The Young Guns

Summer has gone by so quickly.  We hardly had any spring and so it seemed like we crammed in as much as we could in 8 weeks.  One of our main activities for the farm this summer was to be guest consigners to the Pasture Treasures Sale hosted by the Skeel's Family of Anchor D Simmentals at Rimbey. 

The sale is held in the middle of August at their farm.  The day includes viewing of the cattle, barbecue, sale and barn dance to end the evening.
We consigned 5 cows with heifer calves at side.  These were cows that had been very productive for us and still had a future.  By selling them we can now keep a few more of our replacements heifers.  Rob always says "you can't keep them all."
The sale was a great success with our 5 lots averaging $8320 or $4360 per head.  The most exciting part of the sale for us was that 6 of the 10 head were sold to junior members.  For one buyer it was his first Purebred Simmental.

Sarah Van Sickle purchased this cow calf pair. Sarah is the Vice-President of the national YCS board.
                                    

Caleb Richardson added two cows to his herd.  He attended the Alberta and National YCS shows this summer. Caleb is also a director on the AYCSA board.

 

Kale Chessor bought the first LRX Blaze55Z daughter to sell to use as his next 4H project.

                                                                                                             Will Bradford purchased his first purebred Simmental. 

 We are very excited for all of these young cattle enthusiasts.  It is fun to see them buying cattle and adding to their herds.  Thank you for making selections from our herd.  We would also like to thank BS Ranch - Shawna & Bob Harakal, Mader Ranches and Earl & Shirley Hagstrom for supporting our program.

New Venture

Over the years we have marketed our gentics through a number of ways.  Consignment sales like Checkers, Red & Black, Agribiton, Farm Fair, Private Treaty  for the Females, embryos and semen at the North American in Louisville and most recently at the New Years Resolution sale.  On the bull side of things we marketed them directly off the farm for a number of years  and then joined the consignment sale of The Red Deer Bull Sale for the last few.  For 2013 we are really excited to be a part of the Simmental Bull Summit on February 25, 2013 at Bentley, AB

Our good friends and fellow Simmental breeders John and Stefon Beechinor have built a beautiful and big sale facility at their farm just  south of Bentley.  They have been feeding our bulls along with theirs and those of Eagle Ridge Simmentals since weaning.  Sale day will be stress free (at least for the bulls) as they only have to move from one side of the farm to the sale barn on the other.

We will have 10 bulls in the sale.  Here is a sampling

  Most from our walking bulls McIntosh Sweet Meat 32X,

3D Mr Red Sure Fire 449X

and IPU Revolution 172U. 














Along with  ET calves from LFE Rochfort 3013T and Black Joker.  68 lots are catalogued and we invite you to join us for an Alberta Beef lunch at 11:00 with the sale starting at 1:00.

If you would like to check out the sale offering before sale day, the catalog link is on our website at High Country Cattle as well as  a video of some of the bulls.  If you are unable to join us that day but something catches your eye give us a call, we always love to talk cows or just have a visit with our fellow cattlemen and cattle women.

Most Stressful Day of the Year.

We all have some stress in our lives.  Those that raise crops and livestock have many factors that are out of their control.  Market fluctuation, and weather are two of the big ones.  But as a cattle producer there seems to be one day that adds even a bit more stress - Semen testing of the bull pen.

We spend over a year raising these bulls to develop them for breeding stock.  If they make the bull pen there are the extra costs of feed, registrations, time, promotion, and semen testing.

Bull pen in the fall

So you can see why the stress level goes way up on the day of testing.  In a moment you can be told the bull that you thought might be one of your higher sellers has just had his value decreased considerably and you still have all of the extra management costs into him.

We have sold a few bulls off of the farm and we have 6 that are consigned to the Red Deer Bull Sale on Monday March 19.  They were checked in for their semen tests last week.  The verdict was.......They All Passed! 

All of the bulls had excellent mobility scores and they measured up very well, ranging from 36 - 39 cm.

Now we can breath a little easier and spend our energy on getting them ready for sale day.  Watch for pictures of our consignments.  5 sons of IPU Revolution and 1 Black Joker son.

Your Success....Is Our Success

IPU Revolution 172U

There is nothing more satisfying than having your cattle or genetics work for other breeders.  We have often thought that the way to prove a herdsire is to have semen used in several other herds under different environment and management conditions.

We would like to congratulate LaBatte Simmentals for the sale of their Revolution daughter to Bonchuk Farms for $12,250.  She was the high selling red female in their offering.

A big shout out also goes to Willow Creek Simmentals on their Champion Pen of 3 bulls at the Peace County Bull Congress.  Their pen included a son of Revolution that will sell in their spring sale in March.

Christmas Comes Early

Wow what a weekend.  This past weekend was the 17th Annual Checkers Sale.  This sale has built a name for it's self as one of the top sales to purchase Simmentals genetics from.  This year in addition to the 60 lots of Red & Black Simmentals 25 top end Fullblood cattle were added.

