justintime
Well-known member
We purchased Six S Leah 55L in 2007 in the Butterfield dispersal in Alberta for $6300. At the time she was a 6 year old cow. At that time, I had only paid that much for a female on a couple other occasions. For some reason, I was absolutely determined to own this cow and I decided before the sale that if I had to sell 25 cows to pay for her I was willing to do it. Fortunately, I didn't have to do that and fortunately, even my wife, who was sitting beside me when I purchased her, said she thought I had got a bargain!! After the sale, I was told by another breeder, that I would never get my money back from her as big cows like her, were unproductive and probably unfertile as well. This guy told me, she would never survive on our dry pastures and that she was a cow that needed to be pastured on a field with a pivet on it. I told this guy that I was willing to take my chances as it had been decades since I had seen a cow as thick and with as much volume as her.I told him that if he was right, and she did not survive in my conditions, I did not think it would result in me losing my farm. I was willing to put my faith in her. Well she is now 12 years old. She has never had 1 ounce of grain on our farm and she just remained FAT.Not only is she fat, but she is simply huge. 2200 lbs huge. Three people could probably sleep comfortably on her back. She has spent a considerable length of time at an ET center and they told me that she was kept seperate from most of the other cows and kept on a diet or she simply got too fat.
She produced a bull calf in 2008 that was our top gaining bull in our bull test and topped the sale at $5000. She was kept open and sent to the ET center as we had some requests of embryos from Britain from her. I had no idea what was about to happen. She was flushed 5 times and produced 135 grade 1 embryos ( average of 28 per flush). We decided that in order to keep her fresh, that we should rebreed her and she was bred AI 5 days after her last flush and she conceived. She had a heifer calf that turned out to sell for $5000 in our production sale. The next spring an ET bull calf again topped our bull sale at $9000. She was sent back to the ET center as we sold a flush in her and we had several more inquiries for embryos from her. In this stay she was flushed 8 times and she produced another 195 grade 1 embryos.( average of 24.4 / flush) The lowest flush she has had was 7 grade 1 embryos and that was the flush we sold, however there was a bunch of unfertilized embryos so it may have been a semen quality issue that time. The 8th flush resulted in 28 grade 1 embryos and I was at the ET center that day and I decided that she needed to come home and get rebred. She was loaded on my trailer as soon as the flush was completed and I brought her 600 miles back home and she was dropped off in a pasture with one of our herd bulls. I saw her bred 4 days later and really did not think she would ever settle to that service.... but she did, and this morning, she gave birth to two very healthy twins. A red neck roan heifer and a solid red bull calf. So far having the mixed sex twins is the worst thing she has done. Most cows that carry twins will drop a little more flesh during the gestation than most of the others in the herd. Not the case with Leah. She is still FAT and it has been a rather cold windy winter. She has been wintered on poor quality hay some of it 4 and 5 years old that was rained on before it was baled. I have been trying to get this stuff fed so the cows were getting 3 bales of the old crappy hay and one good quality bale. The only bedding they have received has been the old hay they did not want to eat.
Leah loves both her babies and has lots of milk for them both. Both calves were running around the pen literally minutes after being born. The heifer calf weighed 62 lbs and the bull calf is 67 lbs. To look at Leah, she has so much body mass that she doesn't even look like she has calved.
I also find it interesting that this female has been flushed 13 times and produced 330 grade 1 embryos and yet she shows no physical signs of ever been flushed. I have a couple other cows that have been flushed twice that have high tail heads, and got coarser fronted. There appears to be major differences between females , even within a breed and within a herd, and within the same cow line. I wonder if there has ever been any studies on why this happens?
Leah has been selected to establish 5 herds in the Shorthorn business. 5 different producers have selected her embryos to establish their new purebred breeding herds with. I doubt if many cattlemen can say they have established 5 new herds in their breed. I will be honest and say that basically all I have done to establish these herds, was to have owned the cow and flushed her. Leah has done the rest.
As I said earlier, she is now 12 years old and she is as sound as the day I purchased her. I expect we will send her back to be flushed some more, as we only have 33 embryos left in our inventory and we have sold 297 embryos to 7 countries. Besides her twins, we are still awaiting the birth of another 15 ET calves from her in March. and April. I hear we have some pretty good Mandalong Super Flag bull calves on the ground in a cooperator herd we use in Minnesota. I am hoping we get some more heifers from her to add to our herd. Another interesting fact to me, is that while she is so massive in size, she has never produced any offspring here, that were over a 6 frame. They do possess her fleshing ability and her body mass, but none have inherited her mature size, and she has been bred to a wide variety of sires.
