Why Show Cattle?

Today is show day in at Farmfair in Edmonton. Farmfair is the largest cattle show in Alberta, and because it is so close to the farm it is a great show for us to take out cattle into and market them.

I always get asked lots of questions on why we do this and what makes it so much fun, so here is my attempt as answering some of the most common questions I get asked:

Q: What does the judge look for?
A: Because these are breeding animals rather then animals for meat the judge looks for different things. The main things that these animals would be judged on would be how sound they are (what their feet and legs look like), how much muscle they have, and how long and deep they are.

Q: What do you do with them?
A: Cattle shows are very similar to a dog show. We groom and primp the animals before they go into their class. Once their class is called they are paraded in front of a judge to be placed. The judge will evaluate each animal compared to their ideal and place the class from first to last.

Q: What can you win?
A: While we do not show animals to win prizes, there can be some great benefits to doing well. For the grand champions (best overall) belt buckles, cash, gift certificates to industry business and banners are very common. A few shows still pay out prize money in the classes. The two biggest shows to win would be Farmfair and Agribition. Both shows have a supreme show and if you win those (which is very difficult) the prizes are large! For having Supreme champion at Farmfair you win a brand new Dodge Truck! At Agribition to have Supreme Champion you win $10,000 plus about $10,000 in prizes. So yes there can be some incentives to win!

Our Simmental show is today, and we will be showing 5 animals including these two girls! Stay tuned to see how they made out.

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!

2012 Sale Bulls

It is officially that time again, bull sale season that is. With the Simmental sales already have started, we are busy getting our bulls ready for the sale that they will be consigned to.

Each year we sell about 1/2 of our bulls off the farm. The other 1/2 will go to a consignment sale as we do not have enough animals to have a sale of our own. This year we will be again selling at the Red Deer Bull Sale on March 19th.

We will have 6 bulls in the sale this year; 1 black and 5 red bulls. All of them have been semen tested and will be halter broke.

Joker x 2N Bull

Revolution x Talladega daughter

Revolution x Caesar daughter

Revolution x Cosmo Daughter

Revolution x Master Link daughter

Revolution x Talladega Daughter

For more information on these bulls please visit www.highcountrycattle.com or call 780-696-3643

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!

RJY First Time 18Y

This weekend we sold yet another bull out of the bull pen. This calf has a pretty neat story, and will have a great future both at High Country and with his new owners BS Ranch.

RJY First Time 18Y is an In Dew Time out of our future donor Joy's First Date 1W.

We were really wanting to use In Dew Time in our herd to get some replacement females. The semen we ordered was sexed female semen 90. This means that the semen will produce 90% heifers and 10% bulls. When AI was done we were to expect 5 calves out of this sire. Once the calves were all born, we were left with 4 heifers and 1 bull! Guess we learned our lesson that you cannot play around with science to much and just have to let mother nature take its course.



Joy's First Date and RJY First Time at Agribition


This fall we took First Time and his mother out on the show road. They placed 2nd in class at the National Show at Farmfair and 4th in class at Agribition. We were then able to connect with BS Ranch who ended up purchasing this bull out of our show string.

RJY First Time 18Y

  

Along with BS Ranch we will be using this new herdsire on our heifers this spring. We are excited to have such a maternal and calving ease sire to implement into our herd and can't wait to see the effect that he will have on our first calf heifers.

We will be selling semen on this young sire this spring. You can contact Rob Young at 780-514-0758 or show12win@yahoo.ca for more information.



Agribition 2011: High Country Cattle

I realized that I had no shared all my Agribition photos with you, so my goal is to get through them this week. We had a great show at Agribition and were able to meet some new friends and see some old ones as well. It is the people and friendships in the Simmental breed that make it as strong as it is today.

Our stall

Dad doing some clipping on First Time

Once of First Time's last meals. He is now weaned from his mother

Fall on the Farm

We have gotten all moved in and settled into Farmfair, but while we are here, we still need to make sure that the rest of the cattle at the farm are taken care of as well. With the help of some neighbors and family, some of the jobs will be done for us, but Mom and Dad will still drive back and forth to tend to the rest.

All of our cows are still out on pasture finishing up the grass that we have left for them. This helps cut down on the amount of time we have to feed them in the yard, and also on the cost of having to buy extra hay. We have a well on the pasture, but need to pump water into a trough every day as it is ran off a generator. In the summer this can be done a couple of times a week, but once it freezes this becomes a daily job.

The cows will stay out on pasture for the next week, and then be brought home for the winter to be fed. They will be at the farm until May when the snow has melted and the grass has grown enough for them to return to the pasture.

Their calves that were born in 2011 have been weaned off and are now at home. The bulls are being fed and will be sold in the spring to cattlemen, and the heifers have been sorted and the top end have been kept for our herd. These young heifers will become the next generation at the farm, and take over for some of the older cows in the herd, or cows that are not the best producers.

