2025 Shades of Fall Sale Report
2025 Shades of Fall Sale Report (and other fall thoughts around all things cattle)
It was another absolutely gorgeous Canadian Thanksgiving week-end to hold the 2nd Annual ‘Shades of Fall’ Simmental Sale at Beechinor Land & Livestock on Saturday, October 11th. Sunny skies and unseasonably warm weather led up to sale time, with a winter squall moving in to close the doors during the sale itself. The abrupt change in weather didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of bidders, as 40.5 lots of Fleckvieh and Red Simmental females grossed an impressive $757,500 for a smashing $18,950 average.
It is perhaps fitting to start the sales write up with a bit of an explanation on the 0.5 lot. Lot 3 ‘BLL Echo 410M’ was an intriguing opportunity to acquire 50% interest with no possession of a unique top end female. She was a massively volumed heifer wrapped up in a genetic package that combined performance with the ability to moderate birthweight. The ‘Unbelievable’ cow family behind ‘Echo’ just happened to be one that we had previously sampled twice. In 2013, we selected BEE Vendetta 243Z, a direct Unbelievable x Viper daughter from Equation, who continues to leave a lasting legacy here though her daughters. We tapped this same cow family again in 2023 when we added a maternal brother to Echo in ‘Tombstone’ to our bull battery. With so much ‘Unbelievable’ influence already in our own herd, it was especially fun to notice all the interest and buzz with the opportunity to acquire an interest in ‘Echo’. We talked to a number of interested parties leading up to sale day, all of whom were intrigued by the possibility of partnering with BLL on this amazing female. Some weren’t even Simmental breeders! At the end of the day, it was Circle E Farm from Lucedale, Mississippi who bid a whopping $50,000 for 50% of Echo. Wow! It was great to get to know Genry and Heather Ellison of Circle E over the past couple years as they have toured around Central AB. They have invested heavily in top end genetics while also showcasing their own at the Magnolia Classic in Mississippi each fall. It will be exciting to see them be part of future sales closer to home in AB!
Throughout the afternoon, the sale alternated between each consignor and wove the red heifers into a couple of groups between the Flecks. (Not that I know anything about red cattle, but…) My personal pick of the Red Top string was lot 20 – a really nice Walk the Line daughter that was selected by East Point Cattle Corp for $23,000. The Century string was also impressive, with their lot 32, Century Lulu 339L, leading off their offering. This big broody Magnum daughter was backed by Gudas and Crude from the great Virigina Ranch herd, and will be headed State-side as once again Circle E Farm stepped up with the acquisition of another great female. In all, it was awesome to see our fellow consignors have tremendous days!
All six of our Applecross heifers were very well received, and we couldn’t be happier with the great operations that they will now call home. Starting in the East, Bovey Family Farms, from Elginburg, ON, were successful in acquiring Lot 26 Applecross Diva. We met Kevin and Suzanne Bovey during the World Congress tours last summer, and since then they have been on a bit of a whirlwind. They have become new consignors in the Quebec Simmental Week-end, and have travelled back to Alberta multiple times. It was really nice to see them offer up some pretty impressive cattle in Quebec only a few weeks prior to Shades 2025, and then get to see them again on sale day. DJ Farms selected our Lot 31 heifer, Applecross Lexi, so she also enjoyed a long truck ride to southwestern Ontario to join another progressive purebred herd just north of London. To Manitoba went our high seller – Applecross Tessa – to Blue Zone Livestock; Andre and Danica Mangin at St Alphonse. Tessa has settled in well, and I am confident she will be treated like the queen she thinks she is! Logan of Ruszkowski Farms near Prince Albert has been active buying Fleckvieh heifers across the Country this fall and also added Lot 27, Applecross Dior to his collection. Closer to home, Mark Mryglod from Calmar selected Lot 30, Applecross Cindy, to start his papered Fleckvieh herd – having the next generation of Fleckvieh enthusiasts dive into the industry is always a great sign! And finally, Justin Wagner, Wagner Livestock, added our lot 28, Applecross Flora heifer that perhaps had the most impressive EPDs of our entire group. It was also really neat to see Justin purchase another heifer from us as 4 years ago he also acquired ‘Applecross Carly’ from Equation 2021. New buyers or repeat customers, it is always awesome when they find homes with quality purebred and commercial cattle operations.
In addition to the above noted high-sellers, I thought we would share some additional thoughts on the second edition of Shades of Fall:
- I have heard it said that the 2nd sale year is always the toughest. Year one brings out lots of buyers and interested parties to ‘see what is new’ and to ‘support new ventures’, whereas year two typically needs to stand on its own without the ‘good will’ a new sale may start with. We can certainly give credit to a record setting live cattle market, as the ‘2nd year dip’ certainly didn’t happen. I think a lot of that relates back to the quality cattle brought together by our fellow consignors. Stefon, Ben & Jessie all share my passion for digging deep into pedigrees and having a certain eye about what they like in cattle. It certainly seems to blend together nicely on sale day!
- Not to make the sale group sound like a business book, but our group does bring to mind one of my favourite work maxims: ‘surround yourself with people who make you better’. There are many different version of this ‘quote’ (and who it is attributed to) but all have the same theme. There are tremendous advantages to life when you surround yourself with people that want to lift each other up, see mutual success, have similar ambitions, and provide support when things don’t necessarily go right. We are fortunate to have found that with the sales group!
- A sales group that aligns and pitches in together is a wonderful thing for us smaller breeders. It takes all four consignors in the Shades group to ‘add up the numbers’ to what larger breeders can potentially do on their own. While in some vein, we could be considered ‘competitors’ with each other, all chasing the same buyers dollars, it is my preference to view each other more as friends and colleagues that are all trying to be successful and move the breed forward. Seeing our sale partners be successful only strengthens the industry, and by working together on sale prep and hospitality, it allows us to do more than what we could each do on our own. (This is probably also a topic I should dig into deeper on a future blog post!)
- It has been a wild ride in the cattle market. I am not sure even the biggest optimist would have seen calf and commercial bred heifer prices hit the stratospheric level that they have this fall. With my off-farm job being an ‘Ag Banker’ I can’t help but shift to a bit of a business outlook on where the market is headed. If I have learned one thing over my career, it is that ‘good times’ in Agriculture never last. So there will be a correction coming – and probably sooner than anyone realizes. Whenever I hear people talking about a ‘new normal’ it makes me nervous. Agriculture is a commodity driven business, and the beef market can be shaped by many factors – not just the North American cow herd (hello Argentina bail out!) So I do expect that there will be a market correction at some point. As to when? If I knew that, I wouldn’t be a banker – I’d be investing all my market winnings in more cattle!
- When times are great, everyone has their own priorities, depending on their own individual life stage. Some people look to expand / refresh the herd; others that may be more mature maybe look to downsize or exit the industry while it is at a high. Everyone has their own business to run and life to live (and debt levels to be comfortable with!), but I thought for interest sake, I’d share what our priorities were this year, and a little bit of the ‘why’ behind the decisions:
- Culled at least the bottom 20% of our herd.
- We have been able to achieve this goal for each of the past 5 years. It has meant some tough decisions, and also impacted cash flow by retaining (or buying) more bred heifers to add to the herd in order to keep our numbers stable. The good news is that we are much happier with the herd, and that we have been able to move it in a direction that firmly aligns with our vision. And our vision is to walk a group of 50 amazing cows. Ideally, any of whom who could produce high selling progeny on any given year. I do look forward to a point – hopefully not too far away – when our annual cull rate is a more sustainable and idealistic 10% annually – but there are always reasons (type, feet, udders, fertility among them) that keep getting in the way of us achieving this goal. Cull cows are also at market highs, so it has been a great opportunity to keep the herd young while also keeping numbers stable.
- Feed Buffer
- We are very short moisture. We have lived here now for (almost) 20 years, and It is the driest we have ever seen it. For those that haven’t been to our place, we typically have 30 acres of sloughs across our half section – all of which are now dry. We ended last winters’ feeding cycle with only half a dozen hay bales remaining in our yard. We were fortunate in 2025 that there were enough timely rains through out the growing season that feed was plentiful in Central AB before the rain stopped again in early August. As a result, we did invest in additional feed for the current year, and while our herd numbers have held stable, we acquired an extra 20% over our typical feed stocks. Surplus feed allows me to sleep better in May – and also gives more flexibility in case the 2026 season continues a trend towards drought and grass becomes short. One thing farmers can’t control is when it rains. So feed is at the top of our list when it comes to peace of mind.
- Infrastructure
- One of the challenges in the cow-calf sector is labour. It is incredibly tough to scale – you always need people to calve out cows vs the crop sector where they can typically add more acres without more people – so part of our annual process is to ‘improve’ our working conditions and the infrastructure we need to work cattle. Last year it was the young bull development area – this year it was the heifers that got some love. Re-investing in the physical premises makes work easier while also improving cow-comfort. As my dad would have said “If you aren’t fixing it up, it’s falling down” or “a man can’t work without tools”, and “if you love your work, it’s play”; so every year we prioritize a list of ‘what we can do to make things work better’ and depending on the year (and the budget) we try to complete at least one improvement.
- Upcoming herd bull season.
- Herd bull season should be interesting. It looks (maybe) like the North American cow herd is finally expanding. This means more cows/heifers that should need bulls. Also, with meat prices high, the market for cull bulls is incredibly strong. The flip side is that with 8-weight calves bringing $4k+ this fall, a lot of potential bull calves went straight to feedlots. So it will be very interesting to see what the confluence of supply and demand looks like next spring. If the last few years are any indication – elite bulls will be priced at a premium – so we will need to be prepared to dig extra deep should we find a new herd bull that fits all of our selection criteria.
- Which brings me to a related point. As difficult as it is sometimes on sale day, I can do without ‘one more heifer’ but I can’t do without ‘one more bull’ next spring. We are certainly looking to add females this fall. It just needs to be both something that adds to our herd (while being different in genetic make-up) and fits within our budget. At the end of the day, saving bullets for a potentially very expensive herd bull in 2026 is the priority. (editors note: we did get a really sweet heifer bought at Lone Stone though! And with our legacy of consigning there, always try to ‘have options’ at Equation!)
- Culled at least the bottom 20% of our herd.
- With our sale heifers now all in their new homes, our thoughts have drifted toward calving and bull sale season. Calving 2025 will be dominated by our walking bulls – our new heifer bull, FSMB Millenium 12M (Gold Trigger x Magnum), BLL Tombstone 223K (Great Guns Wyatt x Titanium) and the last calf crop from Virginia Journey 509K (Synergy x Radison). We unfortunately lost Journey just after breeding season, and with no frozen in reserve, it will represent his last set of calves. On the flip side, it is always exciting (if a little nerve-racking) to introduce a new herd bull in Millenium. He travelled well from Quebec, and was put right to work with both heifers and a good cross section of cows. It is always fun to see how the genetic possibilities line up – I just always cross my fingers when introducing a new heifer bull!
