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The Thistle Hill Alumni club…
…posted by Brooke Henley on Facebook today. Brooke says she watched the calving from her window while enjoying her morning coffee. The sire is Thistle Hill Equinox…with seven bull calves and four heifers so far this year. Two to go. Our relationship with Brooke and husband Tom and their Spring Pastures farm in Maryland goes back many years. They’ve built their herd around Thistle Hill genetics. Equinox is the son of our THF Churchill and the grandson of perhaps the finest cow in modern Devon history, Tilbrook Cashtiller. Not only did she win best of show every time she entered but her bull calves topped the English sales three consecutive…
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The waiting game…
…seems to be a subtitle for much of the year at Thistle Hill. Right now we’ve confirmed the pregnancy of the cows we artificially inseminated(AI). A2a is one of the AI recipients. She’s one of two carrying calves by Grantland Granite of John Forelle’s Folly Farm. That herd was dispersed several years ago. Grantland was the name of Bob Grant’s herd and Bob was an important figure and treasurer of the American Devon Association. Gearld Fry bought his herd and Granite wound up with John Forelle. I saw him at Folly Farm in about 2005 at the very first meeting of the North American Devon Association in Albany, New York. …
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Three little maids are we…
…enjoying a snack while their Moms are being preg checked. Actually they’re not entirely in the clear. They’ll also being getting their shots tho that’s not the trauma their male counterparts have to endure. This is also steering day! David
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Ready to start…
…the main herd reporting for their preg check. The calves have been separated to be worked separately…vaccinations, dehorning, steering. Curt is the chief wrangler today…waiting for the signal to start bringing them in. David
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The one that got away…
…almost. Some years ago we were very pleased with our Sunset bulls from Gavin Hunter ‘s Tilbrook Herd in England. So were others and one day we realized we had sold the last of the blood line. Thanks to AI tanks we have just solved the problem. Church found some Sunset semen in an old Folly Farm tank and Sunset is back on our pastures…in the form of this three-month old bull calf. Making this an all the more exciting mating…we AI-ed Sunset to our new young Tulip cow. She’s from the Ashott Barton herd in England. We’ve barely finished this year’s calving and it’s already time to start planning…
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Yes I have favorites…
…and TDA 7 has been mine for the past 10 years! And this morning she further endeared herself by presenting us with a perfect 64-pound heifer. Somehow 7 has maintained her girlish figure (and udder) all these years. And yes 7 is a Cashtiller daughter…who may well be the best Devon cow in history. Her bull calves topped the British sales three years running…just as she earlier had won three Grand Championships in national shows. And her breeder, Gavin Hunter, is once again serving as the president of the British Society. And to share the credit, the sire of this heifer is Essington…named for the Brian Drake farm where this…
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A winning combination…
…of the outstanding Rotokawa 982 and our awesome X2a! 4 is a healthy 65-pound bull calf…an ai son of 982. This sire was an unsung member of Ken McDowalls battery of great bulls. Church came up with some of his hard to find semen not long ago. We chose X2a whose pedigree goes way back among American Devon. And the 2-line has been very good to Thistle Hill…producing a string of outstanding bulls and heifers. David
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The first bull calf…
…of the year weighs exactly 70 pounds. And though mom is a heifer she has him well-disciplined. No easy task with a rambunctious little bull calf! The sire of these early calves is TDA 35…an all English bull by Falcon out of Norah. Mom is a good example of crossing our American herd with an English import. In this case grandma is R2…a calf we spotted at Lakota Ranch 15 years ago…and it paid off for us and farms throughout the East. The English grandsire was a bull we nicknamed Handsome Ransom and, while early, this guy is well-proportioned just like grandpa. Never was good at fractions but I guess…
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Let the calving begin…
…and we start with our first-calf heifers. F21 is a Bribery embryo daughter and this is first born…a little heifer by a young Thistle Hill bull out of Goldings Norah. In fact this is a combination of the herds of many of our great English partners…Cutcombe, Ashott Barton and Goldings. It’s great fun now that our English herd is maturing to begin to paint our own history with them at Thistle Hill! Only 26 more calves to go! David
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The future…
…is in good hands! Two yearling bulls we have high hopes for. In the background is one of the first calves from our herd bull Essington. He’s from a premier English herd that was the work for many decades of Brian Drake…a herd that now sadly belongs to history. In the foreground is the first American descendant of another historic English line, Champson. He’s by Champson Defender. Grandson Church came up with some Champson semen at UK Sires that, frankly, didn’t look very promising but decided to try it. He hit on the very first attempt and so we now have three pure, traditional English bloodlines on our Virginia pastures.…
