Simmental

I spent a good half hour 'chillin' with the cattle. Since they are out on pasture, I don't get to see them up close every day. It was an extremely windy day at the farm , and the mosquitoes and flies were getting the ladies fired up. So much that they grouped together and then took to the water to try and lose them. 

We are down to the bare bones here. My dad has the two black Simmental, and the rest (count 6) are mine, plus the bull. We are finally going to go back to purebred breeding, after five years of crossing. The Red Angus x Simmental is still a hot commodity, but I wanted to breed up the herd again, now that its down to three mother/daughter pairs.

You certainly couldn't complain about the scenery! We also have a bald eagle nest in this pasture. its the second year they've used it for their nesting grounds. for as ferocious a hunter, they sure seem to keep away from us humans and mind their own business.

Hey a PHOTO!

I went out and tried to point and shoot with my digital camera. There is still no screen but I'm sick of not being able to take photos to add to my blog :)

Needless to say I took over 200 and only had ONE that I thought was nice enough to share. So here you are!

2010 Simmental Calves that I retained!

In the front and center is my only UK semen heifer calf born this year, Inga. The Red/White baldy in the back of her is the UK semen bull I kept, Drexell. The yellow spotted/baldy calves on either side of him are from the 1980's old US semen. Their entire structure, hair and look is totally reminiscent of the super tall, long legged, skinny bodies of all beef breeds in the US during that phase. The British calves are much stockier and have curly winter coats like the original Simmental. I hope to be able to save the yellow color and the spotted pattern using both lines and blending them.

The light red goggle faced heifer is from my own lines of US and Canadian bulls that I hope to also blend with the old and 'new' semen so I can continue to save the old light red, yellow and spotted markings that were the Simmental breed here just a decade or so ago and still can be found all over Europe.

We'll see what happens....

Yellow Simmental Calves

I've been trying to breed traditionally marked Simmental (like the ones in the Simme Valley, Switzerland) for the past 15 or so years. One step forward, two steps back has been the norm for me, so this year i was pleased to see THREE calves that are yellow!

I've been very fortunate to have THREE yellow calves born this year to purebred/fullblood Simmental cows. Below is SenSim Cricket (the red cow). She is out of a yellow spotted bull I raised and a wildy spotted red cow. I'm so surprised she came out so 'red' (little white). She was bred to the older bull RS Polled Ringeye. He is also wildly spotted red/white with goggle face (yuglet for you Shetland breeders) and her bull calf is the one that was born the day I left for BSG. He's the one that she is nosing in the photo. His 3/4 sibling is the one of the left. The yellow spotted girl out of Ramona that I thought was out of UK bull. I checked my breeding records and she is NOT out of that bull. But that's ok. She's yellow :)

Here is a bigger view (its not as blurry) I have to zoom from the sheep pasture or the cows don't stay in their 'normal/candid' state. The black cow is 100% Simmental, but is purebred, not fullblood (meaning she was bred up from an Angus x Simmental). The dark red bull in the right is our rented Red Angus bull. He's much more mellow and well behaved that our bull we leased from the same guy last year. The Simmental x Red Angus are THE hottest cross on the market now. The Hereford/Angus cross here died out a long time ago as a popular cross. The continental x british cross is by far way better in most any heterosis or crossbreeding program. All of my dad's black cows and my solid reds get bred to that bull. This year however, since our calves are so late (note not Mid March like normal) I'm trying to get them all bred back faster this year so I can do AI again on them next year.
The calf standing above is the girl, the boy is laying down.

Below is the UK sired yellow bull that we are bottling. He wouldn't stand still as it was evening meal and he was excited but he is a gorgeous BIG boy. Already close to 150 pounds. He was out of a wild s.o.b. first time mom and we had to pull him as she was not dilating and it had been 5 hours since her water broke (WAY TOO LONG!) and nothing was happening. His head was swollen for a few days. Its the first one we've had to pull in 7 years of purebred breeding. I was amazed. Even our big calves are born with ease. Apparently this wasn't meant to be.
he'll most likely be available as a butcher animal this fall/spring, but we are doing our best to not interact with him much, in the case he is our only UK bull calf and I want to keep him for breeding. His mother's line is not known for birthing issues so I was amazed his mom had any difficulties. It'll be closely monitored.

if none of this makes sense I can go into more detail, but didn't want to bore any of you non cattle people :)

SURPRISE!!!

