That Honey Cow By Fred Myers
After I left Dreamstreet Holsteins in 1985, I sold semen and analyzed cattle in New York and Pennsylvania. I found some great registered Holstein cattle for breeders and they went on to score 93-94 points. One of my favorites was Upsland-A Mario Honey. I found her in a herd in Herkimer County. Money was tight in the farming industry, but because I owned my own business, I was able to adjust semen prices, and my fees for analyzing cows. In this barn, the cows were very close together. After they calved as a two-year-old, they never let them outside until they took them out for beef or they died. I saw a two-year-old so big that she was standing in the gutter. She had a small udder and was quite thin. I could always close my eyes and see what a cow could look like. I asked, “That was your son’s heifer from last fall?” And the farmer said, “Yes.” I said she was a little too big for his barn and he agreed. I asked if his son would sell her for $3,000 and he said he probably would. I knew his son wanted to go to college and was short of money, so my plan was to show her, do well and then sell her for a profit. I told him that when I sold her, I would give his son half the money to put towards college. I returned the next day with the contract. I took her to Ed Poole’s farm in Courtland County because I knew he was the best person to get the cow going in the right way. The next day Ed was scoring the cows and I told him to put her next to the biggest cow he had and don’t clip her. The classifier asked me where I found her. I told him in the mountains, and he said, “If you get her right, you’ll have a lot of fun with her.” Ed got her clipped, wormed, and feet trimmed. He got her milking heavy and got her udder stretched out. I will always be thankful for Ed and what he had done with ‘Honey.’ We took her to the spring show but she wasn’t quite ready and finished third. She was Reserve
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Grand Champion at Courtland, was first at the Central New York Holstein Show and was second at the New York State Fair. Mike Heath saw her in the CNY show and asked me if I wanted to sell her. We sold her to the LaFoster Farm in North Carolina for $19,000. When I gave the man’s son his half of the check and said, “Now you can go to college,” and it was one of the greatest feelings in my life. ‘Honey’s’ first calf was a red bull named ‘Harry,’ and he was still at the farm. I bought him and had semen drawn at Dependabull and sold several hundred units. ‘Harry’ had many excellent daughters. He didn’t have any index numbers and couldn’t get in any bull stud. However, he was number one in the Red Book for feet and legs, three times. Fosters flushed ‘Honey’ many times with several bulls including Red & White bulls as she carried the red factor. She was one of Foster’s best brood cows with excellent daughters in the herd. LA-Foster Sovereign Haley (EX-92) out of Honey is proven to be even better than her mother. She has a record of 53,450M 2129F 1708P, and the Fosters consider her to be one of the best cows they’ve every bred. I will never forget ‘Honey.’
