Applecross @ Transcon’s Red Deer Bull Sale 2024 – Our Most Consistent String Yet
We are pleased to present ten herd bull prospects at Transcon’s 2024 Red Deer County Bull Sale on Saturday, March 9th at 1:00pm at the Innisfail Auction Market, Innisfail, Alberta. This is our fourteenth year at this event, and while the sale numbers always seem to fluctuate we continue to be joined by a diverse group of breeders that always join together to bring a strong offering to what is now a multi-breed event. Our 2024 offering is our most consistent yet, and the ten bulls on offer all continue to showcase our philosophy of highlighting the maternal strengths of the Fleckvieh Simmental breed. 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. In a market that suggests continued strong demand for beef, we think our bulls on offer all provide the maternal characteristics that will produce tremendous replacement females.
Dominating this years’ offering are progeny from two of our walking bulls in Black Gold Battleborn 44H and Double Bar D Confidence 179D. While AI is still a very important tool for us (specifically on heifers and in incorporating outcross genetics), we continue to invest in walking bulls from some of the top breeders in Canada. This mix allows us more flexibility during breeding season, increased consistency in their respective calf crops, and a chance to tap what otherwise could be fairly exclusive genetics. From FGAF WowEffect 016A, to NUG Delmonte 81D, Confidence, Battleborn, and last years’ acquisitions of BLL Tombstone 223K and Virginia Journey 509K, we feel we’ve been able to combine ‘something proven’ with ‘something different’ to form a unique APLX blend of highly maternal, moderate birthweight genetics.
The Battleborn progeny get the chance to lead the way this year. With three calf crops on the ground, and his first daughters now in production, Battleborn has developed into a very impressive individual, walking on extremely good feet, with his daughters now showcasing nice tight, square udders. With an eye-popping EPD profile, it is somewhat ironic that his weakest numbers are for calving; as he is a bull we have comfortably used in the heifer pen for the past 3 years. Of his four sons on offer, ‘Bastion’ represents a really intriguing homo-polled rascal (and is Jeanne’s favourite), while both ‘Brando’ and ‘Blizzard’ showcase exactly the type of progeny he produces out of first calf heifers. The final bull in ‘Biggio’ represents the last calf from one of our cornerstone cows, Applecross Poppy. It is no surprise that three of these sons all come from our foundation ‘Spruceburn Pauline’ cow family who left a tremendous legacy for us at Applecross. All four of these Battleborn sons are consistent in type, and offer the opportunity to step into genetics that combine a high maternal focus with explosive growth.
Not to be overlooked, there are also four sons of Double Bar D Confidence 179D on offer in Red Deer. Confidence is a bull that really moved our program forward, producing very balanced offspring on both sides of the ledger. The daughters from his first calf group are now high productive 2nd calvers that have tidy, even udders. His sons include APLX Coach 37J who highlighted our 2022 Bull Sale, and now has progeny across North America. Confidence also provided us with a highly attractive homo-polled son in ‘Conway’, while also giving us the powerhouse of this years’ offering in ‘Convoy’ (and he is a ‘great big convoy’; he’s a beautiful sight!). ‘Compass’ and ‘Country’ round out this highly impressive group of four – all of whom are very stylish and have nicely shaped polled heads. These Confidence sons are all very consistent (check out their birthweights!), and can suit a variety of needs.
As mentioned above, in addition to our walking bulls, we always try to breed our heifers, and at least a few early cows, AI in order to incorporate some outcross calving ease and top end genetics to our core herd. One of the benefits of living in Central Alberta, is the proximity to a number of great programs. After noticing the Black Gold Elevation progeny consistently stand out in the Beechinor sale strings, we were successful in acquiring a semen pack a couple of years ago. ‘Encore’ certainly shows that Elevation stamp, and may just be the most eye-appealing bull in our 2024 string. ‘Cabot’ is also a really cool dude, being sired by Rugged R Cavill; a bull we have successfully used on heifers for several years. From our experience, Cavill appears pretty much bullet proof as a heifer bull, so we expect to continue to utilize him to AI our heifers. ‘Cabot’ has a fair bit of size and growth to him so while he could be a potential for the heifer pen, he shouldn’t be just a one trick pony. We are always looking to offer something a little different, while adding a little extra style and maternal, and this year that means ‘Encore’ and ‘Cabot’!
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. We pail feed our bulls twice a day, to ensure the 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. Please also note that we obtained Yearling weights in early January; prior to the bulk of the bulls being a year of age, which has resulted in Adjusted weights being higher than actual – specifically on our three bulls from first calf dams. We hope our bulls work for many, many breeding seasons, and feel our development program evolving over the years allows them to do just that.
Individual pages (short-cut links are on the right), have been created for each of the bulls. (For those reading this on phones, the bulls name or lot number can also be entered into the search bar, to locate their individual page). On each of the pages, we have also pictured their sires, dams and siblings – hopefully, sharing pictures will provide a better glimpse into the extended pedigree. It is also not unusual for us to have walked 4 or 5 generations of each respective cow family. We also plan to have videos of each of our sale bulls available approx. 2 weeks prior to sale day. Please check our Applecross Cattle Facebook page for up to date info on our sales offering.
Transcon’s 2024 Red Deer County Bull Sale promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great day on March 9th at the Innisfail Auction Market!
Applecross Cattle 