Some herd sires from the past

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Okotoks

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r.n.reed said:
Wait till word gets out the Canadians are  using an American bred bull! :)Does anyone  know anything about the George Knox herd?I saw a son of Weston Surprise 14th a couple months ago that looks real good to me.The 14th was out of the same cow as the Lad and carried a lot of the Knox breeding.Weston Shamrock also was bred similar.

TPS CORONET GALAXY 10TH  was the sire of CUMBERLAND GAY LAD. He was also the sire of two full sisters that had the same name. Reg. #3411175  MAYFLOWER GAL  and Reg. #  x3372207 MAYFLOWER GAL. One of these was the dam of Ready Go.  Galaxy 10th was a double bred  CORONET MAX JUGGLER 18TH and his dam was a paternal sister to TPS Coronet Leader 21st.  He also had some horned Scottish breeding as his grand dam was an imported cow BAPTON MARCIA RAMSDEN by CALROSSIE CONSTELLATION. Would anyone have a photo of TPS CORONET GALAXY 10TH ?
 

Okotoks

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sue said:
coyote said:
Here are a couple pictures of our Gay Lad sons that we had this year. I thought the calves would of been smaller framed, but they both compare very well with our other calves. They are very long with big testicles. Their Adjusted 205 day wt were 651 lbs and 659 lbs, our bulls averaged 650.
They do look nice and I think 650 is a good place to be for an adjusted 205 too.

I dont know if Weston Shamrock is really what the paper says... the bull was possibly a "misprint" .

What I have appreciated most about digging up old material with steers on feed and such - is even then the test was smart enough to take a close look at #  DAYS ON FEED AND NOT just who gained 4 lbs/day.
So Weston Shamrock was born in Sept. of 1969 so this assumption he is not the right pedigree is 41 years old! There's quite a few bulls out there that I have heard the same thing about and most were used a lot and can be found in a lot of pedigrees. The interesting thing is no one ever says what they really were or what the facts are to back it up. I know of one influential cow in Canada and the people that make the accusations didn't see fit to report it at the time and supposedly they could have! It's a little disturbing to think we have influential bulls with the wrong pedigrees but if no one provides any back up what can you do? I find it almost easier to deal with the lack of a  Dover pedigree or a Deerpark Foundation pedigree than the speculation on some. I did see the Weston Shamrock bull as an aged bull and he was impressive.
 

justintime

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I think it is safe to say that some of the Weston pedigrees were.... let's just say they may have been a little creative. I don't think we have to worry about their being other breeds in the mix, but I think some of the pedigrees were convenient. This is really too bad as the Weston herd ranks as the best all round set of Shorthorn cows I have ever seen. I used to visit there at least twice a year, and I purchased several herd bulls and females from the Nold family. The cow herd was over 200 breeding females in that day and they were an awesome set.
 

Okotoks

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justintime said:
I think it is safe to say that some of the Weston pedigrees were.... let's just say they may have been a little creative. I don't think we have to worry about their being other breeds in the mix, but I think some of the pedigrees were convenient. This is really too bad as the Weston herd ranks as the best all round set of Shorthorn cows I have ever seen. I used to visit there at least twice a year, and I purchased several herd bulls and females from the Nold family. The cow herd was over 200 breeding females in that day and they were an awesome set.
I agree the Weston herd was one of the best I have ever seen. I just don't understand the motivation for changing the pedigrees. Were the bulls being used from unpopular lines so called something else?
 

sue

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Based on what I know . Yes, not popular lines but sure all shorthorn.
 

justintime

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Okotoks said:
sue said:
coyote said:
Here are a couple pictures of our Gay Lad sons that we had this year. I thought the calves would of been smaller framed, but they both compare very well with our other calves. They are very long with big testicles. Their Adjusted 205 day wt were 651 lbs and 659 lbs, our bulls averaged 650.
They do look nice and I think 650 is a good place to be for an adjusted 205 too.

I dont know if Weston Shamrock is really what the paper says... the bull was possibly a "misprint" .

