After arriving in Europe, we were all excited to get off the plane, gather our bags and stretch our legs. We went through customs, where we got our passports stamped. Then, after a short break we headed to the coach that carries the Dairy Judging teams and headed to a rural agricultural museum. We had sandwiches at this stop and then hiked a small trail to an older house and barn. On our hike we were able to see sheep, draft horses, Holstein, Ayrshire, and Scottish Highland cattle grazing on the lush green grass. The house and gardens were beautiful, and it was interesting to see the person who lived in the house before it became a museum showed Ayrshire cattle and had won several awards which were on display.
We were not able to spend a lot of time at the museum before we had to get back on the coach and we headed to the Scottish Agricultural College where we talked with the farm manager about the practices dairy farmers use in the UK. The most interesting differences between the dairy at the college and farms in Maryland are the way the public perceive dairy farmers. In Scotland, animal welfare is extremely important to the public. It is actually illegal now to house calves in hutches, because the public does not want to see young calves by themselves. In addition, no BST is allowed, and they do not eat veal. Also, the public like to see the cows outside grazing on the pastures instead of indoors. However, at the college they do use American bulls such as Shottle and breed their cows AI. The breeding goals are slightly different though, as in Scotland, they want there cows to last 8 to 10 lactations. Again this is because the public would be upset if the cows only lived through 3 or 4 lactations. Also, in Scotland freestalls are called cubicles and a freestall barn is called a cubicle shed. The trip to the Scottish Agricultural College was very interesting and a great learning experience.
After the college, we took the coach to our hotel in Glasgow. Along the trip we were able to see sheep and cattle grazing on the lush grass and rolling hills. Our hotel is very nice and we had a delicious dinner of salad, chicken, potatoes, salmon, veggies, and desert. Tomorrow we will be up early to start on our next adventure. Thats all for now.
Hannah Smith for THE TEAM :)
Addition! Day 1 pics are up http://www.flickr.com/photos/marylanddairy2008/
2 comments:
Very nice replay of your day. I hope Laurel, Amy and Derek blog as well!! Assures all those wonderful folks who donated to the trip that you are learning and having a great time !!
Phone number to Hotel has been changed - please find correct number and email home
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