Pasture pics 2016

[justintime]

A few pasture pics taken yesterday while doing pasture checks.
The first pic of HC FL Sparkle Delight 2X ET, who has proven herself to be one of our best donors and producers. She is a daughter of Saskvalley Pioneer 126P and Prairie Lane Sparkle 1K. 2X is the dam of HC Bluebook 22B who topped our 2015 sale at $32,000. She has also produced several other excellent sons and daughters. Some of her daughters will be following her to the donor pen in the future. We have sold embryos from 2X to 8 countries, including some to Costa Rica, which are the first North American Shorthorn genetics to be used in that country. Her full sister HC FL Sparkle Delight 1X, is presently being flushed and she presently has a great son at side sired by Kamilaroi Meat Packer, that will be sold in the Sun Country sale on March 7,2017. We hear that there are some pretty good calves from 1X in New Zealand this year.
The second cow is SBR Dora 228, who is now 14 years old. She has also been a donor here and some people have used her to establish their breeding program around. One new breeder purchased 38 embryos from Dora sired by Saskvalley Ramrod, and he was fortunate to get 17 daughters to establish his herd. Another Australian breeder has taken over 50 embryos from her, and recently contacted us, wanting to flush her again. She also has offspring in several countries, including a son that is a leading AI sire in Ireland.
The third pic is of HC Picture Perfect 46X, who is one of our favorite daughters of Wolf Willow Major Leroy 1M in our herd. She is going to the ET center in a few days and will be flushed a few times for a breeder in England. One of her daughters HC Picture Perfect 20B( a daughter of Saskvalley Pioneer 126P), has been flushed twice already for breeders in the UK. The sons of 46X that we have sold in the Sun Country sale have averaged over $6000 and all are working in commercial herds.
The fourth pic is a picture of 3 cows that show the capacity we are trying to put in our herd. Two of these cows are appendix ( but purebred in the appendix herd book) and one is a purebred in the closed herdbook. I oftentimes ask visitors to pick out the cows that are appendix and it is interesting to hear their answers. In my opinion, a good cow is a good cow, regardless of what her pedigee says. Over 90% of our bulls sell to commercial producers and I have never had one of them ask if there were any * in their pedigree. To them, they are all Shorthorns and I am in full agreement with them.

 

[oakview]

Good looking group of cows that show the fleshing ability that we could all use more of.  Of course, you know they aren't "wedge shaped" enough, but other than that, they look great.

I purchased some Leroy semen in a junior auction.  What would you recommend I use it on?  I think he's got a fairly high BEPD, but seems to have a reputation as a very good cow maker. 

 

[justintime]

Good looking group of cows that show the fleshing ability that we could all use more of.  Of course, you know they aren't "wedge shaped" enough, but other than that, they look great.

I purchased some Leroy semen in a junior auction.  What would you recommend I use it on?  I think he's got a fairly high BEPD, but seems to have a reputation as a very good cow maker.

I would not use Leroy on heifers, however, I know some who have done so, even when I told them not to do it. We did not have any calving issues when we used him on females that had at least one calf previously. I would use him on cows that you would like to down size some, and add some thickness and fleshing ability to. His daughters are moderate framed and seem to stay in the same condition, no matter what kind of pasture or winter feed they have to eat. In the past few days we have had two ranchers go through our herd, both of which have 400 or more cows. I found it interesting that both of them picked our Leroy daughters as being the kind of cows they wanted to have. Purebred breeders always seem to pick some others as their favorites. With every calf crop, I am really starting to appreciate how good these Leroy daughters are. When I go through our calves, usually most of the best ones are out of Leroy daughters.
When we first offered Leroy semen on the market, the Dunbeacon herd in Australia phoned and asked about him. They decided to sample him in their herd and purchased 300 straws of semen ( I really like how some of these Aussie breeders sample a sire!!). They used all of this semen and I have heard that they have now purchased all the Leroy semen remaining in Australia from Semex.
Another thing you will find with Leroy is that I have not seen many sires of any breed, that adds such good temperaments to their offspring. Many of our Leroy calves were basically halter broke when we put a halter on them for the first time.
I will also mention that Leroy is a maternal brother to Sparkle 2X pictured in this post. We have daughters, grand daughters and great grand daughters of Prairie Lane Sparkle 1K in our herd, and every one of them is easy fleshing regardless of their sire. And I will also say, that all this wedge shaped talk is nice theory but it seldom works in the real world.

