Checking Cattle Pictures 2012

[comercialfarmer]

Wentworth looks like a real beef bull.

 

[aj]

The minnie upperclass heifer is my pick of all the pictures. Maybe a much bit condition. I like here shape and length of spine.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

This is just a smart group of folks getting there cattle out there. They ARE some very nice cattle that fit their environment well. I have posted my stuff before as duly noted. Are most folks just to blind or ignorant or just so damn goodie goodie they can't laugh? This thread has been up here awhile now with 1000's of views ALL for free. It's just so simple it's brilliant. Out of those 1000,s of views is nobody allowed to call it like they see it? Because aj is a big ol smartass who goes to town to get beer in a door free 1989 dodge Dakota and likes to stir the pot he is pummeled on here. For all you goodie goodies who get your feathers ruffled over this to post a jab back, RELAX.  What would it cost to send a flyer to 4 k or 8 k customers? I say more people should do this and let the poop fly. I sure have laughed over this.

Aj you want to go to Hollywood? I'll be your agent. We can do beer commercials, reality tv, whatever. We could do a show where the cameras follow you to harass people from PETA.  All done in your one door truck of course. You will be famous and can fly up north and buy embryos and rate semen.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

Rare semen lol. Damn smartphones.

 

[justintime]

There is a rich tradition of Shorthorns in Cananda. In what year were they first imported. History is important. Thanks in advance.

I agree with aj, that history is important. There is an old saying that in order to know where you are going you need to know where you have come from. This does not mean that we should dwell on the past, but we should have an appreciation and a basic knowledge of the past. Duncan Marshall, who was Minister of Agriculture for Alberta from 1909 to 1921, wrote a great book named " Shorthorn Cattle in Canada" It is 628 pages in size and it traces the Shorthorn breed in Canada from the first importations to 1932. Dr. Grant McEwen, wrote a later book on Shorthorn history from the 30s to the 1980s. Grant McEwen, was best known for being the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta ( the Queen'srepresentative in government)for many years, but he was also a respected livestock judge and Head of the Animal Science Deptartment at the University of Saskatchewanand the University of Alberta, for many years. I had many great visits with Grant McEwen, as he was a good friend of my grandfather, and the last time my dad and I stopped in to see him, he was just over 100 years old and was busy writing his 63rd book. His mind was a sharp as a tack and he had amazing recall and he reminised about many great breeders and bulls and females he had had the pleasure to evaluate. He had a great love of Shorthorn cattle and Cyldesdale horses ... Back to the topic at hand....

In Duncan Marshall's book he reports that the first shipment of Shorthorns to Canada was in 1825, and consisted of 4 bulls... and no females, so no purebred Shorthorns were bred from the first importation. These Shorthorns were the first purebred cattle to come into Canada. In 1832, a larger shipment of both sexes arrived in Canada and it was from these imports that the first purebreds were produced. One of the females in this shipment was a cow named Countess, and I have been told that some of the Countess cow lines today actually trace back to this female. It also mentions that to bring these cattle to Canada involved a huge amount of time. The cattle were shipped on sailing ships from Britain and they were several weeks making the voyage.
There is a lot of interesting information in Duncan Marshall's book ( at least to me). He states that there in the County of Cheshire, England, there were over 100,000  Shorthorn cows being milked for the manufacture of cheese in 1828. The first Canadian herdbook was established in 1867 and it consisted of all cattle of purebred status, and Shorthorns made up 90% of this registry. The first Canadian Shorthorn herdbook was established in 1874 and it was published until 1954 ( except for s few years during WW 2.) I have a complete set of these herdbooks and I still find it interesting to look through them from time to time.  What  I find really interesting is to read the Minutes of the Shorthorn Annual Meetings, which are printed in the front of each years herd book. I often think that a person could only change the names of the people, and many of the discussions could be mistaken for a meeting held recently.  It is also interesting to notice how many family names appearing in the early 1900 herd books are still involved in raising Shorthorns ( as well as some other breeds) today. In my own families case, my grandparents purchased Shorthorns for their homestead in 1903, and then purchased their first purebred Shorthorn breeding stock in 1917, when the Scottish government brought an entire ship load of Shorthorns to Canada's east coast and then shipped them by rail to Brandon Manitoba to sell. This sale was held to assist Scottish breeders who were experiencing devastating flooding. My grandfather felt he should assist the farmers in his homeland so he got on the train and took the 2 day trip to Brandon, purchased some females and a bull, and then brought them back to his farm. I remember hearing family stories, about these cattle having to be led the last 15 miles from the train station behind a team and wagon. And as they say... the rest is history as we are still raising Shorthorns here. Since the 1970s, we have also had sizable herds of 7 different purebred breeds, but each was eventually dispersed and the Shorthorns have remained. The last " other" breed to be dispersed was our herd of 115 purebred Charolais females. The Shorthorns stayed on their own merit, and not because of any sentimental feelings.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

