Volume 17 Issue 2 September 2018 What’s Inside Simmental Completes The Package For Stahlville Colony Simmental Completes The Package For Stahlville Colony
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Gate Post — China - Land Of Potential
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Breed Improvement — New Money
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Vet’s Advice — Dart Guns: Advantages & Disadvantages
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What’s Happening
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Breed delivers combination of maternal traits as well as feedlot performance.
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Story By Lee Hart
li Waldner claims he is still impressed with the performance that the Simmental cross-breeding program has brought to their commercial southern Alberta beef herd as it developed over the past 40 years, so he’s going to stick with it. Waldner, who is the cow boss at the Stahlville Farming Hutterite Colony near Rockyford, east of Calgary says introducing Simmental genetics to their then-Hereford herd in late 1970s (before his time as cow boss) has improved performance in all areas. Today the breeding program that over the years transitioned to include Angus genetics, is producing moderate sized females with excellent mothering ability and milk production, and on the meat side they are seeing calves that consistently wean at about 750 pounds and finish in the farm feedlot at about 1480 pounds at 14 months of age. “The program we have is producing both excellent females — we raise all our own replacements, as well as excellent finished cattle,” says Waldner. “Order buyers are phoning us to see what we have coming, so that tells me they like what we’re producing.” The long-time support to and progressive management of Simmental cattle earned Stahlville Farming recognition as the Alberta Simmental Association Commercial Breeder of the Year for 2018. “We felt Eli Waldner and Stahlville Farming were deserving of the award partly because they have used Simmental genetics for so many years,” says Scott Harvie, of Harvie Ranches near Olds, AB. “But they’ve also been very progressive in their use of Simmental genetics to improve performance of their cattle. It has helped to further promote the value of Simmental to the beef industry.” Harvie who nominated Stahlville Farming for the award, is also a director of the Alberta Simmental Association. Stahlville Farming was among the first commercial beef operations in Canada to begin using Simmental genetics in a cross breeding program as the European exotic breeds were being introduced to North America. Jake Waldner who was Stahlville cow boss at the time began cross breeding what was then a small straight Hereford cow herd with Simmental in 1976. The colony stayed with that program for a number of years, eventually introducing Red Angus bulls into the breeding program to cross with traditional and Fleckvieh Simmental cattle. As genetics became available they then transitioned to Black Angus and Black Simmental cattle starting in 1998. “The last red animal on the place was sold about three years ago,” says Eli Waldner. “We preferred the black cattle. We wanted to get the dark skin pigmentation around the eyes and also on the udder, to reduce problems with disease and pests around the eyes and protect the udders from sunburn.
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“On the Angus side we liked the looks of the Black Angus better than the Reds, we felt they had wider butts — produced more meat — had better marbling and also gained weight easier.” Today the colony runs 670 head of 50/50 crossbred cattle— females are 50 percent Black Angus and 50 percent Black Simmental. All females sired by Simmental are bred to Black Angus bulls and all females sired by Angus bulls are bred to Simmental. First calf heifers are bred to Black Angus and the farm also runs about half a dozen Charolais bulls as well. Waldner says there is usually a percentage of the cowherd they aren’t interested in using for producing
Commercial Country
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