Exciting Times For Canadian Shorthorns

Sometimes we get stuck in a rut of negativity but for our breeders I think nothing but positive is happening.  At a sale I attended on Friday where Black Angus, Red Angus, and Shorthorns sold the breed averages had Shorthorns on top with $6700.00.  High selling Shorthorn bull was $7250 low selling Shorthorn was $5700.  Black Angus averaged $5793.55 high selling at $11,500 low of $3200.  Red Angus averaged $3850 high seller being $4200 low selling at $3500.  Commercial Angus/Shorthorn open heifers averaged $2800.

There are a number of highly impressive bulls in upcoming sales that I feel will easily carry on the trend from the first sale of our Shorthorn bull sale season.  Anwender Cattle Co, Horseshoecreek, Rocking L, Bell M, Muridale, Saskvalley to name a few breeders in two upcoming sales.

We are also having a very exciting season, one of our highlights is with Diamond Prophecy 21P. His semen is being used on a group of 80 commercial heifers spring 2015 he will be compared to a red and black Angus sire. The offspring data will be collected from birth to hook for steers and from birth to cow on heifers.

It has always felt good to be a Shorthorn breeder but right now it is feeling better and better.  <beer>

I couldn't agree more! There are a lot of people in our area that are really interested in the shorthorns, to use on Simmental base females. It will be really interesting to see how the sales pan out in the Shorthorn breed and in other breeds as well. It's a good time to be a Shorty breeder and in general a great time to be in the cattle business!  (clapping)

I agree Jaimie. I have been raising these red, roan and white critters for my entire life, and I have never seen a more positive and exciting time than we are having right now. I used to get asked by some people in other breeds why I was raising Shorthorns. More than a few times in my life, I have been told that I was wasting my life. During Canadian Western Agribition in November, I was stopped on a couple different occasions by leading breeders of other breeds, and they told me they wanted to compliment me for sticking it out with the Shorthorns. One Simmental breeder who has set the pace for high production sales for years here, told me that if he was younger, he would start a Shorthorn herd as he loves the cattle he is seeing. One of our bulls that sold in our sale last year sold for a cattleman who uses Simmental and Angus in his herd. He held his own bull sale last year on the farm and averaged $5500 on mainly percentage Simmental X Angus bulls. When I delivered the bull to him, I asked him why he decided to buy a Shorthorn bull when he was having such success with his program as it was. He said that he felt Shorthorns were going to become much more popular in the near future and he was going to be ready when it really hit. In the past year, he has flushed some high dollar Simmental and Angus cows to Shorthorn bulls. He has purchased a bunch of Shorthorn embryos and he told me a few days ago, that the Shorthorns he has added to his herd, have not taken second place to any other breed he has.
In our online embryo sale held in late January, we had 3 commercial producers bid on embryos. One paid $1100 each for a set of 4 embryos. He said that he had seen both the sire and dam used to produce the embryos and he felt he may never be able to afford a bull from this mating, so he was going to try to produce his own.
It truly is exciting times in this breed, and it has very little to do with the show ring... at last here in Canada.

Wish I could say the same down here-But the most positive thing I see right now in the breed is the virtual elimination of EPDS on alot of cattle-tuff love but very necessary first step towards llegitimacy.As far as the show ring-it is a very large reason that you see Shorthorns at all in many areas.But: as long as there are kids and shows-you will allways see the influence. Even in Va-where everything has to be black. At the recent Va winter deal:the thickest freakiest group of cattle in the barn BAR NONE-were the Shorthorns-Maybe not going in a commercial direction-BUT GOING:and people took notice. O0

We ran a feeder calf operation for several years with mostly angus, simmi,charlois, crosses. We sold out in 2004 due to a change in my work schedule. Long story short my daughter wanted to show cattle and, her second heifer was a shorthorn. We have been hooked on shorthorns ever since. We don't have the big herd we had before but, we love working these cattle and can't wait for calving season every year.  ;D

Here is to hoping that trend continues in Eastern Canada. We have 6 real good shorthorn bulls in the saint Martin test sale  next Saturday, from Shadybrook,Cedar Grove and Maxwell. Will be broadcast on liveauctions.tv.

cedargrove said:

Here is to hoping that trend continues in Eastern Canada. We have 6 real good shorthorn bulls in the saint Martin test sale  next Saturday, from Shadybrook,Cedar Grove and Maxwell. Will be broadcast on liveauctions.tv.

Click to expand...

Is there a link to the test station info and pedigrees on theses bulls?

link to final report is  www.agrireseau.qc.ca ,  click on bovins de boucherie,  then you should find Saint Martin-- Rapport final and photos
photo tag #109 is Crooked Post Tamarack son
photo tag #110 is Waukaru Patent son
photo tag #112 is Hot Commodity son
( the bulls are much better than the photos)!!!

cedargrove said:

link to final report is  www.agrireseau.qc.ca ,  click on bovins de boucherie,  then you should find Saint Martin-- Rapport final and photos
photo tag #109 is Crooked Post Tamarack son
photo tag #110 is Waukaru Patent son
photo tag #112 is Hot Commodity son
( the bulls are much better than the photos)!!!

Click to expand...

http://www.agrireseau.qc.ca/documents/Document_89244.pdf pg 6
http://www.agrireseau.qc.ca/references/3/2015/STM%202015%20fiche_SH.pdf
http://www.agrireseau.qc.ca/references/3/2015/PHOTOS%202%20Beauce%202015%20-%20Shorthorn.pdf

Things are going well with Shorthorns in Nebraska.  A&T is sold out and Aaron even sold a bull for me to a commercial rancher to put on black cows.  If you raise the kind of cattle they want, they will buy them.  I know Hoffrogge and Galbreath are seeing a lot of interest from commercial cattlemen too.  Great time to be a Shorthorn breeder.

Congrats to any and all breeders who are enjoying some well deserved success with Shorts! However, it seems that the breed is doing better in the West than here in the East where it is discounted regularly at the stockyards.
The breed needs to show the industry they are serious about eliminating genetic defects at the association levels. Rules prohibiting the registration of progeny from carrier sires need to be grand-fathered in.
It's a great show breed with many desirable characteristics and traits but it needs more than one dimension to ensure long term success east of the Manitoba/Ontario border. JMO