ALTHOUGH they earned the top Ayrshire award at the Royal Melbourne Dairy Show this week, the Flanagan family don't actually run a dairy farm.
In fact, they run sheep, beef cattle and mainly crops on their Womboota property, north of Moama - and four to five dairy cows.
"People think it's a bit unusual," Jill Flanagan said, who runs the farming business with her husband Paul.
The couple's "handful" of Ayrshire cows are milked in a "midget" unit, and the milk is used to rear calves purchased from other dairy farmers or orphaned beef calves and lambs from their flock.
It's a tradition they've tried to continue in honour of the Flanagan family, who started the Blauvelt stud in the 1950s.
"We had one cow from left from the original herd," she said.
"And we thought if we don't breed from her, we'll lose that line of cows completely."
The tradition of carrying on the cow bloodlines has also spurred on the Flanagans to show too, and this year they took three head to Melbourne.
It was their five-year-old entry Blauvelt Park Nellie that was awarded the senior and supreme broadribbons.
Mrs Flanagan said she had been shown many times before.
"She won junior champion (at Melbourne) as a two-year-old and also won the two-year-old in-milk class," she added.
The cow is averaging 28 litres, and peaked at 32L.
"I guess you would call her a house cow, but the showing side of things is something we really enjoy," she said.
"She hasn't had a heifer yet, but we are hoping to get one from her."
The Flanagans were the most successful Ayrshire exhibitors on the day.
