Justamere Todd

Is there a photo of this guy? Thanks.

There is a photo of Justamere Todd but I can't find it. Todd was a big framed Milking Shorthorn bull. He did have some muscling but mostly added frame to his calves.

I owned Justamere Todd, I have lots of photos of him and offspring.  I purchased him as a long yearling from Bill Jones, Washington, Iowa.  Sire was Foxdale Favorite Robin, dam was Justamere Jane.  Todd was grand champion bull at the Iowa State Fair and Minnesota State Fair in 1975.  He defeated Hilltop Lancer 457 for champion at both shows.  457 later won National Champion bull honors.  I will readily admit that he had better fitters than me.  Todd was a very large framed bull, but was more muscular than most.  I participated in the ASA sire test and Todd passed on his muscling to his offspring as verified in the carcass portion of the project.  K & K Shorthorns of Swisher, Iowa, purchased Foxdale Favorite Robin from the Jones family along with a few bred cows.  One of those cows produced Duke of Swisher, a son of Robin, that won the Illinois State Fair in 1975 and was reserve junior champion at the Iowa State Fair.  He was sold to Alden Farms and sired a cow you may have heard of, AF Shannon Margie 924.  Todd's daughters were very good producers with excellent udders.  They maintained their condition reasonably well and formed the nucleus of our cow herd for several years.  They served as an excellent base when I purchased the full Irish bull Lazy D Ultimate Type.  We had used a son of the dual purpose bull Ridgewood Tracy prior to Todd.  His daughters were a little more extreme in type and did not maintain their udder shape as well as the Todd daughters.  The first bull we purchased in 1965 was SV Caesar 25th, a grandson of Bapton Constructor.  In the late 60's, we used a lot of Leader 21 and Leader 9th breeding followed by a son of the Canadian bull, Boa Kae White Tornado.  When the dual purpose were accepted into the ASA herdbook, we purchased the Ridgewood Tracy son, Mysha Mollie's Model, and a short time later, against my father's wishes, I purchased Todd.  For maybe the first time in modern history, the son's idea actually turned out better than the dad's.  Todd really did a great job for us.  We had good success breeding the Todd daughters to Clark, Columbus, and the other Graham bulls before I bought Lazy D Ultimate Type.  I had a couple Iowa Beef Expol champion and top selling females from this cross.  Admiral Halsey was the Iowa Champion bull in the early 80's, sired by Clark out of a Robin cow I had purchased from the Jones family.  Then the mid-80's farm deal hit and I kind of had to start over.  What a fun ride!  There is semen around on Todd and perhaps Foxdale Favorite Robin.  I'll post a photo when I get time.  How on earth did you come across his name?

Well, you know how evil the internet is..one minute you're looking for a picture of
Hub's Director and the next you're watching old footage of them hoisting a wild goat wearing a crown 60 feet in the air at the Puck Fair..
It had something to do with HHKA Buttercup Prince 20th and the Mysha herd and GPN Sundance and Hub's Impact II. The problem with my "research" is I type in a name and look at images. Then that can take me anywhere the name I entered and the photo I'm intrigued by appear together in who knows what context. Usually by pedigree in some way I'm too dumb to understand other than visually.
Mostly because I read Todd was a dual purpose bull with muscle, and because it's snowing.

8)

The first bull we purchased in 1965 was SV Caesar 25th, a grandson of Bapton Constructor.  In the late 60's, we used a lot of Leader 21 and Leader 9th breeding followed by a son of the Canadian bull, Boa Kae White Tornado.  When the dual purpose were accepted into the ASA herdbook, we purchased the Ridgewood Tracy son, Mysha Mollie's Model, and a short time later, against my father's wishes, I purchased Todd.  For maybe the first time in modern history, the son's idea actually turned out better than the dad's.  Todd really did a great job for us.  We had good success breeding the Todd daughters to Clark, Columbus, and the other Graham bulls before I bought Lazy D Ultimate Type. 