 

[Duncraggan]

Cows are looking good JIT!

 

[kiblercattle]

JIT cows look good but even a bad cow looks pretty good with the kind of condition they have on. What would be the avg weight on those cows in present condition? I am not bashing I like the style of those cows just curious on their weights.

 

[justintime]

downsize? I recall you saying Leroy weighed 2750lbs and his dam, Sparkle 1k,  was over a ton?  It's always interesting to hear the different descriptors people use and the varying experiences people have with bloodlines.  My experience with a Leroy son was about a 180 from what's being described here, but who know, maybe the one I got was the exception.
[/quote]

When I refer to downsizing, I am only referring to downsizing frame, and not mature weights. This is what Leroy did so well. Mature weight is determined by several other factors besides frame size. Body length, thickness, depth of body, depth of muscling, fleshing ability and docility all make contributions to mature weight.
I have attached a picture of Leroy taken the day he was weighed at 2740 lbs. This was taken the day we turned in out to pasture in May, 2008. We ran him over the scale before loading him in the trailer, and he weighed 2740. I thought there must be something wrong with the scale so we walked him off and balanced it. When he walked back on, he weighed the same. He had been wintered on nothing but free choice brome- alfalfa hay and a salt block. That was one of the reasons I purchased him, as his owners said he got too fat if he got even the good hay. When I saw his mother, I decided I was not leaving their place until I owned them both. It took several hours of negotiating and lots of cups of coffee but I owned a part of them both and full possession,  when I left later that day.
In regards to traits like temperament, I think there are some exceptions to the rule. For the most part, the Leroy offspring are extremely docile. I have had two of his offspring that got very worked up during the trailer ride to their new owners. Not sure what happened or why it happened. Other than them, I have tied lots of them up and led them within a few hours of seeing a halter the first time. McDougals at Dunbeacon, reported the same thing with their calves from him.

 

[huntaway]

Good looking cows in great condition.

Its interesting how different Leroy's numbers are in Australia. Below average birthweight and growth figures, Carcass data is in the same ballpark.
http://abri.une.edu.au/online/cgi-bin/i4.dll?1=313021&2=242D&3=56&5=2B3C2B3C3A&6=5C255B5A2124242021&10=181F11162BE3101C1BE7EE34E611E7E1ED3EE1E7E9EBF03816E9050CEAF5F100ECEDFF130B12F91F

http://shorthorn.digitalbeef.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=_animal&file=_animal&search_value=&animal_registration=4123535&member_id=

 

[justintime]

Good looking cows in great condition.

Its interesting how different Leroy's numbers are in Australia. Below average birthweight and growth figures, Carcass data is in the same ballpark.
http://abri.une.edu.au/online/cgi-bin/i4.dll?1=313021&2=242D&3=56&5=2B3C2B3C3A&6=5C255B5A2124242021&10=181F11162BE3101C1BE7EE34E611E7E1ED3EE1E7E9EBF03816E9050CEAF5F100ECEDFF130B12F91F

http://shorthorn.digitalbeef.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=_animal&file=_animal&search_value=&animal_registration=4123535&member_id=

Maybe I am just getting old, but I really struggle with some of the numbers I see on some animals. I also have been left scratching my head wondering about the numbers for some animals in different breed registries. This is why I cannot base my breeding decisions only on the numbers. I have seen too many things that do not make sense to allow myself to do this.
I have two former herd sires that show this situation very well. The first sire did an excellent job for us, and he calved very good even from heifers, and his calves had pretty decent performance. The second bull did not calve as good as his numbers suggested he would and his calves were consistently in the bottom 25% of our calf crop for WW and YW. I kept some of his daughters but they are all gone now, as they did not milk enough to suit what I wanted. I have sent all the data in on all my calves for years, and the numbers did slightly move but not enough to where I felt they should be. I completely quit using the second bull despite his numbers being much better for BW, WW, YW and Milk.  The second bulls numbers are significantly higher in all these categories and I still have people wanting to buy semen from this bull because of his good numbers.
I would really love to be able to believe the numbers like so many other people do but right now, I struggle with what I have seen in my own herd.