- After a three to one bull to heifer calf ratio, I am really happy how our bull pen is coming together. With 30-some bull calves to choose from, we whittled that number down to an even dozen for further development. Calf prices were so high, it simply didn’t make economic sense to keep more – and there still may be one or two that may not make the final cut. As Jeanne keeps reminding me ‘we wanted to be in a position to have to make tough choices’ and have been rewarded with how they have transitioned since weaning. We always select for the pen and then complete the genetic testing (to try and offset at least some of my biases), so it is rather neat to have testing back and some cool dudes shaping up well for early March.
- Our bull group skews towards ‘heifer bulls’ this year, with roughly half the bulls being candidates for use on either heifers or first calvers. We are hopeful that the combination of some calving ease while still very much looking the part of ‘herd bulls’ combine to form the right mix come sale day!
- I always get asked about Jeanne’s favourite in the bull pen. This year it is a rotating cast of favourites, as multiple of her ‘veto heifers’ from over the years, gave us awesome bull calves. So today she’ll go with ‘Bam Bam’. We’ve both been Blue Jay’s fans since the Exhibition Stadium era (yes, we are that old), and one of our early dates was to see the Jays via the 5th deck at Skydome in the early 1990’s. Their run this fall was sure exciting, and to celebrate we thought we should have a ‘Bam Bam’ (named after ‘Barger’) which narrowly won out over naming him ‘Bichette’!
- While a smaller group again this year, I do like my heifers…they are coming along nicely as well, and we hope to potentially have 8-10 to offer at Shades 2026. Journey’s, Battleborn’s and Tombstone’s make up the sire groups and they are already a very uniform bunch with style for miles!
- With that, it brings me back full circle to Shades 2025. We were blessed to have Jeanne’s sister and brother-in-law join us for the sale (and Thanksgiving week-end). My mom was also able to attend. With a lifetime spent developing Dora Lee alongside my dad, it may be a surprise to many, but this is the first time my mom has been able to watch Applecross Cattle sell at auction. So it was a treat to have her join us, and reminisce about some of the early ‘Fleckvieh Forum’ sales in Ontario, that coincidently enough, featured the same auctioneer in Dan Skeels – great fun, and absolutely awesome to have her join us!
I can’t close without saying a few words about Transcon, our Sales Management team. Jay, Cody, Glen and Darren always do a quality, professional job – and spend significant amounts of time on the phone – talking – while walking animals out of their pens to check feet, and allow buyers to select animals with confidence. Sales Management remains a long term gig – if a prospective buyer on order isn’t happy with their purchase they won’t be back. It is foundational to have mutual trust in a Sales Management team, and we have that with Transcon.
It was another great day to present Applecross cattle at auction, and we are honoured by the compliments received on our cattle from all the bidders and buyers that took interest in our program. You never know with a new sale venture, or what each year may bring – so it was very rewarding to have an absolutely smashing day. We look forward to trying to showcase our ongoing efforts to produce high-quality genetics that we can share with the industry.
Until next time,
Dennis
Applecross and the Six: Our 2025 ‘Shades of Fall’ Heifers
We are delighted to present six bred heifers at the 2nd annual Shades of Fall Simmental Female Sale on October 11th at 1pm a the Beechinor Land & Livestock Sale Facility, located near Bentley Alberta. Last years’ first event was a smashing success and we look forward to once again joining together with some of our favourite people in the industry to create an awesome sale line up!
This year we are excited to showcase two new sire groups. As smaller breeders it is rare that we purchase two new walking bulls in the same year, but that is just what happened back in 2023. That spring, we were successful in acquiring both BLL Tombstone 223K and Virginia Journey 509K only a week apart. Both are from highly regarded breeding programs that we know very well, and are backed by pedigrees that we have followed for many years. Multi-generations of strong cow families lead to bulls that produce consistent progeny, and both ‘Unbelievable’ and ‘Willows Jade’ are maternal lines that we have long admired.
As shared in the footnotes, Tombstone is a bull we first saw during a summer pasture tour. Even as a six month old calf, he caught our eye. Early maturity, and a very strong ‘presence’, allowed us to track him from across the pasture. I have always thought that the best purebred cattle have a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ (I don’t know what) about them, that is hard to describe. Stage presence. An “it’ factor. Eye Appeal. However you want to describe it, Tombstone certainly caught our attention, and became a target to acquire from the Beechinor bull sale. Through two calf crops, his calves are easy to pick out and his heifers, showcased by ‘Diva’ and ‘Dior’ also exhibit that incredible eye appeal.
Journey was another easy decision – but one we weren’t sure we’d get done. A year previous we had circled another Synergy x Radison son, ‘Full-Tilt’, in our catalogue, only to finish a few bids shy to the astute duo of MAVV Farms & Brian Miller. So in 2023, it was super cool to find ‘Journey’ who exhibited that same balance of moderate calving with thickness and muscling. The cherry on top was the cow family deeper in the pedigree, which showcased generations of predictable quality. The Synergy-Radison combination has also proven to be incredibly popular as a female maker, and we think you’ll find those same traits in ‘Tessa’, ‘Cindy’ and ‘Lexi’.
Not to be overlooked, is our youngest heifer ‘Flora’ who was also sired by one of our walking bulls in Black Gold Battleborn 44H. Battleborn is now deceased, but was a proven curve-bender for us. We were comfortable using him on heifers (before he got too big), while his calves consistently pushed the scale down at weaning, and have been readily accepted at auction. Our ask of our herd bulls is simple. Move our herd forward. And with Battleborn’s first daughters now weaning off their 2nd set of calves, we are confident that he has done that. Nice tidy udders and some punch would define our Battleborn cows.
Our breeding philosophy continues to focus on strong maternal lines across the group, with deep extended pedigrees to ensure quality and consistency. While we try to acquire at least one outcross female each fall, all six of our heifers this year are backed by dams carrying the APLX tattoo, often multi-generations deep. The heifers have been double vaccinated, and have been pregnancy tested to the dates listed. Individual pages (short-cut links are on the right – or simply enter their names in the search bar to find them), have been created for each of ‘Diva’, ‘Dior’, ‘Flora’, ‘Tessa’, ‘Cindy’ and ‘Lexi’. On the individual pages, we have also pictured their sires, dams and siblings – hopefully, sharing pictures will provide a better glimpse into the extended pedigree.
Please join us for some unique ‘Shades Hospitality’ on Saturday, both before and after the sale, when it will be great to visit and view cattle at the newly renovated BLL Sales Facility near Bentley. Please check out our social media on Facebook and Instagram (@aplxcattle) for more details on each of our sale animals. If you have any questions about our heifers or our program, please do not hesitate to contact us. We look forward to visiting with you on Canadian Thanksgiving week-end!
Red Deer County 2025 Bull Sale Report (and other bull sale season thoughts)
Red Deer County 2025 Bull Sale Report (and other bull sale season thoughts)
It was a gorgeous spring day, with unseasonably warm temperatures, that brought a capacity crowd to the Innisfail Auction Market to see a diverse, multi-breed Red Deer County Bull sale on Saturday, March 8th. Now in our 15th year of consigning to this sale, it has steadily evolved and now includes a wide variety of Simmental, Angus, Hereford, and Charolais bulls on offer. The cattle markets continue to be very robust, and it was great to see some really impressive herd sire prospects.
With the multi-breed component now firmly embedded in the Red Deer County Bull Sale, it was the Red Simmentals turn to lead things off. Our good friends at Red Top, Ben & Kassandra Farrant brought a really impressive string to town and their lead bulls started off the day to rousing success. When it was time to present the Flecks, one of our bulls, Lot 68: APLX Payday 20M made sure that everyone was paying attention. This dark red, heavily pigmented, homo polled rascal also happened to be our pen heavyweight – not something you usually see in a heifer bull prospect! Payday’s arrival in the ring led to some very spirited bidding from notable purebred programs from across North America. When the gavel fell, Payday sold for an incredible $38,000 to Jeff Sorenson of Garretson, South Dakota. About a month prior to the sale, Jeff came up to walk through our bull pen and Payday quickly caught his eye. We are pretty excited to have our bull join his elite bull battery south of the border.
For the balance of the APLX string, we had a very solid day, with all of our bulls on offer finding great homes. Emilee Oro / Skylark Cattle Company, Clive (Slash), Valley’s Edge Farm, Eckville (Briggs) and Layden Land & Livestock, Innisfail (Jasper) were all repeat customers of Applecross Genetics, while Rich Simmentals, Calmar (Bono), Moonlite Farm, Fairview (Touchdown) and Keith Pengelly, Caroline (Top Gun) all acquired their first bull from us. It is always a treat to have new customers alongside repeat buyers continue to support our program. In all, it was a great day to watch our bulls sell!
Overall 105 bulls sold for a very impressive $9,533 average – a $1,000,000+ sale! One of the other things we noticed going over the sales report was the that top 5 bulls sold represented 5 different segments of the sale – a Fleck, Charolais, Red Angus, Red Simmental and Hereford were the top five sellers. Talk about a well balanced multi-breed bull sale!
We would be remiss not to recognize Jay Good, Cody Copeland, Darren Paget, Glen Norton and the Transcon team for doing a tremendous job working the phones and managing the sale. I can’t imagine the life those 4 gents (and the auctioneers, and their office team) lead for the crazy two months that is bull sale season – travelling across the prairie provinces with often only a day between sales. Taking calls. Making calls. Offering advice. Dealing with bidders. And buyers. And sellers. It is certainly an occupation built only for some! We really appreciate the work they all put in for us on behalf of Applecross Cattle.
Some additional thoughts on Red Deer 2025 and this years’ bull sale season:
- 2025 was the 2nd time we have ever had the overall high seller at a bull sale. The first was back in 2013 when APLX Axel 5Z was selected by MI Simmentals; Mike Imler for $11,200. Twelve years later, Axel is probably most well know for being the sire of MI Ms Dallas (dam of NAC Battle Cry 4F). With twelve years between topping sales, it is certainly an honour we don’t take lightly!
- We have only ever topped a heifer sale once. That was Fleckvieh Equation 2019 when Applecross Penny 8F was selected by Virginia Ranch for $14,500. Along with the bulk of the Viriginia Ranch cow herd, Penny now walks at Skywest and is fresh off producing a $20,000 bred heifer of her own in ‘Virginia Glamor Gal’ who sold at Western Harvest 2024.
- It is always rather cool, humbling and flattering when a fellow purebred breeder decides to add our genetics to their herd. High sellers are great – but we also love to see all our genetics find awesome new homes.
