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HOME * HERD SIRES * THE COWS * BREEDING STOCK FOR SALE * FROZEN GENETICS FOR SALE * BLONDE d'AQUITAINE CATTLE * LINKS * CONTACT
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The
herd has been selected for fertility (short breeding season), fleshing ability, good
feet, trouble free udders, temperament (no man eaters) and quality of
calf produced. Any cow that falls outside these requirements is either
culled or put on the cull list, sons are not kept for the bull pen and
no replacements are kept. We have also tried to select bulls that will
sire moderate framed deep bodied females, as these seem to be the type
of cows that thrive in our management system.
A bit about how we manage our cow herd. The cows start calving during the last week of April, and are done by June 15th; approximately 45 days. Cows calving after that are culled during the fall preg check. The cows are calved in 10 acre paddocks with stock piled grass and hay supplementation until mid to late May when we start rotational grazing. We try and graze as late into the fall as possible with our limited pasture resources, and normally make it into late November or early December before "feeding" the cows. The cows are limit fed a combination of hay and cereal straw on pasture for the winter. We use a bale grazing system to feed the cows, and they are ideally moved every three days. We do feed one pound of a pelleted supplement per head per day to provide them with the vitamins and minerals they need, and get them out of the way while we move the wire to the next row of bales. We do graze straw/chaff piles and cereal swaths when the opportunity arises, and the economics warrant it. Replacement heifers are wintered on grass hay and provided with a loose salt/vitamin/mineral. They do not receive any grain or pellets as we want to select for females that will work in our lower input system.  Red WSS Rebecca 0219; an example of the type of female we are striving to produce.
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Willow Springs Stock Farm
Reed & Michelle Rigney and Family