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Brian Lammers's mother Marlene was able to attend the award ceremony.
NEW KNOXVILLE- A New Knoxville farm received the peer-chosen Master Breeder award last month at the National Brown Swiss Convention in Fresno, California.
La Rainbow Farm was recognized on June 16 for contributing to the continuing progress of the Brown Swiss breed.
The Master Breeder Award recognizes an active breeder who has successfully developed a breeding program that accentuated cow families, especially those that contributed significantly to the advancement of the breed. It's the highest award given at the convention every year. The winner is chosen by the entire association and then announced at the convention.
La Rainbow Farm was up against six farms from across the country, including farms from Wapakoneta, Wisconsin, Maryland, Vermont and Illinois.
The farm was anonymously nominated for the award about four years ago, La Rainbow Farm owner Brian Lammers said.
He said his grandfather Fred Lammers started La Rainbow Farm with only one Brown Swiss bull and a few cows in 1918. The original farm name was Rainbow Stock Farm, F.W. Lammers.
When the family registered their prefix, Rainbow was already in use. To solve the issue, they added "La" for Lammers, he said, and La Rainbow Farm was registered in 1943.
"(The farm is) truly a family and multi-generational affair, having been in the Brown Swiss business for over 105 years," said Roger Nietzel, president of the Brown Swiss Association, during the award presentation. "During the 1950s, Fred's son Silas traveled by railroad box car with the La Rainbow show string out west. In 1957 and 1958, Dennis worked the show season at Lee's Hill Farm. Silas was District 2 National Director from 1974 to 1982."
Nietzel explained that the third generation, Dennis Lammers, continued with the La Rainbow show string and was best known for breeding the Butterfly cow family.
"It's meaningful that our efforts and work is being recognized by our peers," Brian Lammers said. "Not to minimize the work that my father and grandfather did, but over the past 10 years we have been doing better than we ever have."
Brian Lammers, who has a doctorate in animal science from Penn State University, explained that La Rainbow Farm has used In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) to improve its breeding process over the past 13 years. He said his family were some of the first in the industry to explore IVF.
"I think it's important to keep up on stuff," he said. "It's very expensive, but I thought it was important to get in early."
The family downsized their herd three years ago and now have 40 head of cattle, which Brian Lammers said are their elite genetically ranked Brown Swiss cows.
After a new calf is born, a genomic test is conducted by taking a small tissue sample, which he said is most easily and harmlessly taken from the edge of the ear. There are more than 30 traits that come from a genomic test, he said.
The tissue samples can be taken any time after the calves are born, and officials at La Rainbow Farm typically get samples taken and sent into a lab within one month of age.
The tissue sample contains cells with the animals' DNA, which is used to generate the 30 genetic traits. From those 30 traits, the Brown Swiss Association calculates the genetic value for each animal, Brian Lammers said.
"We monitor all of these traits but more heavily watch and select for these three: milk production amount, confirmation (appearance and mobility), and expected health and length of productive life," he said.
Each animal is then entered in the breed database and ranked based on how it stacks up to other Brown Swiss in the U.S., he said.
This innovation has paid off for La Rainbow Farm greatly. It's been Premier Breeder at the Ohio State Fair nine times, from 2009 to 2019.
Brian Lammers said he and his family were informed of the award a few weeks before the convention.
"My mother, Marlene, is 78, and was already planning on attending (the conference)," he said. "So we were able to keep it a surprise from her. It was a really special time for us."