oakview, I hope you find a picture and maybe a picture of some of those daughters.
How I got on to this seems to be the same been there done that road I find many have been down trying to recover performance from "scotch" genetics. ( I maintain authentic original Scotch shorthorns had plenty of size prior to belt buckle days)
My bull, to review, is out of 1960's Mostly Scotch genetics on top. I get a lot of volume out of this bull, but no height and if I put in more than one shot they get shorter yet. I sell beef, so that's not good to loose size. But the cows out of him tend to be "sows" and that could be useful if I kept muscle and milk in the picture...like maybe you once tried by going dual with Justamere Todd.
Here is Calrossie Constellation, and Bapton Constructor and Denend Constellation, who maybe was behind your Caesar bull?
I'd like to see the Boa Kae bull. I have Some Boa Kae semen that I have been thinking might work if it doesn't kill the milk. What influence did he have on your cows?
This Constellation stuff seems very potent. Do you think it helped your program in any functional sense as a foundation, or was all the subsequent breeding to overcome it? I'm really beginning to wonder what they were trying to do with Remitall Choice Mint and where that leaves me.
Last picture RCM.
And a picture of Hub's director, by the way, although is Impact Two I'm looking for.
So, I'm looking for a picture of Todd so I can fill in the gaps of how you got from there to here.

Specifically, this is the"sow-like" sort of daughter I get, although there is a Galloway cross in there. This is a similarly bred son. I'd like to breed them together as half sibs, but since I'd rather not spend 20 years experimenting, I wonder if I should put growth back in now. These animals are at the very high end of frame 3.
From experience, would an old dual type bull work for grass fed performance if this early early maturing body type is already present. I'm concerned the grass fed people are overlooking the way baby beef (to market by 20 months) was fed out for good results. Small frame is not enough. You need good milk to give the calf a head start and then enough hanging weight to make raising the thing worthwhile. I really need help on this. My goal is to develop commercial replacements for grass fed producers.

Dad bought SV Caesar 25th at the Iowa Royal (forerunner of the Iowa Beef Expo) as a 2 year old bull for $325.  He was about average for the sale, so he was slightly larger in kind than the higher selling bulls.  He was sired by Louada Caesar, a roan son of Bapton Constructor.  His dam went back to Louada Formation, I believe.  The first cows we purchased were from Jim Fitzgerald in 1964.  They were large framed for the day and had been selected more for the dual purpose characteristics instead of the "Scotch" type.  They were registered in the ASA, though.  I remember my disappointment when I saw the first calf sired by our Caesar bull out of the first cow registered in my name, Lady Anna.  He did not have a "good head."  He could not have reached the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket with his muzzle when he matured, but he good reach well into the pail.  The desired head of the day could probably only reach a few inches into the bucket before it became too narrow.  Some of our original cows did not have good udders.  Some udders almost hit the ground and a few of them had "coke bottle" teats.  They didn't last long.  The Caesar bull downsized them a little bit.  I would guess our weaning weights would have struggled to average much over 400 pounds at 205 days.  I remember purchasing daughters of Louada Aristocrat and Louada Rothes Prince from one of the show leaders of the day, Billy Anderson.  Billy was just plain hard to beat at Chicago and Denver.  The Aristocrat cow was a very poor investment, the Rothes Prince somewhat better.  I liked them at the time because they were the desired "Scotch" type.  We purchased two other bulls, Hi-View Royal Cameo and JB Keynote 43rd a few years later, but each was only used a little bit.  The Cameo bull was very good, but died young of a twisted gut.  The Keynote bull liked to get out too much for my father's liking.  Our next really influential bull was Fair Acres Emblem, a son of Boa Kae White Tornado x.  I've got a photo of Tornado that I'll get on when I have time.  We looked at two bulls at Kaehlers in Minnesota first, a son of TPS Coronet Leader 10th x and a son of Clipper King of USA.  The Emblem bull was very stylish, well made, and had more muscle than most of the day.  He was out of a Four Dees Command 50th x cow.  He was our first polled bull.  We gathered performance data on the calves and still struggled to wean 450 pound calves.  We used Leader 21st to improve the performance of our cattle and also the frame size.  He really worked on what we had, just like he did for many across the continent.  The first heifer we showed out of him was grand champion in the junior show at the Iowa State Fair and second in a class of over 20 in the open show.  I would guess the Leader 21 calves would have averaged 40-50 pounds more at weaning than what we had before.  We fed out all our calves, so that really made a difference.  Mysha Mollie's Model, a dual purpose bull, was the next purchase in about 1973.  He really increased our frame size, but was a little too "dairy" in type for my liking.  When I found Todd, he seemed to encompass all that I was looking for (and could afford) at the time.  Growth, style, muscle.  My next step was to get that good square hip in the cattle.  I idolized what the Simmental breed was doing then.  I loved those fairly large framed, long bodied, square hipped cattle.  I purchased Lazy D Ultimate Type with that goal in mind.  I would say that using the dual purpose influence increased our progress to increased performance and frame size by at least 2 generations at least when compared with selecting from what was available in the ASA herd book prior to their acceptance.  In a nutshell, the "Scotch" type cattle were so small, so poor performing, that we had to do something.  The dual purpose cattle we used moved us ahead much faster than we could have progressed without them.  Like everything else, there were some that maybe didn't work for some people, but I have always felt very appreciative for what they did in our herd. 