- For the 4th year in a row, a homozygous polled bull has been our high seller. Similar to when we started selling hetero polled cattle, there is currently a robust demand for homozygous bulls. At the same token, we feel they have to be quality animals to sell well. Customers have options – and there are many traits to be reviewed when selecting a bull – so just because a bull is polled or homozygous, doesn’t mean the sale price is automatically higher.
- I do find it somewhat surprising, but we still hear/see people comment that polled cattle are still somehow ‘deficient’ compared to their horned counterparts.
- My short answer to these comments would be as follows: one of the great things about the purebred cattle business is that every breeder is free to follow their own ideas on breed improvement. If you don’t like polled cattle. Perfectly Fine. Breed horned. Nothing is stopping you.
- My longer answer is that people who suggest such must have a different perspective on where they feel the market for cattle genetics is headed. We see the market for polled cattle continuing to increase, and have been more than adequately compensated for our investment and development of polled cattle. Everyone can’t be the same – and life would be pretty boring if we all were! But I would suggest that the dramatic rise in the number and quality of polled genetics would suggest that the polled trait is here to stay.
- This concept can be extrapolated beyond polled. It doesn’t matter if it is red, black, 100% fleck, full fleck, high percentage fleck, horned, polled, goggled, or traditional painted up Simmental. We have an incredibly diverse breed with quality across every segment! Breed the cattle you enjoy, have a focus and become good at it! The market rewards quality, useful cattle, so follow your own vision (while also ensuring you can make a buck). That is the fun of being a purebred cattle breeder!
- One of the great side effects of all the interest in polled, is that there are more options to choose from! Our own search for genetics led us to Quebec and FSMB Millenium 13M to add as our new walking heifer bull. With a pedigree that reads: Gold Trigger x Magnum x Dirty Harry, his genetics aren’t necessarily new, but pack a certain consistency that should dovetail well in our heifer pen. With pretty cool pigmentation and quiet as a kitten, we look forward to his impact on our program as we move forward.
- One thing I have noticed about people during my off farm career that definitely applies to cattle breeders: Don’t just listen to what people say. See how they act as well. In the context of cattle, this translates into watching what breeders are buying and not just what they are selling. A purebred breeder has to market and promote what they have on hand (and thus that is what they will focus on talking about), but actions on what genetics are being added to a herd tends to reveal more about their longer term direction. It takes a long time to incorporate new genetics into a herd. A bull bought in 2025 will have their first calves on the ground in 2026, with the first sons on offer selling in 2027 – and the first daughters won’t calve until 2028. And that is the earliest new genetics make their way through a program! So it takes time for a new bull to make an impact – and prove themselves. If you admire a program and want to ‘follow’ it, keep a closer eye on their buying decisions vs what they may have on offer.
- Closer to home, we continue to make changes and invest in our operation.
- We spent considerable time and energy making improvements and revamping our bull development facility in 2024 with more tweaks planned for 2025.
- We have talked openly about our struggles with semen testing our yearling bulls in the past, and while our reno’s appear to have helped in that regard, we still had a few younger bulls that didn’t pass their tests in time.
- While we do agree with our vet that we ask a tremendous amount of a yearling Simmental bull – that needs to test and measure up at 12 months of age – we do compare to our peers who seem to have more luck. So there are more changes we can make, and hopefully we can keep increasing the odds of a successful test.
- (If I can get my thoughts together, I hope to do a deeper dive into the world of bull development and semen testing in a future blog post).
- The importance of the bull pen will certainly ring true for 2026, as we have an absolutely massive bull calf crop coming up. We ran 2:1 bulls this year, and we look forward to making some hard decisions at weaning time. Our bull calf crop is dominated by sons of our ‘Journey’ and ‘Tombstone’ walking bulls, so we expect a very consistent bull string for 2026.
- We are also keeping an eye on our bred heifer pen. With ‘Shades of Fall’ being a couple months earlier than December’s Equation, the selection process also starts earlier. We tentatively have 8 heifers that we are considering, but there are some milestones they still need to achieve. Every animal we sell carries our prefix, so we need to be happy with every single one of them!
For fifteen years now, it has been great to be part of the Red Deer County Bull Sale. Public auction is a great forum to get feedback on the program we are building at Applecross. We strive to produce top quality cattle, and every year provides the opportunity for feedback and ideas on what we could do differently. Some years we have the euphoria of a super high seller – other years, we don’t – but not a year goes by that we don’t learn how to do things a little better for next year. It is simply so important to continue to receive tips and advice on how to make improvements to our program.
With the bull sale now in the rear-view mirror, and breeding season underway, the breeding groups have finally been decided for the year as the excitement to incorporate new genetics competes with genetic combinations that have worked so well in the past. We look forward to the challenge of developing more, different and better genetics for future years.
Until Next Time,
Dennis
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!
A (very) Little Prayer
It was a miserable, blustery, late November day – the kind of day that makes you feel in your bones that winter was right around the corner. Our corral cleaners were finally finishing up in the yard – getting the manure spread on our pastures to support another growing season. Despite all of the planning that we do, there always seems to be a frantic rush to get the fall work done while we could, and prepare our winter ‘calving quarters’ for another year. The cows had already been moved ‘home’ – not quite to the corrals that were now freshly cleaned, but close enough that we could see them from the house (and close enough that feeding the cows hay wasn’t too much travel). With calving just over a month away, we liked having our ‘cattle circle’ get tighter, leading to a little closer attention, with daily walkthroughs to see who is progressing to schedule. In most cases, we just wanted to re-establish a base line for what ‘normal’ looked like so that we could hopefully tell when something didn’t look ‘right’.
It was that morning, November 21st, when Jeanne came in after her walkthrough, to share the news: “Paprika is looking off – I think she is aborting”. Paprika was one of our first calf heifers and was a star-headed, big volume beauty that we retained to add to our herd. From our living room window, Paprika’s unique colour pattern allowed us to keep an eye on her. As the day progressed, all the (literal) tell ‘tail’ signs starting showing – she was restless – her tail would go up – and she separated herself from the rest of the herd. Jeanne walked through again at noon and confirmed – Paprika was in the process of aborting. Early afternoon, her pattern changed. She was standing still; licking something on the ground. Figuring that she had passed her fetus, we thought we’d give her some time to ‘grieve’ before getting too involved.
It was about 4pm when Jeanne went out for a closer inspection. The calf was all clean and Paprika was standing over it protectively. Then the calf moved! Much to our surprise. The calf was alive.
So what do you do with a tiny little calf born 6 weeks early? We do what we think all farmers/ranchers do. We do the best we can to the extent of our abilities.
We were fortunate in one sense. This wasn’t our first experience working with a very premature calf. The first time it happened, we were successful with a little girl named ‘Hope’ that had the fight and willpower to survive. And those experiences with Hope made us a little bit ‘hope’-ful, that as things worked out before, maybe they would again! The other side was that, calves born so prematurely tend to be aborted for a reason – so what if we weren’t going to be so lucky with this one?
With thoughts swirling in our heads, we knew we were ‘on the clock’ and needed to get started. The first priority was to get the calf inside to ensure it was warm enough, which would also allow us to have a closer look to determine next steps. Our challenge was, of course, that our corrals were completely ripped apart so they could be cleaned. Virtually our entire yard site at Applecross is modular by design. The thought process is, that there is simply so much more versatility gained by utilizing portable panels that can be moved, reconfigured and expanded over the years – not to mention be moved right out of the way when it’s clean out time! New ideas (and more cows!) meant we had a tremendous amount of flexibility. The downside was, that when ‘stuff’ happens while we have the place apart, it isn’t very conducive to managing a baby calf! We did have gates that we could close to eliminate road access for the cows, so we decided to get the calf, and hopefully mom would follow.
With the two of us, we headed back out to the field to get down to work. Her momma wasn’t really sure what was up, but knew that the little brown bundle was ‘hers’ and something she should be protecting. And if there is one thing I have learned over the years, it was to always be careful around a cow with a newborn. It can change cows. And for a first calf heifer, Paprika was all mama. It took a little back and forth – and both of us – but we managed to get the calf onto the calving sled, and then transfer the sled to the back of the gator. With the calf secured, we decided to head for the barn and get the calf warm – mom could wait until we had the calf stabilized and comfortable.
After finding some straw to make the little calf a nest under a couple of heat lamps, we could finally take a temperature. It was a little low, but not near as cold as we feared. We took a few minutes to assess overall health. Certainly not much hair, the hooves were still soft, and we weren’t sure that eyesight was fully functional (yet). We were happy to determine it was a heifer though. For whatever reason, we have found heifer calves born of trauma tend to have more ‘fight’ in them (and are typically at the other end of the spectrum of ‘big dumb bulls’)…so seeing that she was lively and a heifer did give us a little more hope. We have always been told that getting some milk in the calf was also vital. We weren’t stocked for calving yet, but a frantic call to a neighbour found some colostrum close at hand (thanks Stacey!). With the calf so small, we only made up a partial dose, as we knew she’d only have a tiny tummy.
With the calf stable and warm, inside and out, next step was re-uniting her with mom. Paprika was still looking for her calf, but was really uncertain about heading towards the barn. Thankfully, we have a few cows that we utilize as ‘Judas cows’ (traitors), that know what a grain bucket means and don’t mind following people if they know they’ll get a ‘treat’ at the end of the journey. Once we got Paprika partnered up with a Judas cow and separated from the rest of the herd, our traitor knew to follow the gator, which meant Paprika also tagged along. It (again) took a little bit of back and forth, but eventually we got both mom and our Judas cow to the barn.
The next step was getting Paprika – as a first calf heifer – IN the barn, a place she hadn’t been since she herself was a newborn calf. In a normal scenario, prior to their due date, we train our first calf heifers to come in the barn a few times so they get comfortable being in over night (bribed with a little treat for their time). This process typically reduces stress at calving, as they are ‘more’ used to being in the barn and can focus on their new baby (which is a big enough change!) So again, with the Judas cow (knowing there was a treat involved), eventually we were able to coax the new mom into the barn to be re-united with her baby. We did ensure they had a fair bit of space. We didn’t want mom panicking and stepping on her calf – alone in a barn she had barely been in, that didn’t even ‘smell’ like cows yet this season. But we wanted them close enough together that they could start bonding. Certainly a tricky balance! And with that step complete, we took a break for a couple of hours (but could still check on them from the house via our cameras).
We went back out to the barn just before bed to see if we could make more progress. While store-bought ‘powdered’ colostrum works for emergencies, it has always been our preference to use ‘mama’s milk’ whenever we could. Sensing (if we were successful) that Paprika would need to get used to us working with her, we thought it was time to get her in the maternity pen headgate so we could strip some colostrum. With a foot secured with a rope, mom safely, (but unhappily) allowed us to hand milk her. Equipped with a small milk bottle meant for sheep, that we had kept on hand since our previous experience with ‘Hope’, Paprika’s baby already had quite the suck reflex. The milk from the smaller sheep bottle disappeared very quickly. Sensing progress, tired and exhausted, we went to bed for the night – content that we had done what we could – and hopeful that the next day would bring continued milestones.
