WOW! WHAT ARE THE ODDS!!

How often do you see this happen? Every year I pick two or three young sires off of Select Sire Power's Super Sampler lists to use on the majority of my cows. You never know, you might get lucky. And over the last few years I have. Ocean-View Zenith graduated into AI stud. Canyon-Breeze Storm Atom graduated. And there have been a few others that I didn't get heifers out of, but that made it into stud. Select samples hundreds of Holstein bulls. And less than 10% graduate every year. Just to have two bulls that you used and got daughters off of make it into stud is amazing. I figured all my luck had probably been used up completely. I mean, I use so many young sires that I probably shouldn't be able to pick any that will not only make nice daughters, but will graduate into the 'Proven' group.

But I just checked out the new sire summaries for May. They come out every three months, February, May, August, and November. They are one of the few things I really look forward to. I have been watching for Ocean-View Derry Zander to have a proof. I'd been keeping an eye on his prelims and he was shaping up pretty decent. Not too stellar in the milk department, but with a whole pile of type points, and a pretty decent TPI. I did a post on him a while back, but darned if I can find it (AH HAH. Found it, here it is). Another bull I've been waiting to see if anything was going to happen with him is Vital-I Durham Lewis. Mom and I both loved this bull as a young sire. Me in particular. Another Regancrest Elton Durham son, he is out of a 96 point Hanoverhill Lincoln daughter. and though I was either very young or not born yet when Lincoln would have been a 'big name' bull, I really love his daughters. They are big, long, dairy, and in this case inky black. I have two Lewis daughters, one, Sedona, is currently milking.

Guess what.

Both bulls graduated. And I mostly like the looks of their proofs. Surprisingly Lewis has the better milk proof , but both bulls are very close on type.

I'll write more later. But I have to go rescue poor Hooter, my very very pregnant Jersey from the rest of the cows. Who are for some reason trying to beat her to death. Gotta love cows!

Bulls For the Next Generation

I have started picking the bulls that I am going to be using for my next generation of cows. Most are not new or young animals. To start off with, I have decided to try and get 5 straws of the Canadian bred and Semex controlled bull Silky Cousteau. Cousteau is a Juniper Rotate Jed son, out of a very good 87 point Cletius followed by a EX-90 point Valiant, and another 87 point scored Elevation. If all goes as I hope, I want to use him on Mandy after she calves in June, Becky's two year old Extra Special daughter Lemonade, my 5 year old Cal-Clark Board Chairman daughter, and hopefuly Junie after she calves in September. Then I should hopefully have one unit left to use on some other cow. This should also spread the calves out so that should I get enough heifers, I could in a year or two have a junior or senior get of sire. Which I have been lacking the last few years.

The next bull I am looking at is a Select Sire Power animal named Creek BWMARSHALL Dakota, a BW Marshall out of a Rudolph. He's been gender selected, and I think I might try using him on Mandy's Blitz daughter from last year, Dixie's Andre granddaughter Dixon, and my Kenyon yearling Medina. Hopefully I can get just three or four units, as I don't have a use for more.

After that I intend to work on using up the rest of the semen I have sitting in the tank. I've got semen on bulls like Zenith, Zander, Kenyon, Rain, Kingdom, and so many more, including some of those bulls breeders like to call the "Golden Oldies'. If anybody has some more suggestions on bulls they think I should look at, please feel free to let me know. I am always open to suggestions, though I admit I don't always pay a lot of attention.

Fustead Emory Blitz-ET

I was surfing through the photo gallery of Select Sire Power's website, and decided to take a look at Blitz's page. He is the sire of my second place April calf, Mendocino. Hopefully, her mommy (Mandolin Rain) is carrying another calf by him. Anyways, I am always impressed by his daughters. They're long, tall, lean, and darn good milk cows. And to top it all off, they do very very well in the show ring. Talk about your all around cows.

Mandy is by another Select bull, Ocean-View Zenith-TW-ET. I got to visit Ocean-View a few years ago on a college field studies trip that went to California. I took lots of pictures of their outstanding cattle. I will have to scan some in and post them. The cows were absolutely stunning.

Top Photo: Frieland Z Mandolin Rain and me in the Senior Three Year Old class. Photo courtesy of my big brother.
Bottom Photo: Maqua-Kil Blitz Mendocino with my brother in the Junior Exhibitor's Herd.