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The butcher’s breed…
…was the name the English gave to the Devon. That was because of the quality of Devon meat. It was about that time that the leading English agriculturalist Robert Bakewell pronounced Devon the perfect cow…in no further need of refinement by crossing with other breeds. At Thistle Hill we have devoted our time and resources duplicating that early English Devon…and by coincidence the other day some of cows lined up demonstrating what we are trying to achieve. I guess the larger one in the center helps demonstrate the uniformity of the rest of the herd. She’s part Senepol bred to a Devon bull, an experiment we tried to demonstrate the…
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Thistle Hill alumni club…
…features our Equinox at home at Spring Pastures farm near Middletown, Maryland. Equinox is packed with our best pure English Devon genetics…Churchill on one side…Buttercup on the other. It’s the second bull Thistle Hill has supplied to Brooke Henley and Tom Garnett. Brooke is excited by his first calves…eight so far, all vigorous and thick. We’re excited by the grass on Brooke and Tom’s pastures! The combination of that forage and Devon genetics will result in top quality meat! David
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The family that works cattle together…
…well gets dirty together if nothing else. Pregnancy checking is a kind of tense moment in the year. Not only do you hope for a high rate of pregnancy…but for matings you’ve invested in embryo transplants and artificial insemination. This year we’re checking a total of 32 cows…a mix of regular Devon plus our pure traditional English Devon. The wranglers are grandson Church, his Dad Curt and his uncle Church. First mamas and calves are called in and then sorted in separate pens. The young will get permanent tags and tattoos and vaccinations. Some of the bulls that don’t meet Thistle Hill standards are also converted to steers. At the…
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Free at last…
…with everyone in the family safely vaccinated, I was finally able to escape my senior residence for the first time in almost exactly a year. Naturally it was this year’s calf crop that interested me most. They’re five months old now and a rewarding bunch of prospects. Church’s favorite is THF 3…the daughter of TDA Cashtiller 4 and our Essington bull. She’s the latest in our line of pure traditional English calves. I was taken by this Bribery heifer..a combination of four great English herds. She’s two-years old…and perhaps in-calf. And she was the last mating Wooz and Church selected on our final visit to England. We were in agreement…
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A bunch of hams…
…is what we’re raising…not baby beeves! I’d swear whenever Church unlimbers his iPhone our calves “assume the position” and proud mama poses in the background! THF 3 is a young heifer combining four of our pure traditional English Devon bloodlines: Tilbrook Cashtiller, Cutcombe Jaunty, Essington Buttercup and Ashott Barton Falcon. I’ve said before that I think this year’s calf crop may be our finest…and I place this five-month old heifer at the top of the list. My guess is she’s destined for our own herd but we encourage you to talk to Church about the entire group. After all you get to check out our new 4-wheeler! David
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Breakfast at Thistle Hill…
…and Churchill qualifies as an “eager eater”! He’s also the senior bull in our herd…still active in his 10th year. Churchill is descended from the great Tilbrook Cashtiller who along with Cutcombe Jaunty were the first building blocks of our traditional pure English Devon herd. And here’s another good-looking herdmate, Essington, from Brian Drake’s former Essington Park herd. Essington has been used on the bulk of our herd for two years now and we think his calf crop this year may well be Thistle Hill’s finest ever. If you’ve been wanting to introduce something special into your herd, we suggest you contact Church to inspect Essington’s progeny…male and female! David
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DNA confirms it…
THF 1 is indeed an off-spring of the great English bull Champson Defender. He’s the second bull in partially obscured by an American herdmate. Again note the difference in coloring of a pure traditional English animal versus the American variety! This was Church’s first try at artificial insemination and it’s a great success for the farm! We now have three very separate English bull blood lines to work with. Wooz and I saw Defender on our very first trip to England in 2010. Breeder Robert James had purchased him for what was then a record price of 14,000 guineas! When we started we had no idea how difficult it would…
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Neither rain, nor snow…
…not dark of night…can upset the timetable for embryo transplants once the clock is running. So under miserable cold and wet and muddy conditions, Veterinarian Tom Massey and grandson Church managed to successfully cut out and bring in eight cows that had been prepped. Eventually embryos went in six by bulls including Lakota’s P60 and Rotokawa 663 and 93. We’ll now turn in our English bull Essington from Brian Drake’s old herd…and our own Churchill…to finish the job. Sometimes I feel our slogan should be: What’s Old is New Again. David
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The scorecard…
…for artificial insemination this year. And it’s a year where we seem to be focused on up-grading our regular herd. The first step is to get the cows in of course….and a new unrolled tasty bale of hay is a good appetizer. Over several days Church has ai-ed about 10 cows. The bulls he used included Tilbrook Sunset and Rotokawa 982. We’ve had excellent results with both perhaps 10 years ago but the progeny somehow got away from us. Our English friend Gavin Hunter was the breeder of Sunset…and he was also the source of embryos from Cashtiller, our favorite all-time cow. Rotokawa, of course, was developed by the legendary…
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Christmas gift…
A Christmas gift for TDA 35… …his very own set of two-year old heifers! We start breeding our heifers about one month ahead of the main herd. That, and holding off until they’re 2+, makes it a little easier on young, still growing females. It also increases the percentage of successful rebreeding. TDA 35 is a full brother of our wonderful English bull Highwayman. His sire was Ashott Barton’s Millennium Falcon and his dam, Goldings Norah. David