Look what I found when I got home at 8:30 tonight! The dam is a traditional Simmental (spotted aka 'broken pattern') who is out of AI from a bull from the late 80's that goes back directly to the original imported stock. The semen canes were only 3.00 dollars each. NO ONE WANTED THEM!!!! Her dam is a solid red cow that carried spots as she was also out of AI to a bull from the 80's who was also spotted and down from the original imports. Needless to say she is down from the original imported Simmental that were known for their spotted/broken patterned bodies in red and yellow.

The YELLOW SPOTTED HEIFER calf...ahem.....is only my SECOND heifer calf that is yellow from purebred (not breeding up stock) Simmental cows. Ever. Even when using a yellow spotted bull I raised! This little lady is NOT out of UK semen like i thought, but out of a bull called Polled Ringeye, who was another bull from the 80's that I loved. Kudos for BOTH parents carrying the dilution gene! I didn't know the sire did!

WOHOO! Happy dance happy dance!

The Simmental Breed of Cattle

Its a rainy day and my back is still thrown out from holding and catching sheep yesterday for blood draws.

I thought it would be interesting to refresh my memory of my beloved Simmental breed.

http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle/simmental/

This link is a great summation of the Simmental breed, but I wanted to quote a few things from this article.

*The American Simmental Association registers over 80,000 animals YEARLY in the USA alone! We are in the top four registries in the US for amount of calves registered each and every year. Truly NOT a rare or heritage breed.

From our associations webpage: http://www.simmental.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=362

*Simmental as a breed are number 2 in the WORLD for number of animals (registered only, with unregistered there are undoubtedly many more) only behind the Brahma breed.

*The Simmental has between 40 and 60 MILLION registered animals worldwide! Being the 2nd largest and most popular breed certainly has its benefits.

*Even though there are 80 MN State Simmental Association members, there are closer to 400 breeders of Simmental in just MN alone. Truly a worthy breed to think about if you are thinking of getting cattle.

More links:

http://www.thecattlesite.com/breeds/beef/17/simmental/overview

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simmental_Cattle

http://www.cattle.com/articles/title/Simmental+Cattle.aspx

A few promising heifers

Speaking of calves....

These first two photos are out of my 3rd generation home bred bull, SenSim Tuscon, a black baldy bull, purebred Simmental (not fullblood, purebred...and yes there is a difference). This is SenSim Rosa. She is out of SenSim Reagan (who also is the aunt to the black baldy below...so yes these two girls are sisters AND aunt/neice....so very related) a gorgeous dark cherry red cow. Rosa's EPDs (expected progeny data) are just astounding, in the top 25% of the breed for 10 of the 13 top traits that the ASA (American Simmental Association follows). For my 'commercial' herd this past year we put black bulls over all of my reds, and my dads blacks and we got both red and black calves in both groups. This year, with smaller numbers we combined the two groups into one. This girl Rosa has everything I want in a replacement heifer, except I wish she had goggles around her eyes (pigment helps keep pink eye and skin cancer from sunburning at bay)

No I didn't just change the color of the calf in PhotoShop :P This is SenSim Renata out of SensSim Tuscon and SenSim Regina (daughter of Reagan). She looks almost identical to Rosa except for color of her hide. Her numbers are also breathtaking with nearly all of her EPDs in the top 15-25% of the breed. Both girls are being retained. Renata is slightly stretched in this photo but hey...she was standing still, with her head up. Something near impossible for me to get in the cattle OR the shee! And its raining.....so they are kinda wet.


This little cutie of a calf is my favorite spotty of the year. I only had three spotted heifers (two of which are actually spotted, the other is just a carrier) and they were all born the first part of July , so only three months old. I havent' name her yet, but she is a stinker...finding ways to get in and out of the fence without leaving a trace. She kinda looks smug in this photo, doesn't she?
Below are three of my original four Guinea hens. They are ALL four HENS too. These are the plain Pearls, with one also being Pied.

AI breedings in our cattle

Its always fun to switch it up a bit. I know some of you like to hear about my pigeons and cattle from time to time, as this IS a farm blog, not just a sheep blog :)

My dad and I did some interesting things with the cattle this year. First of all we sold quite a few cows as bred cows this past winter/early spring and then sold some this fall as bred cows. We had to lease a Red Angus bull this year, for commercial calves next year for dad's black cows and my solid red cows. The Simmental x Angus and Simmental x Red Angus seem to be the most sought after commercial crosses right now, so I thought I might as well get a premium for my commercial calves right?

