Galant Semen

[BLRanch]

I was helping my buddy clean out his semen tank and we found some older Simmental semen in it. Does anyone know if Galant semen is worth anything?

 

[jwfarms]

That is a name revisited.  If I remember correctly he did produced thick, moderately framed calves.  I have no clue what his semen would be worth today, just hadn't heard that name in a long time.

 

[Simbeef10]

Not a lot of interest in the old Simmys any more unless they are Flecks, but there are still a few of us who will use bulls like Galant.  Recently talked to someone in Georgia who had some for sale @ $ 12.00

 

[nmcattle]

I have some Mucho Galant in the tank. My dad used it years ago. It was before my time and I have no clue what he was like or what he worked on. Curious on color pattern as well.

 

[DakotaCow]

Galant was the old yellow and white coloring. If im not mistaken his reg no. Was 11? They were not that moderate....semen value is whatever you can get for it. If anyone wants a few hundred units just let me know.

 

[cbcr]

GALANT was a very heavily used bull back in the mid 70's.  Back then everyone was crossing the Simmental on the Hereford because the Simmental had a white face like the Hereford.

Some of those old bulls could throw some really big calves.  If any Fleckvieh bulls were used back then, they were as today more moderate in their frame and weren't nearly as hard calving.

 

[justintime]

Galant was a dark red bull with red googles. He oftentimes left offspring with larger googles than he had himself. I saw him many times as he was housed near here for several years. He was a good bull and he was known more for his daughters than his sons in that era. Of course they were wanting them tall in those days and Galant made them more moderate with more middle. I would think he may be worth considering again today. As for his semen value today, I would not have any idea.
I had a few daughters in our Simmental herd back in the late 70s and 80s. They were sound and productive cows.

 

[GONEWEST]

I will go back through my old magazines and find a picture.ASA number was 10.  I believe Grant COULD be mistaken about his color although it could just be the picture is washed out. We had LOTS of Galant females and they were as he said, more moderate more belly and good milking. Unlike the glorified Angus the Simmental of today has become.

 

[Lucky_P]

Photo of Galant on page 3 of this thread:
http://www.steerplanet.com/bb/the-big-show/the-resurrection-of-the-1980's-simmentals/30/

 

[justintime]

That is definitely a picture of Galant, however, I remember him as being a darker red than he is in this picture. He seemed to get darker colored as he got older, but he was not a cherry red but more a very dark yellow color. I remember some of his offspring being very dark colored with red eyes. He was not near as big as some of the other early imports and he certainly was much smaller framed than many of the Simmentals that came in the second wave of imports. Bulls like Signal, and Abricot were simply huge.  Abricot was a very popular bull in this era, but I remember seeing him being collected. He had killed one worker at Western Breeders and had tried to get a few others. He had two large rings in his nose with a piece of large logging chain connected to both nose rings.He was led to the collection room with the logging chain tied onto a tractor with a cab on it, collected then led into an outside pen so the tractor could turn around and then led back to his stall. They made sure that everyone was out of the building before he was collected.
I had several daughters of both Galant and Abricot and they all had good temperaments. The Galant daughters were not as large framed as the Abricots, but they were very productive ( at that time)  To use Galant today, you would be definitely gambling especially if you are trying to produce some cattle to show or sell. If you are trying to produce some working cattle to keep in your herd, he may be less of a risk.

 

[oakview]

I don't know of any bull that would be so valuable that he had to be kept around after killing someone.  I bought half-interest in an old Dual Purpose bull, Bar-D Belle's Winner, 40 years ago from Richard and Dale Studer.  I should have known he might be a problem when, just after unloading from the trailer, he went over and dug out an old tree stump with the stub horn on the left side of his head.  He about got me not long after that.  Fortunately, I was still young and agile.  I put one hand on a gate and was able to jump over it just as his head grazed my foot.  I lost some money on that bull, but he was gone the next day.  You couldn't chase him.  You chased the cows and he followed you.  You needed eyes in the back of your head to watch him.  To add insult to injury, the few calves I got out of him weren't very good either.  I guess he ended up at Carvin Guy's place in South Dakota.  I was told Carvin turned the Blue Heeler loose on him and Winner calmed down a little bit. 