That's well said jit, well said. Long but interesting. So why do you think shorthorns prevailed in your opinion? I'm starting my families shorthorn history do I can respect how long your family has done it.

 

[thunderdownunder]

There is a rich tradition of Shorthorns in Cananda. In what year were they first imported. History is important. Thanks in advance.

I agree with aj, that history is important. There is an old saying that in order to know where you are going you need to know where you have come from. This does not mean that we should dwell on the past, but we should have an appreciation and a basic knowledge of the past. Duncan Marshall, who was Minister of Agriculture for Alberta from 1909 to 1921, wrote a great book named " Shorthorn Cattle in Canada" It is 628 pages in size and it traces the Shorthorn breed in Canada from the first importations to 1932. Dr. Grant McEwen, wrote a later book on Shorthorn history from the 30s to the 1980s. Grant McEwen, was best known for being the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta ( the Queen'srepresentative in government)for many years, but he was also a respected livestock judge and Head of the Animal Science Deptartment at the University of Saskatchewanand the University of Alberta, for many years. I had many great visits with Grant McEwen, as he was a good friend of my grandfather, and the last time my dad and I stopped in to see him, he was just over 100 years old and was busy writing his 63rd book. His mind was a sharp as a tack and he had amazing recall and he reminised about many great breeders and bulls and females he had had the pleasure to evaluate. He had a great love of Shorthorn cattle and Cyldesdale horses ... Back to the topic at hand....

In Duncan Marshall's book he reports that the first shipment of Shorthorns to Canada was in 1825, and consisted of 4 bulls... and no females, so no purebred Shorthorns were bred from the first importation. These Shorthorns were the first purebred cattle to come into Canada. In 1832, a larger shipment of both sexes arrived in Canada and it was from these imports that the first purebreds were produced. One of the females in this shipment was a cow named Countess, and I have been told that some of the Countess cow lines today actually trace back to this female. It also mentions that to bring these cattle to Canada involved a huge amount of time. The cattle were shipped on sailing ships from Britain and they were several weeks making the voyage.
There is a lot of interesting information in Duncan Marshall's book ( at least to me). He states that there in the County of Cheshire, England, there were over 100,000  Shorthorn cows being milked for the manufacture of cheese in 1828. The first Canadian herdbook was established in 1867 and it consisted of all cattle of purebred status, and Shorthorns made up 90% of this registry. The first Canadian Shorthorn herdbook was established in 1874 and it was published until 1954 ( except for s few years during WW 2.) I have a complete set of these herdbooks and I still find it interesting to look through them from time to time.  What  I find really interesting is to read the Minutes of the Shorthorn Annual Meetings, which are printed in the front of each years herd book. I often think that a person could only change the names of the people, and many of the discussions could be mistaken for a meeting held recently.  It is also interesting to notice how many family names appearing in the early 1900 herd books are still involved in raising Shorthorns ( as well as some other breeds) today. In my own families case, my grandparents purchased Shorthorns for their homestead in 1903, and then purchased their first purebred Shorthorn breeding stock in 1917, when the Scottish government brought an entire ship load of Shorthorns to Canada's east coast and then shipped them by rail to Brandon Manitoba to sell. This sale was held to assist Scottish breeders who were experiencing devastating flooding. My grandfather felt he should assist the farmers in his homeland so he got on the train and took the 2 day trip to Brandon, purchased some females and a bull, and then brought them back to his farm. I remember hearing family stories, about these cattle having to be led the last 15 miles from the train station behind a team and wagon. And as they say... the rest is history as we are still raising Shorthorns here. Since the 1970s, we have also had sizable herds of 7 different purebred breeds, but each was eventually dispersed and the Shorthorns have remained. The last " other" breed to be dispersed was our herd of 115 purebred Charolais females. The Shorthorns stayed on their own merit, and not because of any sentimental feelings.

