Our final farm visit while in Alberta was to Spruce Lane Dairies, Ltd. of Penhold, AB. The home of the Dirk & Elizabeth Appel Family, they breed their herd under the Altappel prefix. Taking us on a tour of the cows was Dirk & Elizabeth who both come from many generations of dairy farm families in Holland. They immigrated to Alberta 14 years ago and have built from the ground up with a grade herd to purebred Holsteins that can compete in the show ring and send bulls to AI.

The first thing that caught our eye as we walked in the barn was this March ’10 Damion heifer from Eastside Lewisdale Gold Missy’s full sister!

The 200-cow milking herd and bred heifers are all housed under one roof and milked in a double 12 parlor. This makes for great efficiency and comfortable conditions…even in the cold, blustery Canadian winters.

Dirk & Elizabeth are excited to see the development of the AltaGlow daughters in their herd for more reason than one. The daughters are looking great themselves AND he was bred by the Appels! Altappel AltaGlow is a Titanic son of Jeanlu Monday Gleam VG-88 2* with over 150,000 lbs lifetime. Next dam is Brigeen Rudolph Glinda-ET VG-86 2Y 17* and then Mandel Golda VG-88 GMD DOM and Roylane Leadman Glory-ET VG-89 GMD DOM followed by 2 more EX dams.

AltaGlow 11HO09708 is the highest new release Canadian sampled bull from Alta Genetics at LPI 1613. He currently ranks #3 for udders in the Top 100 LPI. He is considered an udder specialist with high components – his daughters are tall, open and dairy.

Great representation of the udders we saw on the AltaGlow daughters in the herd.

Pictured above is Altappel Glow Patty VG-85 2Y. Her dam was a GP-80 Hershel.

Altappel Shottle Peggy VG-85 2Y
This young Shottle daughter has a 3/21/10 La Presentation Denzel daughter on the farm.

Altappel Dundee Aspen VG-86 2Y
2-02 2x 308 24,965 3.3 829 3.1 776
4th dam is Dixie-Lee Aspen-ET EX-92 GMD DOM

Altappel Damion Betty VG-87 2Y
10/09 Armstead daughter on the farm.

Altappel Jasper Sheela
This September 20th fall yearling is every bit as impressive in person as she is in her professional photo…but I like this picture better than the one I was able to snap while on the farm. She is shown by Dirk & Elizabeth’s son, Arisjan, and already has several show ring successes to her name. Sheela is due to calve in October to Sanchez.

A view from the end of the new addition to the main barn. The new addition has larger free-stalls and a bedded pack area for recently fresh and special needs cows.

Looks like its dinner time!

Following a nice visit around the kitchen table over cold drinks, I snapped this quick photo of Elizabeth and Dirk Appel with the youngest of their three children, Margriet.

*Special Note* Last week in the post about Wendon Holsteins, I mentioned that a picture I took included Wendon Dundee Diva VG-87 2Y and that she is owned in partnership with Altappel. Elizabeth reports that Diva recently calved with a Sanchez heifer!

To conclude my series of Alberta farm visit reports, I thought I’d share some scenic pics of the Alberta landscape. The vastness of the landscape is just awesome and July is such a perfect time of year to travel to this Canadian province. This picture is taken pointed east and to the west, less than a 2 hour drive, are the majestic Rocky Mountains.

My trip this year did not allow for enough time to travel into the mountains, but I did find some photos from my trip to the Morsan sale two years ago that I thought I’d share again…simply to give you more of a full view of the Alberta scenery and because I think they are pretty cool.

FYI – In the middle of this photo is a glacier!

My next farm visit stop while in Alberta was to Ten Brummelhuis Dairy in Olds, Alberta. Upon arriving we were greeted warmly by Alfons and then his son, Aron, and invited into their home for lunch. Alfons’s wife, Wilma, had a welcome spread of sandwich fixings and an unbelievable tomato basil soup for us to enjoy. Over lunch we chatted about the road that led them to Olds from Holland just 9 years ago. They went from operating 20 acres with 25 cows and 200 hogs, to now managing 380 acres with a herd of 90 cows. In their 8 years of breeding purebred Holsteins, the Brummelhuis’ have developed a herd that is now 70% VG or EX and 90% homebred. They have bred 6 EX cows to date and have many in the VG 85 to 87 range.