What I have appreciated most about digging up old material with steers on feed and such - is even then the test was smart enough to take a close look at #  DAYS ON FEED AND NOT just who gained 4 lbs/day.
So Weston Shamrock was born in Sept. of 1969 so this assumption he is not the right pedigree is 41 years old! There's quite a few bulls out there that I have heard the same thing about and most were used a lot and can be found in a lot of pedigrees. The interesting thing is no one ever says what they really were or what the facts are to back it up. I know of one influential cow in Canada and the people that make the accusations didn't see fit to report it at the time and supposedly they could have! It's a little disturbing to think we have influential bulls with the wrong pedigrees but if no one provides any back up what can you do? I find it almost easier to deal with the lack of a  Dover pedigree or a Deerpark Foundation pedigree than the speculation on some. I did see the Weston Shamrock bull as an aged bull and he was impressive.



When I used to visit the Weston herd, they always had a binder with copies of all the cows pedigree's in the truck. I was always amazed that some of the very best cows had pedigrees with lots of Saskatchewan and Manitoba bloodlines in them. I remember several great cows " on paper" were bred in a Saskatchewan herd that I was very familiar with. I had never seen cows of this caliber in this herd, but just assumed that Doc Nold had got lucky and been able to buy the top end of the herd.

One of the main reasons I purchased Ready Go at the 1973 Polled Congress in Louisville was because he was a Weston Shamrock son. I had seen Shamrock at Nold's on many occasions and I felt he was an amazing beef bull. A few years later, I was looking for a bull to use on my Ready Go daughters. I went to the American Polled Congress again, and I was the runner up bidder on the Grand Champion bull, Mollie's Defender Adair( nicknamed Surge) who sold for $15500 to R Lee Johnson ( Millbrook Shorthorns). After the sale I tried to buy a 1/2 interest in Surge, but was not able to come to an agreement with R Lee. Surge was born and bred in the herd of Rueben Shantz in Nebraska, which was probably the best herd of dual purpose Shorthorns I ever saw.

Many many years later, I had the opportunity to have a visit with Bill Marsden who had sold Surge at the Polled Congress. Bill was now raising Angus cattle in South Dakota and we had a great talk about the Weston program. Bill was the herd manager at Weston for a few years, so he was very familiar with the herd.It was in this visit that Marsden told me that Ready Go and  Surge were full brothers. He also told me that Weston Shamrock also was a Shantz bred bull. He also told me about some of the breeding in some of the best Weston cows. He said he was certain that the Weston herd was 100% Shorthorn, but that many of the pedigrees had been " adjusted " to fit the times. I was not certain if I totally believed what I was told, so I did some homework when I got back home. When I looked up the dam of Surge, I found that she had a red bull calf born on the same day as Ready Go, and it carried the same tattoo as he had. Was this a coincidence? I think it is highly unlikely. As a side note, Bill Marsden was killed in a car accident shortly after our visit.

So, my educated guess is that Ready Go was a dual purpose bull and his pedigree was probably steeped in some of the great Haumont lines. Does this information change my thoughts on this bull? Not really, other than I do wish that I could have accepted his pedigree as fact. Ready Go was an excellent breeding bull but his real pedigree probably helps explain why his daughters had such flawless udders and milked extremely well. He was a bull that would correct even the poorest udder in one generation. I remember selling Ready Go semen to a breeder who had some cows with about the worst udders I had ever seen. When I saw the Ready Go daughters out of some of these cows, I could not believe my eyes. They had well formed udders with small teat size, just like the other Ready Go daughters I had seen. As I have mentioned before on SP, Ready Go is the only bull I have owned that I am still selling semen from every year, despite it being almost 40 years since I purchased him.

I am certain that there are a percentage of pedigrees that are not correct in every year. Some are incorrect by mistake, and others are done intentionally. I find it interesting that when I was in Scotland, I was told that a well known breeding establishment had refused to provide DNA profiles on some of the bull calves that a group of British breeders were trying to purchase. There may have been good reasons for this, but the Brits certainly felt that this was simply because the calves in question were not what their papers suggested.
 

Okotoks

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justintime said:
Okotoks said:
sue said:
coyote said:
Here are a couple pictures of our Gay Lad sons that we had this year. I thought the calves would of been smaller framed, but they both compare very well with our other calves. They are very long with big testicles. Their Adjusted 205 day wt were 651 lbs and 659 lbs, our bulls averaged 650.
They do look nice and I think 650 is a good place to be for an adjusted 205 too.

