Experience trip to Georgia

From September 27 to October 1, we visited Georgia as part of the Breedexpo project. During the trip, we visited the company “Caucasus Genetics”, which is engaged in the extraction, import and sale of bull biomaterial. We also visited 3 dairy farms.

 

Zura Masurashvili milks 140 cows on the farm. The construction of a cowshed began on the farm in 2020, and when the shed is completed, the number of cows to be milked will reach 300. In 2014, the owner purchased 8 Swiss breed cows, then later purchased black-spotted cows from Holland, in 2017 from Lithuania, in 2018 from Latvia, and the last ones were brought from Estonia. The cows imported from Latvia are already in their 5th lactation. The milk is sold to the largest milk processor in Georgia, “Sante”, which pays 47 US cents per liter for milk and is paid weekly.

 

The Dorani farm milks 90 cows. The total number of cattle is 160. In 2015, Swiss breed cows were imported from Germany, and in 2019, Holstein cows were imported from Estonia and Germany. Cows from Estonia have also been imported this year. The owner has been to Estonia and learned a lot from Estonian dairy farmers. The cows are kept in a free-range barn and manure is used as bedding material, as the climate here is dry.

 

200 cows are milked at the dairy and cheese production farm “Santa”. In 2017, Holstein red-spotted crossbred cows were imported from Latvia, which the owner considers to be very good. The herd also includes Estonian Red, Flekvi and Montbeliard cow breeds. The cows are milked twice a day and on average 25 liters of milk are milked from each cow per day. All the milk produced by the cows is processed into cheese. All cows are grazed during the grazing period.