aj said:
What is the story on four point major? Was he a Canadian and is there semen on him? Was he polled?
This is from an earlier discussion in 2007 about Four Point Major on SP.
Four Point Major was born in 1966, in an era when small framed cattle were the norm. He was bred in the herd of Elmer berg, Four Point Shorthorns,in Northern Alberta. Elmer sold Major to a commercial producer, as a yearling bull and he was turned out in the bush with the cows. He remained there until he was an 8 year old bull. He had never been haltered or pampered, and ran with the cows year round, yet he matured into a 2600 lb bull. He was discovered by John and Mac Draper, Rothbury Farms, Elgin, Manitoba when they were literally combing the bush for any descendants of the Nupar herd.( John and Mac were two of the founders of Bar 5 Simmental after they dispersed their Shorthorn herd). Massive Major's dam was Nupar Miss Lea x by Nupar Meteor x> She was about as good a cow as was alive in that day, and would be considered a donor quality female today. She was sired by Nupar Meteor x whop was an amazing bull. The Nupar herd was owned by Frank Fox who was a brother of Jonathon Fox of Justamere Farms fame. Frank Fox believed in bigger framed polled cattle when everyone else was breeding smaller framed horned cattle. About the only people who purchased cattle from the Nupar herd were people who could not afford to buy the more popular smaller framed cattle.
Massive Major was sired by Ball Dee Perfect Count x, a red polled bull that was sired by Carona Perfect x, another red polled bull that was brought into Canada from Carona Farms in Indiana. He sold for a reasonable price, in the Carona sale as he was the biggest bull on offer. Dave Ball said that Carona Farms tried to buy him back after the sale, as they felt he may have been the best bull they had ever raised despite his size. Carona sold him because they still had his sire and also had a number of daughters of Perfect's sire in their herd.
I remember going to visit the Ball Dee herd near Edmonton, AB when I was 9 or 10 years of age. My mother was raised about 5 miles from there. Dave Ball had a big herd of over 300 cows. All were polled . I remember this visit very well, as Dave offered my dad the entire herd for $250 per cow.Dave Ball was having some health problems and was wanting to sell the cows. My dad was not sure if he should accept his offer, as he was not sure if polled cattle would ever become popular, and these cows were bigger framed than he was used to looking at. Today, I would give my eye teeth to have this set of cows.
When the Rothbury herd was dispersed, Massive Major was 10 years old. Many breeders wanted to buy him but were afraid that a 10 year old bull was not a good investment. We teamed up with 9 other breeders and purchased him for $10,000. The runner up was a firm from South Dakota. The first thing we did was collect semen on him and then we rotated him through the group to breed naturally. We had him in our pasture twice before he died of a twisted gut at age 14. At 14, he could still walk faster than the average person could. He would walk across a half mile pasture in a few minutes. He had perfect feet as big as dinner plates and they never were trimmed yet looked like they had been just done. He was still a 2600 lb bull when he died. I always felt that he sired much better females than he did bulls. His females were super thick and had lots of volume. They were great mother cows, with good udders. His sons were OK however we never had a bull as good as he was. I have sold more semen from Four Point Major in the past year than I did in the 30 years before now. Major stamped almost every calf I ever saw with the white spot in the flank. Major was a very amazing bull. I do not know of any Major semen left in the US and everything here is not exportable now. I am going to flush to him this spring.
