Our cows…

…are built around the great English cow Tilbrook Cashtiller.  She won three consecutive national grand championships and a host of ribbons and silver.  And to top it off three of her sons were the top selling bulls in the annual Devon breeders sale.  We’re indebted to Tibrook’s Gavin Hunter…who again today is serving as president of the British Society …for permitting us to flush Cash twice!

TDA 7 was out of that first flush 12 years ago and not showing her age.  Her sire was another British champion, Cutcombe Jaunty.  Cashtiller is gone now but we have several of her daughters and granddaughters and other descendants in our herd…and some embryos for the future.

TDA 20 is a special cow with Essington and Cutcombe genetics…and is a Cashtiller granddaughter as well.  Brian Drake of Essington Park was a leader among English breeders for 50 years and a respected judge for the British Society.  His herd was small compared to many but the quality was unmatched by any herd we’ve ever seen.

TDA 23 was an English pairing and an early use of Ashott Barton’s Falcon…a stunning bull we found on Ivan Rowe’s Goldings farm.  We mated him to a cow from Brian Drake’s Essington Farm.  There are no two more experienced Devon breeders in all of England than Ivan and Brian.  Both lamented the dilution of the Devon breed with outside genetics and after 70 years in the business gracefully exited the Devon scene.

WMD 2 has joined us through a circuitous route.  Her dam was the daughter of a beautiful cow, Lakota’s R6.  Mom was sold to Bill Ketner’s farm in West Virginia and while hauling a bull one day Church spotted 2…and the rest is history.  Her sire was the English bull Highwayman.  The result is this cow who looks more traditional than some of her herdmates.  Note the deep Ruby red hair coat!

F212 is another Highwayman son out of M180, a cow that deserves a webpage of her own.  Before we began our English concentration, M180 was practically a bull machine!  Many years the sale of her progeny paid the herd’s feed bill.  Visitors think her name should be Thank God since we always related that we had about 10 bull calves before (thank God) a heifer, 212, came along!

TDA 18…another Cashtiller daughter.  She’s out of 7 (see above) and sired by Thistle Hill Highwayman so she’s got all our great English lines in this one package.  An obvious candidate for eventual flushing.

With more than 40 females of all ages this is by no means a complete inventory of the Thistle Hill herd…English and American…bred and open younger heifers.

To arrange a visit at this perfect time of year in Virginia contact Church:

(214) 802-1283

David