 

[justintime]

JIT cows look good but even a bad cow looks pretty good with the kind of condition they have on. What would be the avg weight on those cows in present condition? I am not bashing I like the style of those cows just curious on their weights.

We have been very fortunate so far this year. We had a very good winter, so our cows were in excellent condition this spring after only eating hay for the winter. We were about as dry as I ever want to see it, until late May and it looks like we may have to try to find more pastures for them. We have had good rains since late May and it is quite amazing how the pastures and hay have come back. The cows have done exceptionally well on this new growth and I think they are about as good condition as I have ever seen them.
I will also say that our donor cows that spend much time at the ET center always come home in excellent condition. Sparkle 2X is fat. No doubt about it. She is also probably too big for what some people want. I haven't weighed her but I know she is over 2000 pounds but she has never been thin, she milks well and she raises excellent calves. She is 6 years old and will probably be the highest income earning female we have ever had, as she has already passed $100,000 in progeny and embryo sales. (she has produced over $70,000 for us in 2015 and 2016)She has been flushed many times so this has affected her mature size as well. Despite this, she remains very fertile. After spending 12 months in the ET center and being flushed 7 times, she settled to calve early 2017 on her first AI breeding. Her full sister Sparkle Delight 1X is a much smaller framed female but is built the same way. Very massive bodied but she has a smaller mature frame size.
SBR Dora 228 and HC Picture Perfect 46X are more moderate framed cows than 2X, but they still pound down the scale and would weigh 1650 lbs, due to their above average body mass.
I realize some people think ET is a curse to any breed, but it has become a major part of our operation. Embryos and semen have become the main method of moving genetics any distance. I am as surprised as anyone, as I never saw this coming. The entire world has become a market place, and I am totally surprised at some of the places I get inquiries from in regards to Shorthorn genetics. Last fall. I got an email from Costa Rica and never dreamt we would ever sell embryos there. Within a few weeks, we completed the deal. There are inquiries from countries that I didn't know had any kind of cattle industry... like Peru, Mongolia, Quator, and we have had two inquiries from smaller countries in Africa in the past year. I do not know if anything will result from these inquiries, but there appears to be genuine interest anyways.

 

[justintime]

Here are a few more pics of some cows from the Sparkle family here:

1) HC Sparkle Delight 77W - a grand daughter of Prairie Lane Sparkle 1K. She is sired by Star P Matrix 4N. She was flushed last year several times and is safe to Saskvalley Pioneer 126P. I can't wait to see the resulting calf!  I shipped a set of embryos from 77W to Scotland last fall, and consigned them to the Stirling sale, ( the sale that has taken the place of the historic Perth sale) and they were the top selling embryos at the equivalent of $1200/ per embryo when converted to dollars from guineas. She has never missed in regards to raising a super calf. Her dam was purchased by Cyclone Trace and a full sister to 77W is working at Hahn's in Illinois.

2) CYT Sparkle Girl 0166 - I sold some flushes in Sparkle 1K to John Hagie at Cyclone Trace and he used Alta Cedar Samauri 46T in one of the flushes. A couple years later I saw this female in the CYT sale and I thought she was one of the best bred heifers on offer. I brought her back here, and she has been a great investment. I regret not buying another full sister they had in the same sale. She has also been flushed here, and her embryos have been popular. She is one of the more moderate Sparkle females we have. Her 2015 bull calf was one of my favorites and he sold for $6500 to a long time commercial buyer of ours.

3) HC Sparkle Delight 20B - an ET daughter of Waukaru Orion 2047 and HC FL Sparkle Delight 2X. She is shown here at Canadian Western Agribition where she was Champion Shorthorn female in the First Lady Classic show. She is now a two year old female and has developed into my idea of a model Shorthorn female. She has a perfect udder and has a super heifer calf at foot sired by HC Bedrock 73B, the son of Muridale Buster 14K that sold in our sale at $14,000 this year. IMO, 20B may be the best Shorthorn female I have ever produced. She is a flushmate to HC Bluebook 22B, who sold for $32,000 in our 2015 sale.