This maternity pen routine carried on for the next few days. Jeanne and I worked together to get Paprika back in the headgate each morning; ensuring we also got enough milk for a lunch time feeding while I was at work. Evenings after Jeanne’s dance classes wrapped up, led to another trip to the headgate for Paprika and an evening snack before bed. While the little girl really enjoyed her bottle, we’ve always tried to get calves sucking from their dam as soon as possible, so our next ‘big step’ was to try and get the little one standing so she could start to do more on her own. After giving her a snack, we would work with her to get her legs going. Starting at the back end, we assisted her to tri-pod her back legs to put weight on them. She gradually got steadier and then, with a hand under her chest we helped her stand on all four legs. It certainly was a project, with lots of falls, and not always linear progress, but on the evening of day 3 she was able to stand on her own.
With mom safely back in the maternity pen headgate, our next step was getting her to drink fresh milk from mama. Some continued persistence and with help from both of us, she quickly found the natural spigots – and was very happy there were 4 of them! The next morning brought another trip to the maternity pen headgate for Paprika, and another small drink for her calf. She seemed a little more steady on her front feet, and had more energy. So we started thinking bigger picture. As we had a similar experience (with Hope) a few years ago, we looked back over our notes to see what all we did ‘last time’. We weighed her and she came in at only 40lbs! We also treated with Dex (which helps to lubricate the lungs which when born premature can be an issue), and gave the calf a broad-based antibiotic, as we knew that her immune system wouldn’t have been developed. We also consulted our vet (and some trusted cattle friends) for anything we may have missed, but were cautiously optimistic as the calf continued to make progress. At lunch time, she only needed one of us to help her get a drink, and then 24 hours later she was able to stand and nurse on her own – and could balance herself right underneath her mom! Milestones and progress certainly brought smiles!
With the baby calf gradually improving, our next step was figuring out a name. We had been calling her ‘Two-point-oh’ for the first week (as in Hope 2.0), as we consciously made the decision not to name her for a week because we were trying not to get any more attached than we already were. We always named our calves at birth, and while our numbers have increased over the years, it is a process we still find both manageable and fun. For heifer calves we typically follow the name of the dam, and in this case, Paprika was the legacy of our popular (and prolific) ‘P’ cow family that started all the way back in 2010 when we acquired Spruceburn Pauline as a bred heifer. Pauline gave us ‘Poppy’ who gave us ‘Piper’, who gave us ‘Pepper’ who provided us with “Paprika’, so the new calf would be the 6th generation of this cow family to walk here. After a fair bit of consideration, there was one name that seemed to fit for our premature little baby: ‘Prayer’. Certainly a lot of thoughts were sent skyward during the formative hours of Prayer’s young life, so the name stuck.
With little Prayer now drinking on her own, we were able to settle into more of a routine. We set up the rest of the barn , and gradually shifted from 3x a day nursing in the maternity pen, to finally having her do things on her own. In reality, Prayer figured things out very quickly, but those first few days were very intense and time consuming. In all, it took just over a week before she was able to nurse on her own in the ‘big pen’ of our calving barn – with only a bribe for mom, and the odd bit of assistance. Paprika never really warmed to the barn – and didn’t appreciate all the extra attention – although she still enjoyed the pellets, she just never seemed content…so after about a week in the barn, mom went outside for most of the day, while young Prayer stayed inside in the warmth.
When the next two calves arrived on Christmas day, we decided we might as well weigh all three. Prayer was 90lbs! So she certainly had progressed a long way – more than doubling her body weight in just over a month. With other calves around to socialize with, and us knowing that our peak calving window was right in front of us, we also started letting Prayer spend some time outside. Her hair had grown in, and while we were still concerned about an underdeveloped immune system, we knew that fresh air would be good for her. So she became used to leaving the barn in the morning, and then sneaking back inside at night time when the temperature dropped. Even in February, we would bring her back in the barn when nights dropped below -20. It was important for her to meet and bond with other calves, but we wanted to continue to give her, her best chance at success.
As winter turned to spring, and spring to summer, Prayer continued to progress. Despite her early birthdate, she was never one of the ‘big girls’, and we also suspect that her early arrival (and small tummy) impacted the amount of milk her dam produced. Come summer though, as the pictures will attest, she certainly stood with her group. She has grown A LOT of hair to make up for her early start, and continues to look like she has her genetic potential. She still has a few hurdles to pass – breeding in the spring – calving out in 2026 – but we remain cautiously optimistic. She even won the genetic lottery and tested homozygous polled. So certainly a great combination of determination, perseverance and luck! We look forward to continuing to work with her and hopefully those milestones will continue to be passed!
Ranching is not an easy occupation. We lose calves. Sometimes for reasons we aren’t sure of. An aborted calf can be simply another aborted calf. And then other times, we have our ‘Hope’ and we have our ‘Prayer’. Time that we invest. Willingly. As caretakers of our herd. It doesn’t always work out, but when it does we wanted to share the story. There can be so much negative in our chosen profession, and it is a profession that is often undertaken alone, so hopefully sharing our experience can help. Sometimes, Prayers are answered, and our efforts are rewarded, with a determined little girl that will always be our Prayer.
Until next time,
Dennis
2024 Shades of Fall Sale Report (and a few other thoughts)
It was an absolutely gorgeous Canadian Thanksgiving week-end to hold the inaugural ‘Shades of Fall’ Simmental Sale at Beechinor Land & Livestock on Saturday October 12th. Sunny skies and unseasonably warm weather lead to a busy debut for the new sale, with lots of traffic and a palpable buzz in the air. Our new group of consignors joined together to bring 34 lots of Fleckvieh and Red Simmental females to the party to the tune of a $551,000 gross for a really cool $16,206 average.
It was very fitting to start the sale with Lot 1, the BLL Couture 663D Flush. Couture is, of course, the dam of the $355,000 sensation BLL Rumble, as well as the World Sale standout BLL Crimson Tide. The opportunity to flush this elite female to the bull of the buyers choice led to a rousing start to the day. In the end, it was Mark Land & Cattle from Irma, AB who invested $33,000 to flush Couture next February . The Couture flush was backed by the opportunity to acquire her daughter – Lot 2 – BLL Elegance 317L a little later in the sale. This deep and broody powerhouse bred heifer had a tremendous number of admirers, and was selected by Circle E Farm, Genry & Heather Ellison, Lucedale Mississippi, for $27,500. What a way to kick off to the sale – it will be very interesting to see the Couture influence flourish across the continent!
Our very own lot 24, ‘Applecross Rachel 60K,’ had the honour of being the third lot sold. ‘Rachel’ has long been a favourite of ours and she was difficult for us to sell, but at the same time, we knew she would be the perfect representative to showcase our program. With the World Congress in Calgary this summer, we started to get used to the idea that maybe we should market her – and when we decided to join in a new sales group, Rachel became a natural fit to showcase exactly the progress we’ve made with polled Fleckvieh cattle. She was certainly the most talked about female that we have ever produced, so it was truly rewarding to see her sell to the BBBG Group in Quebec for $32,000. We are stunned by the result and look forward to seeing what she does (and how she’ll be bred), in la belle province.
Throughout the afternoon, the sale alternated between each consignor and wove the red heifers into a couple of groups between the Flecks. These were the first Red Top breds to sell at auction, and they were a very consistent group from top to bottom. (Not that I know anything about red cattle, but…) My personal pick of the Red Top string was lot 20 – a really nice Bootlegger daughter that was selected by Crossroads Farms for $21,000. The Century string was also impressive, with their lot 36, Century Liz 333L leading off their string. This big broody female with a little different pedigree dropped the gavel at $22,000 and is headed north to Polar Farms in the Peace Country. It is cool to see Polar Farms join the consignors at the early December, Western Harvest Sale in Innisfail, so maybe we will see Liz’s progeny there in the future!
All six of our Applecross heifers were very well received, and we couldn’t be happier with the great operations that they will now call home. Lot 24 Applecross Dana will be staying at our place through calving until March before heading for embryo collection to be exported to Jeff Knox, Knox Farms, NSW Australia. Jeff also selected Dana’s maternal sister Deirdre from our 2023 Equation string (as well as lot 11 BLL Linnea 343L from Shades), and has been active in a couple other sales this fall, so it is rather neat to see the pen of donors he is assembling. Jonny Kline of JEM Simmentals at Barrhead was the successful bidder on our lot 26 ‘Viola’ heifer, and we look forward to seeing what he does with that big volume female. Our Lot 27, ‘Sonya’ heifer also got to take a long truck ride – as she headed to Norwood Family Farm in Westport, Ontario. Charlie Norwood has known my parents for quite a number of years, and we have enjoyed the chance to visit on a few occasions here in Alberta, so it was wonderful to have him select ‘Sonya’! ‘Charlene’ and ‘Danica’ headed in opposite directions, with Charlene heading north to Vanderhoof in the BC interior, after being selected by Brock Young/Red Iron Simmentals, and Danica heading to Stavely in Southern Alberta to join the Browns at MCG Simmentals. MCG has joined the Southern Round-Up Group, so we look forward to seeing their cattle in mid December at that long running sale. In all, a great day for new homes for Applecross Cattle!
In addition to the above noted high-sellers, I thought we would share some additional thoughts on the first edition of Shades of Fall:
- I can’t say enough about our hosts, Stefon & Rebecca Beechinor. It takes some ‘gumption’ to follow your dreams, and step out and start your own sale. I can only imagine that first conversation with Transcon….’you want to do what?? With who?? And how many head??’. And from top to bottom it was a really cool day, with everything coming together fabulously well. The results certainly speak for themselves!
- Shades did line up very well with Black Gold and Anchor D / Pasture Treasure Sales immediately preceding our new event. Following September Simmental Week-ends in both Quebec and Ontario, we had the first of several ‘Alberta Simmental week-ends’ of the fall, and I think travellers from out of province really appreciated having the opportunity for sales back to back in the same geographic proximity.
- We are also super thankful to have Dan Skeels as our auctioneer; specifically since it was only the day after his own sale – so we really appreciate him taking the time to work with us. Having known Dan since the early 1990’s when he auctioned the ‘Fleckvieh Forum’ sale in Ontario for my parents, it was a treat to have him auction his first Applecross females almost 30 years later.
- This was our first ‘video’ sale, and it is something I would highly recommend. There was a little more cost involved for professional videos, but the benefit of having 1) a quality video available in advance, and 2) the animals not being stressed by having to walk through the ring, more than offset any perceived ‘loss of bids’ from those in attendance who may have otherwise ‘acted on impulse’ with a live animal in front of them. Not that it was a material issue (with only 34 lots), but it also meant a much ‘shorter’ sale, so we could get back to visiting!