Almost Showtime

This weekend we did the last little bit of prep for our first show of the fall show season. Farmfair is always the kick off to the fall shows, and it happens to be right in our backyard at it is only 1hr away. 

Because it is the first show of the season it seems like it takes a bit more work to get ready for then any of the others. Once the last show is done, everything usually just gets thrown off the truck and trailer as it is -30 outside and we want to get inside and to sleep after a long drive home. It becomes a game of hide and seek when the next year rolls around to find all of the show equipment again.

There are also the tasks like getting stall signs made for each animal, painting all of the steel that we will use, and making sure you have enough halters since dad usually steals some to tie gates with during the year.

Getting everything together

 Aside from gathering all of the equipment, we still need to be working on cattle. This past weekend the temperatures finally plunged some, and so washing cattle in the open was out of the question. We did our best to work their hair and do some clipping to lighten the work load once we get to town.

Dad clipping on First Date

 We also work with the ones that have not been to a show before. Because the animals will be in the city for 5 days, they have to stay tied up the whole time. We try and get them used to be tied up for extended periods of time, teaching them its ok to eat out of a feed tub and a water pail aposed to a water and feed trough.

Rival and Play Date hanging out in the barn

We will see how well we did with the preparations as today Mom and Dad will be taking the cattle into the show. I will join them tomorrow to help out for rest of the week, and "the Eng" will even join us for show day to take part in his first cattle show. Wish us luck and I will try to post some photos and results later this week!

Sale Time in Louisville

The Louisville sale may be 1 week away, but it is time to start thinking about this exciting lot. This time last year dad and I were debating about making a big purchase in Louisville at the Simmental Sale. After a few minutes of bidding we had purchased Elegant Force our Christmas present to ourselves and never looked back!


Elegant Force

We got Elle up into Canada right before Christmas and could not have been happier. She laid down and had an awesome heifer calf- Southern Elle. We will be showing her heifer this fall at Farmfair and Agribition, and I can say that I have never owned something that has been this good! Elle really outdid herself on the first calf!

Southern Elle

We keep Elle open for the year and have flushed her 3 times. The flushes went very well and we will be expecting about 6 calves out of her this winter. Should be some exciting times around the farm.

With the flushes going so well, and her first calf looking as great as she does, we have decided to sell two sets of 3 embryos in the Louisville sale next Monday. The embryos are sired by Power Drive and Joker, two sires that we think will cross really well and that are really proven within the Simmental breed.



Elegant Force as a 2yr old



The Louisville sale will be broadcasted on Edjecast.com. To register for a buyer number or more information please contact the EDJE team. You can view the catalog here, or contact DP Sales Management for more information. The embryos will sell as lot 9A & 9B.

We have real confidence in this young donor, and will look to her to lead the next generation of black females at our farm. If you have any questions feel free to contact myself or Rob at 780-514-0785. More information of this female can be found at www.highcountrycattle.com

RJY Paradise 1T

We have some pretty sweet cows on our farm, some that we are really proud of. It seems like the ones that have been shown over the years usually are the better ones, but there are also some that have never had a halter on them before that are just as good if not better.

One of those cows its Paradise 1T. Paradise is a Red Label cows out of CMS Paradise 05P. The 05P Paradise was purchased from Czech Mate Simmentals as a heifer calf, and later was selected as the pick of our herd at the 2006 World Congress Sale. 

Before we sold 05P we had flushed her to Red Label, and this cow is the only resulting progeny we have out of her.

RJY Paradise 1T

Each year Paradise does a great job raising her calves. She has never had a miss, and now has put a few daughters back into the herd. Most recently the breeding combination of her and Revolution has really clicked. Last year her heifer calf was part of our show string, and she placed 2nd in class at Agribition.

This year we have a full brother and he is a stand out in the bull pen. Earlier this year I had posted calf pictures about the no ears bull calf that I really liked. Well now he is grown and weaned off his mother 1T.

Who knows what the future holds for 1T around the farm, but I know I sure would take a 100 cows just like her!

Olds Fall Classic 2011- Simmentals

This last weekend was the 2nd Annual Olds Fall Classic. The Olds Fall Classic has become a great warm up show for the year, and a great way to track the quality of your cattle before the bigger shows later this fall.

As mom and I were in Chicago during the show, Dad was left to attend by himself. He took our mature pair- Dream Date, a yearling heifer that we are selling later this fall, as well as a red bull calf that we will show this fall.

I am starting to think that maybe we should just send Dad to the shows alone as the last time he went by himself, we had Champion Bull, and this time we had Reserve Champion Female!

Here are the big winners from the weekend. 