 

[Duncraggan]

Maybe I am just getting old, but I really struggle with some of the numbers I see on some animals. I also have been left scratching my head wondering about the numbers for some animals in different breed registries. This is why I cannot base my breeding decisions only on the numbers. I have seen too many things that do not make sense to allow myself to do this.
I have two former herd sires that show this situation very well. The first sire did an excellent job for us, and he calved very good even from heifers, and his calves had pretty decent performance. The second bull did not calve as good as his numbers suggested he would and his calves were consistently in the bottom 25% of our calf crop for WW and YW. I kept some of his daughters but they are all gone now, as they did not milk enough to suit what I wanted. I have sent all the data in on all my calves for years, and the numbers did slightly move but not enough to where I felt they should be. I completely quit using the second bull despite his numbers being much better for BW, WW, YW and Milk.  The second bulls numbers are significantly higher in all these categories and I still have people wanting to buy semen from this bull because of his good numbers.
I would really love to be able to believe the numbers like so many other people do but right now, I struggle with what I have seen in my own herd.

I am also sometimes confounded by my observations compare to the EBV/EPD values! I imported genetics from Australia and had excellent results, two of the buyers of the genetics from me had poor results. Anecdotal, not recorded, as far as I know.
A testing station opened up near me at the beginning of 2016 and I have two grandsons on test. They seem to be doing fine halfway through the test so I hope to prove my point! Will be doing a number of direct progeny as soon as I can get more on the ground now that I have this resource at my disposal.
I am leaning more to the side of, you need to know the programme you are buying genetics from. Breeders wanting repeat customers will give their honest opinion.
Are your programme outcomes aligned or are you just getting 'something new' for the sake of it?
I am the first to admit that I have crossed the line on a few occasions and have rued my decision every time!

 

[linnettejane]

awesome females!  i must say, I'm partial to the Leroy's myself.  although my experience with him is limited, i have had great results with calving ease, docility, and easy keeping.  i plan on using him on my mature cows again this fall!  fingers crossed for some more females!

 

[beebe]

Here are a few more pics of some cows from the Sparkle family here:

1) HC Sparkle Delight 77W - a grand daughter of Prairie Lane Sparkle 1K. She is sired by Star P Matrix 4N. She was flushed last year several times and is safe to Saskvalley Pioneer 126P. I can't wait to see the resulting calf!  I shipped a set of embryos from 77W to Scotland last fall, and consigned them to the Stirling sale, ( the sale that has taken the place of the historic Perth sale) and they were the top selling embryos at the equivalent of $1200/ per embryo when converted to dollars from guineas. She has never missed in regards to raising a super calf. Her dam was purchased by Cyclone Trace and a full sister to 77W is working at Hahn's in Illinois.

2) CYT Sparkle Girl 0166 - I sold some flushes in Sparkle 1K to John Hagie at Cyclone Trace and he used Alta Cedar Samauri 46T in one of the flushes. A couple years later I saw this female in the CYT sale and I thought she was one of the best bred heifers on offer. I brought her back here, and she has been a great investment. I regret not buying another full sister they had in the same sale. She has also been flushed here, and her embryos have been popular. She is one of the more moderate Sparkle females we have. Her 2015 bull calf was one of my favorites and he sold for $6500 to a long time commercial buyer of ours.

3) HC Sparkle Delight 20B - an ET daughter of Waukaru Orion 2047 and HC FL Sparkle Delight 2X. She is shown here at Canadian Western Agribition where she was Champion Shorthorn female in the First Lady Classic show. She is now a two year old female and has developed into my idea of a model Shorthorn female. She has a perfect udder and has a super heifer calf at foot sired by HC Bedrock 73B, the son of Muridale Buster 14K that sold in our sale at $14,000 this year. IMO, 20B may be the best Shorthorn female I have ever produced. She is a flushmate to HC Bluebook 22B, who sold for $32,000 in our 2015 sale.

I really like the way the sparkle cows are built.  I would probably like to condense them down a little but they are built right.