- We are clearly incredibly happy with how our first ‘Shades’ sale went. But we will miss (parts) of Fleckvieh Equation. We don’t make change lightly, and Equation was a very good sale for us over the years – a lot of ‘what to do’ and ‘when to do it’ regarding sale prep and presentation we learned from that sale. Jay / Transcon’s continued focus on having an avenue where ‘new breeders’ (or at least new to the sales barn), can get their start is a testament to his vision of helping breeders of all shapes and sizes get a lift, while creating networking and bonding opportunities to connect to others that may also just be starting out. It is a great sale concept, and I am sure they will have another bang up year in 2024
- We won’t miss the wash racks or the late December concerns of heavy in calf breds on a truck to their new homes though!
- It is a bit of a weird feeling to have our heifers sold, with (most) of our buying options still in front of us. I have shared previously that we always try to ‘add’ each fall and re-invest in building our cow herd. There are a number of criteria (the six/seven P’s from a previous blog post still explain them well). But the condensed version is that we are interested in adding females that we feel have the potential to improve our herd, while also representing outcross genetics. With a smaller herd, every female matters – so they need to bring something to the table. It is very nice having our own sold so I am not just ‘guessing’ at a budget (says the banker). I look forward to the hunt for better and different!
- In the lead up to sales, we often get asked ‘what do you think they’ll sell for?’. And the short answer to that question is that I have no idea. I have a personal opinion of our cattle, and readily acknowledge we are both ‘barn blind’ and often REALLY like our cattle on offer. Other than knowing how much interest we have, and potentially giving some guidance on what our bulls or heifers have averaged in past years crossed against the current commercial cattle market, we can’t really provide much guidance.
- And that is the fun (and challenge) of selling all our cattle via auction. It always takes at least two potential buyers to move the price higher. We have had years where we have sold animals for less than what we had hoped for. We have had years where we have bought animals for less than what our budget was. And still other years where we may have missed on our ‘favourites’ from the season. The common thread is that you have to be ready/willing to bid. And you need to know your limit (and stay within it – mostly!). Because you just never know. Its an auction.
- With our sale heifers now all in their new homes, our thoughts have drifted toward calving and bull sale season. Calving 2025 will be dominated by our two, two-year old walking bulls – Virginia Journey 509K (Synergy x Radison) and BLL Tombstone 223K (Great Guns Wyatt x Titanium). Both had very successful first calf crops, and due to the unfortunate (and unplanned) early departure of Black Gold Battleborn, they bred the bulk of our herd. Each has its own positives (we felt comfortable using Journey on some heifers; Tombstone offers a little different pedigree than most), so it will be fun to see how the genetic possibilities line up.
- It is also the first time ever that I think I like our bull calf group better than our heifer calf group in development. As Jeanne said at weaning ‘you wanted this!’, so while it meant some tough decisions, we whittled 25 bull calves down to 11 really cool individuals, and have been super happy with how they have transitioned since weaning. With genetic testing freshly in hand, I can only smile. I think early March in Red Deer could be fun!
- I can already share that Jeanne’s favourite is ‘Payday’. And yes, he’ll do. The footnotes will also just write themselves ‘make every day. Payday.’ hey-o!
- Our summer project was to revamp our bull development area and add more wind breaks. We didn’t want to take away from exercise space, as it is important for young bulls to move and keep their feet under them, so we added a number of portable panels while still allowing them space to roam. Our winters can be brutal, so hopefully a little more protection will certainly be of value come semen test day!
- I don’t want to imply that I don’t like my heifers…they are coming along nicely as well, and we hope to potentially have 8-10 to offer at Shades 2025. There just may not be a ‘Rachel’ in the group. I don’t think it is realistic to have a ‘Rachel’ every year. But it is both a lot of fun trying, and a lot of fun when it happens!
- With that, it brings me back full circle to Shades 2024. Not only were Stefon & Becca great hosts, it was really cool to work with Ben & Kassandra and Jesse & Kirsten. Everybody pitched in to help out before/during/after the sale, and us four couples all have a similar ‘vibe’. We look forward to next year and many more years of the same!
- We were also blessed to have Jeanne’s two sisters and their husbands join us for the sale (and Thanksgiving week-end). Many hands make light work, and they meshed seamlessly with our sales crew – Jackie, Julie, Larry & Andrew were all a great help that we really appreciated! Andrew’s pictures will form great memories of the day!
I can’t close without saying a few words about Transcon, our Sales Management team. Jay, Darren, Glen and Cody always do a quality, professional job – and spend significant amounts of time on the phone – talking – while walking animals out of their pens to check feet, and allow buyers to select animals with confidence. Sales Management remains a long term gig – if a prospective buyer on order isn’t happy with their purchase they won’t be back. It is foundational to have mutual trust in a Sales Management team, and we have that with Transcon.
It was another great day to present Applecross cattle at auction, and we are honoured by the compliments received on our cattle from all the bidders and buyers that took interest in our program. You never know with a new sale venture, or what each year may bring – so it was very rewarding to have an absolutely smashing day. We look forward to trying to showcase our ongoing efforts to produce high-quality genetics that we can share with the industry.
Until next time,
Dennis
Our Red Deer County 2024 Sale Report (and a Few Other Thoughts)
It was a gorgeous early spring day, with mild temperatures, lots of sunshine, and an absolute capacity crowd on hand to watch 119 lots of pure beef bulls roll through the Innisfail Auction Mart for Transcon’s Red Deer County Bull Sale. The multi-breed concept expanded again this year, so there was a broad selection of bulls on offer, representing Simmental, Angus, Hereford and Charolais genetics with an impressive amount of diversity within each breed – horned or polled; red, black or fullblood – there were simply lots of options to choose from!
The lead bulls rotated back to Simmental this year, and the sale started off with some palpable excitement as the first BEE Alpha sons were set to lead off the Red Deer 2024. We were at Beechinor’s the day that Ben & Kassandra Farrant selected BEE Alpha 915J, and if we recall correctly they paid $120,000 for the privilege. You wouldn’t think it possible to ever fly under the radar with a $120,000 bull purchase, but with the record setting ‘Rumble’ also selling that day, the ‘Alpha’ acquisition was maybe a little overlooked. The whole pen of Alpha sons were incredibly impressive; with none more so than Lot 10, Red Top Mr 108L. After some very spirited bidding, the gavel slammed home at $80,000, with Labatte Simmentals and Circle 7, from Shaunavon, SK emerging as the successful bidders! An amazing way to kick off the day, and rather cool to have the lead bull selected to work the legendary pastures at Labatte’s! We have gotten to know Ben & Kassandra over the years as we have been part of the same bull and heifers sales, and it is absolutely incredible to see their passion for elite purebred cattle shine though and be rewarded in the sales ring. It can be tremendously stressful to step out and invest heavily in purebred genetics, and it takes years to develop a program and weave different genetic lines together, so it was so awesome to see their success!
It was also a record day for Applecross Cattle. In the lead up to the sale, we received a lot of interest in this years’ bull string, specifically in our two homozygous polled bulls. We were really happy in the condition all our sale bulls were in and thought they were a pretty neat group that each had their own merits (and personalities!). The challenge with auctions is that you always need at least two bidders to be interested in the same bull for the price to move higher, and we certainly did more than alright in that regard in 2024! APLX Conway 23L, our lot 103 bull, was selected by Forden Fairview Farm / Lyle & Leanne Forden of Punnichy SK for $30,000, and has already made the trip to Saskatchewan, where he got off the truck and went straight to work! Meanwhile, lot 98, APLX Bastion 17L was selected for $23,000 by Jensen Simmentals in Osawatomie, Kansas, and will be leaving this week for his new home in the sunny south. Steve Jensen also selected a bred heifer (Applecross Abigail) from us at Equation 2023, so we certainly appreciate all his interest and support over the past few months! Lot 104, APLX Convoy 12L, also gets a lengthy truck-ride as he’ll be headed for Big Hills Simmentals, Sandy Lake, MB, while lot 99 APLX Biggio 30L, gets to stay close to home after being acquired by Ryan Layden / Layden Land & Livestock Ltd, from Red Deer County. Ryan was a repeat buyer for us, after selecting ‘Dillon’ from us back in 2021. It is always special to see customers return for more bulls. We were incredibly happy with our sales results, and its rather cool that three of our bulls will be working for fellow purebred breeders!
Overall, the sale averaged a very impressive $9,710, with 55 Simmentals averaging $10,486. 8 Charolais averaged $9,938, with 8 Black Angus averaging $10,688, 17 Herefords averaging $6,882 and 6 Red Angus averaging 9,000. It was great to have success throughout the auction across so many of the consignors!
Once again we need to recognize the team at Transcon for doing a tremendous job working the phones and managing the sale. The Red Deer County Bull Sale is part of an extremely busy stretch of events, and we appreciate the time and energy Jay Good, Glen Norton, Darren Paget, and Cody Coupland invest to ensure we have a successful sale. We are confident in referring inquiries we receive to the Transcon Team, for an unbiased and independent opinion of our cattle. They were constantly on the phone and in our pens, taking pictures of feet, watching the bulls walk out and passing their findings back to prospective buyers. With our three lead bulls all being selected by ‘Transcon on Order’ they were certainly busy! Every year has different bulls and different buyers (looking for different things), and their efforts may not always be as tangible as they were this year, but we always appreciate all of their hard work! We look forward to working with them again later in the year at Fleckvieh Equation!
A few additional thoughts on Red Deer 2024:
- A common theme on our two high sellers were certainly the homo-polled heads, but I also think that the non-dilutor status also made a difference in their sale price. We have tested for the dilutor gene for a number of years now, and it is another trait on our list that we check for. We have walked several dilutor carrier bulls over the years, so it isn’t a ‘deal breaker’, but we wouldn’t be doing our job of we weren’t noticing traits our customers also select for.
- We had another tough year on the semen testing front, with 5 of our 10 bulls making it to sale day. While the reasons did vary a bit, we have certainly done a lot of reflecting on our program and how we can improve things going forward. (It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results). We are looking to our wintering area as a spot that may need an upgrade.
- One of the downsides of wintering our sale bulls in a 5 acre paddock is that they don’t always have protection from the elements when it is -50 or when there is a -20 degree windchill…so maybe we can create a balance – where they have access to a larger space (to exercise and travel to keep their feet under them), but then also have the ability to confine them to a smaller, protected area once ‘hard winter’ hits. Things to think about; changes to make; as it simply doesn’t make economic sense to raise bulls that just end up in the meat ring. We can never be perfect, (and certainly we can’t expect every bull to always pass their semen test), but we can certainly learn and get better!