I dont know if Weston Shamrock is really what the paper says... the bull was possibly a "misprint" .

What I have appreciated most about digging up old material with steers on feed and such - is even then the test was smart enough to take a close look at #  DAYS ON FEED AND NOT just who gained 4 lbs/day.
So Weston Shamrock was born in Sept. of 1969 so this assumption he is not the right pedigree is 41 years old! There's quite a few bulls out there that I have heard the same thing about and most were used a lot and can be found in a lot of pedigrees. The interesting thing is no one ever says what they really were or what the facts are to back it up. I know of one influential cow in Canada and the people that make the accusations didn't see fit to report it at the time and supposedly they could have! It's a little disturbing to think we have influential bulls with the wrong pedigrees but if no one provides any back up what can you do? I find it almost easier to deal with the lack of a  Dover pedigree or a Deerpark Foundation pedigree than the speculation on some. I did see the Weston Shamrock bull as an aged bull and he was impressive.



When I used to visit the Weston herd, they always had a binder with copies of all the cows pedigree's in the truck. I was always amazed that some of the very best cows had pedigrees with lots of Saskatchewan and Manitoba bloodlines in them. I remember several great cows " on paper" were bred in a Saskatchewan herd that I was very familiar with. I had never seen cows of this caliber in this herd, but just assumed that Doc Nold had got lucky and been able to buy the top end of the herd.

One of the main reasons I purchased Ready Go at the 1973 Polled Congress in Louisville was because he was a Weston Shamrock son. I had seen Shamrock at Nold's on many occasions and I felt he was an amazing beef bull. A few years later, I was looking for a bull to use on my Ready Go daughters. I went to the American Polled Congress again, and I was the runner up bidder on the Grand Champion bull, Mollie's Defender Adair( nicknamed Surge) who sold for $15500 to R Lee Johnson ( Millbrook Shorthorns). After the sale I tried to buy a 1/2 interest in Surge, but was not able to come to an agreement with R Lee. Surge was born and bred in the herd of Rueben Shantz in Nebraska, which was probably the best herd of dual purpose Shorthorns I ever saw.

Many many years later, I had the opportunity to have a visit with Bill Marsden who had sold Surge at the Polled Congress. Bill was now raising Angus cattle in South Dakota and we had a great talk about the Weston program. Bill was the herd manager at Weston for a few years, so he was very familiar with the herd.It was in this visit that Marsden told me that Ready Go and  Surge were full brothers. He also told me that Weston Shamrock also was a Shantz bred bull. He also told me about some of the breeding in some of the best Weston cows. He said he was certain that the Weston herd was 100% Shorthorn, but that many of the pedigrees had been " adjusted " to fit the times. I was not certain if I totally believed what I was told, so I did some homework when I got back home. When I looked up the dam of Surge, I found that she had a red bull calf born on the same day as Ready Go, and it carried the same tattoo as he had. Was this a coincidence? I think it is highly unlikely. As a side note, Bill Marsden was killed in a car accident shortly after our visit.

So, my educated guess is that Ready Go was a dual purpose bull and his pedigree was probably steeped in some of the great Haumont lines. Does this information change my thoughts on this bull? Not really, other than I do wish that I could have accepted his pedigree as fact. Ready Go was an excellent breeding bull but his real pedigree probably helps explain why his daughters had such flawless udders and milked extremely well. He was a bull that would correct even the poorest udder in one generation. I remember selling Ready Go semen to a breeder who had some cows with about the worst udders I had ever seen. When I saw the Ready Go daughters out of some of these cows, I could not believe my eyes. They had well formed udders with small teat size, just like the other Ready Go daughters I had seen. As I have mentioned before on SP, Ready Go is the only bull I have owned that I am still selling semen from every year, despite it being almost 40 years since I purchased him.

