Funny Face

One of my favorite things about Simmental cattle is their markings. Other then the solid coloured ones, no 2 Simmentals are marked the same. My favorites are ones with a perfect blaze, but the ones with weird markings are a very close second.

This is a little girl that was born at the farm last week. Her dam is red and her sire is a black baldy and this is the result.

This little girl has a white face and a black body. But the really funny part is when you look at her from the side. This is a marking that I have never seen before...

If you look closely you can see that she has a red dot in her white. It almost comes up like milk mustache. To get an animal that is both red and black is extremely rare. The black colour is the dominant gene to the red.

Dad's thought that this marking should make her a sale feature somewhere this fall!

Blazed Babies

I love going to the farm this time of the year to see all of the baby calves. I was especially excited to see this years calf crop as we are getting a few Elegant Force embryo calves, and we were just hoping to have baldies born. A baldie is an animal who has a blaze on their face. The rest of their body will either be red or black. In this case ours are mainly black, however, there are a few red ones as well.

The baldie marking is really hot right now, as it gives them a bit more eye appeal then just being a solid colour. This marking can get tricky as each one is different. The white can extend past either eyes, just be a spot, and in some cases they will also have white on their bellies or legs. We try and keep the white just on the face, but it is easier said then done.

2 day old heifer

Elegant Force x Joker heifer

 Last spring I put in 3 embryos of my own. Unfortunately, I only got 1 pregnancy so I was really hoping that the calf would be something special. The calf is about 2 weeks old now and was a bull calf. He looks awesome, but the coloring was just not quite right....


He looks great from the front



But not so good from the side...

Ideally he would have no white on his tail, or his legs, or on his belly. Unlike his 2 sisters he is just marked a little funny. You will even notice that he has blue eyes. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but he sure is a great calf!

Is 2 Better then 1?

Twins always seem like such a neat thing. 2 calves, 2 times the money, and most times 2 times the work that go along with them.

Each year it we usually get a set or 2 that are born at the farm, and each time we see twins it is a bit of a disappointment. There are lots of different mind sets when it comes to the disadvantages of twins. The big one is that if the sexes of the calves are a male and a female, if there were in the same sack during development the heifer will be a free martin, and unable to breed. When it comes to there being 2 bulls, some people believe that a bull can pass on the twin gene and do not like to purchase them for breeding. The big thing is that regardless of the sex of the calves, the cow simply does not do as well on the calves as there is 2 she is feeding rather then 1. This can lead to lower weaning weights or the cow not getting back in calf.

In some cases if we have a cow who has lost a calf we will try grafting one of the twins onto another mother. This can be a time consuming process, and does not always work, but it is better for both the mother of the twins, and the twins themselves.

One of the twin bulls this year

One big happy family of 3

Calving in the Cold

Each winter it seems like we get a blast of -30 to -40 degree Celsius weather. Not only is it cold for us humans, but the cattle are just as cold as us. Factor in that our cows are also calving at that time, and it makes for a very long week with the cold weather.

This year we got our week of cold weather, and it all started when Mom and Dad were in Denver and "The Eng" and I were out calving cows. On the last day that we were at the farm we got a record 6 calves in 18hrs. Not that many by most standards, but when it is -30 with the wind blowing and a tiny barn jam packed with cows and calves, it makes for a long day.

Fortunately, most of the calves were ok, and are all doing fine now. We lost an embryo calf that was born dead, but the rest will live to tell about the cold day they were born on. There will be a few frozen ears and a bit of a frozen nose, but nothing that will effect their performance or breeding ability.

One little guy was born outside and was very cold when we found him. "The Eng" probably saved his life by getting him into the house and warming him up as fast as he could. 13Z was back out with his momma later that day, and now is out playing with the other calves. Not bad for a guy experiencing calving for the very first time!

The Eng and his new friend 13Z

Calving 2012

Calving has officially begun at the farm with over 20 calves now. They are looking great and I will have more updates and pictures in the coming weeks. For now here is a little taste of a few of the calves.

farm stuff

I have been lacking on some farm/cattle posts lately. Here are a few that I snapped last time I was home.

Pen of 2yr old cows

Calves off the 2yr olds. This pen is almost all black

Calf on the left is Elle's, on the right is Dream Date's

One of my favorite Revolution bull calves

One of my favorite cows, Queen of the Nile