The Border & Lakeland Holstein Club

­­­­­The Club in its present form began in 1999 with the amalgamation of 3 clubs, The Border Counties Holstein Friesian Breeders Club, The Lakeland Holstein Friesian Breeders Club and the North Western Holstein Club. These go back to the 1940’s when a group of breeders got together to form a club to promote the black & white cattle in our area.

Today we have almost 300 members mostly in Cumbria but some further a field. The aims of the club are to promote & improve the Holstein & Friesian cow & increase membership of the Breed Society. We strongly believe that pedigree cattle are the way forward & we continue to try to improve the breed through the Type Classification system & milk recording. The value of pedigree stock has been proven to be greater than non pedigree. We have many quality cattle in Cumbria, many of which belong to members of our Club.

Monthly sales under Society rules, stock judging events, shows, & panel discussion meetings etc are just a few of the ways we try to promote our cattle, as well as a winter & a summer herd competition. Again giving members the opportunity to promote their own herd & the chance to be put forward for the national Premier Breeder Award.

A silage competition is also held along with several social events to encourage interaction between members.

There is also a very active younger generation who have their own club – Border & Lakeland Holstein Young Breeders (HYB). They also hold stock judging events, have an annual calf show & many social events. Most of these allow members the opportunity to compete at national level -  the All Britain All Breeds National Calf Show being the pinacle of their club calender. The National Competitions (stockjudging) day and National Rally weekend are also highlights of the year and members eagerly look forward to these events.  The senior club sponsors a young member each year to go anywhere in the world to study cattle and normally visit an International Holstein Show.