Beef Friesian

[knabe]

Ildeno was at stud. Finally came home. All 3 at ranch at same time.

Also so v8 Brahman fullblood Frieslans.

Hi point was an outstanding bull.

 

[knabe]

Sone of the old posts, pics seem gone.

High point had fly bites on his tail, went in a pond to submerge it to get relief and sunburnt his balls.

We used to joke it was a low point in his career.

Should took more pics.

 

[ShortGrass]

Sone of the old posts, pics seem gone.

High point had fly bites on his tail, went in a pond to submerge it to get relief and sunburnt his balls.

We used to joke it was a low point in his career.

Should took more pics.

Lol, poor guy.

 

[knabe]

The best thing the Frieslans did for calves is put a big square hip on them.

Cows had milk. Duh.

Wish I woulda took pics of ildeno. I think he was 10-12 when I saw him. He was test bred to 30 or so daughters and no defects.

 

[ShortGrass]

The traditional British Freisians would have started out as dual purpose and in the past the pure breed would have been a lot beefier.

Were these Beef Freisians a pure breed?

I think they were just the dual purpose Friesians from Europe but named that way as branding to distinguish from Holsteins in NA that lacked so much muscle and are hard doing, I think. Also, I think I remember reading the name Holstein in NA was administrative mistake on import so it was probably just a better informed name along with the branding.

In all the catalogues today all the Friesian or Holstein bulls look so frail and like you said I think are all specialized on milk. I suspect there's still some dual purpose ones in European herds out there but I don't know how you'd find them.

 

[ShortGrass]

Random aside looking at those pictures and the 1983 one versus the 1912 one, I annoys me anytime you see the front feet standing on higher ground than the back feet in photos especially when they try to like photoshop grass in there in the most recent ones.

I've always been curious why did they start photographing that way?

 

[knabe]

I've always been curious why did they start photographing that way?

because they toed out etc. we used to trim hooves to minimize that and also to make their toes more splayed so their feet looked bigger to "have more bone", take a little height off them, etc.

they probably still do that

 

[knabe]

uh, we used to get charcoal foam and make smokey's.

i personally never saw a smokey calf from ildeno on an amerifax

back in the day, everyone wanted a "black" ildeno. a few classmates of mine had them, but they weren't that good.

the "answer" was breeding them to soggy cattle as they would have clean briskets, goose fronted, and for the most part, retained good volume. showing, the colleges used to bring calves in each class, low medium and heavyweight. at the tail end of college, the heavyweights started losing (1550+ unshrunk) and the lightweights started winning (also ildeno, black answer calves).

i sold a few steers. people loved the meat.

 

[knabe]

cool retro link.

top notch. a damn good bull back in the day. saw a few offspring of him. i think i would use him today. now you know where some of those hips came from. decent rear end too. for whatever reason, they clicked with angus to downsize the milk. don't know that i ever saw a dairy bag on an amerifax. they prob existed, but i didn't see any. maybe they hung around to graft an extra calf or so and i didn't notice.

 

[knabe]

i think this bull might be straight friesian. listed at end of catalog

https://issuu.com/tracyhm/docs/v_bar_cattle_company-sb-s22/56
so sad they dispersed

byerfos 36 prophet

 

[knabe]

more stuff

 

[knabe]

missed this one. pages not in order

 

[knabe]

better pic of top notch

https://www.ihfa.ie/media/history-of-ihfa/

 

[knabe]

use top notch on maine anjou sooner and limited edition pedigrees

 

[knabe]

If anyone has any other pictures to share or can comment on the beef friesian bulls and on the early days of Amerifax I would love to hear the stories.

i think one of my favorite stories about tim ohlde is that he would frequently try and put people together who were looking to sell/buy, even if it wasn't his. he was pretty supportive of the early amerifax association. went to the national show in huron SD with mr beefy and quite a few heifers, can't remember if there were any bull calves, might have been 1 or 2. the town rents out basements for all the out of towners. not sure if its still that way. the 70's was a cool time because the fraud of CAB had not yet entered the marketplace and this was about the time of "the elephant ads". the new breeds from europe were an "easy" offset to the cattle that were too small. they should have just picked the more moderate cattle and bred that way instead of the frame score 10's. it was great seeing all the breeds compete in steer futurities (feeding trials) and all the breeders pushing their breeds. now it's the same, but all angus with some breeds poking their nose into it again finally.

I think to me, the great thing about the friesians and amerifax were that they were just very good looking, they didn't have stubby heads etc. that were the angus at the time which was just ending. there was tejon ranch angus, and R&J i think, that would let Cal poly run their clean up bull after a.i.

we were all too ignorant to take pictures back then, we didn't know that it would all die soon.

 

[Hopster1000]

better pic of top notch

https://www.ihfa.ie/media/history-of-ihfa/

This is what I had in mind as an example of a traditional British Friesian.

On my hunt for a picture (before I seen yours) I came across this link.

http://www.journeytoforever.org/farm_library/turner3/herd-all.htm
It has a world of information and I'm sure some of you on here would find it interesting even though it's only slightly related to the topic. The British Friesian bull and cow on it are nice animals, but the example of all the animals given is from a world long gone.

 

[knabe]

from your link

"My own opinion of showing is that it is the shop window for the breeds and gives pleasure to those who like to see nice cattle, but has nothing to do with constructive breeding which can only be done in the office and on the farm."

 

[knabe]

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library.html
on that website, saw an old buzzard burning methane from chicken droppings.
then.... https://nfp-energie.ch/en/projects/1018/

"It can be turned into CO2 by simply burning it, reducing its global warming potential by 96.4%. "

we better not do it. better to approach problem in a political divisive way

 

[knabe]

amerifax handout

 

[knabe]

i'd say this is a typical amerifax cow. sorta reminds me of another cow that has a better udder and a better hip.