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Our bulls…
…have become an increasingly important part of our operation…not only joining herds from Canada to Louisiana but as leased sires to smaller farms that can’t justify a full-time bull. Right now we have eight bulls at work for Thistle Hill…and a dozen more in the development stage. Our bull pen is still headed by Highwayman, sired by the English bull Millennium Falcon. The dam was from the Goldings herd of the legendary cattleman Ivan Rowe. Ivan gave us the pick of his herd and smiled a rare smile when we selected Norah. It was the only pedigree that he had carried in his pocket. Ivan judged many breeds in his…
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Solving the problem…Pt 2…
…well it’s a band-aid anyway. The numbers are in on using our own trees to make-up for the shortage of board fencing at the local coop. Thanx to a neighbor with a portable sawmill we were able to turn six trees…oak, walnut and cherry into high grade lumber. Garrett Heydt was the man with the saw and he did an excellent job. When finished we had 700 feet of oak boards and six 4”x6” twelve foot beams…just those beams paid for the fencing we won’t be needing not to mention the beautiful walnut and cherry we sawed into planks. The cherry in particular seemed to us to be furniture-grade. But…
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Solving the problem…
…of the fence board shortage. With fence boards almost impossible to find, Curt has solved the problem by cutting down a dead oak tree. We estimate it’s about 80 years old and the main trunk measures 19 feet by almost 3 feet around. A neighbor has recently put out a sign advertising he now has a portable sawmill. And we have a half-dozen oak, walnut and cherry trees down and waiting. Inexperienced as we are, we’re not sure we can say “problem solved” but there’s every reason to hope we’ll be able to continue board fencing with our 300 acres of aging forest. David
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The dogs of Thistle Hill…
…deserve a little credit though none are typical herding dogs. But all three are important in the daily life of our farm…have good rapport with the cows…and are wonderful companions on our daily Rina. Nala (left) is a very energetic and athletic Rhodesian razorback. In her native African environment she’s used to hunting lions. Pochahantas (center) but you can call her Pokey is the oldest in the group and right now is away on assignment…accompanying Church to veterinary school at Cornell. She’s an English Shepard. Emma (right) is a Black Labrador Retriever. She made the move from Dallas when Curt took up residence at Thistle Hill. David
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Making history…
…is something of a habit at Thistle Hill. We’re always trying new ideas…ways to improve the quality of our operation and the cows we produce. In that pursuit we were particularly excited when Church was able to negotiate the purchase of a canister of scores of straws of semen from longtime Devon breeders Don and Heather Minto in Jamestown, Rhode Island. Among the straws were collections from almost all the top Rotokawa bulls plus some of the legendary sires in Devon history. Church planned the first major use from the cache to take place during his Christmas break from Cornell Veterinary school. Because our vet’s clinic is close to Thistle…
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The one that got away…
…almost. Some years ago we were very pleased with our Sunset bulls from Gavin Hunter ‘s Tilbrook Herd in England. So were others and one day we realized we had sold the last of the blood line. Thanks to AI tanks we have just solved the problem. Church found some Sunset semen in an old Folly Farm tank and Sunset is back on our pastures…in the form of this three-month old bull calf. Making this an all the more exciting mating…we AI-ed Sunset to our new young Tulip cow. She’s from the Ashott Barton herd in England. We’ve barely finished this year’s calving and it’s already time to start planning…
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A winning combination…
…of the outstanding Rotokawa 982 and our awesome X2a! 4 is a healthy 65-pound bull calf…an ai son of 982. This sire was an unsung member of Ken McDowalls battery of great bulls. Church came up with some of his hard to find semen not long ago. We chose X2a whose pedigree goes way back among American Devon. And the 2-line has been very good to Thistle Hill…producing a string of outstanding bulls and heifers. David
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Let the calving begin…
…and we start with our first-calf heifers. F21 is a Bribery embryo daughter and this is first born…a little heifer by a young Thistle Hill bull out of Goldings Norah. In fact this is a combination of the herds of many of our great English partners…Cutcombe, Ashott Barton and Goldings. It’s great fun now that our English herd is maturing to begin to paint our own history with them at Thistle Hill! Only 26 more calves to go! David
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Proud guard dogs…
…watching over our enlarged asset base. It’s a new For-most head gate, squeeze chute and a-i cage rolled into one transportable unit. With four remote pastures now this mobile chute makes life a lot easier. No more coaxing a sick animal into a trailer to get it home for doctoring. This thing has all the bells and whistles including a scale and more controls than I had when I was flying for the Air Force! David
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Ladies in waiting…
…have been moved to the pasture closest to the house where we can keep an eye on them. It’s interesting that none of the cows in this picture is actually grazing…they’ve all adopted that far-off stare of cows waiting for birth. That event begins in just a few days! Keeping an eye on them has suddenly taken on added meaning. Two nearby farms have been struck by cattle rustlers and we’ve all gone on alert. With the number of expert marksmen on these farms, the rustlers are playing a dangerous game. Son Church, while standing in front of our house, once hit a fox 300 yards away running across this…