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Our bulls…
…have become an increasingly important part of our operation…not only joining herds from Canada to Louisiana but as leased sires to smaller farms that can’t justify a full-time bull. Right now we have eight bulls at work for Thistle Hill…and a dozen more in the development stage. Our bull pen is still headed by Highwayman, sired by the English bull Millennium Falcon. The dam was from the Goldings herd of the legendary cattleman Ivan Rowe. Ivan gave us the pick of his herd and smiled a rare smile when we selected Norah. It was the only pedigree that he had carried in his pocket. Ivan judged many breeds in his…
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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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The happy marriage…
…of two great English herds at Thistle Hill. TDA 31 is an embryo heifer from Goldings Farm in Cornwall and Ashott Barton Farm in Somerset. 31 is Exhibit A in what we hoped to achieve with our pursuit of pure traditional English Devon genetics. We would be hard-pressed to find some way to improve her. The dam was Goldings Norah who we discovered in Ivan Rowe’s pastures at Lands End. Ivan told told us to select any cow we wanted from his herd of more than 100 Devon. He’d wait for us back at the house. Wooz and I trudged back and forth in the rain all afternoon before settling…
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End of an era…
…with the auction of the Goldings herd in Cornwall, England. Ivan Rowe, our partner in securing the fine English genetics, passed away last fall and this past weekend his incredible animals were auctioned. Back in 2010, Ivan gave us the pick of his herd…to breed and flush. The cow I selected was Norah 21 and Ivan smiled when I made my choice. He had already pulled her pedigree out from his herd book and it was laying there alone on the dining room table when we went inside. Norah comes from a long line of champions…more than 40 when we stopped counting. Her background includes sires from both the historic…
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Standing by…
A full English bull by Ashott Barton Millennium Falcon out of Goldings Norah. An imported embryo calved and raised at Thistle Hill. Really excited to see how this young three-year old boy does this fall. TDA 35 is a full younger brother to Highwayman, and has been producing amazing calves at one of our partner farms for the past two years. Here’s to hoping the trend continues! Church Humphreys
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When a Devon boy meets…
a Cornwall girl….well Wooz saw that it happened…when she choose a cow of her own outside the Traditional Devon™ partnership. Ashott Barton Millennium Falcon was the sire, Goldings Snowdrop the dam. And here, at a year and a half, is their first calf: Thistle Hill Yeoman. Wooz was right (again).