This message is from: "Nathan Lapp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Here I come again with my background in purebred dairy cows. "Classifiers," we call the evaluators in cattle language. They come to the farm every seven months and put a score on all of the cows. It's optional, of course, and quite expensive--costs us $400. for 60 cows each time. The payback is in selling breeding stock, which is not important to most "commercial" farmers who make their living just selling milk and getting beef price for their worn out cows. They don't classify. But they are the first to come to herds like ours for breeding bulls whose dams and sires all have classification scores and official milk records.
The way I see it, it's a great advantage to the breed to have the evaluation option available. A bit more of a breeders' tool than showing, which tends to compare with other animals rather than breed standards. When we bought our first mare and knew little about the breed except that we loved their temperament and sturdiness, it was a wonderful reassurance to see she had been evaluated by professionals, with scores on different body traits. We felt Julia Will was honest and selling us a good horse but this was quite a bonus! We would indeed be interested in evaluating our other mare--don't think we can drive as far as Virginia though. Barbara Lyn Lapp in Western New York where it tried to rain today but couldn't, and wells are getting low.
