Raising the Bar with Raspberry
Despite Jaydn’s young age, she doesn’t really get nervous when she shows. Chris says of his oldest, “She handles the pressure better than Mom and Dad. Maybe she doesn’t realize how big of a deal of it is, but if she is nervous she doesn’t show it. The girls work a lot at home with their show leading so the heifers really glide for them.”
Kari Behling Michalovich
There’s a red calf that has been stirring up the show ring the last few months in both the Red and White and Black and White arenas. She’s even headlined the show rings in Canada. MS AOL DB Raspberry-Red and her young leadsman, Jaydn Kimball, age 11 of Windham, Maine are evidence that when you set goals and work to achieve those goals, nothing can stop you.
The work that Jaydn and Raspberry put in proved to be essential in their success. Raspberry topped the Fall Calf Class of the Grand International Red and White Show and went on to earn the Junior Champion award of the Junior Show and Reserve Junior Champion honors in the Open Show. Not only had Jaydn attained her goal to develop a heifer good enough to compete at World Dairy Expo, but she had also finished at the top.
Jaydn, her parents Chris and Jamie, and her younger sister Kennedy, age ten, own and operate Beech Haven Ladies on the farm her mother Jamie grew up on. They raise and develop show heifers, raise a few Angus cattle and horses and have a small egg business. Jamie grew up with horses and beef cattle and helped with some Holstein show strings while in high school. She met husband Chris while they were both employed at Juniper Farm. Chris grew up in Hopkinton, New Hampshire at his family’s Beech Hill Farm, where he was the eighth generation to milk Holsteins and Ayrshires until their dispersal in 1996. Chris is currently employed by Semex as a genetic consultant and serving Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Chris and Jamie both realized the importance of raising their daughters with the responsibility of animals in their lives. Seven years ago, when Jaydn was four years old, they began to custom raise heifers for others and show heifers for the girls to exhibit at the local county fair and at the Maine State Show. That was the beginning of a junior project that would grow into something much more special. This past New Year’s Day, the Kimball family sat down to write out some goals for 2017. Both girls listed; work hard with our heifers, have fun playing softball, try not to fight so much and Jaydn had added, “I want to develop a heifer good enough to show at Madison and the Royal.” The list still hangs the refrigerator door. When the New England Holstein Association added a Red and White Show in 2013 to the Eastern State Exposition, Chris saw an opportunity to expose his daughters to exhibiting at a larger show and to introduce them to the kinship that develops among dairy breeding enthusiasts. The Kimballs were successful at the inaugural Red and White Show, with the class winning Spring Calf shown by Kennedy. She went on to be named Junior Champion. The following April, Chris traveled to Toolite Farm in Granville, New York, owned by Jason Tooley to look for Red and White project calves for Jaydn and Kennedy. Jason and his assistant herdsman, Lucy Stockwell had invested in a red Hvzeda daughter by the name of Miss Roxys Recovery-Red that is backed by eight Excellent dams, including Glenridge Citation Roxy EX97 4E GMD. Recovery was purchased as a fall calf and shown to some success as a heifer. She was Honorable Mention All-American Milking Fall Yearling the following year after a third place finish at World Dairy Expo.
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The Kimball family and Jason and Lucy have further continued their partnership with Recovery’s offspring, which included MS AOL DB Raspberry-Red. Raspberry is one of four Diamondback daughters from Recovery. There were three sisters born in the fall of 2016; two red and whites and one black and white. The calves were a month old when Jaydn picked Raspberry. Jaydn chose Raspberry because she liked her solid red color and her name. At the New York Spring Carousel Raspberry stood 11th out of 20, but she continued to mature and develop and by the middle of July, Raspberry was starting to come into her own.
Now, Raspberry is nominated for Red and White Heifer of the year, for not only the Junior Division, but the Open Division as well. In looking to the future of Recovery and her growing brood of daughters, the future only seems bright. After Raspberry’s showing this past fall, she and her sisters may be the ticket to winner’s circle for years to come. Lucy has plans to IVF Recovery to Diamondback again. As Lucy puts it, “People are willing to buy to into this family because it is a great family and it is red. They breed true.”
