My 2011 Study Tour

MY 2011 STUDY TOUR:
I am a young stud Angus breeder from "Hollywood Angus Stud", Peak Hill, NSW. I was awarded the Matthew George Young Stockman Award for 2010 at the Royal Melbourne Show. In April, I will be heading to Mexico and Canada for a four month study tour to get an overview of the beef cattle industries in these countries. I will be visiting a range of enterprises, including major shows, stud and commercial operations, and feedlots. I wish to thank the Ballarat Foundation for the opportunity to live my dream, and hope to share my experiences via this blog.

"LIVE YOUR DREAM"

"LIVE YOUR DREAM": THE MATTHEW GEORGE YOUNG STOCKMAN AWARD
The Matthew George Young Stockman Award was established as a sub-fund of the Ballarat Foundation in honour of Matthew George of Stockyard Hill, who was tragically taken in a car accident in 2007 at 21 years of age. Matthew had an absolute love of animals together with a thirst for knowledge and a passion for breeding. This annual award provides a young breeder aged 18 to 25 years with the opportunity to live Matthew's dream, and travel overseas to become an ambassador for the beef industry and study other beef cattle breeding programs and developments.
APPLY NOW FOR THE MATTHEW GEORGE AWARD 2011: Applications are now open for this year's Matthew George Young Stockman Award. This is an amazing award for anyone who wants to learn more about the beef industry. If you're aged 18-25, make sure you apply - the opportunities it opens up are just incredible! For application details, go to www.ballaratfoundation.org.au click on 'sub funds' & then 'matthew george award'. Applications close 30 June.

Thursday 30 June 2011

A Great Time at Peak Dot Ranch...

We finished doing the embryo programme in trying conditions (pouring rain!). For the next few days we took out loose lick minerals and salt blocks to the bred heifers and cows. Got to go out to as many of the pastures as the sodden conditions permitted to look at their genetics - saw their donor cows and bulls they've bred, as well as herd sires they've bought, plus a lot of progeny by bulls that are available in Australia that we've used in our own Stud. A tremendous line of cattle!!! Pictured below is Queen of Peak Dot 832S, one of their awesome donor cows. Also spent a lot of time talking about genetics & went through heaps of sale catalogues which was so interesting. 
 















I got to visit several other ranches that Peak Dot Ranch work in partnership with. At one we did flushing & implanting fresh embryos; at another we implanted frozen embryos; and then at another we pulled CIDR's for their AI program. Interesting to see how these relationships work and how these partnerships between ranches are mutually beneficial.

I had an awesome time at Peak Dot and was made to feel part of the family - I had my first weiner roast at one of the boy's birthday -  'weiners' (hotdogs) roasted over an open fire on forks and served with dill pickles, onions, cheese.. whatever takes your fancy! + 'smores' - marshmallows melted over the fire, put between two biscuits with a  piece of chocolate, and melted... yummy! They took me to Wood Mountain Provincial Park, where Sitting Bull and his tribe lived after the Battle of the Little Big Horn; also the Rodeo Museum (site of longest continual rodeo in Canada); we went to Regina and looked around; also spent a day in Moose Jaw where we went on a trolly tour and walked down the historic mainstreet with old buildings covered with murals & visited their renowned underground tunnels. I learnt a lot from my time at Peak Dot, and I so appreciate the hospitality the family showed me!!!

Friday 17 June 2011

Peak Dot Ranch, Sasketchewan


About Peak Dot: Peak Dot Ranch consists of 9000 acres including 3500 acres of tame hay in the “Wood Mountain Hills”, one of the elite ranching areas in Saskatchewan. The Ranch is made up of rolling hills and trees, with creeks that run all winter and spring fed dams. Peak Dot Ranch has been in the purebred business for over 40 years and is now one of the larger purebred Angus outfits in Canada. They run approx 750 cows and sell around 250 bulls annually, which are marketed through a spring sale, as well as a December sale.

I arrived at Peak Dot a few days ago and am having a wonderful time staying with Carson and Lana Moneo. Had a busy start here, as they’re in the middle of 2-3 week AI & ET program.  My first day was spent helping AI cows that they run in a partnership program with Owen Cairns and Tracy Weist  from Hillcrest Enterprises. Hillcrest runs one of the leading commercial recipient herds in the nation and has been running an embryo program for Peak Dot the last two years.  In 2010, Peak Dot also began a new business venture with Hillcrest Enterprises in the form of Hillcrest Feedlot - a newly constructed 3000 head feed yard, 40 minutes east of Peak Dot Ranch. The goal is to fill the feedlot with all Peak Dot sired cattle & provide marketing options for Peak Dot customers. 
Above is a photo of AI'ing in progress. We AI'd to SAV Bullet 0473  (pictured below left) & SAV Eliminator 9105 (pictured below right) and most of the cows were on their 2nd and 3rd calves - a lot of Predominant, Dynamite and Capacity daughters. The next day we flushed 14 donors - all Predominant daughters, bred to SAV Bullet  or SAV Eliminator - & then implanted embryos in afternoon.  Today followed much the same pattern,  flushing 15 cows – a lot of Dynamite females but also some different bloodlines (as opposed to Dynamite and Predominant daughters).  Also implanted more embryos (implanted close to 170 embryos and also froze a lot).  The weather has been so unpredictable: it seems to rain all the time - everywhere is so saturated; there's lots of land not seeded yet (& getting VERY late to plant crops - such a short growing period makes it really hard); and the rain is meant to stick around for a while, with  50-75ml predicted over next week. 



