EMBRUN — Jacob Buehler is beaming after his $30,000 Holstein heifer was named grand champion at the international red and white show at Victoriaville, Quebec.

Competing against young cows from Quebec and Ontario, Buehler’s one-year-old yearling, Sildajak Regiment Majesty, was named junior grand champion. On May 8, he sold 50 per cent interest to an American.

The Buehlers are testimony to a shift in interest toward red and white Holsteins over the traditional black and whites. In fact, as interest gathers, The Royal Winter Fair in Toronto this November will include a red and white show for the first time. There are enough cattle out there – about three red and whites for every 100 Holsteins in Ontario — and demand is so strong that Buehler says a good red and white Holstein will fetch a higher price than a comparable black and white.

The red and whites are so popular, you can earn twice the price, insists Scott Wilson, a Port Perry dairy farmer and head of the Canadian Red and White Holstein Club. The year after the U.S. border closed, Wilson helped organize the first red and white sale in Canada, held at Uxbridge. The March 2004 sale recorded a jaw-dropping average sale price of $4,500. "We wouldn’t have had $1,500 average if they had been black and white," Wilson said. His club now has 250 members.

Last year’s show fetched an average $3,200 per cow. This year, the show to be held July 26 at Norwood, is unofficially Canada’s first national red and white sale.

Prices have been strong for more than five years and show no signs of slowing down, Wilson said, adding the that only difference in owning a red and white is colour. It’s a bit like preferring blondes to brunettes. The colour is a novelty and "it’s a fashion," Wilson says.

Producing a red and white is a matter of breeding a recessive gene. But breeders are also keen because it is a challenge to improve the breed based on a much smaller gene pool, he added.

"Right now, popularity is at a peak. In Holsteins, there is a lot of competition for marketing and some people like something a little bit different."
Moreover, many new farmers to Canada from Holland, Switzerland and Germany are used to having red and whites in their herd and want some here

Meantime, the Buehlers, of Sildajak Ferme, at the edge of Embrun, east of urban Ottawa, are basking in this popularity for colour preference.

They also had a cow that earned junior championship last year at the Victoriaville show. She was later sold to central Ontario cattle dealer, Barklay Phoenix. Sildajak Ferme has 280 cows, including about 35 red and whites, and are milking 100.