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The cost of confinement….
….is generally discussed in terms of cost/benefit ratios. What is it worth to keep an animal confined to a pen, indoors…sometimes even immobilized…in order to put cheap meat on your table? (Forget, for the moment, that it is mostly unhealthy meat.) In the abstract, a few may understand that the animal is paying a terrible price but it’s not often we have its testimony. Here’s a young bull that was kept tethered for “only” a few months because bulls are “hard to handle” and he’ll be dead soon anyway. http://www.dailyliked.net/chained-bull-set-free/ At Thistle Hill, we have two bull pastures….generally about 10 bulls in each….living together peacefully….perfectly safe to handle.
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Probably ready to wean….
….the oldest of this year’s crop of Thistle Hill bull calves….THF 163…at 10 months. He’s by Traditional Devon’s™ Highwayman. The dam is one of our smaller American cows but from a top-producing line, X2a. The experts say you should expect a good cow to wean a calf half her weight. Please don’t tell X2a!
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Thistle Hill Alumni Club….
….when a Thistle Hill cow and Thistle Hill bull get together on “foreign soil”…good things happen! In this case, Elim Springs Rojo. Owner Rich Hamilton sends us this picture of Rojo, the son of our Watson and Izzie. Izzie left here bred and delivered at the Hamilston’s Elim Springs farm in southern Virginia. Rojo is now four years old. The same line that produced Rojo is still active at Thistle Hill, impressive animals and long-lived! Not incidentally, Izzie comes from the same embryo flush that produced Thistle Hill Magic, another great bull.
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The Thistle Hill Alumni Club….
….celebrates the 13th birthday of its charter member! Thistle Hill Goldie celebrated the day at his home in Bugtussle, Kentucky. Eric Smith reports Goldie is still going strong after all these years. We’re often asked what’s the useful life of a bull and we normally say 10 to 12 years. Looks like we’re going to recognize the “Goldie Rule”. Happy Birthday, Goldie…and many more! This reminds me that one of the big advantages of a grass fed bull is longevity….along with potency. Grass fed bulls do have higher semen counts. Incidentally, “Bugtussle” is not as unusual a name for a town (and farm) as you might think. There’s also a Bugtussle,…
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The cycle begins again….
….with our first calf of the season….a Traditional Devon™ bull calf, TDA 20. He’s an adventuresome fellow. Here, just a half day old, and he’s returning from a jaunt about 500 yards from his mother. She waited by our Gator as he sauntered back across the field. The dam is TDA Cashtiller 2, daughter of Tilbrook Cashtiller… a producer of great bulls in England. I need grandson Church to help with the tagging now. He uses his track skills from Denison University to catch them in the open field. Try that in a 10-acre paddock sometime! To complete the pedigree: the sire is the son of Essington Buttercup and Ashott…
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Ma, our baby boy is all growed up!
His name is Augustine and he’s packed with Rotokawa 667 genetics. He’s also the son of one of our favorite cows. With all the attention we’ve been devoting to our English project, we didn’t want to give the impression we’ve been ignoring our breeding of Rotokawa offspring. At Thistle Hill, under the watchful eye of Ken McDowall, we’ve been interweaving our three favorite lines: 688, 974 and 667. Augustine is still shy of 2-years….imagine what he’ll be like “fully growed”!
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Thistle Hill Alumni Club….
….a bouncing baby boy by Thistle Hill Red Lad. Brooke Henley in Burkittsville, Maryland says he’s “growing like a weed” despite being born in a snowstorm. Brooke and husband, Tom Garnett, are calling him Snowball. Dad is descended from our Watson bull and our first really outstanding cow, R3, who is still producing beautiful calves for us here in Virginia. You’ll want to keep an eye on Tom and Brooke’s “Spring Pastures Farm”.
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Meanwhile, back home….
….our English partner, Gavin Hunter, continues to breed exceptional bulls. In fact, he probably sells more Devon bulls than any other breeder. His great cow, Tilbrook Cashtiller, had an unbroken string of three top sellers in the Devon show and sale. And now her daughter, Cashtiller 10th, is carrying the flag. Here’s her son, Tilbrook Oz. The sire was an Australian bull, Bongalabi Atlas.
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Like grandma…like grandson….
….as regular readers know, we’ve been checking the performance of the animals we’ve imported from England via embryo transplants. Our leading lady in England, of course, is Tilbrook Cashtiller…the three-time national grand champion bred by Gavin Hunter. She’s also the dam four years running of the top-priced bulls in the Devon Society’s annual sales. Her son, raised here at Thistle Hill, is TDA Churchill. And now, at just over two months of age, we noticed Cashtiller’s grandson, Thistle Hill Merlin, drudging through yesterday’s blizzard, alongside his mom. She’s Thistle Hill’s Magical 64, who in turn is a daughter of Thistle Hill Magic. Are we on to something? You be the judge. The picture…
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A battery of bulls….
….actually, our bull inventory is pretty low right now. Our two-year olds are all sold and the group of yearlings is sandwiched between Traditional Devon™ Wellington on the left and Thistle Hill Jackpot on the right. To the left of Jackpot is a particularly exciting young English bull—TDA Highwayman—and next to him is another excellent prospect, Thistle Hill 126. 126 is descended from the Rotokawa 667 line. Second from the left is Thistle Hill 08, an exemplary result of pairing the English bull Millennium Falcon with Goldings Snowdrop. He is Wooz’ special project and she “done good”. (Somehow a steer got in there and is in the middle, in the shadows)