I made a very quick trip to Pennsylvania for the dispersal sale of the North American Dunlouise cowherd last weekend. These are old-style, 100% Scottish-bred cows. As I said last week, we have used a couple of bulls out of this herd in the PCC program – with good results. We will have two outstanding sons of Dunlouise Jipsey Earl in our upcoming sale in Burlington, Colorado. They are cataloged as lots 9 and 10. The Dunlouise cattle are smaller-framed cattle with extremely low maintenance requirements. They are very thick and wide-based. They appear to be extremely easy fleshing. Unfortunately, the U.S. seedstock program this cowherd is in is an extremely HIGH-INPUT program that overfeeds. Therefore, the Dunlouise cows were WAY TOO FAT. It would have been nice to see them in a real-world ranch environment.
After studying the offering, Brandon Overdorff (PCC CP from PA) and I decided there were only four or five mature cows that were good enough and/or qualified to come into the PCC program. Brandon ended up buying one of them and I ended up buying another – along with her heifer calf by Jipsey Earl. I feel confident that the two cows we purchased were the second and third best cows in the sale. I was fortunate enough to purchase a bull calf that was produced by what we considered to be the best cow in the sale. This was the only bull calf that had been left intact. He is a STOUT rascal! I purchased four more heifer calves – all daughters of Jipsey Earl. It was very clear to Brandon and me that the Jipsey Earl daughters fit the PCC program better than daughters of the other Dunlouise sires. I felt that these heifer calves would stand a better chance of adapting to PCC’s ultra-low-input program than the older females. Time will tell.
One of the Jipsey Earl daughters I purchased was produced by a red cow and is registered with the Red Angus Association. This provides an opportunity for us to incorporate this unique Scottish breeding into our Red Angus program. There is a good chance some of the other females I purchased carry the red gene. We will DNA test to see which ones do. Those that do will be put into our Red Angus program. All things considered… I would say this trip was very worthwhile. It was good to see this herd before it was dispersed. I feel fortunate that Brandon and I were able to purchase some really good females.
I am excited about the future. We plan to maintain cows with pure Dunlouise breeding, as well as do some outcrossing. Because the Dunlouise cattle are so linebred and prepotent, I’m sure the results of outcrossing will be MOST IMPRESSIVE!
As seen in PCC email blast
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