I am certain that there are a percentage of pedigrees that are not correct in every year. Some are incorrect by mistake, and others are done intentionally. I find it interesting that when I was in Scotland, I was told that a well known breeding establishment had refused to provide DNA profiles on some of the bull calves that a group of British breeders were trying to purchase. There may have been good reasons for this, but the Brits certainly felt that this was simply because the calves in question were not what their papers suggested.
Why did Ready Go not carry the Weston prefix? We have some calves from a son of Ready Go and they were the light birth weight and born quickly! Most of our yearling heifers are bred back to him.
 

justintime

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Bill Marston told me that he purchased Ready Go when he was about 10 months old and Doc Nold had not registered him yet and he told him that he could name the bull. Bill said that his sister and him, had two Shorthorn steers in 4-H named Ready Go and Roany Go. Since this bull was red, he decided to name him Ready Go. This sounds too weird not to be a true story... lol./
 

oakview

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JIT echoes what I had heard about Shamrock, etc. and others from the Nold herd.  At the time, there was some resistance from beef Shorthorn breeders to accept the dual purpose or Milking Shorthorns.  An obvious solution, for some people, was to use the dual purpose cattle and hang their traditional pedigree on them.  I'm not saying it was right, but it happened in some herds.  It may have been difficult to prove with the technology of the day.  There were at least two instances I know of where cattle were disqualified from the herd book or a show because they were not what the pedigrees said.  In both cases, a lawsuit  resulted in a fairly large settlement in FAVOR of the guilty party.  Perhaps this is why protests were few and far between. 
 

uluru

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Grant/Dan
I can find only very few bulls registered as progeny of Cumberland Gay Lad on either the CLRC or ASA records and the only ones that have many progeny of either sex registered are Alta Cedar Roan Lad 80L, D'N Eden White Lad 60B and South Plain Galaxy 13B
Would it be that these bulls that were entered in the U of S test were not registered?
Scot's calves from him look good.
 

Okotoks

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uluru said:
Grant/Dan
I can find only very few bulls registered as progeny of Cumberland Gay Lad on either the CLRC or ASA records and the only ones that have many progeny of either sex registered are Alta Cedar Roan Lad 80L, D'N Eden White Lad 60B and South Plain Galaxy 13B
Would it be that these bulls that were entered in the U of S test were not registered?
Scot's calves from him look good.
Although some animals appear on the CLRC website that were born prior to the mid sevenites a lot do not show up.Animals that have extended pedigrees done or that were used by AI might show up. Cumberland Gay Lad would have a lot of offspring that would have been registered but don't show up on the internet. I believe there were several groups of his sons sold at the Regina bull sale named South Plains Galaxy (plus the year letter & #) A lot of the South Plains cows would go back to him. If Charlie's nephew has any registered South Plains cows left someone should try to get some before the genetics are lost. Charlie stacked pedigrees with carcass trait leaders and had great mother cows. His Poplar Park Western Mist 8W was a great bull.
 

justintime

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uluru said:
Grant/Dan
I can find only very few bulls registered as progeny of Cumberland Gay Lad on either the CLRC or ASA records and the only ones that have many progeny of either sex registered are Alta Cedar Roan Lad 80L, D'N Eden White Lad 60B and South Plain Galaxy 13B
Would it be that these bulls that were entered in the U of S test were not registered?
Scot's calves from him look good.


Charlie definitely registered the calves he had from Cumberland Gay Lad. These calves would have been born nearly 40 years ago, so most of them don't show up on the CLRC website. I'm pretty sure if you went back in the volumes of pedigrees that are not computer generated that they have, that you would find many of them. I remember Aberfeldy ( Reford and Doug Gardhouse) had a Gay Lad son in the early 70s that had topped the test station sale. Several others sold to commercial producers for $2500 or more which was big money back in those days.
 

uluru

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Grant It was Galaxy 13B that the Guardhouse's had according to the records.

I will look thru the many Shorthorn Herd books that I have that start in 1942 forward.

In the 42 and 43 books I found the Shorthorn sire that my Uncle had in Arcola that sired one of the bulls my father had when I was still on the farm.
The sires my Uncle used were Hildersley Gipsy Prince 2nd  #229922 in 1942 and 43
He also used Cedar Lane Archer  #238283 in 1944 and 45
He then had Reliance Gipsy Winner #262724  in 1946, 47 and 48.
After that it seems that they went to a commercial/grain operation and didn't register many Shorthorns.