- One of the largest changes for Red Deer 2024 was the size of the sale. With the addition of several new consignors and different breeds, there were a total of 130 bulls catalogued, which was almost double the 68 bulls that sold in this sale only two years ago in 2022. There are a number of good things – the capacity crowd on hand meant Innisfail Auction Mart had as many people in attendance as I had ever seen, and more bulls translates into lower costs for consignors. But there are also some downsides – with some awesome BBQ on site, despite cutting steaks in half, we still ran out of food (and water) for all our guests. And, with such a large crowd, we know some people that left early (hopefully to go home to watch/bid online!).
- I also wonder if the Fullblood Simmentals ‘got lost’ a bit within the sale. With so many breeds on offer, and a lengthy sale, there wasn’t a separate ‘fullblood’ carve out – with 3-5 selling in one spot, 5 in another, and then a couple here and there throughout the day. Part of that is on us – if our entire bull string had passed semen testing, the fullblood numbers would have been a fair bit higher, but I do think that bidders and buyers interested in Fullblood bulls, had to be very diligent throughout the afternoon, not to ‘miss’ bulls. We have attended several large dispersals over the years, and found that often the best opportunities for upside were found later in the day, so there are always pro’s and con’s to larger events – perspective that also depends on whether a person is buying or selling!
- In regards to our own breeding program in 2024, we will be staying fairly ‘status quo’ after splurging last year on two new herd sires. Both BLL Tombstone 223K and Virginia Journey 509K now have their first calf crops on the ground, and we are pretty pumped about each bull’s potential based on the early returns from their respective calf crops. Black Gold Battleborn 44H is now the ‘proven seasoned veteran’ of the group and, while he has outgrown the heifer pen, he has proven himself to be very versatile, allowing us to have three fairly even breeding groups.
Over the past fourteen years, it has been great to be part of the Red Deer Bull Sale and 2024 was certainly no exception. Public auction is a great forum to get feedback on the program we are building at Applecross Cattle, and we were both humbled and honored with the number of compliments our pen of bulls received throughout the week-end, from both peers in the purebred industry and commercial cattlemen alike. We strive to produce top quality cattle, and can at times be our own worst critics, so it is wonderful to hear all the kind words. Not a year goes by that we don’t learn how to do things a little better for next year, and it is equally important to continue to receive tips and advice on how to make improvements to our program. With the bull sale now in the rear-view mirror, and breeding season underway, we look forward to the challenge of developing more and different genetics for future years.
Until next time,
Dennis
Equation 2023 Sales Preview: A Perfect ’10’
We are proud to present ten heifers (three opens and seven breds), at Transcon’s Fleckvieh Equation on Saturday December 16th at 1pm at the Westerner Grounds in Red Deer, Alberta. All ten heifers are polled, and include three homozygous polled bred heifers. While the title says ‘perfect’, we want to be clear: we are not suggesting that our heifers on offer are perfect (we would humbly suggest that no animal is ‘perfect’). But we are super proud of this group – as they perfectly represent what our Applecross program is all about, and the direction we are headed. Highly maternal focus. Polled heads without sacrificing the key traits fullblood Fleckvieh are known for. Deep pedigrees with consistency built in.
Leading off this year is the progeny of Black Gold Battleborn 44H. After just two calf crops, Battleborn is a bull that has significantly moved our program forward. Selecting him from the Noble Family back in 2021 represented a pretty big swing for us, and at the time, our largest ever investment in genetics. He has developed into a true curve bender; as we are comfortable using him on heifers, while his calves have also been the heaviest sire group the past two falls. We feel his influence is only beginning, and will be on full display with this years group. The neatest opportunity is the ability to compare two genetic full sisters a year apart in age – the open heifer Delaney, and Deirdre her bred counterpart. I talked extensively in this space last year of our desire to add ‘Anchor T Impact’ as a female maker to our cow herd, and ‘Deirdre’ and ‘Delaney’ are the perfect examples to showcase why. Of the two, Deirdre is a bred heifer in full bloom that will simply need to be seen for her natural, easy keeping volume to be appreciated – truly a matron female in the making! Not to be outdone, Delaney is the example of ‘what could be’ a year younger, but already setting the table with softness and capacity. They both have eye-popping numbers and matching friendly temperaments!
Our other Battleborn offspring – Veronica, Dolly and Bonita – are all worth a long look. ‘Veronica’ is the first female descendant from our ‘Vendetta’ matron, who we acquired from our good friends the Beechinors a decade ago at Equation 2013. ‘Dolly’ just goes about her business, packing that ideal Fleckvieh build onto a modest frame. As an added bonus, she also represents what a Wedge daughter can produce on her first try! Our offering at Equation also wouldn’t be complete without a DLD 48R grand-daughter, so we dug deep and are offering a dark cherry red, soft made stunner in ‘Bonita’ – an animal I think a herd could be built around. We are super excited with the potential of these Battleborn daughters, and look forward to calving the first of our own out in just a few months!
In the “something different” category, we present ‘Abigail’ and ‘Della’. Abigail represents the first of our ‘Confidence’ daughters to ever sell at auction, as I have a tendency to hoard them all. Her dam is ‘Keet’s Princess Grace’ who we selected back at Equation 2020, and has produced three straight daughters. We like to ‘clip a coupon’ so to speak on our sale purchases, and we feel Abigail represents a pretty cool genetic cross with a homo-polled head and a little different genetic twist. And then there is Della. We have been super happy with the calving ability of Cavill – and based on Della, he is more than ‘just’ a heifer bull. Della is highly stylish, has length for days and represents pure maternal. A bull calf could simply pay for the cow in one shot! We have noticed that the polled gene pool has gotten pretty narrow, so these two certainly tick a number of different boxes!
I have talked extensively in our past bull sale previews about really liking the Delmonte cross on our WowEffect cows, so when we had the opportunity to retain (the WowEffect son) Wedge, we thought it only natural to cross back the other way on some of our top young Delmonte females. These three, three-quarter sisters are all similar in nature, but still showcase the depth of their respective cow families behind them. ‘Cassidy’ is a tank in a moderate frame package. ‘Serena’ represents the slow burn of our Dora Lee Jewel cow family, that tends to be a little later maturing, while ‘Felicity’ has the most frame of the three, and is backed by some of my favourite older genetics. All three heifers will be very heavy in calf on sale day, and represent multiple generations of our breeding program.
(For those that are still reading,) Individual pages have been created for each of our ten sale heifers. 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 behind each of our animals on offer.
The heifers all have quiet temperaments and are used to being around people. We like quiet cattle – but should also note that Equation represents the first ever ‘truck ride’ for our heifers, as we pasture all of our cattle at home – so how they come off the trailer post sale, may not be a great example of their real temperament! We preg-checked in mid-October and the vet feels that all seven breds are safe to their AI dates. Also, due to the late sale 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. Please reach out as we are more than happy to discuss options!
The Heifers are also vaccinated with Vira Shield 6 and Tasvax 8. They will be treated with pour-on and the breds will have their first shot of Scourguard prior to sale day.
The 2023 Fleckvieh Equation promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great day on December 16th at Westerner Park
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.
2018 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale: Three’s Company
Our Three Bulls Heading to Red Deer: Wrangler, Wyatt and Rocky.
We are pleased to present three herd bull prospects at Transcon’s 2018 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale on Thursday, March 22nd at 1:00pm at Westerner Park, Red Deer, Alberta. This is our eighth 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.
This years’ offering can be summed up in a word: three. We are in the middle of three consecutive years where our heifer calf numbers have dramatically exceeded our bull calves, which has resulted in three intriguing herd sire prospects being offer for Red Deer in 2018. This is also the third consecutive year that FGAF WowEffect sons will lead our string, and we have been extremely pleased with his consistency. His calves all show lots of length, great muscling and have tremendous hair coats, and our customers have been very happy with their purchases.
Our three bulls are backed by very strong cow families. ‘Wrangler’ comes from the same ‘P’ line that created waves at Equation 2017, and his dam ‘Poppy’ is our heaviest cow. ‘Wyatt’ is the third straight full brother to be headed to Red Deer – the Cassie x WowEffect cross has been popular in the past – and she seems to be the one cow we can always count on for an awesome bull calf. ‘Rocky’ is also an intriguing individual – a smooth polled head comes courtesy of his sire, APLX Rambo, while the dam ‘Eva’ combines Pharoa and old C&B Western into a real stylish package.
Individual pages (short-cut links are located in the right-hand column) have been created for ‘Wyatt’, ‘Wrangler’ and ‘Rocky’. The bulls have been developed on a ration of free-choice quality first cut hay, combined with a forage based pellet by Country Junction. The bulls are housed in a 5 acre paddock to ensure lots of exercise, have been tie-broke, and have quiet temperaments. On the individual pages, we have also pictured the sires, dams and grand dams. Maternal lines are very important to us, and we feel that behind every great bull is an outstanding cow family. As some people prefer paper copies, we also have individual bull profiles available in PDF format that can be e-mailed and printed, or sent by regular mail. Please let us know if you would like any additional information on any of our animals.
The 2018 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great day on March 22nd at Westerner Park.
2017 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale: Our Maternal Focus Shines Through
We are pleased to present four herd bull prospects at Transcon’s 2017 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale on Thursday, March 23rd at 1:00pm at Westerner Park, Red Deer, Alberta. This is already our seventh 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.
This year’s group consists of two FGAF WowEffect sons (Wagner, Weston), and one from each of Sanmar Polled Pharao (Pharaoh) and APLX Rambo (Raider). All four bulls showcase our program very well – we strive to produce bulls that are highly maternal and will calve out moderate birth weight progeny, while still having strong performance numbers.
We have been very happy with how FGAF WowEffect has worked for us – he has proven to be extremely consistent regardless of what type of cow he gets bred to. The WowEffect sons both combine their sires’ explosive performance and maternal strengths, and each are backed by outstanding cow families. Both Wagner and Weston have maternal brothers working in purebred herds.
Pharaoh is also a really neat individual; pedigree and BW suggest heifer bull, but both the scale and visual inspection certainly suggest a lot more than ‘just’ heifers. We are also excited to introduce the first progeny from our junior herd sire APLX Rambo in ‘Raider’; our youngster in the group that also showcases curve bending performance backed by two strong cow families. All four bulls show lots of muscling, have tremendous hair coats, and have been tested for the dilutor gene.
Individual pages (short-cut links are located in the right-hand column) have been created for ‘Pharaoh’, ‘Weston’, ‘Wagner’, and ‘Raider’. The bulls have been developed on a ration of free-choice quality first cut hay, combined with a forage based pellet by Country Junction. The bulls are housed in a 5 acre paddock to ensure lots of exercise, and all have quiet temperaments. On the individual pages, we have also pictured the sires, dams and grand dams. Maternal lines are very important to us, and we feel that behind every great bull is an outstanding cow family. As some people prefer paper copies, we also have individual bull profiles available in PDF format that can be e-mailed and printed, or sent by regular mail. Please let us know if you would like any additional information on any of our animals.
