The winners of Herdwatch’s ‘One Millionth Calf Competition’ – and the new owners of a brand new 8ft X 5ft cattle trailer – have been revealed as John and Caroline Stokes.
The Roscrea-based firm ran its competition from mid-December until Saturday, February 29, to celebrate one million calves being registered in the Herdwatch app.
Each calf registered through the app in this period was an entry to the competition and the Stokes were revealed as the winners last week on Monday, March 10.
Commenting on the win, John said: “It’s absolutely fantastic to have won the trailer; as far as I can remember we’ve never won anything – we wouldn’t even win an argument.
“Predominantly we have Holstein with a cross of British Friesian and we put our heifers in calf to an Aberdeen Angus stock bull.
We keep most of the heifers as replacements, sell half the males in the first year and sell the other half the following spring.
“I was never someone that was into technology and I swore I would never get an iPhone; but, since I made the change, the Herdwatch app has been a lifesaver when it comes to calf registrations and it takes all the out of Quality Assurance inspections,” John said.
Caroline added: “We have three kids, we both work, so I can bring the phone and have all the calves registered in a few minutes when waiting in the car for them after school or activities, it’s that easy.
We no longer have all the pieces of paper, receipts and certs flying about.
The Herdwatch app is available to download for free on the Apple App Store and Android Play Store. For those interested, more information can be obtained on the Herdwatch website.