<beer>

 

[justintime]

That's well said jit, well said. Long but interesting. So why do you think shorthorns prevailed in your opinion? I'm starting my families shorthorn history do I can respect how long your family has done it.

I'm quite sure there were a variation of reasons for why the Shorthorn herd prevailed and several other breeds did not stay. Here are some of the main reasons, and I would also say, that some of these were possibly due to the genetics we had in the various breeds.

I would say that the main reasons we retained the Shorthorns were maternal in nature, as well as docility of the breed. At the time of the European breeds coming to Canada, we were running over 350 Shorthorn cows. My dad felt we should diversify and breed a portion of our herd to some of the new breeds. Within the next few years, we eventually were breeding about half the herd to Simmental, Maine and Chianina. We kept many of our heifers and within a decade or so, we had herds developed of 50-100 breeding age Simmental and Maine females. We also purchased a number of purebred and fullblood Simmental and Maine females. When a decade of devastaing drought hit here in the 80s, we found we had a much higher open rate on these breeds at weaning ( especially the higher percentage females) We were buying feed for all our cattle along with our feedlot of 1000 head, so we decided that we had to cut our herd substantially. It made sense to sell the cows that weren't coping in the conditions we had at the time, and that meant the Simmentals and Maines were sold. Our Chi cattle did not last long mainly because of the temperament they possessed. We dabled with Limos only until the first calves were weaned, and when the weaned calves would chase us out of the pen, we loaded them all and took them  to the auction market. Some of the Simmi cattle of that day, also had killer temperaments, especially the Lacombe Achilles and Abricot daughters. We did not have many temperament problems with our Maines, but they had the highest rate of open females in our drought conditions. A few years later, we had the opportunity to get a complete herd of Horned Herefords. I really liked these cattle except almost all of them only kept their calf company from about July 15th to weaning, which resulted in low weaning weights. In this group of Herefords, were 17 ET full sisters sired by a famed American sire at that time, and I would suggest that the average humming bird produced as much milk. We had good luck selling the bulls especially to Wyoming ranches, but we eventually decided that they just weren't our cup of tea.( Too many eye problems and prolapses... we had never had a prolapse on our famr before the Herefords came here... and we got lots of experience with prolapses in the few years we had them) After the Herefords were gone, we added some Red and Black Angus females. We had lots of feet and udder problems with our Red Angus but again, this may have been just the females we had. The black Angus were OK but it was temperament issues that made us decide to part with them. My dad had always wanted to have a herd of Angus females but when he was knocked down and smashed up by an Angus cow a few days after she had calved, he kinda changed his mind. The Charolais herd came when a couple of neighbors  stopped in and asked us if we would lease their PB Charolais herd. At first we said we weren't interested, but they eventually tossed 320 acres of hayland and 1000 acres of pasture into the lease deal at a very low cost to us. We decided to take the cows in order to get the additional land. The Charolais were here for 20 years and we had 115 breeding females when we decided to sell them. There were some temperament problems with the Chars but we culled them hard and ended up with a set of pretty decent dispositioned Charolais cows. We had very few calving problems with the Charolais cows but we had many, many prolapse issues at calving.... and even some of the quietest Char cows could be complete idiots for a few days after calving. When we started selling Charolais bulls we were selling 4 Charolais bulls to every Shorthorn bull. When we dispersed our Charolais herd, we were selling 4 Shorthorn bulls to every Charolais. Actually, having the Charolais bulls helped us develop a better market for our Shorthorn bulls. People would come to look for a Charolais bull, and would be amazed that the Shorthorn bulls were as big... and as good. There were several people who purchased Charolais bulls from us that a year or two later came back and purchased a Shorthorn bull as well as a Charolais. One of our best bull buyers originally purchased 4 Charolais bulls from us. He came back the next spring and purchased another 3 Char bulls and 1 Shorthorn. Two years after that he came again and purchased 4 Shorthorn bulls and no Charolais. Since then he has purchased 16 more Shorthorn bulls from us. We decided to sell the Charolais herd mainly because of management issues. My dad was also well into his 70s and we also decided that it was too hard to run two breeds, attend breed sales and functions in each one... and do a proper job of either one. I would also mention that we did not have a vet bill for calving or health issues for 3 years after the Charolais cows left. When the Charolais herd was here, we averaged over $3000 in vet costs each year for calving and health issues.