Champion Female- Southpaw Cattle Company

Res. Champion Female- High Country Cattle Services

Champion Bull- Outlaw Cattle & Sevick Cattle

Res. Champion Bull- Fisk Cattle

The End of The Revolution

The last few months have kind of been a bit disappointing around the farm. This winter we were really excited about our calf crop as we got some great embryo calves, and finally got some bull calves out of our Sr. herdsire Revolution. After not getting any bull calves the first year, this was pretty exciting to us, and they really have been looking great so far.

We own Revolution with our good friends at Beechinor Bros Simmentals. This is the 2nd herd sire that we have bought with them and it has always worked out great. Being able to buy high caliber bulls is expensive so to be able to buy them with other breeders sure makes it easier and we have been able to advance our program much faster then normal.

This spring Beechinor's had Revolution at their farm as it was their year to run him at their farm. We were using semen that we had drawn at a stud to breed cows to so that we could still use his genetics. The boys called us one day saying that he was lame and that they were treating him until he got better. A few weeks went by and he was still not better. They pulled him from the pasture and continued to treat him. They even had the vet out to look at him and see what was wrong, but she could not find out what was wrong.

More weeks went by and the boys, and the vet still could not find out what was wrong. After a bunch of tests, some x-rays, and lots of babying they found out what the problem was. The injured foot was one of his back feet, and somehow a tendon got hurt or poked and started to degenerate. The options were either to try and do surgery to fix it, but that was expensive and no idea if it would actually fix that problem. The other option was to draw as much semen as we needed and then ship him to be killed. He would not be able to breed anymore, and so his purpose had been served and was no longer of use.

After doing some thinking we took him down to stud and drew some more semen and he is getting shipped here soon as well. It will be up to his progeny to carry on his legacy and we have ample amounts of semen to use in our herd. He will always be remembered and we had a lot of good times the last few years with him. Winning National Champion Bull and getting many complements on him and his calves has been the real crowning achievement. We will miss the big guy and hope to be able to find someone to replace him.

IPU Revolution 172U- 2008-2011

AB Simmental Tour 2011

This weekend we went on the Alberta Simmental Tour. The tour was held in the Rimbey/Bentley area this year, and it was a beautiful day to get outside, look at some cattle, and visit with old and new friends.

The tour started at Lockhart Valley Simmentals. We toured their herd of cattle, seeing a pen of replacement heifers, as well as a set of cow/calf pairs with bull calves. Tina and Lee, the owners raise traditional, red and black cattle. It was great to see a mix of what the Simmental breed can do.

Next we headed over to Darryl & Anissa Friessen's farm. Here we see a set of their commercial cow/calf pairs. They are just commercial breeders, but use a lot of Simmental genetics in their herd, including AI'ing their females to purebred Simmental bulls to get  the best genetics possible.

The final stop was at Beechinor Bros Simmentals. We have become very good friends with this family over the years, as we have bought 2 herd sires with them. The Beechinor's are great people, and showed us a set of yearlings, cows with heifer calves, and cows with bull calves. It is neat to go through their cattle, as they have many of the same genetics as us, because of the 2 bulls we have bought. Beechinor's also raise traditions, reds and blacks, so again it was a great cross section of the breed.

In the final field that we toured I found an old friend of mine. In 2005 during the World Simmental Congress we sold the pick of our herd in the sale. Beechinor's were the buyer of this lot, and ended up picking a 2yr old of mine that I had bought as a heifer calf. Paradise was not the most friendly show cow, but she sure has done well for herself both at Beechinor's and having a few daughters at our farm.

Paradise at 7yrs old.

It was a great day, and the rain held off for the most part. We will be sure to take part in it again next year, as it is a great way to really see what the breed and breeders have to offer.

Misfit

Every year it seems like we have a cow or two that will lose her calf at birth. This year, it was one of my cows. Rather then have her go dry (not milking) for a year, we grafted a calf from our friends Beechinors onto her.

This calf they had been bottle feeding for a few weeks, and so she is really quiet. She sticks our pretty bad in the pen because of her color. Funny thing is that bottle calves, usually are not the best quality. This one though, is actually pretty good!

We will see how she turns out, but for now she is our friendly misfit!

New Friends

This weekend I headed out to the farm. It had been a while since I was there, and after a good week of flushing I was excited to get out there.

Since it had been about 3 weeks since I was there, the calves have really changed. I have some new favorites, some are going through growth spurts, and others, are suffering from a bit of sickness with all the mud and water around.

My favorite heifer on this trip is a In Dew Time out of a Power Drive x Signature 19L 2yr old cow. She is real stout and still pretty flashy for a Simmental. My other favorite black heifer calves are Elle's Explorer calf, as well as Dream Date's natural Cool Venture calf.