 

[justintime]

I agree with you Lonny in regards to keeping any bull that could kill or even injure a person. There were several people killed in the studs in those days. I can remember hearing of 3-4 deaths at the studs around Calgary back in those days. I am not sure why anyone would ever take a job there, knowing that the person who had the job before you was killed.
I shipped a bull that we had shown all over North America and he had won his class at Louisville and Denver. He won some Canadian shows as well. He was so quiet that you could halter him out in the pasture and he would just stand there. One day I was leading him out of the barn to put him back into his pen, and with no warning he quickly swung around and hit me so hard that he put me through the wall of the shed. I got up and was dumb enough to come back through the hole and I picked up the lead on his halter again. He came at me again he got me down on the ground. If he had not had a nose ring, I am almost certain he would have killed me. I was pretty smashed up and still have a indent I in my leg where he gave me a bone bruise ( which was the most painful thing I have ever experienced). I loaded him and he went to the auction mart that day. I would have never been able to trust him again even though he had been puppy dog quiet prior to his attack.

 

[cbcr]

justintime,

I'm like you, I remember the bull being darker than he is in the picture in the link here.  I think the picture in the sire directories was a different one and he was darker.

 

[Mark H]

I remember seeing Abricot back in the day several times and that bull was MEAN.  When they fed him he would bunt the rotating feeders used in the pens and try and slam hands and arms into the feeder as it turned-hard on fences.  He was a big framed narrow bull with out much muscle. Basically a white faced Ayrshire in my opinion.
Another mean bull was Renz.  A better bull in my opinion than Abricot but just as mean.  The staff at Western was happy to see him go to ABS since he was so aggressive and hard to collect due to his strength.

 

[caledon101]

We had both Abricot and Galant daughters back in the early 80's and they were very useful females; very docile also. Galant could produce poor, small footed progeny. You had to watch that.
Galant along with Extra, Ueli and others came directly from Switzerland. Galant was probably the most widely used Swiss Simmental sire followed by Extra whose semen seemed less plentiful. Two direct son's Galant Best and Extra Best hugely influenced the Bar 5 program for many years.
Abricot was a imported by Kingfield Farms of Ontario (C.F.W. Burns and family) from the renowned Quenard herd in France. Abondance, Montbeliard and Pie Rouge formed the basis of the 3 Simmental strains from France with the Pie Rouge variety being much more popular due to possessing great frame and performance which was desired by the North American industry back then. Another Pie Rouge import bull that had a major impact was Signal. He was imported by Cormie Ranches of AB and like Abricot his daughters were very predictable and productive. Neither sire had much success producing sons that the industry would accept.
I also remember Cormie Ranches marketing Signal semen for $400 a dose--10 minimum back in the 80's. A lot of money for semen in those days but people paid it and the bull was reputed to have generated over $2M in total semen sales.
I realize that the fullblood Simmental industry today revolves around Fleckvieh (Austria/Germany) however, looking back I think the Swiss import sires may have contributed more value to the industry overall. One bull that didn't get the attention and usage that he should have is Bar 11 Ueli. A Swiss bull imported by Dr. Allan Dixon of AB. Ueli daughters were really good females.
The French sires brought huge size and style and could generate show females and that was a big advantage back then over the Swiss and German/Austrian strains.
Abricot would have been even more popular if he didn't have a very broken colour pattern. Some of the best Simmental cows I have ever seen were Abricot daughters. Crossed with Galant or, with Galant sons produced some great results.

