As we trundled up the motorway towards Birmingham, or rather Clifton-upon-Dunsmore, which is we were staying in a lovely AirBnb, aptly named ‘The Old Dairy’, I was excited. ‘There’s no way in hell I’ll win…’ I thought, but I was very much looking forward to going anyway. Livestock Event was one of those things that I’d always heard about, and thought ‘one day…’. Birmingham is quite far for us to go and it did take us a good four hours to get up there.
Let’s backtrack to a few weeks beforehand when I had an email from The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF). To say I was one of the finalists in their Farm Health Management Awards, with a piece of writing I had done as a part of my degree, and could I come up to the Livestock Event for the presentation? I excitedly rang my boyfriend to see if he would come with me, and thankfully he was as keen as I was to go.
The event itself took place at the NEC, a huge venue. So its understandable to worry if the show would fill it, but it did. Rows upon rows of stands lined the hall, with machinery demonstrations outside, and calf igloos with gorgeous calves in.
We spent a lovely day there, I particularly enjoyed an inspiring talk by Women in Dairy, celebrating their first birthday, there was cake! 
We also watched the NMR Gold Cup, which was really interesting to see what the top dairy herds in the UK were achieving. A big congratulations to Simon Bugler for winning the coveted Gold Cup.
Next came time for The RABDF Farm Health Management Awards, so I nervously made my way over to the stand to meet with the other finalists and my tutor. There were two veterinary students and two agricultural students (that was me and my friend Ross), in the final. When they called Ross’ name as the runner up I physically couldn’t believe that I was the Agricultural Student Winner… even when I collected my certificate and trophy.
Needless to say I was a bit over excited when people wanted to interview me, and congratulate me. I was honestly overjoyed. I still don’t think its quite sunk in yet. How did we celebrate? Pizza Express, wine and the football. Rock and roll 😉
I want to thank everyone involved at the Livestock Event, it was a lovely day. However, in 2017 the Livestock Event is becoming the National Dairy Event, a one day event which will be in September, so I wish them every success with that. I’m hoping we might venture up!
Did you go to the Livestock Event? What did you think? Leave me a comment and let me know…
Ruth x
Farmer Ruth 