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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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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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Just a quick tour…
…this past weekend. (Warning: no pigs; they’re off at freezer camp) First stop the shipping pen where this four-year old bull is waiting for his ride to a commercial operation in southwest Virginia. Clark Family farms have been good friends and customers for a number of years. The Clarks also selected one of our young English bulls with Tilbrook Cashtiller genetics. For three years running Cash’s sons topped the English national sales. At one of our auxiliary farms we checked the progress of some of our other yearlings…three pure English calves and their dams. In recent years we’ve found it best to separate the bull and heifers calves at about…
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Click bait…
…although we didn’t call it that back in my ink-stained days of newspapering. Back then editors were always looking for photos that would help sell papers. The formula was simple…pretty girls, babies and animals. Get a picture with two out of three and you were guaranteed good placement in the paper. Today with the Internet and Facebook they call it “clickbait”…and here’s an example: A baby lamb qualifies as a two-for and the pretty girl is our Mackenzie Mason. The lamb is a kind of rescue project…it has a bone fracture making it difficult to balance and walk. Church took over care of the animal while on rounds with our…
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The family that works cattle together…
…well gets dirty together if nothing else. Pregnancy checking is a kind of tense moment in the year. Not only do you hope for a high rate of pregnancy…but for matings you’ve invested in embryo transplants and artificial insemination. This year we’re checking a total of 32 cows…a mix of regular Devon plus our pure traditional English Devon. The wranglers are grandson Church, his Dad Curt and his uncle Church. First mamas and calves are called in and then sorted in separate pens. The young will get permanent tags and tattoos and vaccinations. Some of the bulls that don’t meet Thistle Hill standards are also converted to steers. At the…
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A new arrival…
…a young lamb Church came up with in his part time veterinary work. She has a hairline leg fracture but Church is determined to nurse it back to health. And he seems to have the willing assistance of his dog Nala. A friend who raises sheep thinks this is probably a Suffolk but suspects it’s been crossed with Hampshire. David
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Free at last…
…with everyone in the family safely vaccinated, I was finally able to escape my senior residence for the first time in almost exactly a year. Naturally it was this year’s calf crop that interested me most. They’re five months old now and a rewarding bunch of prospects. Church’s favorite is THF 3…the daughter of TDA Cashtiller 4 and our Essington bull. She’s the latest in our line of pure traditional English calves. I was taken by this Bribery heifer..a combination of four great English herds. She’s two-years old…and perhaps in-calf. And she was the last mating Wooz and Church selected on our final visit to England. We were in agreement…
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A new wrinkle…
…to cooking steaks. Church introduced me to grilling on a soap stone. It’s pretty simple and pretty much guarantees even cooking. We cooked a filet and two boneless strip steaks…all from a 10-year old cow. Tenderness and the flavor could not have been better! We have pretty well satisfied ourselves that for our personal eating we’ll stick to the older cows. Will the day ever come when the government does away with the 30-month nonsense? The rule that older cows cannot be butchered goes back to the “mad cow” scare in England. Just what caused it was not conclusively proven but millions of cows were slaughtered “just in case”. In…
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Fugitives from our storm…
..for a nice set of Thistle Hill steers. They had just been shipped to Jimmy Acres Farm near Semora, North Carolina when the snows hit. Brother and sister Jake and Anna Tommerdahl originally were going to fatten the steers for us but I guess they fell in love and immediately offered to buy them! That’s the way it is with Devon. Church met the Tommerdahls when they and he were Fellows at a Grassfed Exchange meeting in California. Until now they’ve been farming produce and chicken and pigs. This is their introduction to bigger livestock though Jake had interned in cattle operations before. Perhaps best of all it’s confirmation of…