Elle's heifer calf

For the red heifer calves, we have 2 real standout Revolutions. My favorite is out of our Queen of the Nile female, and the other is out of our old 6P cow,  the mother of Cool Venture. They are pretty cool right now.

For the bull calves, there are some real studs out there right now. We have 3 awesome black bulls, and a super cool red bull right now. The red calf is a Revolution out of our Simply Irresistible cow. We showed her as a yearling heifer the year of the World Congress, and she sure had lots of friend then.

The black bulls all are out of standout donor cows. Signature 2N is the mother of 2 of the bulls, one being a Joker, and the other being a 680S calf. Both of these calves had full sibs that we showed at Agribition last year. The other black bull calf is Dream Date x Joker. He is a full brother to our First Date female who was a class winner at Agribition last year.

We will keep watching how these calves develop over the next few weeks. A few of them will get to make the trip to  Drayton Valley for the show there in June.

New Herdsire- Sure Fire

This spring we were looking for a red bull that we could still use on heifers. The definition of a heifer bull has changed over the years. It used to be a bull that was not as performance driven, usually a poorer bull, but you would get a calf that was alive.

Now, a heifer bull is one that will give lower birthweights and will calf easy, but they do not lack the performance and growth that they have in the past. Good heifer bulls are a hot commodity. They seem tougher to find each year, but luckily we did find one!

DDDS Red Sure Fire 449X will be our newest herdsire, and the bull that most of our heifers get bred to. We love our Revolution calves, but we need something to breed his daughters to.

We are really excited about Sure Fire. He got the the farm on Monday, and will start breeding as early as next week. He comes from some very good friends of ours at 3D Simmentals in Saskatchewan.

Stay tuned for some bred heifers with service to Sure Fire later this fall!

Calving 2011 Update

Calving is just about wrapped up on the farm. As of this morning there is only 9 more to calf, and 2 of them are gonna pop any day now.

To this point things have went extremely well. We did lose a set of twins early on, but other then that everything has come healthy and alive. With the tempeture swings that we have been having this year (-40 to +10) it is the perfect way for calves to get sick. It is important to stay on top of things, but we have been luck, and have not had to treat many calves at all.

With a good portion of the calves being at least 6 weeks old, you can really start to tell what they are going to look like. Our biggest sired group of calves this year are the Revolutions. Last year we got all heifers, and this year we are getting majority bulls. There is one pretty special Revolution heifer this year, and you will probably see her somewhere later on if she keeps developing as well as she is now.

A new sire group that we have this year is In Dew Time. We have a total of 5 calves out of this bull, 4 heifers and 1 bull. It is a little funny to get a bull calf, as we used sexed female semen. It just goes to show that you can do all the planning in the world, and sometimes things still do not turn out right! I really like these calves, especially the heifers. They have tons of style right now, yet still keep the muscle that Simmentals are known for.

Here are some new pictures of the calves. Out of everyone at the farm I see the most change in the calves as I do not see them everyday. It is amazing to see the growth and change in the calves every other weekend when I am out.

Redman bull calf

This is a Joker x 2N bull. We showed his full brother last fall.

The best ones to see at home are the ones that are still quiet to pet

I love the curious calves.
We have 2 in the 2yr old pen that you can play with

Lewis Farms

This weekend we headed to Spruce Grove to Lewis Farms to look at their 2011 Bull Sale offering. We are looking for a new bull and with their sale happening next weekend, it was the perfect time to go check the bulls out since we cannot make the sale.

I always love going to Lewis Farms for a variety of reasons. It was out families home for 7 years, and the first 4 years of my life while mom and dad managed the farm. It is also a place that has so much history and stories. I would venture out to say that it is the most successful Simmental operation still in existence. I also love going to Lewis's because of the people. Crystal had the opportunity to make this video for them last year. I think it really shows what the farm is all about.

Back to this weekend though. All of the bulls are housed at the Bull Farm which is about 5 minutes away from the main farm. While our family was at Lewis's we lived at the Bull Farm, so I have some pretty fun memories of that place.

As you drive into the farm, you are greeted with the bull runs, followed but the big pens. This is where the bulls are kept and fed from weaning until sale time. The pens are large enough to hold a nice size group of bulls. They are sorted into Reds, Blacks, Fullbloods, and Angus.

One thing that I think is really neat about their large pens are the feed bunks. They appear to be the same as any bunk that you would feed with. But when you look closer, they are all actually individual head stalls. They have the ability to be kept open at all times, or close all at once. Dad said these were always great when they used to halter break all the bulls int he 80's.

When the bulls came to eat, he would flick the head gates shut and lock the bulls in. From there he could get close to the bulls, and get them quiet before getting them into the barn to put halters on. I have never seen another place with a set-up like this. It is a pretty slick set-up, and super practical at the same time.