The 2017 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great Thursday on March 23rd at Westerner Park.
2016 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale Report
APLX Waylon 8C- our co-high seller selected by Eagle Ridge / Danny & Loretta Blain
2016 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale Report
A gorgeous week-end with sunny skies formed an appropriate prelude to the 2016 Edition of Transcon’s Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale on Monday March 21st, where a very strong set of Simmental Genetics were presented to an enthusiastic group of commercial and purebred cattlemen.
The excellent selection of quality bulls from both purebred and traditional Simmental breeders led the sale to maintain the strong results achieved in 2015. 62 bulls sold with an average of $6 859, an increase of $100 over last year.
Sale highlights included another great lead-off string from Starwest Farms, who provided the high seller with lot 31 Starwest Pol Combine, an impressive heavyweight that combined their top Fleckvieh and purebred genetics. For the second consecutive year, the renowned JNR program brought 4 of the top bulls to town – averaging a very consistent $12,625. On the purebred side, new consigners Red Top Livestock also had a very exciting debut – their top two bulls averaged $16,000, and they had a very impressive overall line-up.
The Applecross bulls continued to be well received. Some highlights are as follows:
- Our high-sellers on the day were two WowEffect sons, as both APLX Warner 5C and APLX Waylon 8C were selected for $8,000. Waylon is now at work in the legendary Eagle Ridge herd, under the close eye of Danny and Loretta Blain. Warner is headed north to Kaitlyn Matters and 4 Matt Simmentals at Vermillion
- Gordon Leslie ‘swept the page’ and purchased all three of our more moderate calving ease bulls that were lots 68-70. APLX Phoenix, APLX Reno and APLX Cairo will all be making their home near Leslieville, AB.
- In total, 7 of our bulls found homes within 30 minutes of Applecross, so we look forward to being able to keep a close eye on their progeny.
We would like to thank all the bidders and cattlemen who took the time to inquire and inspect the bulls we had on offer. With our larger numbers this year, we experienced a tremendous amount of interest – both in visiting with us on-farm prior to the sale and then through the pens on sale week-end itself. We felt our bull string really showcased our breeding philosophy, so it is very gratifying to see their acceptance in the industry.
Once again we also thank Transcon for all of the work that they do working the phones and managing the sale. Jay Good and his team always put on a first class, professional event that we are proud to take part in.
With bull sale season wrapped up, our attention turns to breeding season, and our never-ending quest to provide new, better and different genetics to share with the industry.
2016 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale: Our Deepest and Most Diverse Bull String Yet
2016 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale: Our Deepest and Most Diverse Bull String Yet
We are pleased to present nine herd bull prospects at Transcon’s 2016 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale on Monday, March 21st at 1:00pm at Westerner Park, Red Deer, Alberta. This is our sixth 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.
We are proud to say that our 2016 offering will be our deepest and most diverse 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. In a market that suggests the North American cow-herd is (at long last) expanding, we think our bulls on offer all provide the maternal characteristics that will produce tremendous replacement females.
Individual pages (short-cut links are located in the right-hand column) have been created for all nine of our bulls on offer.
At the top of the pen are the first sons to be offered at auction from FGAF WowEffect, an exciting young sire selected by (my father) Ross Small of Dora Lee Genetics as his pick of the Gagnon 2013 bull calves at their September production sale that year. We were successful in obtaining an exclusive interest in the bull, and these first WowEffect calves are really impressive. ‘Warner’, ‘Waylon’, ‘Windsor’ and ‘Watson’ all come loaded with hair and are heavily pigmented. The bulls showcase plenty of power while maintaining moderate birth weights and we are very excited to see what they will bring to the industry.
The ‘Wow’ sons are joined by 5 other polled herd sire prospects, out of some of our foundation cow families. The youngest bulls in our offering, ‘Sawyer’ and ‘Eastwood’ are sired by APLX Sampson and APLX Escalade respectively, whose daughters were very well received at the recent 2015 Fleckvieh Equation sale. ‘Phoenix’ is a really intriguing son by Dora Lee’s Platinum – another exclusive pedigreed sire developed in Ontario. Rounding out our bull pen are two bulls that bring highly maternal packages to the table; both are out of first calf heifers. ‘Reno’ is a Radium son by a Bronson/Arnold’s Image dam, while ‘Cairo’ combines the calving ease of Sanmar Pol Pharao with Gidsco Appollo and Sunny Valley Sargeant.
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 nice 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.
On the individual pages, we have also pictured the sires, dams and grand dams. Maternal lines are very important to us, and we feel that behind every great bull is an outstanding cow family. As some people prefer paper copies, we also have individual bull profiles available in PDF format that can be e-mailed and printed, or sent by regular mail. Please let us know if you would like any additional information on any of our animals.
The 2016 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great day on March 21th at Westerner Park
2014 Fleckvieh Equation Sale Report
Our High-Selling Bred Heifer – Applecross Emma – selected by Beechinor Brothers.
2014 Fleckvieh Equation Sale Report
The 2014 Alberta Simmental Week-end wrapped up with a bang on Sunday December 22nd, with Transcon’s Fleckvieh Equation Sale placing the exclamation point on an amazing week-end for the Simmental industry.
Unseasonably mild temperatures, combined with a record cattle market and very deep set of cattle, led to the largest crowd in attendance for quite a number of years. The sale was led off by the first four lots (lots 2-5) from the high-end Beechinor Brothers string, which averaged an incredible $19,000. Their group was highlighted by Lot 5, a Radium x Viper bred heifer carrying a BRINKS BULLETPROOF pregnancy, that sold for $31,000 to Starwest Farms of BC. Overall, the first string of 13 bred heifers showcased the incredible depth to the sale, averaging just under $14,000.
For the first time in a few years, two elite herd sire prospects were put on offer. JNR brought two burly rascals to town; JNR’s Philosophy sold to Crossroad Farms for $40,000 and JNR’s Warrior sold to Ricochet Stock Farms for $11,500.
Our five Applecross Females were all in the second group of bred heifers to move through the ring. Dora Lee Eclipse continues to get it done for us, as his two daughters led off our string, with Applecross Emma being selected for $9,000 (our high seller) by the Beechinor Brothers of Bentley, and her running mate, Applecross Alicia ($6,100) is slated to join the polled program of Brooks Simmentals from Turtleford, SK. O Double E Simmentals from Grande Prairie purchased Applecross Whitney for $6,750; Applecross Rhianna was acquired by Riley Edwards, Skywest Simmentals, from Didsbury for $6,700. We were especially pleased to see repeat customer, Barney Beechinor (who is currently walking APLX Edge in the renowned 400-cow-strong Beechinor commercial herd), select Applecross Glory for $6,000. Overall, it was a tremendous day in Red Deer on December 21st. Once again Transcon put on a tremendous event – working the phones and showcasing the cattle to ensure a top quality, well managed sale.
It was a great day to present Applecross genetics for auction, and we were humbled and honoured by the amount of interest we had in our program. With 2015 just around the corner, we look forward to the start to calving season, and another step in that ongoing effort to produce high-quality genetics that we can share with the industry
Applecross Cattle Present our 2014 Equation Females
3 of our sale bred heifers – Rhianna, Whitney and Emma
Applecross Cattle Present our 2014 Equation Females
We are pleased to present five bred heifers at Transcon’s 2014 Fleckvieh Equation Sale on December 21th, at 1pm at Westerner Park, Red Deer, Alberta. After an exciting debut in 2013, we are proud to once again be part of this prestigious event.
Our 2014 sale string really showcases the genetics that form the core of our walking group. Cow families are very important to us, and as such we have taken a slow approach to building our herd. This way, the maternal lines can develop, and we can watch and compare as the younger generations work alongside their matriarchs.
Progeny from three of our founding cow families will be represented for the first time – Applecross Emma is a barrel of an Eclipse daughter tracing back to the Dora Lee Evangaline (Sim Roc C&B Western) cow family; Applecross Glory is a very feminine Anchor T Ikon daughter going back to the Dora Lee Gretchen (Arnold’s Image) cow family; Applecross Rhianna is a dark red, heavily pigmented Bronson daughter, out of our Dora Lee Jewel (Rangemore Carrousel) cow family. Not to be outshone by their running mates, we are also offering Applecross Alicia who represents progeny from the JB CDN Amethyst cow family, as well as Applecross Whitney, who is descended from the master breeders at Brock Ranches. All five heifers are solid coloured with moderate frames, yet tons of volume – exactly the types of females we think will turn into awesome cows.
Individual pages (short-cut links are on the right), have been created for each of ‘Rhianna’, ‘Emma’, ‘Alicia’, ‘Glory’ and ‘Whitney’. The heifers have all been tie-broke and have quiet temperaments. We preg-checked in late October, and the vet feels that all five are safe to their AI breeding. With a later sale date this year, we do expect all five to be very heavy in calf, and should any purchasers be from out-of-province, we would be happy to bring them back to Applecross and calve them out. The Heifers are also vaccinated with ViraShield Gold and Covexin Plus. They will be treated with Scour-Guard prior to sale day. On the individual pages, we have also pictured their sires, dams and siblings. Maternal lies are very important to us, and we feel that behind each outstanding female, is an outstanding cow family. As some people prefer paper copies, we also have individual heifer profiles that can be e-mailed and printed or sent by regular mail. Please let us know if you would like any additional information on any of our animals.
The 2014 Fleckvieh Equation promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great day on December 21th at Westerner Park.
Applecross Cattle Present our First Three Females to Sell
Our Three Sale Heifers – From Left: Mariah, Iris and Cassie
Applecross Cattle Present our First Three Females to Sell
We are pleased to present three bred heifers at Transcon’s 2013 Fleckvieh Equation Sale on December 15th, at 1pm at Westerner Park, Red Deer, Alberta. This will be our first time selling females to the public, and we are proud to be part of this prestigious event.
For our first year, we thought it important to showcase females with genetics that form the core of our herd. Applecross Mariah is a polled, moderate framed heifer out of a Wellhouse Kestrel dam and sired by Dora Lee Eclipse – A bull that has certainly left his mark on our program. Applecross Iris is a powerful Sanmar Polled Pharao daughter that cranks up the volume in an intriguing double polled package. The youngest heifer, Applecross Cassie, may represent the only opportunity to publicly purchase a Spruceburn Starfire daughter. All three heifers are dark red, heavily pigmented females with moderate frames yet tons of volume – exactly the types of females we think will turn into cow-makers. It is also no surprise that the two females from the Eclipse line are bred Pharao, and the other is a Pharao bred Eclipse. Good bulls that are more than just ‘heifer bulls’ are extremely hard to find, so when we find ones we like, it is no surprise they get crossed back on each other. We like predictability!
