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.
