Brodhi’s early introduction to Simmentals started a pursuit of the perfect Simmental bull or Simmental cow had him searching catalogues, browsing online and hassling breeders until they’d sell him one of their best. During that time he’d looked abroad to North America and the United States for genetics to enhance the quality of the cow herd whilst maintaining Australian characteristics that commercial producers require. Wondering what the ‘real life’ dimensions of the cattle from faraway places were really like, Brodhi made a trip solely focused on seeing the best breeders of Simmental in the northern hemisphere.
Leaving Australia and the 35oC behind the flights led us to Calgary with a temperature of -25oC. We headed south of Calgary to tour JB Livestock Company’s herd with Jason Bruketa. Among the snow we trekked (and froze) to see the cows which calve 2 months later than most Simmental breeders in Canada traditionally calve. Super impressive cows in the donor pen such as JB CDN Antebellum, Annifried, Giovanna and Fashionista stood from the crowd as donor candidates. Jason and his family built their own cow lines over a number of years, selecting only the best sires to suit and stack strength into every generation and therefore cow family.
The United States called. Dallas, Texas, and Fort Worth Stockyards was like something I’d never experienced before, cowboys, rodeos and steak to die for. Next morning, we headed out to the infamous Buzzard Hollow Ranch where Fred Schuetze had the Australian flag flying high at the ranch saloon. The donor cows looked a picture and as did the young heifers. Fred showed us many of the L137E daughters who had been produced via IVF cycles on the old Ashante cow, allowing fertilisation by 5 different bulls, thus giving diversity in the resulting ET calves.
Headed east toward Louisiana where we got to meet up with Rugged R Cattle Co, owners Tony and Rebecca Roberts along with manager Brian Valentine. The smaller scaled Rugged R program certainly didn’t lack quality with the yearling open heifers being a particularly good group, many being sired by FGAF Eagle along with Maximus, Rival and Unique heifers. Donor cows such as Diamond T Mona Lisa 273U, and many different genetics in the calves created a point of difference to a lot of other programs we had visited.
Having witnessed the impeccable structure and true stature of the leading cows from repeatable cow families in person grew the confidence in the ability to mix these North American genetics with the South African & Australian lines. Despite viewing Canadian donors of Jason’s in -35°C, coats were quite short with no curl, something that was not common in other herds. An added bonus of Jason’s cows was the sheer volume of especially the Annifried and Giovanna donors, something not witnessed in such high calibre cows since.
Since this whirlwind trip in 2018 Grangeburn have been able to secure over 100 embryos from some of those leading donors at JB Livestock Company and Prostock Livestock/Rugged R Cattle Co. Resultant progeny are the next generation of performance for Grangeburn, bringing grunt, predictability and calving ease to add to the slick, sound and high growth of the Australian Simmentals. Significant sire power with Australian semen rights to JB CDN Captain Call was added, who has produced slick skinned, heavily pigmented calves with huge growth and great calving ease. He, coupled with the elite sires used in flushes in Canada and USA have intrigued seedstock producers requiring an outcross option for their herds, and hence Grangeburn have sold a number of Simmental bulls into seedstock Simmental herds.
Demand has grown for Black Simmental bulls for sale in our southern markets, and so Grangeburn has purchased high quality donors and registered mature cows for the development of a Black Simmental and SimAngus programs. Black Simmental donors include Lancaster Poppy J357, Valley Creek Linnette R26 and Banquet Dream N536 purchased for $30,000. Black Simmental and SimAngus sires suit those with a cow base that are wanting to add hybrid vigour whilst maintaining a black coat and soft, natural muscling in progeny.
To secure some of these leading genetics keep an eye out for Grangeburn’s upcoming offering of Simmental bulls for sale as well as SimAngus bulls for sale and Simmental heifers for sale. These will be offered online with Auctionsplus on Friday February 3rd, or come along to our field day on the same day and inspect them for yourself!