Individual pages (short-cut links are on the right), have been created for each of ‘Mariah’, ‘Iris’ and ‘Cassie’. The heifers have all been tie-broke and have quiet temperaments. We preg-checked in mid-October and the vet feels that all three are safe to their AI dates. The Heifers are also vaccinated with ViraShield 6 and Covexin Plus. They will be treated with Dectomax prior to sale day. On the individual pages, we have also pictured their sires, dams and siblings. Maternal lines are very important to us, and we feel that behind each outstanding female, is an outstanding cow family. As some people prefer paper copies, we also have individual heifer profiles that can be e-mailed and printed or sent by regular mail. Please let us know if you would like any additional information on any of our animals.
The 2013 Fleckvieh Equation promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great day on December 15th at Westerner Park.
Annual Female Section Update
Applecross Janelle – one of the top bred heifers we have retained.
Annual Female Section Update
We have completed our annual refresh of our female section (Herdbook > Foundation Females) with updated pictures and new pages to showcase some additional females. The pages fall into chronological order, with our oldest cow (Jewel) at the top, and our youngest female (Taylor) at the bottom. As our herd is made up predominantly of young cows, a year can bring significant change as they grow and develop into more mature animals. The challenge is, of course, getting updated pictures that reflect the phenotypical change (not to mention to convince the cows that they should stand to get their picture taken!). Over the years I would like to get a good picture of every quality female we own, but there are always some that can escape the camera.
Featured above is Applecross Janelle. Janelle is one of our top bred heifers, and was originally selected for this year’s Fleckvieh Equation sale. An Anchor T Ikon daughter, by a powerful Dora Lee Eclipse dam, Janelle (and her dam Jasmine) have caught the eye of many of our visitors the last couple of years. After a lot of discussion, we decided it would be best for the long term success of our operation to retain Janelle (and all of our bred heifers), to help grow our numbers here at Applecross. We look forward to Janelle’s 2013 calf by the polled calving ease bull Sanmar Pol Pharao in mid January.
(Late) Autumn Update
Our three, 2013 herd bull prospects – from left – Ajax, Edge and Axel.
(Late) Autumn Update
While it seems to feel more like winter with every day (and every snowfall), the calendar insists we are still in autumn. Thankfully, the ‘fall work’ is done, and there are just a few jobs left to get finished prior to the ‘real’ winter and an early January start to calving season.
This years’ calves continue to develop and mature. With some time off the farm in November, being away for even just a few days means that you can appreciate the size difference when you get back home. The bulk of our calves were heifers in 2012, so after a thorough culling, we only have a small group of 3 bull calves to winter, which we think make a nice, consistent group. Pictured above from left to right are Ajax, Edge and Axel. APLX Ajax 14Z, the youngest (Feb 17th) bull, is an intriguing polled Gidsco Appollo son. The middle bull is APLX Edge 4Z, a tremendously long Equinox son, who projects to be the heaviest bull come bull sale time (and is also polled/scurred). The bull on the right is APLX Axel 5Z, who is also an Appollo by our Tasha (Porterhouse Regent) cow. Dark red with a moderate frame, tremendous depth and thickness, Axel was picked out by many of our visitors this summer. We look forward to watching them develop over the next few months, before getting them semen tested and cleaned up for pictures. Assuming all goes well, the bulls are tentatively set to sell at Transcon’s Red Deer Sale in March.
With all of those heifer calves around, I really look forward to watching them mature, and can’t wait to see them on grass next summer – I think they will be an amazing group. There are a quite a number of really strong heifers – in addition to the Viper daughters I talked about previously, I also really like how our Eclipse, Broadway and Pharao calves all turned out. I think they will all turn into awesome front end females. We have more pregnancies from each of those four bulls on the way for next year, so we are really looking forward to what January’s calf crop brings.
With our herd numbers almost to where we want them to be, 2013 is the first year that I will actually be hoping to get bull calves. There are those certain cows that haven’t given us a daughter yet, and there are some matings that you visualize with a heifer in mind, but for 2013 I am hoping for a real strong set of bull calves to choose from. While we do plan on marketing females at some point, it is our bulls that head to town annually to showcase our operational and genetic philosophy. We will have a diverse group of matings coming up, and I think all of them have the potential to be very good, with hopefully some tough selections to be made next summer when whittling down 2014’s keeper pen.
This time of year, while most people start getting excited about Christmas, I start anticipating the start of the new calving season in early January. Calving never goes exactly as planned, and some of the combinations that seem so exciting now, may not pan out the way we expect, but it will be an exciting time nevertheless. You never know what you are going to get until that calf arrives safely (and then that is only the start of the journey).
Our Entries to the 2012 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale
We are pleased to present two herd bull prospects at Transcon’s 2012 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale on March 19th at 1:00pm at Westerner Park, Red Deer, Alberta. This is our second 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.
Both of this year’s entries are sired by Dora Lee Jake. I was with Dad when he purchased Jake’s dam, MRLN Josette, as an open heifer from the 1995 Fleck Select sale. We were incredibly happy when the legendary Bob Gordon selected Jake, her first son, to go to stud at ALTA in 1998; and now, 12 years later, we are able to tap into these proven Fleckvieh genetics in our own herd here at Applecross. While Jake may be better known for his daughters (Dora Lee Amelia – a flush cow at Wa-Na-La-Pa, and Dora Lee Elexis – dam of Dora Lee Eclipse and donor in the Anchor D program), we are quite impressed with how these two sons have developed. Both bulls balance the performance of their sire with strong maternal traits from their young dams.
Individual pages (short-cut links are located in the right-hand column) have been created for both ‘Joshua’ and ‘Jackson’. Both bulls are heavily pigmented, have moderate (90-100 lb) birth weights, show lots of muscling, and have tremendous hair coats. The bulls have been developed on a ration of free-choice quality first cut hay, combined with a forage based pellet by Country Junction. The bulls are housed in a 5 acre paddock to ensure lots of exercise, have been tie-broke, and have quiet temperaments.
On the individual pages, we have also pictured the dams. Maternal lines are very important to us, and we feel that behind every great bull is an outstanding mother. We also have additional information and pictures available about the maternal grand dams; should it be of interest. As some people prefer paper copies, we also have individual bull profiles available in PDF format that can be e-mailed and printed, or sent by regular mail. Please let us know if you would like any additional information on any of our animals.
The 2012 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale promises to be another exciting event. We look forward to a great day on March 19th at Westerner Park.
Our Entries to 2011 Red Deer Bull Sale
APLX Ensign 2X - headlines our entries
Individual pages (short-cut links are located in the right-hand column) have been created for our three bull entries to the 2011 Red Deer Bull Sale to be held on Monday, March 21, 2011 at 1:00pm at Westerner Park, Red Deer, Alberta. The 2011 edition will represent our first genetics to sell by auction, and we are pleased to be a part of this great event.
The three bulls selected represent the best of our 2010 bull calf crop. We weaned September 3rd, 2010, evaluated the calves, and then culled thoroughly. These three bulls are all solid colour, heavily pigmented, have moderate (90-100lb) birth weights, show lots of muscling, have tremendous hair coats and are backed by strong, often unique, pedigrees. The bulls have been developed on a ration of free-choice quality first cut hay combined with 10lbs/day of mixed grain, formulated to 12% protein. To ensure they are in shape for breeding season, the grain ration was increased to 12lbs/day on February 1st. The bulls are housed in a 5 acre paddock to ensure lots of exercise, they have all been at least tie-broke, and all have a quiet temperament. In short, we have raised them to be the type of bulls we would wish to buy for ourselves, and feel they will go out and get the job done.
Thanks to their sire, all three bulls are scurred and may pass the polled gene along to their offspring. In 2009 we were selected to help ‘prove’ an exciting new homozygous polled bull that was the result of 10 years of development – Dora Lee’s Equinox. We are very pleased with how his first calf crop has performed, will continue to use him extensively. Thanks to his development in Ontario, we also believe his genetics are outcross to the vast majority of Fleckvieh lines in Western Canada. These three bulls will also represent the only Equinox sons to sell publicly in 2011.
On the individual pages, we have also pictured the dams. Maternal lines are very important to us, and we feel that behind every great bull is an outstanding mother. We also have additional information and pictures available about the maternal grand dams; should it be of interest. As some people prefer paper copies, we also have individual bull profiles available in PDF format that can be e-mailed and printed, or sent by regular mail. Please let us know if you would like any additional information on any of our animals.
The 2011 Red Deer Simmental Bull Sale will be a very exciting time for us. We look forward to seeing the first Applecross genetics sell March 21 at Westerner Park.
Picture Note: The above picture of ‘Ensign’ taken in October of 2010. We really like this picture of Ensign, as it showcases his tremendous volume and heavy muscling, but wanted to use a current ‘winter’ picture in order to have consistent maturity with the other bulls in the catalogue and on his web-page.
2011 Calving Season – Half-way home.
We are officially half way finished calving – so far, so good. We survived a couple of really brutal weeks of weather; during which, we were fortunate enough to convince the cows to calve inside. The calving barn is at least out of the wind, and not quite as cold. This week has been mild, so it has been nice to see the calves bouncing around the yard playing.
There have been a number of interesting calves to date; both bulls and heifers. Pictured here are two of the girls – (5 day old) Taylor who is a Gidsco Appollo by our Hiemstra cow, Tasha; and (2 week old) Janelle, an Anchor T Ikon heifer from Dora Lee Jasmine. We think very highly of both dams (they are both featured on our ‘Young Guns’ page), and we are excited to be able to grow both cow families. I hope to feature some of our other exciting calves in future posts.
A Good Picture is Worth . . .
I am very fortunate to have been raised in a photo-friendly family. My mom took a lot of pictures while I was growing up, and her love of photography meant there was almost always a camera around. Thankfully, Mom’s interest in pictures included ‘nature’ photography, as it meant a ‘rest’ from pictures for those of us who often tired of being in front of the camera. She took literally hundreds of cow-pictures each year. One of the underappreciated aspects of nature and cattle (whether it be sunrise, sunsets, dew-drops or autumn colours) is that they don’t tend to talk back, whine or complain to the photographer.
Well before the advent of computer editing and publishing, Mom took a lot of great cattle photos. This has created an incredible archive of pictures; giving us that timeless ability to see what generations upon generations of cattle look like . . . not to mention how sceneries and farmsteads change over the years! The attached photo is one that Mom took of our cow-herd (with our yard-site in the background) when she and Dad visited Applecross in the summer of 2010. With her permission, I hope to feature more of her photos in the future.
I also enjoy a taking a good picture, and feel it is a great way to showcase our operation. While the world has gotten a lot smaller, it is still not easy to visit every place that you’d like to go. Hopefully, some of the pictures posted here will serve as a bit of a ‘virtual tour’ of Applecross.
Applecross Cattle 