The 90-cow milking herd is milked 2x/day and is currently averaging 86 lbs/day with 3.7%F and 3.3%P and a SCC of 90. They have been recognized as one of the Top 20 herds in Alberta for management.

The milking herd is housed in a pack barn that is connected to the parlor. The barn has large doors that are open on a regular basis to the left and back of this photo. Off to the left the cows have access to a dirt lot and pasture. The large 6 foot blade fans keep the barn cool during the summer months. The barn is bedded with two big square bales of straw each day and is completely cleaned once every two months. Cows are fed a TMR 4x a day.

Brummelhuis Primetime Anita 2E-92
A Windy-Knoll-View Primetime daughter of Happy Cow Marconi Anita 3*. Primetime Anita has over 100,000 lbs lifetime to date. She has one classifed daughter who is EX-90, sired by Lucky Mike. More young daughters in the herd sired by Atlas, Goldwyn & Shottle. Pregnancies on the way sired by Sanchez due in December. She herself is due in September to Denzel.

Standing in the middle of this picture is an EX-91 4E Jolt.

Brummelhuis Jordan Red Nancy EX-91 92-MS
She has two heifers in the herd sired by West Port Robo Red (Talent x Elegant Ruble Red).

Bred heifers and dry cows enjoy a four pasture rotation throughout the summer. The black cow standing in the middle of this picture is Markwell Rudolph Diamond-ET EX-91 4E. She is a Rudolph daughter of Luke Rapture 4E 92 from Bstar Raven 3E-95. Diamond is due in October to Goldwyn.

The red heifer in the middle is a daugther of EX-91 Jordan Red and is due to calve in September to Director (Kite x Advent x Debutante Rae).

Their heifer facility was built last year and provides housing for weaned calves all the way up to bred heifers. When weather and pasture conditions permit, all heifers have access to lots of space.

Flush mates all in a row! Born the end of June and first part of July, these are Big Apple-Red daughters of Happy Cow Jordan Red Hannie EX-90, over 188,000 lbs lifetime.

A close-up view of one of the Big Apple sisters.

A Goldwyn (left) and Damion (right) enjoying the beautiful afternoon and some hay. The Brummelhuis’ have really enjoyed this set-up for raising their baby calves. They believe there is nothing better than raising calves in the open air. Bed well, feed well and provide a windbreak = best way to raise calves.

Owners of the farm and our hosts for the day – Aron, Wilma & Alfons ten Brummelhuis

Wendon Holsteins is a 2x Master Breeder Herd that is owned and operated by Don & Wendy Chalack, and son Logan. They currently crop 500 acres of dry hay and barley. The milking herd consists of 50 cows with a RHA of 24,288M 876F 750P. They are scored 15 EX, 30 VG and 14 GP. Cows eat all dry hay and a 16% dairy ration.

Left: Wendon Dundee Diva VG-87 2y (Owned with Atlappel)
Center: Wendon Dundee Divinia VG-87 2y
Right: Their Dam, Wendon Triumph Divine EX-94 2E 2*
Renaissance Triumphant x VG-87 x EX-95 15* x EX 4* x EX 11*
*There is another Dundee daughter of Divine who scored VG-87 @ 2yrs, and is now EX-91 for her owners, Ferme Arolene, Quebec.

Left: VG-88 Damion x VG-88 Gibson
Right: VG-88 Goldwyn x VG Champion

EX Outside x VG Cousteau

Brummelhuis Morty Jenny EX-92

2E Storm x 3E Skychief x EX Starbuck

Left: EX Goldwyn x VG Cousteau
Right: VG-88 Goldwyn x VG Terrason

This week I have the great adventure of traveling to Alberta, Canada for the Morsan Mountain High III Sale that will take place on Thursday at Westerner Park in Red Deer. Leading up to the sale I have some time set aside to tour farms in the area. My first stop was this afternoon at Rocky Mountain Holsteins in Cochrane, Alberta.