Thank you for sharing your perspective.
I was trying to learn about Whitehall Sultan and found this thread addressing some of the perennial questions I am just tripping over now.
http://www.steerplanet.com/bb/the-big-show/ask-oldhorn-a-question/

librarian said:

Specifically, this is the"sow-like" sort of daughter I get, although there is a Galloway cross in there. This is a similarly bred son. I'd like to breed them together as half sibs, but since I'd rather not spend 20 years experimenting, I wonder if I should put growth back in now. These animals are at the very high end of frame 3.
From experience, would an old dual type bull work for grass fed performance if this early early maturing body type is already present. I'm concerned the grass fed people are overlooking the way baby beef (to market by 20 months) was fed out for good results. Small frame is not enough. You need good milk to give the calf a head start and then enough hanging weight to make raising the thing worthwhile. I really need help on this. My goal is to develop commercial replacements for grass fed producers.

Click to expand...

I also sell grass fed meat, and I like to stay around frame score 4.  It varies depending on the cow.  The great thing about 4s is how cheap you can feed them.  A frame score 4 jersey is not the same as a frame score 4 built like Moto Moto.  Moto type will hang a big enough carcass.

I try to remind myself of these comments from The Grove website concerning performance, specifically to marbling in their crossbred cattle:
" the faster we can lose or water down our breed egos and concentrate on putting energies into meeting our customers desires and needs then the faster our industry will make in roads into closing the gap between us and the chicken, pork and lamb industries as far as rates of genetic gain are concerned." 
To this end I build in a Galloway cross and have a 2 year old Braveheart son Galloway bull to use this year.
He is built more like the Western Galloway range bulls than Moto and I hope he will not be a purely terminal cross. (not to imply that Moto is purely terminal)
But, by observation, I calved out a group of heifers last year, equal numbers of blue roan daughters out of my Shorthorn bull and equal numbers of straight Galloways. All summer long I saw the Galloway calves sucking on the Shorthorn cross cows. I never saw one of the calves of the blue roans nursing a Galloway. The blue roans stayed fat and bred back. The Galloways lost condition. I attribute this to heterosis and also to an idea that Galloways do not mature as quickly.
That doesn't mean much, except for that group. But it keeps me loyal to the Shorthorn percentage for maternal superiority in this environment. It's very difficult to not believe that within the diversity in the Shorthorn breed, there is a type that will balance this equation and  consistently produce useful low input brood cows.
Like most quests, the quest is more of a hindrance to progress than a constructive activity.
But life wants poetry as well as practicality, and Shorthorns, being malleable, inspire us to mold a type.

It was good to view the topic on Oldhorn again and gain some insight on some of the things we talk about on here from someone who was involved first hand.I had forgotten that he had talked about the Duchess of Gloster xAvondale/Whitehall Sultan cross in one of his posts.The picture below is the foundation Duchess of Gloster cow and her calf by an inbred Avondale son. This cow was an International Grand Champion female.

Beebe, Oakwood used a grandson of Roselawn Marshall and linebred back to him well into the 50's.

r.n.reed said:

Beebe, Oakwood used a grandson of Roselawn Marshall and linebred back to him well into the 50's.

Click to expand...

Oakwood Gallant Leader is as far back as I can trace the pedigree.  I can't tell if there was any Roselawn Marshall in there or not.  The 50's would have been the right time period.

I have a pedigree in my hands of the first Shorthorn female purchased by my father in 1955.  She was born in 1952 and was a polled heifer, registration # x2698-460.  Her maternal great grandsire is Collynie Special x1775972 bred by Albert Hulstine & Sons.  Her actual sire is Shadybrook Outlook 3rd, bred by Bert Hanson that was discussed on an earlier thread.  Her dam goes back to the only horned breeding on the paper, Rosewood Surprise 1989207 bred by J. H. Schroeder & Sons.  I've got quite a few 50's and earlier Shorthorn Worlds that I need to dig through.  Interesting reading.  I've also got several other pedigrees of the original Fitgerald cows we purchased with the oldest being born in 1953.  All horned breeding.  Calrossie Supreme, Divide Foundation, and Village Leader are some of the sire names.