Equation 2022 Sales Preview: Legacies That Live On
We are absolutely delighted to present four bred and two open heifers for consideration at Transcon’s Fleckvieh Equation 2022, on December 18th at 1pm at Westerner Park, Red Deer , Alberta. Thanks to a return of some long term consignors, and the continued evolution of the breed, Equation ’22 will showcase the broadest selection of polled Fleckviehs for sale in Canada this fall. We look forward to the return of the Saturday social at National Trust, and just the chance to visit, catch-up and talk all things cattle in a great facility while inspecting the awesome diversity of the Simmental breed. It should be a great week-end!
Our theme this year immediately jumps off the page: DLD Lady Western 48R. When we established Applecross back in 2006, we wanted to start our herd with some of our favourite cow families from Ontario. Mom & Dad (Dora Lee), graciously granted us the choice of any four females on the farm. My first pick was ‘Lady’, a direct King Arthur daughter from SRN 2Y, who played her own starring role in establishing the Dora Lee Fleckvieh program in the early 1990’s. Dad often shared that letting ‘Lady’ go west was the most difficult cow he ever had to part with. (And when asked why he did let her go, he simply stated ‘because I was his son’). Through her long career at Applecross, Lady is probably most distinctly recognized for being the dam of APLX Envoy 2Y, who went on to leave his mark at Lone Stone after being selected out of the 2011 National Trust sale as a bull calf. We also retained every single one of her daughters. When we acquired Lady, we also managed to convince Dad to breed her Antonius (!!) before sending her out – which promptly turned into Applecross Diva and what is now an extensive ‘D’ – cow family, as evidenced by both ‘Dixie’ and ‘Dotti’ in this years offering. A couple of years later she gave us ‘Bella,’ who still walks here as the matriarch of our ‘B – cow family’ (and as a sneak peak will have a super neat grandson show up at Red Deer County 2023 Bull Sale), followed by ‘Lady Grace’, ‘Isabelle’ and ‘Frauline’, who are represented by ‘Giselle’, ‘Ivy’ and ‘Lydia’ respectively at Equation 2022 (we already had a F-cow family when Frauline came along, so Frauline’s daughters get L’s). While we are clearly pretty biased towards the 48R progeny, there is a consistency in volume and udder development across her daughters, who also showcase longevity, pigment and length of spine. Excluding our sale heifers, EIGHTEEN Lady decendants will calve at Applecross next spring. (I haven’t even mentioned that 48R also shows up in the extended pedigree of our exciting young herd sire, Black Gold Battleborn 44H – so this number will only move higher!) I think Dad would have been pretty tickled by the legacy of DLD Lady Western 48R.
The sixth of our sale heifers is the ironically named ‘Pixie’ (who is anything but tiny), who is from our 2nd most prominent cow family. Spruceburn Pauline was our choice of Bill & Donna McMurty’s bred heifer pen back in 2009. She founded our ‘P-line’ and gave us two stand out daughters that still walk here in (poundmaking) ‘Poppy’ and (pretty) ‘Paula’. Poppy cruises our pastures at an even 2,000 lbs and has produced high selling progeny on both sides of the ledger, while Paula is Jeanne’s favourite (and ironically weighed 5lbs more than big sister this year). Jeanne keeps vetoing Paula’s daughters, (and I have a tendency to do the same to Poppy’s), so while not quite to Lady’s threshold, we do have seven P’s calving out in 2023. I am bad at math, but on our fifty cow herd, it appears an even 50% of the calves born in 2023 will trace back to either Pauline or 48R. What can we say – we like our cow families!
Individual pages have been created for each of ‘Giselle’, ‘Dixie’, ‘Dotti’, ‘Pixie’, ‘Ivy’ and ‘Lydia’. Short-cut links are on the right – or simply enter their names in the search bar at the top of our home page – and their page will pop up. On the individual pages, we have also pictured their sires, dams and siblings. We try to take a camera with us on pasture tours – and while not always ‘professional quality’, hopefully sharing pictures provides a better glimpse into the extended pedigree.
The heifers all have quiet temperaments and are used to being around people. We like quiet cattle. We preg-checked in mid-October and the vet feels that three are safe to their AI dates, with the fourth bred potentially a cycle later. Also, due to the late sales date of Equation, we expect all of our bred heifers to be very heavy in calf – specifically as Cavill appears to have a little shorter gestation. For any out of province buyers, we are willing to take the heifers home and calve them out. While ‘stuff’ can happen, we would much prefer that ‘stuff’ to happen at our place, instead of having a disaster occur during the stress of a truck ride.
The Heifers are also vaccinated with ViraShield and Covexin Plus. They will be treated with Dectomax and the breds will have their first shot of Scourguard prior to sale day.
The 2022 Fleckvieh Equation promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great day on December 18th at Westerner Park.
Applecross Cattle 