Just a short drive north and west of the Calgary airport is RockyMountain Holsteins, owned by the partnership of Doug Blair, Dr. David Chalack, and Glenn Hockley. Greeting us upon our arrival to the farm was the owner of the farmplace, Marge Chalack. The farm formerly was the home to the Chalack Family’s Ultra herd.

Farm manager, Ron Churchill, greeted us just inside the barn door and then went back to a tour group that arrived just ahead of our vehicle. Our tour guide was then Rebekah Mathers who serves as co-herdsperson of the farm with her husband, Peter. This young couple has been at RockyMountain Holsteins for three years and both grew up in the dairy business in Australia.

The herd currently consists of 42 milk cows, 150-head of youngstock – 100 of which are the result of the herd’s extensive ET work. Cows are housed in a tie-stall barn with access to rolling green pastures on most days. Heifers are grouped by ages in large group housing sheds with bedded packs and some access to pasture. Calves are housed in both calf hutches and individually divided calf pens.

The group at Rocky Mountain that we visited with during our stop, from left to right: Rebekah & Peter Mathers and Baby Mathers due in September! (Australia), Masaya Anezaki (Japan), Ron Churchill (Ontario), Doug Blair and Scott Hastie (Ontario).

Watching the comings and the goings of the farm is the infamous Irwindale Leduc Macy EX-95-2E.

Recently fresh Junior 3-year-old sired by Lou x VG Durham x Leduc Macy. Her Shottle daughter sells in the Celebration Sale. Other young cows in the herd are sired by Ramos and Baxter.

Left: Dundee Dakota VG-88
Right: Roy Dolce VG-87 (Dam: Jed Dolorita EX)

Left: Salto Margaret VG-85 (Dam: VG Intensifier)
Right: Salto Fiora GP-82 (Dam: VG Talent)

9/09 Alexander sister to the up and coming hot bull at Semex – Crackholm Fever. To date, Fever’s daughters are 87% GP or better. He is a Goldwyn son from an EX-92 Blitz.

3/10 full sister to Misty Spring Shottle Silk and Misty Spring Shottle Satin.

Polled, red Lawnboy daughter. More calves in the pens are sired by Planet, Shottle, Alexander and Truman.

Make plans to join the crew of RockyMountain Holsteins this September 18 as they hold the RockyMountain Holsteins Celebration Sale 2010 at the farm. They will be selling 100 head of cows, heifers and calves – many of which we saw today. For more information on RockyMountain, check out their website at www.rockymountainholsteins.com.

It was quite an interesting day yesterday as I eagerly agreed to travel with Mitch Hockett to their other Kingsmill Farm in Randleman, North Carolina. A little over an hour southwest of Raleigh, the Randleman farm is home to 900 head of cattle, and will eventually house a milking herd of about 200 head. We traveled there with veterinarian Richard Doak of the Mid Maryland Dairy Vets group located in Hagerstown. Dr. Doak had flown in Wednesday morning to do some ultrasound work on a group of heifers that were carrying embryos made by Recipient Solutions. Our conversation on the 80 mile drive included such topics as Doak’s new ultrasound machine and improvements coming in the future, Twitter, apps on the iPhone, genomics and dairying in the west (Richard grew up in New Mexico and spent many years working in Arizona). We also learned about a fairly new venture that Mitch, and farm manager Eddie Patrick, have gotten involved in – owning bucking bulls and bucking bull mothers. Mitch and Eddie, along with Jerome Davis, own a few famous ones, most notably Katwoman, who is a full sister to the 7x bucking bull champion Katmandu. Mitch says there’s quite a big value put on males, but they do flush the females and the female market can be very strong as well.