I also imported two bulls from the UK to use. This year we are using Corskie Radium, shown below. This guy has been bred to 8 cows, with hopes of adding length, bone, capacity and milkieness to my tradtionally marked girls.
The bull below is a bull from the late 80's, early 90's called SSR Polled Ringeye. I was able to purchase a few remaining straws of him and the final two were used this year. Both cows are confirmed bred to him, so I'm excited to see what I will get out of him as well.
Another bull from the same time frame and Ringeye is DS Polltime. He's a yellow baldy that I purchased 30 straws of. I'm really excited to see what the two girls I bred to him this year will produce. I have only one yellow cow left and she is crazy wild, but I have retained her as she is my ONLY yellow cow. Many of my red cows carry yellow but haven't thrown it yet, so I'm hoping to get a few more yellow calves next year by using this bull.

We in the past ran three herds of Simmental here during breeding time (May-September) and had them in different pastures. My dad's black cows went to a black bull for commerical calves, and my solid red or baldy red cows went to either a red bull or a black bull for registered red/blacks for myself, or for commerical purposes, and finally I had a herd of traditionally marked red and yellow spotted cows with a bull at home. I am going to continue to AI my spotties to either older collected bulls or imported UK bulls as I feel those are depicting what the Simmental is really all about, but will still maintain a commerical based purebred cow herd to feed the needs of that market as well.

A great place to visit if you are into the fullblood Simmental (traditionally marked) is the British Simmental Cattle Society. Loads of good information, photos and links

Calves and critiques

I haven't taken many photos of the cattle this summer. Mostly because I was really preoccupied with the dogs and sheep this spring, but now have more time to 'think' about my cattle.

While I was away at Jefferson, the cattle decided it was time to come home and my dad found them in our front yard!

When I came home it was really my first time examining the entire herd that was in our Northern Pasture. When the calves came from around the corner my jaw just dropped! The calves were JUST spectacular!! Shiny coats, wonderful muscling, gorgeous conformation and just STYLE STYLE STYLE! Our shorter days makes it harder for me to take photos of them without the gold hue to the animals, which doesn't really show off their true color or physique.

I have two older heifers that REALLY caught my eye. a black baldy and a red baldy. Upon looking online they have the same sire, and their mothers are mother/daughter so they are quite related and only different in color! Photos i promise soon! The best part is their EPDs are just stacked! The black baldy is in the top 15-25% of the BREED for her traits. The Red Baldy is in the top 20-35%. I have typically had herd averages above the 50% breed average./

There are two solid black bulls, a solid red bull and a black goggle faced bull that are also very stunning. I can't decide who to keep as we sold all of our homegrown bulls this spring in anticipation of the new bull I had purchased. It turned out he was sterile so I didn't have to pay for him.

In light of that, we had no purebred Simmental bulls at home to use, or any local breeders to call on. We ended up renting a Red Angus bull to cover our cows. Although he is a nice deep cherry red color, all of the calves will be commercial calves next year. The Simmental x Angus and Simmental x Red Angus crosses are the biggest sellers now on the market, so I feel I can recoop quite a bit of expense next year by going with the crosses.

That is why I'm needing to retain several bull prospects. In the past we kept a spotted bull, a red bull and a black bull for our three herds. With our continually decling cattle herd, we dont' feel the need to keep three bulls to use for breeding, maybe one or two. We WILL be keeping 4 over the winter though.....three to butcher next spring and one to use for breeding :)

While I do have time to decide who to use for breeding, registration fees increase exponentially every month after they are 6 months old. A yearling bull would cost around 150 dollars to register. That's just not an option for me. I need to decide NOW.

I am very much in to the EPDs as well as the structure and temperament of the animals. While I love one of the solid black bulls conformation, his temperament and his pedigree, and he does have the most perfect head (I'm a sucker for a beautiful head!). Unfortunately he suffers in the EPDs (Expected Progeny Data....things like Calving ease, birth weights, weaning weights, milk, carcass traits, etc) and the other bulls excel more in the EPDs. I sometimes get lucky if I do my homework and find one that excels in both EPDs and conformation AND temperament :)

Photos soon. I need to stop gushing over them!

Cattle on pasture

Going through photos and saw a neat photo I was going to post before. Soon I'll have photo of all the new calves we had in the last week! (LATE I KNOW!)