I would be admiss to not mention that all the breeds I have mentioned have done a great job of correcting some of these issues that we saw with the cattle we had from these breeds. I don't know iof we were to start herds of some of these today, whether we would have the same experiences. I would also add that part of our intention, when we established these other breeds, was to possibly disperse our Shorthorn herd when we found a breed that did things better than them. In our case, and in those times, we just didn't find a breed that did this.

So there was a variety of reasons for each breed leaving here, and some of these may have been due to the genetics and management we had here. I apologize for another book but it is hard to explain all the reasons in a few words.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

Yes but your isn't as funny.  His is.  I just keep reading and laughing with ol aj so do lots and lots of other folks. It's ok.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

Thanks jit good stuff.

 

[Okotoks]

JIT mentions Duncan Marshals book "Shorthorn Cattle In Canada". One of the females Beauty (30) mentioned in this book was imported in 1835 and still has many descendants producing today. Two of our more successful "families" the Baroness and the Clares descend from Beauty (30).

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

I laugh at lots of posts. Show me where I got twitchy. I wouldn't worry about what I think. I'm just a smartass nobody.  Okotoks I like you. Your always nice to me. I never said your cattle are bad. You have to admit all this banter has giving you lots of views and lots of free press. It's brilliant!  If I could download videos off my phone I'd start my own thread! 

 

[kfacres]

I laugh at lots of posts. Show me where I got twitchy. I wouldn't worry about what I think. I'm just a smartass nobody.  Okotoks I like you. Your always nice to me. I never said your cattle are bad. You have to admit all this banter has giving you lots of views and lots of free press. It's brilliant!  If I could download videos off my phone I'd start my own thread! 

so what you're saying is that you laugh at alot of posts?

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

I don't always drink beer, but when I do , it's Dos Equis. Stay thirsty my friend.



Jody, yes, yes I do laugh a lot. After watching my old man slowly die the last four months I laugh a lot anymore. Don't sweat the small stuff. Shorthorns will rule the world as soon as we can all just get along. (Rodney King grin)

 

[comercialfarmer]

If I could download videos off my phone I'd start my own thread! 

Why not just upload some photos.  You have posted some really nice cattle in the past. 

 

[jaimiediamond]

Hope everyone had an amazing Independance Day.  Attached is a checking horses picture (not at all cattle related ).  My day was made with this palomino Thoroughbred filly (she will be jockey club registered) born 07/04/2012 foaling season has begun <party>

 

[frostback]

<party> WOW born on the 4th of July. The naming options are hugh.

 

[justintime]

<party> WOW born on the 4th of July. The naming options are hugh.

Do you really think Hugh is a good name for a palimino filly?

 

[Doc]

Hope everyone had an amazing Independance Day.  Attached is a checking horses picture (not at all cattle related ).  My day was made with this palomino Thoroughbred filly (she will be jockey club registered) born 07/04/2012 foaling season has begun <party>

You start your foaling kind of late , don't you?

 

[jaimiediamond]

Hope everyone had an amazing Independence Day.  Attached is a checking horses picture (not at all cattle related ).  My day was made with this palomino Thoroughbred filly (she will be jockey club registered) born 07/04/2012 foaling season has begun <party>

You start your foaling kind of late , don't you?

Yes we do, foaling at Diamond starts after calving at Diamond much less stress that way . Normally we start foaling end of May but due to unforeseen circumstances I didn't start breeding until  very end of July.  If I were aiming for the track I'd have to move it up a lot, my market is eventers so we have plenty of maturing time.  Calformecalifornia would actually have been a great candidate for being bred for the track as she was a winner.