Applecross @ Transcon’s 2026 Red Deer County Bull Sale Preview: The Perfect 10.
Applecross @ Transcon’s 2026 Red Deer County Bull Sale Preview: The Perfect 10.
We are pleased to present ten herd bull prospects at Transcon’s 2026 Red Deer County Bull Sale on Saturday, March 14th at 1:00pm at the Innisfail Auction Market, Innisfail, Alberta. This is our sixteenth year at this event, and we continue to be joined by a diverse group of producers in a now familiar multi-breed format.
We’ll get this out of the way quick: No. The bulls aren’t perfect. But they are pretty darn good! What they are perfect at is showcasing the direction our program is focussed. Our 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. 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 at the other end of the spectrum, produce performance oriented bulls that aren’t ‘hard calvers’. In a word – versatile – herd sire prospects that can be utilized in a variety of situations, without representing the extremes of the breed.
Dominating this years’ offering are progeny of Virginia Journey 509K, the $30,000 high seller from the Virginia Ranch string in 2023. We were on the hunt for ‘something proven’ with moderate calving numbers and strong growth potential, and found that in this Synergy-Radison son backed by the Willows Jade cow family. The Synergy-Radison combo has been incredibly popular in the industry, with multiple high sellers featuring this genetic combination. We have been very impressed with the curve bending calving ease plus performance of Journey’s calves – to the point where we became very confident in using Journey on heifers! We experienced a 2:1 Bull calf to heifer ratio in 2025, and a lot of that was Journey! There are seven Journey sons on offer, all from a wide cross section of cows that transcend from calving ease options to performance oriented prospects – and include four homozygous polled options. Journey’s progeny all carry awesome shape, pigmentation and have good feet under them, so be sure to check out Jericho, Junior, Jigsaw, Judge, Jordan, Jackson & Jazz.
In our quest for ‘something different’ we also selected BLL Tombstone 223K in 2023 from the highly renowned Beechinor Land & Livestock program. It was during a summer pasture tour that Tombstone caught my eye – he just strutted his stuff with incredible eye appeal that made 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. After a solid debut last year, Tombstone has two sons on offer in Innsifail in ‘Tonka’, and ‘Tristan’.
Our final lot on offer is not to be overlooked. APLX Batman 1N, simply named himself when he was born, with facial pigmentation that comes down over his face to create a ‘mask’. A paternal brother to our high selling ‘Payday’ bull from 2024, Batman is sired by Crossroads Pilot, who certainly seems to work here. This is a calving ease prospect backed by multiple generations of maternal strength!
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.
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.
The 2026 Red Deer Bull Sale promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great day on March 14h at the Innisfail Auction Mart!
Applecross Cattle 