Yearling BFL vs Yearling Shetland and other news

These two girls were following me around the pasture on my evening check. The Shetland is BlackForest Tilly a yearling black gulmoget ewe who lambed with a single black ewe lamb out of UnderTheSon Arapaho. The BFL is a natural colored yearling ewe who didn't lamb. She is Beechtree Kiloran. She is much darker than what the photo looks like. Stupid flash wrecks the color tones! The size difference is startling when they are side by side. Kiloran is #1 obnoxious pet after not liking me last fall/winter she decided this spring that I was her personal heroine (the drug not the hero LOL) and she had to follow me around whenever I'm in the pasture. Its hard to get a good photo.
Well this is kinda a nice view of her head....wish I had a better profile view but she is just too pushy! I can't get away fast enough to focus the camera.
Coming in off of the rotational grazing on the grass field. The BFL is two year old Beechtree Kershope. Do you think she is well fed?? :) The white ewe in front is FirthofFifth Rahu a two year old Forrest daughter. She is next to her black ram lamb out of UnderTheSon Arapaho. He is a sturdily built ram lamb. Catching up to his mom at 8 weeks old.
And what appears to be the start of a cow 'conga line'. I guess I ruined their fun. Hey...girls just wanna have fun! ;) *groan* how lame i know!
These four girls are all bred by me. I think left to right are SenSim Rihanna, SenSim Callie, SenSim Cindy, SenSim DeAnna. The middle two have yet to calve, the other two are already bred back to AI.

They ARE coming

With the help of Rob Wills of UK Sires, I am happy to announce the importation of the first British Simmental to the USA!

Many thanks to Penny Lally for helping me with the first bull: CORSKE RADIUM! Radium is a very correct bull who loves to show and has been very fortunate enough to win several shows thanks to the judges!


My second thanks go to Rory Bell (also of BFL fame) for helping me with the securing of the straws for DIRNANEAN SALVADOR! Salvador is also a very stunning boy and I am very excited to see how these bulls produce on my girls!



Also thanks go to my friend Kim Nikolai for helping to acquire these straws! She is new to cattle and is going to also be using both bulls on the girls that she has purchased from me! I'm pretty excited !!

Perth Aberdeen Sale

This past weekend was the Perth Aberdeen Annual Spring Sale. The highest selling Simmental bull was sold for 16,000 pound (nearly $22,900) His photo is above. Perth is one of the highest attended Simmental sales in the UK.

bull sale

Remember this guy? He was my first pick at my friends bull sale. Well he sold for $4100. Slightly out of my price range (ok a lot!) As you can see the Registered Simmental are still in high demand...all 80 of his bulls sold for an average of $2800. There have been sale after sale after sale in North Dakota and Minnesota this month and all sales have had nice averages for their bull sales. I did happen to get a bull for about half the price of the boy pictured about with almost the same EPDs *expected progeny data* just not the blaze face or size/build of this guy. It could be worse....I could not have a bull :)

Maybe next time I'll find my perfect boy! Hey you can't have everything right?

Now if the commercial prices would go back up to where they were a year or so ago....that would be nice!

The British are coming! The British are coming!

Sorry I couldn't resist the title :)



This bull is Corskie Radium, a handsome lad, whose frozen swimmers are headed to the USA. Many thanks to Penny Lally for her help in this exciting endeavor!
* First Time Radium Hits bullseye! Radium beats all comers to win Supreme Interbreed Beef Championship at the Devon County Show 2006.
* Corskie Radium won Supreme Breed Champion in the British Simmental Class at the Royal Cornwall Show in 2006.
* Senior Champion Perth Scotland 2006.

Also a possibility for import is this fellow



This fellow is Dirnaean Salvador, another striking boy! Stay tuned as details are worked out and confirmed!

Another one pending is this guy:

Wroxall Texas. More info coming soon!

Pre-Congress Tour 2008

A few leaked photos from the Pre-Congress Tour 2008. The link with ALL the photos can be found here http://www.kilbridefarm.co.uk/html/congress.html

I did want to show you the type of Simmental that the UK is raising and what I will be importing hopefully this year (Frozen semen of course).

Red Cow

Yellow Bull (both yellows and red come in light and dark phases as well)

Babysitting the calves

Prospective yearling bulls

A possibility

This lovely yearling boy is on my short list for a new herd bull for my American Simmental. His breeder happens to be a good buddy of mine from my college days at NDSU in Fargo, ND. He happens to live about 6 hours away from me, so we'll see if I can make it to the sale.....weather pending and monetary pending

Some of my favorite spotted Simmental

For those unfamiliar with the Simmental breed, it is the 2nd most popular in sheer numbers of animals in the WORLD behind the Brahman. so with that in mind it is really the most popular in the Bos Taurus species (Brahman is Bos Indicus). Throughout the world the breed has been altered to the local needs and demands of both the buyers, the markets and the climate. In France alone, it had developed into three distinct breeds now. Simmental came from the Simme Valley in Switzerland and suprisinly for a mountain valley breed, it does well in the heat and the cold temps.

