American university students visit island to learn about Guernsey cow
Eight university students from America and their professor have visited the island to learn about the Guernsey cow breed.
The dairy science students from Virginia Tech took a tour of La Petite Croute farm and the dairy to learn about the management and genetics of dairy herds on each island.
Dairy science professor Katharine Knowlton, who breeds Jersey cows, said that the dairy club travels internationally every few years.
‘Ireland and Scotland were chosen for this year. But I have Jerseys and my student has Guernseys, so I said we had to come to the Channel Islands first, we may never be this close again and see where the breeds originated,’ she said.
‘We have just a day in each island and then more time in Ireland and Scotland, but if it were up to me I would have flipped it and spent more time in the Channel Islands.
‘Our Guernseys are taller but narrower, the cows here have better legs and more function.’
The group visiting Guernsey and Jersey were all female dairy science students.
Mary-Beth Collette studies at the university in Virginia but her family in Tennessee have about 20 Guernsey cows.
‘There’s been a real shift in agriculture as a whole in the United States, with women doing a lot more over the last couple of years and it’s supposed to continue shifting that way,’ she said.
