Canada’s cash cow: Meet the $1.2-million Holstein that will boost a struggling industry
She is long, leggy and classy. Her frame is all smooth lines and voluptuous curves. Every beauty contest she enters, she wins.
In short, she is the Claudia Schiffer of the milking parlour.
Her name is Eastside Lewisdale Gold Missy - she goes by Missy for short - and, as of last week, she is worth $1.2-million, gaining her entrance to a pantheon of $1-million North American cows that contained only five Holsteins before her.
That makes the three-year-old cow the new gold standard in an industry where bovine genetics have attracted growing interest among farmers looking to better their herds and boost their profits. Missy is the Miss Canada and Miss America of Holsteins. She produces 50 per cent more milk than your average cow, a whopping 50 kilograms a day.