APLX Santana 11Y - pictured at 7 months

We have added a new section to the website entitled ‘Applecross @ Work’.  Featured in individual pages located under this tab, the section highlights some of the growing number of animals we have sold that we believe will leave their mark on the industry.  We hope to be able to add pictures of their progeny in the future.  The first two bull to be featured are of course,  the full brothers, Ensign 2X and Envoy 2Y.

We are also very pleased to add APLX Santana 11Y to the list.  Santana (pictured above), is an exciting young herd bull purchased by Wayne Falardeau / Wa-Na-La-Pa Simmentals.   Solid red except for that small spot on his forehead, Santana will add some really unique outcross genetics to Wayne’s diamond headed/solid red full Fleckvieh Program.

'Mariah' - Our Newest Addition

We started off the 2012 calving season today, just the way you want to – an unassisted heifer calf that was up and drinking on her own.  The calf itself is a daughter of our newest edition – Delta-Rho Miss Marnie sired by Dora Lee Eclipse.   What a great way for Marnie to start off here at Applecross. We think baby (already named ‘Mariah’) should fit right in to our program.

2011 was an incredible year for Applecross.  We hit a lot of milestones and are very pleased with how our operation progressed during the year.

The year kicked off with the first calf arriving January 2nd; followed by a steady stream of calves through to March.  Calving season was very successful overall, with the calves split exactly 50/50 heifers and bulls.  We have some tremendous bulls and awesome females on the ground, and we look forward to watching them develop.

January was also when this web-site/blog launched.  It is great to have a forum to talk about our operation, post pictures of what is happening, chat about what is going on and try to offer a virtual idea of what our operation is all about.   While we haven’t promoted the website much, we have been pleased with the amount of traffic (3,000+ views) in its first year.  For anyone thinking about launching their own website/blog, I highly recommend WordPress as a host – it has worked very well for our needs and, being essentially free, all you need is some time and patience to get started.  We look forward to another great year in 2012.  I enjoy writing both farm ‘updates’ on what is happening here at Applecross, and sharing stories of some of our day to day adventures.

March brought along the debut of our genetics at auction – Transcon’s Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale.  As this was our first attempt to winter and prep bulls for auction, this was a great learning experience.     Our feature bull at the sale was APLX Ensign 2X.  We thought he was a really good bull, and were certainly more than happy with how things turned out.  Ensign was the high selling Fullblood bull at the sale, selling to Langer Fleckvieh at Edson for $8,000.   We are pleased he has a great new home and an awesome group of females to be utilized on.  We have watched both the genetics Lyle and Pam Langer bring to town and the females they have purchased – we are really looking forward to seeing the first Ensign calves in 2012.

Despite a late spring, we have no complaints on how the seasons progressed.  We had plenty of moisture, leading to lots of grass for the cattle.  We put up some more interior fences to improve our rotational grazing, and made some improvements to our cattle handling areas.  After a tough winter, adding wind-breaks was also a priority.  Hopefully these allow the cattle to maintain their condition a little easier in the future.  We are purely a grass farm and don’t produce any of our winter feed ourselves (I am not a big fan of equipment that only runs a couple of weeks a year, but that is another story for another day), so a steady dose of rain in July, didn’t bother us too much.   Jeanne spent three weeks in July halter breaking bull calves, which she enjoyed – summer tends to provide us will a little more time to do things, so it is great to be able to get some extra work done during the long days.

The summer also brought along some wonderful ‘cow tours’.  We always try to get out to see as many herds as we can, and 2011 was no exception.  From the Alberta Simmental Association annual field day, to stops at Virginia Ranch, Brock Ranch and Double Bar D, it was a great summer to tour cattle.  It is very easy to learn something from every visit, and to see what each genetic program is up to.

A gorgeous September more than made up for the wet summer, as warm, dry days led us deep into Autumn.  The fall months revolved around weaning some impressive calves and prepping APLX Envoy 2Y to be our National Trust entry.  ‘Envoy’ was a full brother to ‘Ensign’ and we felt he had a lot of potential.  We were both humbled and honoured to have Envoy selected for the National Trust sale.  He eventually sold to Lone Stone Farms of Westlock, AB, for $7,500.  We are wintering Envoy, and look forward to delivering him to his new owners in the spring.  Lonnie & Karen Brown have great cow base at Lone Stone, and we look forward to seeing the ‘Envoy influence’ down the road.

