Spring 2018
We had a busy spring attending the Midwest Sale (Winfield, Kansas), the Blue Ridge Sale (Llano, Texas), the Red McCombs Fiesta Sale (Johnson City, Texas), and the Millennium Futurity (Lawton, Oklahoma). We had a great time meeting Longhorn breeders and visiting with our existing Longhorn friends. We added some stellar cows and heifers to our herd: a grulla twisty Tejas Star daughter (bred to an award winning Tuff son Del Charro), a twisty Top Caliber daughter bred to Cowboy Tuff Chex (and a full sister to the well known, record setting M Arrow Cha-Ching), a black and white Pace/Gaskill partnership heifer (bred to Gold Mine 1), a big bodied young heifer out of CR Longhorns fine program, and a promising heifer with Loomis breeding. We were able to take advantage of a few spring rainstorms to burn brush piles in several of our Longhorn pastures. Our exciting parker brown junior herd sire KDK Tomboy, full brother to KDK Valiant, was given his own pasture and three heifers to breed - he is a very happy bull right now!
Fall/Winter 2017
We have just completed two rounds of AI (2 cows and 1 heifer on October 22, 2017 plus 3 cows and 1 heifer on December 22, 2017). We have the results back from the first round: our pretty Helm's Ace daughter, DC Ace Drop, has been successfully AI'd to Reckon So (78.75" TTT at 3 yrs 7 mos) and our gorgeous brindle Cowboy Casanova daughter, DC Casanova's Lady, has been successfully AI'd to TCC Houdini (88.75" TTT at 3 yrs 5 mos)! We are anxiously awaiting these August 2018 calves.
For the December round, we AI'ed our Cowboy Casanova daughter DC Poco Knut to JH Rurally Screwed since her 2017 heifer calf from this pairing is fantastic. We used 2.1 heifer sexed semen from Hubbell's 20 Gauge for two of our Vargus daughters, KDK Vargus' Venus and KDK Misty Maiden. We selected TCC Houdini semen for our Vargus daughter KDK Vargus' Victoria. We'll be blood testing the group in several weeks.
Our senior herdsire, RR Vargus, was 3 for 3 on heifer calf production this year, with his last calf being born on 12/12/17. Gotta love those statistics!
We have been hosting several cows and heifers from area breeders to pasture breed to our outstanding herdsire KDK Valiant. He, of course, is enjoying the attention and is very committed to his job. We are fortunate to have had mild temperatures and good rainfall to keep his pasture full of nice grass.
Summer/early fall 2017
We attended the Horn Showcase 2017 in Lawton OK. We always learn so much from the seminars and enjoy mingling with fellow breeders. We find Bull Alley invaluable for comparing bulls, selecting semen for our AI program, and researching pedigrees. We added Hubbell's 20 Gauge heifer-sexed semen to our AI program after seeing him "in the flesh". We made the hard decision to sell our beloved cow SHR Wow's Sierra at the Saturday sale. Thanks to Larry and Toni Stegemollar for purchasing her! Sierra gave us two high quality heifers and we hope she produces as well for them. We know they'll take good care of her.
In early October, we welcomed three calves from our AI program: a heifer calf and a bull calf by JH Rurally Screwed, and a heifer by Call of Duty. We are thrilled to have lots of color from our calf crop this year. Some folks are disappointed when bull calves arrive- but not us! We need some non-Cowboy Chex related genetics for our KDK Valiant daughters. We'll grow several bull calves out to see if we can produce a excellent outcross bull for our program.
in August, we welcomed four calves from our AI program: a heifer by JH Rurally Screwed, a bull and a heifer by Casanova's Magnum, and a heifer by Reckon So. We love that AI'ing gives us calves born the same week - safer for the calves, with all the coyote packs in our area, easier on the mama cows because they can trade off calf-sitting duties, and easier for us to compare body size and horn growth out of various matings.