We moved to town in 1945 and dad sold all the cattle about that time
 

justintime

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uluru said:
Grant It was Galaxy 13B that the Guardhouse's had according to the records.

I will look thru the many Shorthorn Herd books that I have that start in 1942 forward.

In the 42 and 43 books I found the Shorthorn sire that my Uncle had in Arcola that sired one of the bulls my father had when I was still on the farm.
The sires my Uncle used were Hildersley Gipsy Prince 2nd  #229922 in 1942 and 43
He also used Cedar Lane Archer  #238283 in 1944 and 45
He then had Reliance Gipsy Winner #262724  in 1946, 47 and 48.
After that it seems that they went to a commercial/grain operation and didn't register many Shorthorns.

We moved to town in 1945 and dad sold all the cattle about that time



Bob, you mentioned another herd from the past that had some exceptional cattle. Bob Hume's Reliance herd at Carlyle, SK was an excellent set of cows. Bob never showed his cattle, nor did he ever sell them in production sales. If you wanted a Reliance bred animal, you basically had to buy it on his farm and take it home. While I knew this herd existed and that there were some excellent cattle there, they seldom left their farm. I remember Bob Hume had an exceptional roan bull that he purchased from Scotsdale in Ontario. He would be an exceptional bull today other than he was horned. One of the very first animals I owned myself, was a bred heifer named Reliance White Blossom. My parents bought her from Bob Hume for $180 as a bred heifer and gave her to me for Christmas. I can still remember her very well, and she was sired by the Scotsdale herd sire. ( I cannot remember his name right now, but I will try to find it in some of my archives). If she was alive today, she would be in my donor pen as she was flat out good.

Seems to me that there were lots and lots of herds like this back in those times. Every herd had their own herd bull as AI was only in it's infancy. I sometimes wonder if there weren't more excellent breeding programs in that day, as you had to develop your own breeding program rather than just chase the current and latest hot dog sires. I think we were able to find more amazing cow herds in that era than I find today.
 

mark tenenbaum

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Back in 1960 when I started showing (at the age of 6) shorthorns were still somewhat competitive in this area and a parent needed to buy the farm mgr a sportscoat or some thing of that nature to get a good calf- Out of a good bull-FROM ABERFELDY OR LOUADA. Well-my parents wanted me to do it on my own,and after 5 plus years-AT the age of 12, JC Eller-who had a really good herd of basically Canadian cattle-let me have a second tier ($290) hiefer by an imported bull called Saltoun Northstar- with the promise to breed her to his big time Aberfeldy bull-who was most impressive-I believe weighed 1800 plus pounds, was I think a division champ at the International-and went back to Bapton Constructer.I did an earlier post about the pro farmer who tried everything to get her disqualified-and the Angus Ex -Marine parent-who was gonna pimp slap him for this absurd conduct against a young kid yatta yatta. I think the thing I remember most is between this time and maybe 1964-all of a sudden the cattle started getting bigger-the first Charolais cattle had showed up-and they were all leggs and huge.I just saw some colored slides of me and my non winners at county fairs in the early 60s- they still were thick and had alot of natural fleshing-thats still gone unless you put some maine in em. O0
 

Okotoks

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I came across this photo of a Weston Ablo grand daughter. This is Frimley Pansy Susan 1X, sired by Deer Trail Private. Private Eye was a son Deer Trail Goliath by Deerpark Improver 2nd(Guinness) 1X's dam,Frimley Amethust Susan 7M, was sired by Weston Ablo who was by Weston Adventure and out of Weston Dynamo dam. I think the depth of body came from Dynamo.
1X was almost a clone of her dam 7M. I need to find a photo of her.
The second cow photo attached is a grand daughter of 1X photographed at 2 years and still in the herd.
 

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jaimiediamond

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Some more bulls from the past the Irish infusion
 

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jaimiediamond

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and continuing with the Irish infusion
 

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jaimiediamond

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In this group there is the mature picture of the Ayatollah bull. 

Newbiggon Jumbo we have embryos that we just put in the tank this year and a calf coming next spring by the Jumbo bull

JIT do you have a picture of Ready Go?
 

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uluru

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Jaimie
Here is a pic of Ready go
First one I tried wouldnt load
.......................Bob
 

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