The prefix MS AOL is Lucy’s prefix. It came about from the first initials of her grandparents, Almon and Olga, and her own first initial. Lucy started with her first Holsteins at her grandparents’ farm. Toolite Farm, formerly an all Guernsey herd, consists of 140 head that are managed in a freestall barn. The majority of the herd is now Holstein, with a smaller remaining group of Guernseys and some Red and White Holsteins that all trace to Recovery. Recovery is scored EX92 and is currently bred back. During the most recent classification run in November, a Ducati daughter went Excellent and an Armani went Very Good 86 as a two year old. There are also two Excellent Contender daughters. The day to day operations of Beech Haven Ladies falls upon the shoulders of Jamie, Jaydn and Kennedy. Chris travels weekly for work. Jaydn and Kennedy feed calves before school and then work on show leading and chores when they return from school. They spend their summers washing the group of ten to twelve show heifers daily. Jamie’s mother Jane, brother Randy, sister-in-law Leanne and Uncle Mike and Aunt Candy handle the chores for the family while the Kimballs travel to shows. Raspberry and Jaydn made it back to the show ring at the end of August at the Maine State 4-H show, where Raspberry won the Fall Calf class and went on to be named Junior Champion of the Holstein Show. That was the start of run of top finishes for the pair at the local and regional shows. At the Northeast Fall National Holstein Show held at the Big E, the duo won the Junior Championship. The next stop was Jaydn’s favorite show, World Dairy Expo. Jaydn said, “I like Expo because it is a larger show and I love the display in the ring. I can’t wait to see what the color the shavings are going to be.”
Show Winning Sisters Backed by the Roxys Their Pedigree
Photos ©Cybil Fisher(left) & Jenny Thomas (right) Ad ©Briardesigns@gmail.com
There were two March flush sisters on the ground by Contender at the time Chris stopped in April. A partnership was formed and one of the calves to headed to Maine for Jaydn to work with for a junior project. MS AOL Cntd Rookie-Red won the Spring Calf Class at the Big E and again as a Spring Yearling. She was also named Junior Champion of the Red and White Show. Rookie freshened the following spring after returning to the Jason’s herd and made the trip to New York Spring Show. With Lucy’s show preparation, Rookie topped the Junior Two Year Old class and earned the Intermediate Champion title for her new owners, Milksource Genetics, who had purchased her before the show.
The next stop was the Le Supreme Laitier show in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec. This show is often a stopover before the week before The Royal Winter Fair in Toronto, Ontario for many exhibitors. Raspberry was tapped Junior Champion of the Black and White Holstein show and then Supreme Junior Champion of the show. The following week, Raspberry topped the Red and White Holstein Show at The Royal Winter Fair as the winning Senior Calf and the Junior Champion.
MS-AOL DB RASPBERRY-RED-ET by Diamondback
Nominated R&W Heifer of the Year - Open & Jr 1st Fall Calf & Res. Jr Champion International R&W Show Jr Champion Canadian National R&W Show Jr Champion Le Supreme Laitier Holstein Show Jr Champion Northeast Fall National
Dam: EX-92 Hvezda 2nd Dam: EX Advent 3rd Dam: EX-93-3E DOM 4th Dam: EX-90 DOM 5th Dam: EX-96-3E GMD DOM 6th Dam: EX-94-2E GMD 7th Dam: EX-90 GMD DOM 8th Dam: EX-97-4E GMD DOM 9th Dam: EX-90 GMD MS-AOL C RIGHTAWAY-RED-ET by Contender 1st Spring Calf Eastern States R&W Show 4th Spring Calf Northeast Fall National
Special THANK YOU to our partners Lucy Stockwell and Jason Tooley for allowing us to work with this tremendous family! BEECH HAVEN LADIES
9 Knox Road ~ Windham, ME 04062 Chris & Jamie Kimball ~ Jaydn & Kennedy Chris Cell: 802.323.3776 Jamie Cell: 207.310.0813
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