I am not telling Leah's story to brag. Far from that. I am telling her story, because I think it is proof that once in awhile a very unique female shows up.I am telling this story to just say that sometimes you cannot judge a book by looking at it's cover. I expect almost everyone who sees her would say she is way bigger than we want. I would tend to agree, however, I can now overlook that fact when I see how easy fleshing, fertile and trouble free she is. She may die tomorrow, but by the way she looks today at 12 years of age, I can see her still doing her thing at 15 years of age or even older.
Here are two pictures of Leah - the first was taken when she was 7 years old and it was taken the day we weaned a 770 lb bull calf off her ( no creep). The second picture is Leah at almost 11 years of age on a cold -30 F January day.
She produced a bull calf in 2008 that was our top gaining bull in our bull test and topped the sale at $5000. She was kept open and sent to the ET center as we had some requests of embryos from Britain from her. I had no idea what was about to happen. She was flushed 5 times and produced 135 grade 1 embryos ( average of 28 per flush). We decided that in order to keep her fresh, that we should rebreed her and she was bred AI 5 days after her last flush and she conceived. She had a heifer calf that turned out to sell for $5000 in our production sale. The next spring an ET bull calf again topped our bull sale at $9000. She was sent back to the ET center as we sold a flush in her and we had several more inquiries for embryos from her. In this stay she was flushed 8 times and she produced another 195 grade 1 embryos.( average of 24.4 / flush) The lowest flush she has had was 7 grade 1 embryos and that was the flush we sold, however there was a bunch of unfertilized embryos so it may have been a semen quality issue that time. The 8th flush resulted in 28 grade 1 embryos and I was at the ET center that day and I decided that she needed to come home and get rebred. She was loaded on my trailer as soon as the flush was completed and I brought her 600 miles back home and she was dropped off in a pasture with one of our herd bulls. I saw her bred 4 days later and really did not think she would ever settle to that service.... but she did, and this morning, she gave birth to two very healthy twins. A red neck roan heifer and a solid red bull calf. So far having the mixed sex twins is the worst thing she has done. Most cows that carry twins will drop a little more flesh during the gestation than most of the others in the herd. Not the case with Leah. She is still FAT and it has been a rather cold windy winter. She has been wintered on poor quality hay some of it 4 and 5 years old that was rained on before it was baled. I have been trying to get this stuff fed so the cows were getting 3 bales of the old crappy hay and one good quality bale. The only bedding they have received has been the old hay they did not want to eat.
Leah loves both her babies and has lots of milk for them both. Both calves were running around the pen literally minutes after being born. The heifer calf weighed 62 lbs and the bull calf is 67 lbs. To look at Leah, she has so much body mass that she doesn't even look like she has calved.
I also find it interesting that this female has been flushed 13 times and produced 330 grade 1 embryos and yet she shows no physical signs of ever been flushed. I have a couple other cows that have been flushed twice that have high tail heads, and got coarser fronted. There appears to be major differences between females , even within a breed and within a herd, and within the same cow line. I wonder if there has ever been any studies on why this happens?
Leah has been selected to establish 5 herds in the Shorthorn business. 5 different producers have selected her embryos to establish their new purebred breeding herds with. I doubt if many cattlemen can say they have established 5 new herds in their breed. I will be honest and say that basically all I have done to establish these herds, was to have owned the cow and flushed her. Leah has done the rest.
As I said earlier, she is now 12 years old and she is as sound as the day I purchased her. I expect we will send her back to be flushed some more, as we only have 33 embryos left in our inventory and we have sold 297 embryos to 7 countries. Besides her twins, we are still awaiting the birth of another 15 ET calves from her in March. and April. I hear we have some pretty good Mandalong Super Flag bull calves on the ground in a cooperator herd we use in Minnesota. I am hoping we get some more heifers from her to add to our herd. Another interesting fact to me, is that while she is so massive in size, she has never produced any offspring here, that were over a 6 frame. They do possess her fleshing ability and her body mass, but none have inherited her mature size, and she has been bred to a wide variety of sires.
I am not telling Leah's story to brag. Far from that. I am telling her story, because I think it is proof that once in awhile a very unique female shows up.I am telling this story to just say that sometimes you cannot judge a book by looking at it's cover. I expect almost everyone who sees her would say she is way bigger than we want. I would tend to agree, however, I can now overlook that fact when I see how easy fleshing, fertile and trouble free she is. She may die tomorrow, but by the way she looks today at 12 years of age, I can see her still doing her thing at 15 years of age or even older.
Here are two pictures of Leah - the first was taken when she was 7 years old and it was taken the day we weaned a 770 lb bull calf off her ( no creep). The second picture is Leah at almost 11 years of age on a cold -30 F January day.
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