E.Y.B.S. 2016 - Living one’s passion, designing one’s future !

Even though the agricultural sector is getting through severe difficulties nowadays, this could not overcome the passion of our Holstein young breeders for animals and breeding shows, on the contrary.

136 young breeders coming from 13 different countries joined Battice at the beginning of September to complete the training given at the European Young Breeders’ School.  This year has particularly been marked by the presence of very young participants, among whom one third was younger than 18.

Among the countries that were represented we could welcome a new one : Latvia was very enthousiastic to participate to this first experience.

The great winner of the 2016 edition was Kilian PFLUG, coming from Switzerland.  He also won the price of the best clipping, pretty close - for this discipline - to the Canadian young breeder Maxime Montplaisir.   Maxime however got his revenge with the price of the best showmanship.  Switzerland shined also with 5 of its participants in the top 10 at the overall ranking and obtained a 3rd position for the team.

Impressive performance also for Germany with the highest attendance : 38 participants, 6 teams
among those : 5 in the top 10 of the team ranking.

Germany won :
 

• The price for the best team : won by Masterrind.
• The price for the leaders won by Sarah Raff from Baden-Württemberg (Southern Germany).  The only representative of her federation, Sarah successfully integrated the team of Brandenburg Jungzüchter (Northern Germany) and seduced the Leaders thanks to her significant progress during the whole period of the training.
• The price for the best young breeder under the age of 16 was attributed to Barbara Gumpold of S.R.B. Bayern.  It is worth noting that this team was participating for the very first time at the E.Y.B.S.

Wallonia was represented by 2 teams (Wal’holstein and Wallonia) of newcomers eager to learn.

Only 2 among the 11 participants already took part to the event before; Christophe Piron ranked at the 8th position.  Aloïs Boutry, 15 years old, also did a great performance ranking 21st at the overall and at the first place of his category for Showmanship.

Concerning the Junior categories the best Walloon young breeders Aloïs and Robin Boutry will participate respectively to the Open Junior Show of Cremona and Ettelbruck.  Christophe Piron and Jerôme Bredo however will represent Wallonia for the Senior category.

Besides we would like to warmly thank Yan Jacobs, official Judge coming from the famous Farm of the same name in Quebec, who had been working for 2 days of the competition to judge the young breeders.  Also a special thank you to the host families, to the breeders who provided their heifers and to all the people who each year contribute to the success of such an event.    

The School keeps on becoming more and more notorious.  Many young breeders are performing in Europe after having attended the E.Y.B.S.  At the last Colmar European Championship in June 2016, almost 2/3 of the candidates were ones who followed our courses in Battice.  

Once again the E.Y.B.S. kept its promises : training, passion, relationship : a wonderful message of hope for the future.