I’m already loving every moment here at Peak Dot & really looking forward to the rest of my stay. Hopefully in next few days we will start to take photos of the donor cows for catalogues, do more AI programs next week, haul bulls to pasture, tour around the herds …. Can’t wait to see what else is in store!!

Final Days at Remington

I’ve had an amazing month at Remington, and the final days were no different.  The weather finally improved and provided 4 lovely days of sunshine and warmth - the temperature even hit 20 degrees one day - warm enough for a T-shirt!!  (must be starting to acclimatise!). Spent my last 4 days clipping – we finished most of the Simmental cows before clipping the angus &  straight Canadian bred angus cows (all pure Canadian genetics - ie no US blood,) as well as some red angus. As we clipped, we also processed them - gave them their injections and Ivomec - while the cowboys processed the calves - gave them injections and tattoos.   Everyone has been really busy getting ready for the dispersal sale.  If the weather holds up, they will hopefully finish the clipping early next week, with the people coming to film and photograph the cattle for the sale arriving next week as well. 

I’ve had such a fantastic stay here: I got to take part in all the different operations that were happening; saw some really impressive cattle (their dispersal sale will be an awesome opportunity to purchase some great cattle and genetics - all the embryos are qualified for Australia!); loved spending most of my days on horseback working with the cattle; got to help clip one of the largest numbers of cattle ever for a dispersal in Canada; made great friends & learnt stacks…. I can’t wait to go back and visit.  Thank you to everyone at Remington for the fantastic time!! 

Thursday 9 June 2011

Clipping at Remington

 

We started clipping at Remington this week but the weather hasn’t been kind at all. We’ve had heaps of rain through the week (unusual for this area) which keeps interfering with our clipping work. Nevertheless we worked our way thru last year’s fall heifers at the main ranch; then we moved out into the pastures and took all our panels, S races, chutes etc and built a clipping setup out there. We’re ‘slick clipping’ - taking all the hair off. We run 2 clipping chutes (a cross between a chute and a crush) and work in pairs, one each side of the animal. It’s a great way to see all their cattle as they come through - they all still have a thick, winter coat so there’s quite a transformation when they’re done. Above is a 'before' and 'after' shot of Red Label. All up there’s about 1800-2000 head to be clipped!                       


Today was really wet again, so got to spend a day in the office helping get the catalogues ready for their sale - great to get some experience working on their computerised herd recording systems. My plans have been somewhat affected by the weather; I had planned to spend a week shortly at Soo Line in Sasketchewan, however they had a huge storm during the week and are completely flooded, so will have to give that a miss unfortunately. Last night Peak Dot Ranch also copped a big downpour, but I am still planning to head there next Monday & spend 8 or 9 days with them which I’m really looking forward to.

Branding at Hillmer's

On Saturday I got to experience another Branding day at a neighbouring ranch owned by Martin & Sheila Hillmer. We floated our own horses over to the ranch, where I joined the roundup team while others got started on the branding. It was so great rounding up the cattle – finally got what they call a perfect Canadian Spring day – 16 degrees and sunny – and the country was magnificent. Pens were set up in 4 different areas on the ranch, and by the time we finished with the roundup, branding was underway in the second location. When we finished there, we had snacks and refreshments, then we all rode off to the next location; in all we branded some 350 head. At this ranch, they use horses and rope the calves to catch and hold the calves. The calves were all branded, bulls castrated (as it’s a commercial ranch); needled and backlined. It was great fun and got to meets lots of people (around 30 people were there), including some from over the border (the US!).  At the end of the day we went back to the main place and had an early supper and spent some time socialising. A great day!

Friday 3 June 2011

There's no escaping winter!!!

So much for escaping the Australian winter and enjoying a Canadian summer! The weather has been crazy this past week – we had about 6 inches of rain over three days earlier in the week; since then it’s been cold & windy; and we’ve even had light hail and snow flurries that dusted all the ridges with snow (& interfered with my lovely view of the Rockies!). This is a pic of it snowing outside our our worker's lodge. This afternoon we had more heavy rain (about another 4” was forecast) and a top temp of about 6C!!!

Despite the weather, I’m really having a fantastic time here at Remington and have been busy helping with a range of jobs – riding out to check calves daily; moving cows to new pastures; putting bulls out with cows ; tagging calves; sorting bulls; semen testing etc. I love it that we do so much of the work on horses – this last week  it’s definitely proved much better being up high in the wet weather than on a motorbike!  




Today we paired up about 50 cows with their calves and moved them to a fresh pasture; the rest of the herd will still be calving thru into next month. I’m excited about this weekend coming up, as we’re going to a ‘branding day’ at a neighbouring ranch, where they do all the work with horses and roping. We’ll be taking our own horses on a float and I’ll get to help with the roundup and the branding (there’s some 450 or 500 head to brand) …. really looking forward to it!

I have about another week here at Remington and hopefully (weather permitting!) this next week will be spent clipping cattle ready for their dispersal sale in October of their entire registered herd.  A team of professional clippers has come to start clipping and I am so thrilled to be able to help out! We’ll be aiming to do about 100 head a day. The reason we’re starting on the cattle so early is that the sale will be conducted entirely by video, and they will need to take photos and videos of the cattle prior to the sale for the catalogues and video footage etc - a big job.  I’m very excited to have a chance to help out with the clipping – should be a great week!