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RED ANGUS |
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February 15, 2010 |
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Welcome to our Red Angus pages. Have a look around, and don't be shy about contacting us if you have questions or comments.
The Willow Springs Red Angus herd currently has about sixty-five breeding females. The herd has been selected for fertility (short breeding season), 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 in May, and are done by July 1st, with most calving in the first 45 days. Prior to the BSE situation, we pulled the bulls to achieve a 60 day calving window, however we now leave the bulls out a little longer and sell the late breds. 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, and normally make it into late November or early December before hay is fed. The cows winter on pasture, use snow as a water source and are limit fed hay. All the cows run together, young and old, however we will pull out thinner cows and feed them separately if need be. If these "pulls" are old (12+ years) they are given some leeway, but if they are younger they will find their way onto the cull list.  |
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HISTORY
We purchased our first Red Angus females as bred heifers in the
spring of 1999 from Mathy Kluss. Originally we were looking for
commercial females, but when I was given the choice of 30 purebred
heifers at a reasonable price I couldn't refuse. The eight selected
heifers all calved easliy, were good mothers and had vigourous calves.
The calves were a bit small (65-75 lbs), but that was ok for heifers,
and besides we were going to breed them Simmental to get some thick
growthy steers, and good replacement heifers. By the time breeding
season rolled around we had modified that a bit due to the impressive
growth and style of the calves, and quality of the cows. We AI'ed the
cows then cleaned up with a Simmental bull. By the fall of 1999 we were
sold on the Red Angus females, as was my father in law (Eddy Skitsko)
who had calved and cared for the heifers. Those small calves had grown
into big stylish calves, and just out of two year old heifers. That fall we
purchased several more females, and leased a package of cows from
Len-Bar Ranches. We ran a calf share for three years with Len-Bar, Eddy
and myself all getting a portion of the calves. My favourite quote of
Eddys was "If I had known how easy Angus were, I would have had them
years ago." Eddy had previously raised purebred Polled Herefords before
going to a commercial herd of Polled Herefords, Charolais and
Simmental. For several years Eddy managed the cows, and we commuted on
weekends to do as much as we could. In 2003 we purchased our own farm
and the cows were moved to Clyde.
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HOME * HERD SIRES * THE COWS * BREEDING STOCK FOR SALE * FROZEN GENETICS FOR SALE * BLONDE d'AQUITAINE CATTLE * LINKS * CONTACT