In the United States the buyers and markets have been pushing the Simmental into non-diluted reds and blacks, mostly solid animals so much that now the Association feels that they are having an identity crisis as no one can tell them from angus or red angus or any other breed that has 'gone black' due to the great popularity of "Certified Angus Beef". Don't get me started on that. Just because you buy CAB doesn't mean its angus! It can actually be 51% black and it counts as CAB, so really you are probably eating Holstein steer if they met the 51% black rule.

I digress.

The Europeans and British folk in particular are those that are keeping with the homelands standards of a triple purpose breed (dairy, beef, ox/plow). I'm hoping to import semen for my every shrinking herd of registered simmental. I'm attaching a few photos of the animals I have that look like the European Simmentals.

Now a couple of my AMERICAN Simmental:

another spottie

Ok so its a CALF but its still a spotty and a GIRL! Reese gave me another heifer.....she's such a great mom too! This little cutie is from AI, from a bull that was as wildly patterned as Reese's calf from last year. Most of my girls carry spotting...which is what the Simmental WAS and still is in most of the world, except for the US and Canada.

I think this makes it 5 heifers, 2 bulls so far...with dad having three heifers and i having 2 and 2.....23 left to go!

Calving update

For those of you with a soft spot for cattle (or at least baby ones!)

This was our 'first born' this year to a cow that used to be mine, but through the years ended up in my dad's possession due to some 'favors' that I owed him for :) Isn't she cute?!

The black speckle faced cow is Keeley. Also one of my cows, now belonging to my dad. She has a solid black day old heifer calf laying next to her. To Keeley's left is my 2 year old Cindy. She gave birth to the only spotted calf (so far) this year...my only heifer so far!

Here is Regina. She is due any day....and with the way she is acting...it could be tonight in our alleged snow storm. Yippee!

"If we don't move.....maybe he won't see us!"

These little guys all got tagged yesterday and are a little hesitant of us now....for good reason. The yellow tags are MY calves, the orange tags my dads.

These girls are going into 'binge eating' mode because they heard the storm is a'comin'!!

As Fall Out Boys would say..........

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES~!

Well its that time again. Time to move out some of the girls due to lack of any of the following reasons: space, feed, money, new genetics, or some of each or all of the above.

I never make a point of selling girls that are in their prime years (for cows that 5-8 years old) They always produce their nicest replacements during these years, area most efficient with the feed they consume and have the daily routine as well as know how to work themselves into the head gate, livestock trailer, field roads to get back to the 'home' pasture in the fall, etc.

Its always hard for me to part with girls knowing that they have so much yet to offer me. I feel like I've cheated them. I feel like I let them down. They trust me and I move them out. I normally only sell cows that are not being productive, are terrible mothers (or too agressive towards me) , don't settle, abort, bad udder, too old, etc. These girls are some of my best. I've tried for about a year trying to sell some of the girls to another breeding farm that raises registered Simmental. I've had inquires from all over the nation, but no one wants to drive that far for only a handful of cows. they want 25+. I don't have that many to sell!

It appears I'm rambling. Just bear with me. Indulge in my sorrow of letting perfectly beautiful, prime girls go, as unregistered stock to the "SALE BARN". I know the owner as he married my best friend of 9 years. He gets a fair 'market' price. Its about 1/2 to 1/3 the value of my registered stock. I'd rather eat them all if that was the case, but there comes a time when I have to say "UNCLE" and give in. Its still money. And until I can break into the tight group of registered simmental folk, I'm doomed to sell my high quality registered girls as commercial stock. If only those guys knew what they were getting.

Thanks for listening.

A group shot of the girls headed to new homes.
I decided to sell two cow/calf pairs this winter. The two little red heifers on the left are the lucky girls. I had planned on keeping them but due to lack of hay and lack of space, they got to go with their moms. Dacia (the large red in front is mother to one of them) Ina behind her is a gorgeous cow and I kept her first calf, a daughter, Inez to carry on her line. Maddy (the other blaze face) is the last girl from my Millie line. I kept Maddy's son this year so she had to go, but she always raised the largest calf, even being the smallest cow of the herd. Trixie (the mother of the other calf) is hiding back there too.
Rudie, Nysa and Brandy hiding in the back. Rudie has been my foundation cow and I kept EVERY single heifer calf from her. I have about 50% 'R' names out there thanks to her. She is a mild mannered, medium framed, great mother. At the age of 8 she still has a great udder and calves easily. Nysa goes back to my Jersey cow from about 15 years ago. She's 1/2 red angus and 1/2 simmental now, that jersey blood has been bred out, but if you look closely enough, you can still see bits of that breed in her. I kept her daughter this year, New York :)
Another group shot
Maddy, Ina, Trixie, Nysa, Dacia and calf