longer have to enter the cow areas, which with ever increasing "Biosecurity" demands makes good sense, but this of course meant that a new silage pit had to be provided as well.

The cows all wear transponder collars and are identified as they enter the parlour with the first cow fed automatically to draw her to the front, the rest are fed as the cluster is applied with milk yields recorded at every milking and transferred to a computer in the office built above the dairy, which provides a view of the milking routine without disturbing the cows.

The daily management of the cows is the responsibility of daughter Nicola, who manages the computer information and adjusts feed levels according to production, but the feature of the system is that any or all of the family can and do take turns in the parlour.

Morris and his son Jonothan also specialise in vegetable production with 200 acres of potatoes and 125 acres of cauliflower grown annually with 120 acres of short term grass leys and 60 acres of maize grown as part of the arable rotation and used as the forage diet for the cows.

I first met Morris and Elizabeth in 1982 at the Dairy Event when Trewarnevas Sinclaire was the winner of the Dalgety Three Day Milking Trial producing a greater margin over feed than any other cow of the other breeds, as this was the year that a Guernsey also won the Interbreed Inspection Award, there was a memorable celebration.

The family have been loyal supporters of the Cornish shows in most seasons since and when they have had a competitive cow have not been afraid to venture further afield with success at the Devon County and Reserve Champion at the Royal with Maple Leaf Fayette Laurinda in 1997, but she was to achieve the Top award at the Royal in 1999 and to return to retain her title in 2000, only the third cow since the war to do so. She was also South West Dairy show Champion in 2000 with Australian judge Toni Robinson memorably stating that she “would love to wake up and find a cow as good as that in her back paddock.”

Maple Leaf Laurinda Royal Champion 99/00

On a trip to America in 1998 Morris and Elizabeth were able to see West Lynn Tom Dee in the show ring and were able to import Enhancer embryos from her as well as Perfecto embryos from Wincrest Vayette Grace who at that time was the world record milk producer. They were able to rear a son from each cow and Trewarnevas Tom Dee Thomas has daughters calving shortly. Unfortunately the Perfecto bull broke a leg whilst running with heifers.

Laurinda is not the only star at Trewarnevas and the most recent classification visit saw four cows go Excellent with seven more VG, amongst the Excellent cows was Curland Wormwood 6 Ex 93, Champion at Stithians on her first outing and who would have been a contender for a third Royal Championship had not Morris had the Signal honour of judging the Burke Pairs Championship and meeting the Queen in Jubilee year.

Curland Wormwood 6 Stithians Champion 01