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Coping with the cold….
….hasn’t quite been the proverbial “piece of cake”. Wooz has done pretty well and of course I’m inside the tractor. Here she checks our first-calf heifers to see how they withstood below zero temperatures the night before. When it gets this cold we do relent and give the young ladies some grain….not only to stay warm but help with their first re-breeding. If this looks like pretty meager fare, it is; less than two pounds per cow. (Wooz gets a little more) They’re also getting high quality alfalfa-mix hay and we believe that helps them through the cold, too.
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Where to begin….
….well, to coin a phrase, “start at the beginning”. Posting has been non-existent for almost a month, but not because there’s been nothing to report. It’s breeding season and Wooz here discusses strategy with our vet, Dr. Monica O’Brien. AI comes first, and we’re using two sires across some of our best cows: Traditional Devon’s Falcon (our English bull) and Rotokawa 243, who has given us some wonderful calves in the past. After that, came sorting the herd into groups….getting the right bulls with the right females. In all, we’ll be using four bulls this time: Jackpot and U2 plus limited use of two Traditional Devon bulls, a son of…
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Milestone (continued)….
….we mentioned in the previous post that there are two English heifers being bred in South Carolina (at Walkers Century Farms). This is one, TDA 03. Her dam, Tilbrook Cashtiller….who recently passed away….swept all the English competitions. Her equally outstanding sire, Cutcombe Jaunty, is also no longer with us. So we have, indeed, accomplished a small part of our goal in saving pure, traditional English genetics. It wasn’t so much death we have been concerned with as the increasing practice on both sides of the Atlantic to dilute the purity of the Devon breed, in the search for some elusive “super Devon”. We think they’re super enough and are content to…
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The test that counts….
….the latest from our new herd bull “Jackpot“. This little bull calf born in icy rain is out of another line here that has produced some top bulls, 31. Along with “Magic“, “Jackpot“, a son of Rotokawa 243, is the most impressive-looking bull we’ve produced here. But it is the progeny that counts and from the calves we’ve seen so far, “Jackpot” is going to deliver everything he promises. Mom left this little guy under a wagon in an adjoining field where we found him after birth. We tagged him and he trotted up the hill without a concern and turned into the next pasture to be reunited with his dam. From…
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What does the “proper” Devon look like…
….well, this is what a “good one” looked like 120 years ago. She’s Flower the 2nd, winner of the Gold Medal from the Royal Agricultural Society in 1889. Her breeder was Sir William Williams, Baronet, of Heanton, Barnstaple. There’s an on-going debate within the two Devon associations over breed “standards” but we think this female could well be the model. (click to enlarge) Thanks to Juliet Cleave of Cornwall, one of our English partners in Traditional Devon America, for the picture. She sent along a string of old pictures which we’ll be posting in coming days.
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I know one when I see one….
…Devon, that is. We’ve had several posts in recent weeks about what might be called “the proper Devon”. Both Devon breed associations spend a lot of time arguing over standards and use all sorts of measurements and “pop science” to prove their case. The gold standard for this kind of thing is the Angus breed, once a perfectly fine cow that has gone a long way down the road to ruin chasing standards that were imposed by giant breeders in league with outsiders (such as feedlots, slaughter houses, and university professors) chasing a supposed ideal. Today, thanks to all the experts, the Angus breed is plagued by a multitude of…
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Setting some standards….
….there is debate from time to time (one is going on now) within Devon circles about what makes “a proper Devon”. Folks can get pretty dogmatic, and some in the two Devon associations think they should impose the answer. My old “mate” in Cornwall, Ivan Rowe, came up with this old picture to make his point. She is a Devon heifer—Clampit Gay Lass 27th—female winner of five shows in 1929 and Grand Champion in three of them! As a longtime judge for the British Devon society, he “knows one when he sees one”. I would call Gay Lass the Tilbrook Cashtiller of her era. It was when we saw the Devon…
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Commenting on the comments…
Two readers of our blog (see the Roundtable below and the comments added) have prompted a response from Bill Roberts of 12 Stones Grasslands Beef. To comment on both thoughtful comments to the blog: We work with top grass fed cattle producers coast to coast. Several run grass cow/calf operations in the thousands and several finish fats in the multiple hundreds. Other than genetic potential, the three most common issues concerning limitations of grass cattle to grow and breed early or finish early are 1) Total nutrients available for the daily grazing 2) Adequate energy to meet animal requirements in the volume consumed daily 3) Mineralization 1 – is…
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Breeding heifers…and more…
The other day some of us got into a discussion, via email, about breeding heifers. But as these things go, we wandered off topic quite a bit. When I signed off, I realized that there might be some thought-starters in our ramblings for readers of this blog and so I have reproduced it here with the permission of the participants. Taking part were myself, and our two partners in Traditional Devon, Bill Walker and John Forelle, as well as two people whose counsel we frequently seek out: Bill Roberts of 12 Stones Grasslands Beef and Dr. Sue Beal, a holistic vet in Pennsylvania. The give-and-take began when I posted a video…
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You can go home again (2)….
A Thistle Hill bull returns home at sunset. Some years ago we sold he and his mother to nearby Reality Farm, owned by Teri and John Geuvremont. We told John, the little guy would probably turn out to be the herd bull for his Angus cows. Recently his mother was returned here for breeding and she reminded us of our agonizing over the decision to sell her. (See “You Can Go Home Again” below.) Well that made us curious about the bull calf. To make a long story short, he’s all growed up and John and Teri agreed to loan him to us to use over a major portion of…