IGBA award honors Eilers family


The Eilers family of Sandy Hill Guernseys poses with the Iowa Guernsey Breeders Association Pioneer Breeder Award, which was presented in April. From left are Stacy Eilers Sickles, Don, Mike and Glenda Eilers and Jessica Eilers Sparks. (Photo submitted)

The Pioneer Breeder Award is the culmination of the numerous honors the family has earned over the years. (Photo by Pete Temple)

Ashlynn Sparks, granddaughter of Don and Glenda Eilers, showed the Champion Guernsey at last year’s Great Jones County Fair 4-H Dairy Show, one of dozens of awards the family has earned over the years. (Express file photo)
BEEF AND DAIRY
By: 
Pete Temple
Express Sports/Ag Editor

     He knew something was up.

     On April 1, Don Eilers of Scotch Grove had two meetings at the Pizza Ranch in Independence.

     Eilers, a board member of the Iowa Guernsey Breeders Association, first attended a district-level meeting in one of the restaurant’s smaller rooms.

     The second one was much larger, involving the same organization, but at the statewide level.

     “I walked into the state meeting, and all my kids were sitting there,” Eilers said.

     The reason was that Don and Glenda Eilers and family, of Sandy Hill Guernseys, were about to receive a Pioneer Breeder award for 2016 from the IGBA.

     “We didn’t have any idea. It was a surprise to us,” Don Eilers said.

     Sandy Hill was one of five winners of the award. And maybe it shouldn’t have been such a surprise, considering the awards the operation has earned over the years:

     • A world butterfat record in 2001 with a Guernsey named Winnie.

     • The 2012 Double Gold Star Herd award.

     • The F.T. Bedford Nyala Farm Trophy in 2011, awarded for the highest 2-year-old record for milk, from a cow named Sandy Hill Aaron Molly.

     • A California Protein Award from the American Guernsey Association in 2012, from a cow named Zirkmeads Cinfull.

     • The Tarbell Trophy, representing the high butterfat record nationally in 2012, again with Zirkmeads Cinfull.

     • The top cow in the nation for butterfat, combined fat and protein in 2012.

     • Being first in the nation in Current Pedigree Index (CPI) for small herds, for three years.

     The family has also had several showing awards. Among the biggest ones are:

     • Several county fair champions and supreme champions.

     • State fair junior show champions.

     • World Dairy Expo reserve grand champion of the Guernsey show in 1995.

     • Honorable mention All-Americans.

     • The Eilers children and grandchildren have all won showmanship awards.

     “They took all these awards into consideration,” Glenda said.

     Don and Glenda started milking cows in 1971. In 1974, Don bought the family’s first Guernsey.

     “We liked her so well that we bought Guernseys (from then on) and sold the Holsteins off,” Don said. “They’re so docile and quiet. And the butterfat and protein are higher.”

     The family has developed a system that has worked extremely well over the years.

     “What we do is breed all our heifers to sexed semen (designed to produce the desired gender), so we get a heifer calf,” Don said. “Then we sell the cow and keep the heifer for the grandkids to show. We just keep 12 or 13 all the time.”

     The Eilers cows are often sold to All Grass Farms, LLC, out of Chicago. Others have gone to Colorado and Missouri, among other places.

     Not surprisingly, plaques and certificates cover the walls of the Eilers home, along with paintings and photos of cows.

     “If we didn’t have all these cow pictures, we wouldn’t have anything to decorate the house with,” Glenda said with a laugh.

     Don is 69 years old, and Glenda is 68, but they keep busy in other ways besides raising Guernseys.

     Don has been employed by Theisen’s since November. Glenda, a longtime employee of the Farm Service Agency, helps out at St. John’s Daycare.

     “We keep the calves mainly for our grandkids because they love to show,” Glenda said. “They all show. We probably wouldn’t be in it now (if they didn’t).”

 

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