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Devon, we hardly knew ye….
…our Cornwell correspondent, Juliet Cleave, came up with this picture of an award-winning bull…the way Devon used to be…before the English (and the Americans) “improved” the breed. And it wasn’t that long ago: 1963! We’ve asked Juliet for more information. For now, we only know his name was “Uggaton Highwayman 2nd”.
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Thistle Hill Falcon….
….is four-and-a-half months old now. He’s one of the pure, traditional English Devon. Sire, of course, is Millennium Falcon…the dam Goldings Snowdrop. If you’re wondering where the rest of the herd is: about a quarter of a mile and two electric fences away. Yes, I do think he’s making a statement. It’s not the first time we’ve noticed that a really good animal prefers to be somewhat removed from the herd. The British class system is alive and well at Thistle Hill.
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Getting to know you….
….our first English bull, TDA Churchill, is introduced to that mysterious creature…a female. In this case, this heifer is a Devon-Senepol cross. This will take some getting used to. Churchill is still young…just 17 months…and so we’ve put him in a pasture with just three females. They were all born late in our normal calving season, too late to be bred with the other heifers in their class. So Churchill has his own little harem to begin his education. He’s an extremely gentle bull, even for a Devon. Moderate-sized but beautifully proportioned. Exactly what the three Devon breeders who make up Traditional Devon America hoped for when they began their…
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Spring is in the air….
…37 degree air, but nevertheless. At Thistle Hill we decided today to declare Spring has arrived. We announced the news this morning to a line-up of our young bulls. That means some new assignments. For instance, Green Field, winter home for ease of taking care of our young bulls, is now reduced to six. Their buddies have been detached for duty at satellite pastures about 5 miles away. One bull is already on the job, breeding some young heifers for a farm in South Carolina. And another will be sent to still another satellite pasture to romance another group of heifers. Despite the temperature, green has begun to show in…
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Red Bull in the sunset….
….our new, pure, traditional English Devon baby bull. He’s THF Falcon, son of Ashott Barton Falcon, grandson of Cutcombe Millennium. And his deep red coat makes him stand out even among our very ruby red herd. We’re keeping our fingers crossed. Right now he seems to be everything we hoped for. Broad in all directions and perfect lines. Sadly, we’re going to have to clip his horns but even the English do that now. His dam, Snowdrop, is from another outstanding traditional farm: Ivan Rowe’s Goldings herd at Lands End. As our regular readers will know, we’ve been importing the purist, most traditional Devon we have been able to find in…
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Lookout world, here I come….
….this little bull at Elim Springs farm in Amelia, Virginia. Rojo is the son of Thistle Hill S483 (“Izzy”) and one of our former herd bulls, Watson. Perhaps that makes us grandparents, but we’re always proud to see Thistle Hill animals doing so well for other folks. We have made a lot of friends through our Devon sales, but none better than Kristi and Rich Hamilton of Elim Springs. We’ve supplied their herd bull and cows and heifers. But we “weaned” them some time ago and they have developed a thriving business featuring not only beef, but pork, chicken, eggs and produce. If you’re in southeast Virginia we highly recommend…
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Addendum…..
….or should that be addenda? Addendae? Anyway, here’s more on managing heifers growing out of our Roundtable below. Both Bill Roberts and Juliet Cleave have posted comments along the way the past several days but I thought these two were worthy of special attention so I brought them up here. If you haven’t seen Juliet’s video, I hope you’ll do so now. Turn up the sound. http://youtu.be/S_kKoeRcmwM First, to re-introduce Juliet. She’s one of our partners in the Traditional Devon project in England. A native of Cornwall, living and raising Devon on land her family has farmed for well over 100 years. She has a spectacular herd and it was…
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Fourth time the charm?
Our English colleague, Gavin Hunter of Tilbrook Grange, has just sent along a picture of his next entrant in the annual Devon sale. He’s Tilbrook Jubilee, a 2-year old, whose dam was sired by Gavin’s wonderful Tilbrook Sunset. Dad is a Stonegrove bull. Gavin’s bulls have topped the sales three years running. The previous three years were all out of his great Tilbrook Cashtiller. Cashtiller wasn’t in the game this time. She had been busy at breeding time giving us 26 embryos for America. It’s right about there, where Jubilee is standing in the Tilbrook yard, that we first saw Cashtiller. Like a lovesick teenager, right? This must be the…
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The pay-off….
….regular readers know that we’ve made repeated trips to southwest England in recent years and, with two American partners, have selected outstanding pure, traditional English bulls and cows…collected embryos from the matings….and imported them to the United States. And here’s the result: a three-month old bull calf out of Goldings Norah by Millennium Falcon. We just saw him recently at the farm in Georgia where he was calved and we couldn’t be more pleased. Doubly pleased. There on the same pasture was his brother, another Falcon sired bull calf out of a cow from another great, historic British herd, Essington Park. These two, with a third British bull that calved here…
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“Reality” settling in…
We promised a picture of Thistle Hill Reality without the dramatic sunset lighting….and here it is. Like most young bulls, he finds the heifers on the other side of the fence more attractive. So he did go wandering last night…into our neighbor’s herd of commercial Angus. But Thistle Hill bulls are always gentlemen. First, Reality didn’t tear down fence, or jump. He just found a gate that had been left open in a back corner and went through. This morning, our neighbor, Kathy Hartz, simply walked him back through a lot of pasture and to an adjacent corner. We opened the gate and he ambled back through. Despite a stranger…