The Rural Voice, 1996-06, Page 33ship 10 of the bull's daughters to the
U.S. for testing.
"If he's going to make it, he's
going to have to make in the U.S.,"
Jim says. That's where there are large
numbers of dairy farmers to buy the
semen.
Though a bull judged good
enough to go into an Al unit is like
finding the pot of gold at the end of
the rainbow, Jim says his investment
won't go higher than the loss of milk
from those 10 daughters while
they're on test. The odds of meeting
the strict criteria, he says, are too
long for him to start counting his 20
per cent share of the possible
bonanza.
Though there are big numbers
tossed around in the price of
some of the show animals sold,
in reality "you don't make any
money showing cattle," Patrick says.
The fancy prices for the show
animals help pay for the high cost of
showing animals. Still, "We've been
out there long enough people know
where we are," says Patrick and
buyers often come visiting the farm.
Most of the farm's income,
however, comes from the 60 cows
that are milking at any one time. It's
a long way from the nine heifers that
Jim started out with. His father
farmed around the corner in the
settlement of Hallahans in east
Wawanosh (the family patriarch,
Dennis, took up crown land in 1856)
and he bought his current farm in
1967. The going hasn't been easy,
including a five-year legal battle with
a bank trying to get power of attorney
over their milk quota (the Hallahans
won at great cost in legal fees), but
today they have optimism for the
future.
That future will be bigger, Jim
figures. "In five years we'll be
milking 100 cows or we won't be
milking at all," he feels.
Patrick already works on the farm.
Jamie and Ryan have expressed
interest in coming home to the farm.
Jim says in his family, optimism is
part of the family tradition. He quotes
his uncle Simon Hallahan, who died
recently at 96: "Always keep the
land. Never depend on somebody
else to feed you." Those who do
depend on someone else to feed them
can be grateful families like the
Hallahans plan to keep on farming.0
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