November and December led us into fall sale season.  We selected a bred heifer from the Fleckvieh Forum Sale in Ontario to join our program, but weren’t as successful purchasing females closer to home.  The market for quality cattle has become very strong, and it is a great sign for the Simmental breed as the cattle market takes a much needed turn for the better.  Certainly, with cow numbers down significantly across North America, it should result in strong prices for the foreseeable future.

As the year winds up, we are very thankful for a successful 2011, and with our first calves only a few days away, we look forward to 2012 . . . not only the calves, but how our program continues to develop and evolve.

Applecross Poppy - our youngest feature female.

We have redesigned our female section within the ‘Herdbook’ tab, creating individual cow pages for 13 of our foundation females, who form the backbone to our walking herd.  The individual pages allow us to showcase not only the cow herself, but often pictures of parents or offspring.   As the younger cows continue to develop and can often change a lot over the course of a year, the section will be updated and expanded regularly. While not near as good as a ‘walking tour’, we hope they provide a feel for the cow-base that we are very proud of.  The females are ordered chronologically from oldest to youngest, with the most junior ‘Poppy’ also pictured above.  An Anchor T Ikon daughter, Poppy has incredible volume for a bred heifer.  We are very excited to see what she does with her first calf early in the new year.

APLX Envoy 2Y on the big day - shown with ourselves and his new owners - Lonnie & Karen Brown of Lone Stone Farms - photo courtesy Darryl Snider / Simmental Country

What started off as simply a showcase of our ‘bull group’ feature at the National Trust Bull Expo, turned into Envoy strutting his stuff in the sale itself.

It has become a National Trust tradition to have a bull selected from the Expo for National Trust sale, but we didn’t really believe that our bull would ever be chosen.  As breeders that are just getting established in the industry, we were both humbled and honoured to have Envoy selected by Jay Good of Transcon to be this years’ feature bull calf.  As is tradition, the bull selected lead off the sale, with Envoy selling to Lonnie and Karen Brown of Lone Stone Farms, Westlock, AB for $7,500.

Envoy got to come home with us, where we will winter him and deliver him up to Westlock in time for breeding season next spring.   As fellow consignors at the National Trust, we got to know Karen and Lonnie leading up to the event, and we look forward to seeing the impact Envoy makes on their great walking herd in the years to come.   It is always an honour when a fellow purebred breeder selects one of your bulls for use in their own operation.

The National Trust sale itself was a celebration of the best in Simmental genetics, and that was certainly seen in the resulting $6,800+ average across 44 lots.  Some of the sale features included a really awesome polled full fleck heifer ‘Starwest Pol Snowflake’ selling to Prospect Hill for $25,000, and the ‘Romano’ lot from Virginia Ranch – as both the 30 doses of Romano semen and the Romano bred heifer each brought in more than $15,000.  All in all, it was an incredible sales event, with very strong prices and a great showcase of the strength and diversity of Simmentals.  We look forward to the 2012 edition!

Jeanne washing Envoy - Sunday Oct 23rd.

We are pleased to debut APLX Envoy 2Y at the National Trust on November 4, 2011 in Olds, Alberta.  Envoy has a lot of potential, and we are pleased to have him as part of this elite showcase of Simmental cattle.

We really enjoy the concept of the Trust – a gathering of the best Simmental genetics from across Canada – and are thankful to Transcon for the opportunity to display our bull as part of this unique event.  We feel it is a great opportunity to showcase what will likely be our lead calf from our bull group, that will all sell at the Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale on March 19th, 2012.

We have added a ‘page’ for Envoy which can be found under the ‘Herdbook’  heading as well as a shortcut link on the right.  Pictured here getting what Jeanne calls his ‘Sunday bath’, we hope to having him looking good come Friday.  We are looking forward to a great week in Olds, filled with lots of talk with fellow breeders and, of course,  awesome cattle.

We have updated our ‘Reference Sire’ section to include separate pages for each of the 3 privately owned bulls that we have utilized extensively.

Our breeding philosophy consists of utilizing the best AI genetics we can find, supplemented by a strong walking herd bull group.   While management intensive, we like the ability AI gives us to incorporate diverse genetics from top Fleckvieh bulls into our herd.   It has also allowed us to utilize and help prove some exclusive Dora Lee genetics.

As our numbers have grown, we now have three management groups, giving us the potential to run up to three natural service sires at once.    Going forward, we anticipate maintaining a balanced approach between AI and natural services.   The new section is dedicated to each of the privately owned bulls that we have been fortunate to either acquire semen on, or utilize as walking bulls.  New bulls will be added as we continue to diversify our genetic base.

Hopefully shortly, the Female section will also get the similar treatment to showcase the top 12-15 of our cows.