2019 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale: Our Most Versatile Bull String Yet

We are pleased to present six herd bull prospects at Transcon’s 2019 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale on Thursday, March 21st at 1:00pm at Westerner Park, Red Deer, Alberta. This is our ninth year at this event, and we are proud to be included in the strong offering that is always presented by this progressive group of breeders.

While all six of our bulls are polled, our 2019 offering will be our most versatile bull string yet – clearly showcasing our breeding philosophy.  We firmly believe that the future will bring an increased herd size on the same amount of available labour.  This means that with less labour available on a per cow basis, birth weights will come down to improve calving ease, and that gradually more and more horns will be bred off the cattle.  We have moved slowly to incorporate the polled gene into our herd, as our goal is to try and accomplish this while maintaining the strong performance and mothering ability the Simmental breed is known for.  While EPD’s have their limitations, we have noticed that most Fleckvieh genetics are typically either Top Percentile for calving and bottom percentile for growth, or vice-versa.  It has been our goal to move more to the middle and produce bulls who will calve out, that are more than just ‘heifer bulls’, and performance bulls that aren’t ‘hard calvers’.  In a word – versatile – bulls that can be utilized in a variety of situations, without representing the extremes of the breed.

Individual pages (short-cut links are located in the right-hand column) have been created for all six of our bulls on offer, and will provide a deeper look into each individual animal, including multi-generations of the cow families and sires that back them.  Maternal lines are very important to us, and we feel that behind every great bull is an outstanding cow family.

This year we are rather excited to debut of our first NUG Delmonte 81D sons.  We selected Delmonte from Maxwell’s as one of the high sellers in the 2017 Herdmaster Bull Sale, and have been really impressed by his first two calf crops.  His first three sons will sell in Red Deer in ‘Dundee’, ‘Denver’ and ‘Dakota’.  Dundee has the added advantage of being tested Homozygous polled.  We are confident that Delmonte’s combination of the popular Starwest Pol Blueprint and the South Holden Mira cow family will have a tremendous impact on our herd, and we are really excited to see what his progeny will bring to the industry.

2019 will also represent the last natural born FGAF WowEffect herd sire prospects.  The WowEffect sons have led our bull strings since 2016, with his sons all being highly consistent. Two WowEffect sons will be on offer in Red Deer – both with really cool, proven dams.  ‘Wildcard’ is out of our DLD Lady Western 48R cow (making him a maternal brother to APLX Envoy) and ‘Wedge’ is out of Applecross Piper (making him a maternal brother to Applecross Pippa).  Wedge also comes Homozygous polled.  Thick made, great hair coats, and a unique balance of performance and moderate birthweights have been a hallmark of WowEffect’s progeny.

Our final bull on offer is ‘Razor’, who is a neat combination of our APLX Rambo heifer bull and some old-school Fleckvieh genetics.  Radium, Viper, Arnold’s Image, Bronson, Seldom, Antonius and King Arthur should all combine to make a highly maternal heifer bull prospect.

We want to ensure our bulls will work for many years, so feet, legs and temperament are very important traits for us.  The bulls are housed in a 5 acre paddock to ensure lots of exercise, and have been developed on a ration of free-choice quality first cut hay, combined with a forage based pellet by Country Junction.  All six bulls are quiet and used to being around people. We like working and walking through docile cattle, and feel the herd bull should be no exception.

We also think it is worth mentioning that in order to provide exclusivity to the new owners, we do not retain a semen interest in our bulls.  We think there is value maintaining exclusivity – and use the same approach when we do our own bull shopping. We want the buyer to have the advantage in every way to succeed with a new bull purchase.

The 2019 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great day on March 21th at Westerner Park