justintime
Well-known member
My experience with many of the original imports was that most were extremely quiet. In fact, at most of the Canadian AI studs where most of these bulls usually were collected in the early years, they were the only bull pens that you were allowed to go into.... which seems really dumb now when I think about all the liability issues that could arise if something did happen. I remember Friggio and Fonto in particular as they were real puppy dogs ... rather large puppy dogs as they must have been over 70 inches tall and weighed 2800 to 3000 lb. Friggio was the quietest of the two, and he would stand there and lick you when you went into his pen. Fonto would allow you to scratch him, but he was a bit more standoffish ( if that is a word). Fonto was quiet but he did not come looking for affection like Friggio did. Put a straw of semen from either of these bulls, into any cow.... even the family pet... and look out. The half bloods were simply nuts.... balistic. These calves hit the ground in a foul mood. By the way, Friggio and Fonto were both imported by Jonathon Fox of Justamere Farms fame ( Polled Herford and Angus cattle). Jonathon was induced into the Canadian Agriculture Hall of Fame several years ago.
There must be a genetic explanation for why this combination of genetics created some real nasty monsters. There were a few herds of fullblood Chis in my area, and the fullblood cows were super quiet. You could walk up to any of them in a pasture. The Chi cross cattle were mental. I bought all the Chi bull calves from a leading Chi breeder, when the Chi era was really slowing down here, to put in our feedlot. There were 3 or 4 fullblood bull calves, that were ordinary quiet. These were calves that had been just weaned. The Chi cross calves ... well, I should have got danger pay to put them through the chute to process them. These 650 lb calves would hit the head gate so hard that they could tip the chute either on end or over on its side... and this was a good sized chute. We had to chain the back of the chute to posts so that they did not tip it. Out in the feed lot pens these calves were fine until you had to do some work with them. If one would get excited, the entire bunch would also. It usually ended up with one or more jumping 5 ft fences and hardly ever touch them.
The Chi business was just about as hot as any breed ever saw at one point in time. I remember a guy I grew up with imported a bunch of Chi's from Italy and set out to be the largest Chi breeder in North America. He firmly believed that all cattle in USA and Canada would have some Chi blood within 20 years. He sold 3 embryos from one of his import cows, at the Denver Stock show , in the Chi sale , for $40,000... and he had not even done the flush yet...Nice piece of business if you can get it. When the Chi industry started to fizzle here, he found himself in a pretty bad financial mess, and he ended up losing a very large farm that at one time was completely paid for.
There must be a genetic explanation for why this combination of genetics created some real nasty monsters. There were a few herds of fullblood Chis in my area, and the fullblood cows were super quiet. You could walk up to any of them in a pasture. The Chi cross cattle were mental. I bought all the Chi bull calves from a leading Chi breeder, when the Chi era was really slowing down here, to put in our feedlot. There were 3 or 4 fullblood bull calves, that were ordinary quiet. These were calves that had been just weaned. The Chi cross calves ... well, I should have got danger pay to put them through the chute to process them. These 650 lb calves would hit the head gate so hard that they could tip the chute either on end or over on its side... and this was a good sized chute. We had to chain the back of the chute to posts so that they did not tip it. Out in the feed lot pens these calves were fine until you had to do some work with them. If one would get excited, the entire bunch would also. It usually ended up with one or more jumping 5 ft fences and hardly ever touch them.
The Chi business was just about as hot as any breed ever saw at one point in time. I remember a guy I grew up with imported a bunch of Chi's from Italy and set out to be the largest Chi breeder in North America. He firmly believed that all cattle in USA and Canada would have some Chi blood within 20 years. He sold 3 embryos from one of his import cows, at the Denver Stock show , in the Chi sale , for $40,000... and he had not even done the flush yet...Nice piece of business if you can get it. When the Chi industry started to fizzle here, he found himself in a pretty bad financial mess, and he ended up losing a very large farm that at one time was completely paid for.
