Queen and Princes of England drink raw milk

Posted by: "tlsmith_1" tlsmith_1@...
Mon Sep 18, 2006 6:19 pm (PST)
I forward for your reading pleasure.... tls
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Dairying on the historic grounds of Britain's Windsor Castle

Adrian Tomlinson rubs shoulders with royalty in his job as the
Queen's Ayrshire herdsman

BY IAN GUMMING

Ontario Farmer staff

Adrian Tomlinson has been herdsman for the Queen of Engl and 's
Ayrshire herd at Wind�sor Castle for 17 years. The 43-year-old dairy
farmer's son from Cheshire had answered an advertisement back then
and during the interview "hit it off' with the farm manager who told
him right then and there the job was his.

It's meant over the past decade and a half that the Queen has stuck
her head through his back door, or rapped on the window, when she's
seen an unattended cow calving in the pasture, or on the bedding
pack.

"All cattle are registered in her name, with the prefix of
Windsor ," said Tomlinson. All herd events, including placings at
shows, are filed in regular reports to her.

It's meant farming within a 15,000 acre estate guarded by the
nation's army - 2,500 acres being intensely farmed for a Jersey and
Ayrshire herd, along with a beef herd, sheep flock, valuable hors�es
and cash crop.

It's meant working with great cattle - where money is not an
ob�ject -
in the midst of one of the most hallowed, historic spots in Britain.

All of this isn't lost on Tom�linson as he drives around the
es�tate
enthusiastically showing the Jersey farm that Queen Victoria built
in the 1860's, the Frogmore House, where they found 600 year old
murals on the walls af�ter they had taken off the plaster, or the
mausoleum where so many of the nation's royalty is buried; including
Queen Victoria and her husb and Prince Albert.

It's also meant working with people who take pride in their
professions and in their nation's history.

Just across the yard from where Tomlinson and his family live is the
smaller stone house where the last Ayrshire herdsman stays. He's 92
years of age and a war veteran. As the story goes, he weighed 80
pounds, despite st and ing six feet tall, when freed as a war
prisoner and had been nursed back to health there at a special
facility on the Windsor Castle grounds.

He started working with the cattle and then stayed. His em�ployers
are looking after him for life as thanks for his service.

Other houses on the Castle grounds are for the head groom, farm
manager, the furniture pol�isher and restorer, the Jersey herdsman,
coachman, tractor dri�vers and gardeners, with the list being a lot
larger. Tomlinson's wife, giving birth to their first child five
weeks ago, is Windsor Castle secretary.

The Jersey herd, "is the oldest existing one in the world," said
Tomlinson. Queen Victoria had been given six Jerseys as presents
back in the 1840s and , with ac�curate pedigrees kept since then, a
lot of the herd traces back to them, he said.

There had been Ayrshires up at Balmoral Castle for the same amount
of time, but they weren't moved down to Windsor until the reign of
the current Queen began, said Tomlinson.

Both herds, each with 180 milking cows, have a lot of Canadian
genetics, with about a 1,000 kg a cow difference be�tween the herds
in production.

With the higher Jersey fat, which herd is the most profitable? "The
Ayrshires," Tomlinson an�swers with a wide grin.

Both herds are grazed, fed haylage and corn silage in a feed bunk
and the pelleted concentrate in the milking parlour. They are housed
on a bedding pack, which enhances cow comfort, but re�sults in a
higher sec count than with the free stalls they had be�fore, said
Tomlinson..

The cattle housing facilities are over 20 years old and Tomlinson
notes that new facilities "are un�der discussion." That would cer�
tainly mean a move to TMR feeding, he says.

One of the most unique farm buildings, that will certainly re-main
unaltered, is the dairy built by Queen Victoria in 1861. With marble
counter tops imported from Russia cooled by water run�ning through
them, milk was poured in the individual pans and then the cream was
separated. Beautiful carvings adorn the walls.

Although the building hasn't been used for 90 years everything has
been left as is and is polished every week, said Tomlinson.

What hasn't changed over the centuries is that these herds put raw
milk on the Royal family's and other consumers' tables, said
Tomlinson. The Queen drinks raw milk from her Jersey herd and when
Princes William and Harry were being educated at nearby Eton , "I
would bottle up some milk from the Ayrshire herd every day and run
it over to them."

A small ice cream st and in the tourist section of the grounds ad�
vertised the product made from raw milk at Windsor , along with
humane cattle h and ling, and the lineup was long. Organic
agriculture isn't practiced at Windsor but rather at Prince Charles
Ayrshire heard in Gloucester , said Tomlinson