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 :)