Ten For the Times:  Applecross Cattle Present our 2025 Red Deer Bull Sale String

We are pleased to present ten herd bull prospects at Transcon’s 2025 Red Deer Bull Sale on Saturday, March 8th at 1:00pm at the Innisfail Auction Market, Innisfail, Alberta. This is already our fifteenth 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.

After a bumper bull calf crop, our ten bulls on offer 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 ten 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 our first Virginia Journey 509K and BLL Tombstone 223K sons.  When we set out to add new walking bulls in 2023, our focus was on ‘something proven’ and ‘something different’ and we were successful in adding both!  Under the ‘proven’ category was Journey – a Synergy x Radison son backed by the Willows Jade cow family.  The Synergy-Radison combo has been incredibly popular in the industry.  We have been very impressed with the curve bending calving ease plus performance of his calves – to the point where with his second calf crop on the ground, we are now confident in using Journey on heifers!  Take a close look at both ‘Zorro’ and ‘Jagger’!  In our quest for ‘something different’ we selected Tombstone from our good friends at Beechinor Land & Livestock.  It was during a summer pasture tour that Tombstone caught my eye – he just strutted his stuff with incredible eye appeal that make him really stand out.  A different genetic twist with Great Guns Wyatt, Tombstone is also backed by a cow family we know very well in Eagle Ridge Unbelievable 1U.   Tombstone’s first three sons will sell in Innsifail in ‘Top Gun’, ‘Tundra’ and ‘Touchdown’.   We are confident that both of these young herd bulls will have a tremendous impact on our herd, and consider this just a taste test – as our 2025 bull calf crop is dominated by these two exciting young sires. 

2025 will also represent the last natural born Black Gold Battleborn herd sire prospects.  The Battleborn progeny have led our sales strings the past few years, and have done incredibly well for us averaging $11,000+.  Two Battleborn sons will be on offer in Innisfail – both with really cool dams.  ‘Briggs’ is out of our Skywest Franceca, a really impressive Duramax daughter, and together they made a very impressive pair during our World Congress tours.  ‘Bono’ has a little different genetic twist that combines our two most prominent cow families in Lady Western 48R and Spruceburn Pauline. Bono also comes Homozygous polled.  Thick made, great hair coats, and a unique balance of performance and moderate birthweights have been a hallmark of Battleborn’s progeny.

In addition to our walking bulls, we also have an intriguing mix of bulls from AI sires that range from classic (Jahari – ‘Jasper’), to proven (Elevation – ‘Slash’) and calving ease (Pilot – ‘Payday’).   We continue to try and diversify our genetic base and incorporate some of our favourite horned sires into what is now our predominantly polled cow herd.  We also continue to leverage AI extensively on heifers with ‘Payday’ offering a highly intriguing blend of calving ease and high end maternal genetics all wrapped up in a homozygous polled package!

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 ten 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 2025 Red Deer Bull Sale promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great day on March 8th at the Innisfail Auction Mart!