• King of the hill…

    …all English but made in the US! Our herd bull Essington…the result of a mating of Brian Drake’s Buttercup and Shiamala Comer’s Falcon…two leading English herds paired here thanks to embryo transplants. Essington is six years old. David

  • The first bull calf…

    …of the year weighs exactly 70 pounds.  And though mom is a heifer she has him well-disciplined.  No easy task with a rambunctious little bull calf! The sire of these early calves is TDA 35…an all English bull by Falcon out of Norah. Mom is a good example of crossing our American herd with an English import.  In this case grandma is R2…a calf we spotted at Lakota Ranch 15 years ago…and it paid off for us and farms throughout the East. The English grandsire was a bull we nicknamed Handsome Ransom and, while early, this guy is well-proportioned just like grandpa. Never was good at fractions but I guess…

  • Back in the bull pen…

    …and oblivious to his achievements in the pasture…is TDA35.  This young bull has sired this year’s heifer candidates. The son of Goldings Norah by Ashott Barton Falcon..TDA 35 has an outstanding background on paper. This is his first real test. David

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Waiting in the bullpen…

    …one of our herd bulls, THF Essington. He’s five years old now and has served as our primary sire for the past two years.  Essington’s dam was the daughter Brian Drake’s great English cow, Buttercup.  The sire was our THF Falcon, who traces back to the Ashott Barton herd in Devon. Thanks to the mating of these two great lines in Essington, his progeny will be the mainstay of our herd for years to come.  A commercial cattleman in Virginia compares Essington favorably to Rotokawa 688! Since 688 in our view is one of the top bulls in Devon history, we appreciate the compliment.  Here’s a picture so you can…

  • Two little girls are we…

    …on a foggy morning.  Both are about 18 months out of American Devon dams…but their English sires have had an impact! The heifer on the left is out of my personal favorite…R2…an almost after-thought purchase and a cow that was a trouble free producer of great calves for 15 years.  This will be her last calf. Her sire, now sold, was an English bull Wooz called Handsome Ransom. The other heifer, against the fence, has U2 in her background…as well as two English greats…Cutcombe Jaunty and Ashott Barton Millenium Falcon. As we’ve said before, we imported English genetics because pure traditional Devon are a disappearing breed in England and here. …

  • Still in his prime…

    …Highwayman was one of our first pure traditional English bulls.  And he’s now pushing 10 years of age. His sire was the famed Falcon and the dam Ivan Rowe’s Norah. We did the pairing in England and it was our most successful flush ever…26 embryos! You can see one of his progeny by scrolling down to “Chip off the old block…”. Like his dam, Highwayman is a smallish animal beautifully proportioned. We’ve found him ideal for keeping the herd to the moderate size we prefer. David

  • Essington Park…

    …makes its mark on Thistle Hill. A brother and sister from a famous English herd now are full contributors to our herd! The culmination of a lifetime dedicated to the Devon breed, famed English herdsman Brian Drake volunteered his Buttercup cow…dam of this young cow now maturing in America. The sire is Millennium Falcon. Now that she’s bred, she can reunite with the main herd…passing her full brother on the way. Son-in-law Curt Humphreys escorts four-year old Essington to a pen for return to the bull pasture. For the past 45 days he has served as the cover bull for almost 30 AI candidates. And that’s our most ambitious artificial…

  • Parade of (baby) bulls…

    …features three of the yearling bulls we’re holding back to see how they develop. The first is the final pairing Wooz selected on her last trip to England. His dam comes from the famous Tulip line. The breeder resisted collecting her and after some to and fro, we bought her outright! Then we had to figure out the complexities of owning a single cow…both physically and legally.  We are greatly indebted to Tilbrook’s Gavin Hunter for providing the umbrella and eventually the transport to the clinic where Tulip was flushed to Cutcombe Jaunty. Gavin also arranged a permanent home for Mom. Too bad we couldn’t have arranged a Thistle Hill…