I've sold everything but the dog the last several years and need to get ahead of the cows getting old before I find myself in a full rebuild. Finally settled on two cows from the top of the herd and they both happen to have some of the oldest pedigrees in the herd. Both cows slick off at least two weeks earlier than many of the cows, their pedigrees come from the source of fescue, they have some genetic tests to confirm their tolerance, and they both qualified as performance dams. You'd think with all the progress we've made over the years "the best" wouldn't be this old on paper, but it is what it is so this set of bulls will get their chance at screwing it up.

This guy has not seen the use he deserves and has now disappeared to the left coast, but he's prepotent enough to stamp out cookie cutter daughters out of everything he's been used on. He's by far the safest bet of the bunch for good females that will come in just under 90lbs and top the pelvic chart at breeding with good volume and enough frame. His feet are impeccable and his name in the pedigree will carry weight for those in the know. He also carries some of the traditional breed character as well, which is always nice to see considering he mashes the epds in all the right directions. 

This one is unproven, but I have a lot of respect for the breeder and happen to own some half sibs to some of the females in his cow line. Those cows always slick off early, breed right up, and have raised sons who proved their worth in other fescue herds. He even managed to hang some banners at a couple nationals despite being from working lines. Will most likely be lining up the few recips I have left to put a couple of these in fresh in hopes of being ahead of the curve in case his first few progeny make some sale figures pop.  



Doing some gambling here. He has been throwing some very good females out of cows that I'm not too fond of. You can pick his calves out of a catalog without even looking at the pedigree. His cow line is so much of an outcross the rest of the breed wouldn't even recognize any of the names and his sire was one of the most powerful bulls to sell in Canada in a very long time. His calves really shouldn't be the cookie cutters that they have been, so we'll see if I get the same results. I had used him previously, but sold the eggs and didn't get a chance to see how they worked out so hopefully these won't be leaving the place this time around. 
 


I initially labeled these two bulls as "bull of the month" members, but they're getting a lot of use within the breed and I might have jumped the gun on their long term value. I have a couple daughters growing out now that look functional, so it won't hurt to have some heavily used names in the future pedigrees for the more casual buyer to recognize. They lean much farther to the calving ease side of things than I'd like, but I think these cows will keep them from going too far with it. I need the cows to protect against foot size on both of them. Both bulls are throwing daughters with very good udders, so it never hurts to lock that down.





This might be the biggest gamble of the year and some people are going to think I'm crazy for using him as he does have some bw issues show up from time to time when used on the wrong cows, but I've waited years for the right cows to use him on. His wedge shape was textbook and he covered cows for a long time up on the tundra. You could drive a truck through his front legs and his daughters reverse it perfectly. Fescue tolerance is basically an unknown, but I'm going to bet on the cows carrying it just to get everything else he brings to the table. He also crosses extremely well with Angus, so even if his daughters all end up in the commercial herd under black bulls it should work out ok.