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Closing the circle…
Bribery is her name and we spotted her grand dam on our first visit to Ashott Barton farm in England 10 years ago. The breeder, Shiamala Comer, didn’t want to submit her best cow to the rigors of flushing. Fast forward 5 years and on our last trip to England , Wooz and Church convinced Shiamala to part with two heifers, one Bribery’s daughter. What followed then was a convoluted journey to overcome England’s export ban. In brief, we sold the heifers to a friendly English cattleman…flushed them…bought back the embryos…and shipped them to Thistle Hill to implant in our cows. And here stands the result…our Bribery, in an unbroken…
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Waiting for the jury…
…well actually TDA35 is waiting for his first Thistle Hill calves…due in a few months. We’ve loaned him out to neighbors in the past who had just a few cows. 35 is the result of a mating between two great traditional Devon herds…Goldings in Cornwall and Ashott Barton in Sometset. Church was pleased with the results our neighbors got. If we like his Thistle Hill calves we’ll consider whether to promote him to cover the main herd later this year. What looks good on paper doesn’t always turn out in the real world. David
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Know your farmer…
…was never more true if you care about the food you eat. In recent years, organic and natural foods have begun to take a small slice of the household budget. It’s still minuscule compared to the total spent on groceries and eating out. But Big Ag and it’s allies in the chemical industry have taken notice of the upstart…and with the support of the government, they’ve been fighting back…muddying the water with deceptive labeling and advertising. A farmer just north of us in Chambersburg, PA finally had enough the other day and exploded on his website. https://yourfamilyfarmer.com/blog/double-agent With the connivance of Washington, we can no longer trust claims…
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It’s been almost a year…
…since the birth of what we hope will be another line of pure, traditional English Devon at Thistle Hill. H364 was sired by Champson Defender via AI ten months ago and is now ready to be weaned. He was an early success story for Church, who is now waiting for Defender #2 to calve in October. Pure Devon genetics are increasingly difficult to find. Even some English breeders we know have given up because bulls are in such short supply there. Seeing what was happening, in both England and the States, Wooz and I decided we would create a living archive here in Virginia. David
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The time capsule…
…F212 carries genetics from many of the milestones in the 20-year history of Thistle Hill Devon. 212 is the daughter of Lakota 180…a natural daughter who until she died recently at the age of 19, had produced some of our best bull calves. So when 212 came along we grabbed her and now have great hopes for this young cow. On the other side, her sire was Highwayman…an English cow by Ashott-Barton Millenium Falcon. And now, to top it off, she is expecting a calf by Lakota P60, one of the finest meat sires in the breed! So if there’s a legacy cow on our pastures it is 212…with an…
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The happy marriage…
…of two great English herds at Thistle Hill. TDA 31 is an embryo heifer from Goldings Farm in Cornwall and Ashott Barton Farm in Somerset. 31 is Exhibit A in what we hoped to achieve with our pursuit of pure traditional English Devon genetics. We would be hard-pressed to find some way to improve her. The dam was Goldings Norah who we discovered in Ivan Rowe’s pastures at Lands End. Ivan told told us to select any cow we wanted from his herd of more than 100 Devon. He’d wait for us back at the house. Wooz and I trudged back and forth in the rain all afternoon before settling…