Several dairy producers have responded angrily to the discovery that farmers in Jersey unknowingly bred their animals with an American Jersey bull called Gannon, which proved to have a mixed-breed ancestry.
Trevor Barrette, of Home Farm, St John, said that the blunder was the reason he had been against changing the law and why he had not signed up to use imported semen for his herd.
‘This is exactly what we thought would happen by going down this road,’ he said. ‘They have been caught with their trousers down and it’s not going to do any good to the Island herd.’
RJAHS chief executive James Godfrey said yesterday that the integrity of the herd had been maintained, despite the error, and that all of the affected calves had been struck from the herd book.
