Celebrating master breeder success twice

At the time Cosimo and Maria milked 12 cows — a mixture of Friesians and cross-breed cows in a six-aside herringbone.

Over the decades, their dairy business has grown to encompass an additional 129 hectares, 350 mostly registered Holstein cows and a third generation dairy farmer in grandson Daniel, who has taken over the running of the farm from his parents Fred and Sonia.

Fred said from an early age his dad Cosimo taught him if he was going to do something to do it properly, and that advice has held true, particularly when it comes to breeding.

The DeCicco family were recently awarded their second Holstein master breeder.

“Dad started Benevento after he bought a few stud cows from Joe Watts from Kyabram. He was a well-known breeder at the time and that was the beginning of it all really,” Fred said.

“I just love cows and I love watching their journey as they come into the herd as a heifer and then hopefully leave many lactations later.

“It just gives me a real buzz.”

Fred said initially the family developed their own cow families, and it wasn’t until the drought in the early 2000s, when the opportunity developed for them to invest into some well-known cow families including the Roxies, Ashlynns and Jacobina’s.

Their own successful families have been the Tammy’s, Suzannes and Vivianna’s.

“In the early ’80s, we had a cow called Enhancer Tammy VG87 — she was an amazing cow, and I can still see her great front end and her tremendous udder.”

Another early Tammy, Astre Tammy 2nd (daughter of Enhancer) went EX92, and was a 16-star brood cow.

“She achieved 110,000 litres of milk over her lifetime, which is good enough for a superior production award.

“She bred so well for us, and I wish we had here with us here today with the breeding technology we have now.

“She had six or seven lactations and gave us some amazing daughters.”

Fred believes around a third of the animals in the herd can be traced back to Enhancer or Astre Tammy.

“The most prominent cows were probably the Igniter Tammy’s.

“They all bred off in different directions, but Igniter Tammy 4th EX 90 and two stars gave us a couple of bulls that were sold into China —HoTaber and HoTaurus.

“HoTaber in particular had great type and production, and we had a couple of great heifers in our herd.”

The calf Havenofear Tammy (pictured) is a direct descendant of Ingniter Tammy 4th and has five generations of excellent behind her pedigree.

“That is something we are really proud of, and it doesn’t happen all that often.

“Our Tammy’s really have been such a great and long-standing amazing family for us.”

Not only has breeding given the DeCicco’s quality cows, it has also given them friendships that have lasted decades.

Back in the early 1990s, Benevento had a couple of really good Juror heifers in milk and Lou and Leon Giglia from Ponderosa Holsteins in WA came over to have a look.

“From that day on we established a great friendship with the Giglias.

“We looked after some of their heifers after they had their dispersal sale, and we also went into partnership as well.”

Frank laughs as he thinks back to those early days when he and Sonyia were showing cows.

“We had a couple of Warden heifers we took to the Kyabram Show.

“We thought they were the best cows in the world and we were proud as punch of them, but we were also as green as grass when it came to showing and they placed second last and last in their class.

“We didn’t care though, we had such a great day and we would go on to learn so much about Holsteins from some of the great people in the industry, including Pam Malcolm, who was always so generous in sharing her knowledge.”

Both Fred and Sonyia are now starting to think about retiring and they have basically handed over the running of the farm to Daniel.

“He is very capable and doing a great job as he starts to make his own way in the industry.”

The couple is in the process of commencing its succession plan which has included a few trips to the lawyers to get it right.

“We realised it was time to start to reward Daniel, so every calf born this year will go to him as reimbursement for lost salary, and he already owns half the farm, so he is well on his way.”

Daniel has made a few changes along the way introducing genomic testing to the herd and improving calf management. (See story page 24.)

He has also introduced Fred to some technology including the herd data app which he loves.

They have cut back on their breeding a bit, choosing to only breed from their best and joining the bottom end of the herd to beef.

“I want to focus on feed efficiency and grow more fodder,” Fred said.

“We might cut back the herd size a bit to reduce some of the workload, and I want to see the herd 100 per cent Holstein registered.

“We will continue to improve our cow families and hopefully down the track we might even sell some of our own cows in an on farm sale,” Daniel said.