 

[caledon101]

If I had to pick an old import Simmental sire to use today it would probably be Abricot despite his hair colour. In my opinion, he had less structural concerns than the others and, he really improved udders as I recall.
All of those original bulls had conformation, colour or personality issues that would probably exclude them as herdsire prospects by today's standards.
What was really interesting is the fact that due to import regulations you couldn't import an animal that was vaccinated for hoof and mouth disease. This meant that selection had to be done at a very early age. From what I was told, the best calves were vaccinated to protect them and consequently eliminated as export candidates while the lesser quality ones eligible for export were left unvaccinated. If they weren't selected for export the farmers could simply ship them for meat. That was the logic.
Also, apparently most of the calves were "pail bunters" and managed as veal calves. This would have made it very difficult for the import certificate holder or their representatives to accurately appraise them. It was not unusual to hear about import calves coming out of the quarantine station on Grose Ille in the St. Lawrence River after a winter stay and looking just awful. But, once they reached their final destination and received good management they really blossomed.

 

[justintime]

I agree with everything Caledon has said here. I used a bunch of Abricot and Extra in our herd as their daughters were good females. I don't remember ever keeping many bulls sired by them. Back in that era, I always thought the Swiss cattle were the most complete animals however they were smaller framed than the French bloodlines. I used to work for about a month each spring at Bar 5 prior to their sales, and I got to see many of the different Simmental bloodlines in the same herd. I loved some of their Swiss cows but they were not accepted at the time because of their smaller frames. The German/ Austrian lines were also more like the Swiss cattle in frame size but they were usually deeper fleshed and carried more leather through their necks and lower third.
I have often wondered about the temperament issues in many of these cattle. I have always felt that temperament is highly heritable, however, it did not seem to work that way with some of these Simmental sires. One of the quietest Simmental bulls I ever worked with was Lacombe Achilles, yet his offspring were oftentimes totally nuts. Bar 5 Dutch was a Fleck bull who had a very terrible disposition, yet his calves were very easy to handle. I remember Dutch keeping a duck hunter who had wandered into the pasture where he was, up a tree for 3 days before he was found. At Bar 5, we fed Dutch in the winter, by climbing a ladder and dumping some grain over a 8 ft fence into a trough. Most everything in his pen was totally destroyed.
I also agree that Bar 11 Ueli was one of the most overlooked bulls from that era. If a person could ever locate some semen for him today, it certainly would be worth a try. His daughters were great females and many of his bulls were excellent as well.

 

[caledon101]

Ueli was a little shorter bodied than most but as JT confirms, he was a great sire. He did have a great son...Longview Ueli that may even be a better choice. I may know someone who still has a few ampules of Bar 11 Ueli.
And yeah....they didn't call him Lacombe "A-Kill-Ya" for nothing! I remember many years ago when I had some cattle wintering at JL Farms in Ontario....the boys told me they were trying to load an Achilles cow and she was completely insane. They had to get her off the farm somehow. To get her into the trailer they used a guy for bait. As soon as she saw him in the trailer she attacked. They opened the side door and pulled him out to safety before she could make contact.

 

[justintime]

Bar 5 eventually shipped Dutch to market after he almost killed a man who worked there. They contacted the local auction before they took him there and told them that he was very hard to handle. The auction said they had handled many bulls with bad temperaments so they should be able to handle Dutch. I heard that Dutch almost destroyed the place and I believe they ended up putting down with a rifle before he could try to kill anyone else. I worked with lots of sons and daughters and I don't remember any that had any issues with temperament. 
As I mentioned, Achilles was the only herd bull there that you could walk up to and halter anywhere. He was really a puppy dog to handle, yet I saw many of his offspring that were truly off the wall crazy. I delivered a high dollar Achilles bred heifer after one of their sales and she almost destroyed the side of my stock trailer before we got her to her new home.

 

[caledon101]

I never had the opportunity to personally witness any of these original import sires much less handle them or manage them. Wow....hard to imagine an employer these days taking risks with employees like they did back then. Having multiple people murdered on the job by animals that are well known to be dangerous is just unreal. And yes, you really question the heritability or predictability of disposition when you experience such an opposing personality in the progeny. I recall seeing many Big Dutch daughters and sons at the Bar 5 sales and you sure wouldn't know their sire was messed up like he was! Run up a tree for 3 days?....wow!