CUMBERLAND — Tucked away on a sideroad near Cumberland, east of urban Ottawa, Braedale Holsteins has become a goldmine for artificial insemination companies. Last year, Semex Alliance, the umbrella organization and export arm of cooperatives producing semen, grossed $9 million from four bulls sporting the Braedale prefix, accounting for 15 per cent of Semex’s revenue.

Semex exports between $60 million and $70 million worth of semen annually.

But that’s not all. In 2006, Holstein International named Braedale’s foundation cow, Braedale Gypsy Grand, Global Cow of the year. Awarded 35 stars by the Holstein association, she tied the record of world champion Plushansky Valiant Fran. Each star represents an offspring that has performed at a high level. Any dairy farmer would be impressed with seven stars.

Gypsy is mother of five outstanding sons. Four are ranked in the top four spots on the latest Canadian Lifetime Profit Index (LPI). Altogether, more than 10 are among the 50 most profitable bulls. This makes the four bulls and the offspring they produce the most profitable in the country.

Everything is understated on Braedale Farm east of Ottawa. The barn looks like hundreds of other tie stall operations popular in the 1970s before milking parlors and large free stall barns became popular.

Inside, cow names, production records and the cows’ classifications are nowhere to be found. The barn is unadorned, clean, orderly and a little dark by today’s standards. Everything is very ordinary. Except. Except the rows of perfect and near perfect cows with the finest udders we’ve seen in any American or Canadian herd.

Braedale’s phenomenal success goes back to 1985 when Terry Beaton went to a sale at Sunnylodge Farms in Chesterville. "Even way back then," he says, the calves’ tails were fluffed and the animals perfectly prepared. He bought a half interest in Sunnylodge Elevation Jan, classified 87, which meant in appearance she was 13 points off perfect.

Jan stayed at Sunnylodge and Terry was given some embryos. From those embryos emerged a winner, Braedale Moonriver, mother of Braedale Gypsy Grand who in 2003 was named Holstein Canada cow of the year and in 2006 Global Cow of the Year.

"I was lucky," Terry says. "I bought lots of cows before I bought the right one."

But Terry never expected to own the best breeding herd in the country. He wanted his cows to give "a lot of milk and good fat" and be easy to milk.

But rule out serendipity. Carl Smith, owner of Sunnylodge, made some highly intelligent choices with the line, most notably the inbreeding of the great bulls Elevation and Mat which he wove like a master breeder through the pedigrees. Some of the male offspring have as much as 15 per cent in-breeding in their pedigrees.

Braedale is managed by two brothers, Mark and Terry Beaton, the seventh generation farming in the area. Mark graduated from Carleton University and went to work as an accountant for Mobile in Alberta but was drawn back to the farm. Terry never left and never wanted to. The roots are deep and family is important. Between them they have seven children 15 to 25. Except for the two youngest, they are all in university or have graduated. They are city kids living on a farm, enjoying the best of both worlds.

The downside is that there is little room for expansion. The two farms have 600 acres, about half of which is bush, and the soil is stony. Housing developments are encroaching on the farmland. "I get complaints when I spread manure in the fall," Terry says. "I’d never get away with the amount of manure they spread around Casselman or Embrun."

On nearby Trimm road, four-acre lots are selling for $150,000.

Mark handles the books, cropping and feeding. The dry cows and calves are housed on his farm next door. Terry looks after the dairy herd and the breeding but depends on sire analysts from Eastern Breeders. Braedale cows are fed home-grown alfalfa-grass haylage, and corn silage supplied by a neighbor. High moisture grain corn is produced on the farm and protein supplement is enriched with the necessary minerals and production enhancers. Formulated and manufactured by Ritchie Feed and Seed, the ration satisfies the nutrient requirements of a herd producing 11,000 litres of milk.

The Beatons milk 58 cows with a BCA of about 240; roughly 90 per cent of the revenue comes from the milk check. Like most breeding farms, Braedale has had some notable successes. Moonriver, Gypsy’s mother, sold to Japan for $25,000.

Everybody milks and everybody pitches in with the chores and there is no outside help. The herd is closed, too, which means they don’t bring in cows from other farms.