A New Birth In Perran

I am pleased to announce the arrival of Snowdrop who is Daisy's first calf. Hopefully the beginning of building up the numbers of this very rare breed of cow.



The Whitebred Shorthorn are an indigenous breed but suffered badly in the 1968 foot and mouth outbreak in Cumberland, to the extent that they have dropped from being critical to worse than that. Now there are only 150 registered females in the world, and today 151. In this area there are 6 cows and 1 bull over at Pendeen and my 3 -now 4, here. They winter out, eat a varied diet and are highly favoured by Natural England for their conservation grazing.

I am proposing to milk Daisy but I need to go through a few more hoops with Environmental Health to sell pasteurised milk in a shop. However, in the meantime I can sell the milk direct to the public unpasteurised.

The "herd" is registered with everyone it needs to be and the milk will be tested. So to start off with it will be old fashioned full cream milk. Later in the year (when Buttercup calves) I will be doing yogurt and butter. In the dairying process the calves need to be separated from their mother after a day or two so Snowdrop will only be here until Saturday. That is when she will go to Pendeen to be hand reared with some other young Whitebred Shorthorns

Karen