We had 3 lots consigned - a herdsire prospect - RJY Rival 13Y, a Donor female - SS Ebony's Dreamdate S27 and a bred heifer - RJY Dream's Promdate 16X.

The sale started with Lot 2 - a herdsire prospect from Meadow Acres.  They purchased his dam from the sale in 2010 for $25,000.  A big investment.....that looked very good when the hammer came down at $83,000 for her first calf. Congratulations Kirsten and Dustin.

Lot 47 followed - our bull calf - he commanded $40,000 from Kopp Farms and the semen syndicate of Willow Creek, Barclay Smith, South Seven Simmentals, Hanna Simmentals and Bonchuk Simmentals.

Sale Time - Rival selling for $40,000

Thank you to this group of progressive breeders for their commitment to this young bull.

Continually throughout the afternoon females sold for top dollar.  The high selling bred for $18,000 and the high selling open heifer for $20,000. 

We are very excited to see what our females can do for their new owners.  Thank you to Scott Gosnier, Nebraska for purchasing Dreamdate and Bar L7, Calgary AB for their purchase of Promdate.



Dream Date 27S
Her new home is in Nebraska

Promdate is now owned by Bar L7

Not only was the sale fantastic, but we enjoyed seeing so many of our cattle friends, enjoying some Christmas cheer with them and all the laughs that we had over the weekend.  The people in the cattle industry are the best gift of all.  The sale averaged $8273 on 61 lots of Red and Black Simmentals and $7630 on 25 Fullblood lots.  Congratulations Simmentals breeders on the great cattle you are raising.  Merry Christmas.

Favorites

It seems like not matter what you talk about everyone has a favorite something.  Favorite coffee, way to spend a weekend, favorite relative and here at High Country we have our favorite cows.  If you have followed our blog for awhile you will know that Harmony and Fantasy were Crystal's favorites,

Fantasy

  Ruffles was the favorite for Stacy

Ruffles

and Rob just likes them all.  Although I think he is a bit partial to Elle and First Date

Elle

First Date

This weekend we are selling 2 of  my favorites, Dream Date and Prom Date. 

Dream Date

I've been banned from doing the sale cattle chores as every time I do, I tell Rob "Do you really think we should be selling Prom Date? 

Prom Date

She's going to make such a great cow?  How are we going to replace her?  This is where he tells me that we have a full sister to her in the herd and 3 additional daughters from Dream Date so all will be fine.

He must have been thinking yesterday that I might not be 100% convinced.  So he made a purchase at the Shades Sale in Manitoba.  MRL Miss 644Y - soon to be named MRL Obsession 644Y is on her way to High Country Cattle. 

Obsession

We haven't met in person yet but from all that we have heard about this Wheatland Predator 922W daughter she could very well be my new favorite.  Might make selling Dream Date and her daughter Prom Date on December 17 just a little bit easier.

It's Starting to Look A Lot Like Christmas

I know that there is always discussion on when is it too early to decorate for Christmas.  For many of our American friends it is the day after Thanksgiving.  For some of my Canadian friends it is after the first snow fall....but that could mean October some years.  For our family it is when I (Dee) gets around to it.  Rob isn't a big fan of puatting up outdoor lights, so that is usually my job as well as transforming the house for the holidays.

This year I am just a little bit behind.  With Christmas falling on the weekend, it seems like I have less days to do everything.  We were away most of November at shows and sales, and the first weekend in December was spent buying a dress for Crystal and Jon's wedding along with some Christmas shopping, This weekend we are excited to attend the wedding of Scott Harvie of Harvie Ranching and Kerrie Bennett and then next weekend we are at the 17th Annual Checkers Sale.  Check out Lots 47, 48, and 49. Those 2 weekends will be like having Christmas with our cattle family. 

My cow snow globe - handmade.

Snow globe and cows in the bathroom.

I did do a few things last night and hopefully the rest of it will get done on Sunday....depending on how the wedding goes!

With Thanks

Monday night we offered 2 packages of embryos from one of our top donors.  They were in the North American Select Sale in Louisville.  When the hammer came down, we were very pleased to know that they had been purchased by 2 great breeding programs.





Lot 9A was purchased by Kappes Simmentals, Aberdeen, South Dakota.  Bruce and his family have been in the Simmental business for over 25 years.  They have a successful sale each spring and know the value of strong pedigrees.

Lot 9B was purchased by a younger Simmental breeder - Cale Toews, Beaverlodge, AB.  Cale may just be developing his herd, but he has a long history of breeding cattle in his family.

He has 2 great mentors in his grandfather and his father Travis who is the president of the Canadian Cattleman's Association. 

CCA President Travis Toews with
Agriculture Minister Ritz

 They operate Melburn Holdings and currently run 700 cows and over 1,000 yearlings, while the Toews family also backgrounds about 1,200 head of cattle.  I think Cale will have a good group of recipients to chose from.





We are excited that these two programs chose to add our genetics to theirs and look forward to seeing their results.