LINDSAY — Ed McMorrow, owner of McMorrow Cattle Company, is shipping 300 head of registered Holsteins to Montreal on May 17. From there, they will be transported by air to Iran.

The cows are under a 30-day quarantine, a requirement for export, at John Buckley’s farm near Lindsay.

"The cattle are all good quality," McMorrow says, "and between nine and 14 months." The heifers were selected on the basis of their dam’s and sire’s records. The dams had to produce a minimum of 8,000 kilograms of milk per lactation and the sires had to be a plus for milk.

The heifers were selected from high quality smaller herds in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, altogether from about 100 herds, with the majority coming from herds between Lindsay and the Quebec border.

The project is being brokered by the Canadian company, Luzza International, one of the largest exporters of cattle in North America and a member of the Canadian Livestock Genetics Association. Luzza specializes in exporting Holstein and Jersey cows.

McMorrow was responsible for buying the cattle and getting them ready for export all the way to the plane.

An old hand at exporting cattle, he’s shipped cattle to, among other countries, Russia and China, and in 2008 helped Alberta-based Alta Exports International Ltd. fill an entire ship with 2,000 Russian bound cattle.

The Iranian buyer for this shipment had attended a dairy course at Kemptville College for about 30 Iranians in the mid-80s after the U.S. had boycotted Iran.