It was time to get down to business, and so Eddie, Mitch and one of their great workers, Caesar, gathered up the group of 17 heifers. Dr. Doak gave me the monitor and we watched as he showed us each calf, how to check the sex and what parts were what! It was interesting to see how some calves were extremely active and moving around, while others seemed perfectly content to have the ultrasound wand check them over. Doak says the ideal time to check the sex of the calf is around 68 days. Eddie, Mitch and Caesar all do ultrasound work themselves at Kingsmill, so the stories they compared with Dr. Doak were fun to listen to. He also explained the merits of ultrasounding expense for the “commercial guys.” “It’s not an unnecessary expense for those big dairies. If I can tell a manager that a cow is carrying a bull calf, and she also happens to be a high somatic cell cow, or low producer, that just may be the information needed to make a culling decision quicker and save time and money in the long run.”

One of the interesting things about Dr. Doak was his “big picture” thinking and his experience, which Eddie quickly tapped into. Questions were fired off about nutrition, vaccination programs, dehorning (have you tried the propane burner at 2 weeks of age?) and so on. That, of course, led to stories about the neighbors, including one of a copperhead snake biting a neighbors’ horse. Seeing that I have a paralyzing fear of snakes, it was, I had hoped, a topic we could move past quickly.

The calf hutches in Randleman are super-sized! Newborn calves get the deluxe accomodations and then are moved to hutches, then group housing, then the pasture lots. Calves are weaned at three months and have been reaching the 330 pound weight by that time.

Henry, Mitch and Eddie listen to Dr. Doak explain about another form of dehorning.

My favorite calves in the pens were definitely the Durham and Shottle heifers from Astrahoe Raleigh Lee Robust (EX-92), followed closely by some very fancy Reality-Red and Redliner calves.

Stay tuned for more from Raleigh later today as I’ll be doing a photo view of the cows getting ready for Saturday’s Southern Parade of Stars Show! And be sure to check back on www.holsteinworld.com for the sale order and updates for tomorrow’s Knight at Kingsmill Sale!

Say goodnight Holyfield! (look at the ears!)

The Oneida Co. (NY) 4-H office organizes a Farm Fest every year. This year it was held last Friday, June 4th at DiNitto Farms in Marcy, NY. Holstein World’s Art Director Bill Woodruff attended the event which attracted over 2,000 visitors, including 800 school children! In addition to of course touring the dairy farm, there were: 21 agricultural education exhibits; pony rides; hay rides; and a hay maze.

DiNitto Farms is a third generation family farm that currently milks 450 head three times a day in a double 10 parlor. In addition they raise their own crops and replacements. They employ 8 full time employees plus some summer help.

June is Dairy Month and this is a great way to show the public how a modern dairy farm works. Is your farm or community planning something for Dairy Month? Feel free to share your story and/or pictures with us and we’ll be happy to post them here on the blog, or in our Photo of the Day section of www.holsteinworld.com! E-mail them to me, Lynnette Wright (lwright@dairybusiness.com).

Here are some pictures Bill took at Farm Fest:

While in Kansas a few weeks ago I stopped at George Dairy Cattle in Baldwin City, KS, and once I found the farm (sometimes Google doesn’t know it all!) I had a great visit with Eugene and Laura George. Here are some images:

A beautiful farm sign greets you to the George Dairy Cattle farmstead.

Eugene & Laura George were great hosts. They got into the Registered Holstein business in the late 90′s for their kids, Casey & Brittnay.

On the right is Charverne Durham Arlene (EX-94 DOM) – the matriarch of the herd. She was nominated for Jr. All-American three times and has several daughters and granddaughters in the herd, with more on the way! In fact, the cows to the right are her daughter and Toystory granddaughter.

A Rosedale Touchdown December calf

They had several nice daughters of Roy, including this one.

The milking herd had to be retrieved from the pasture. As they came back up to the barnyard Eugene told me who was what. The cow on the left here is an EX-93 Durham daughter.

A nice young Talent out of an EX-93 Stormatic that they show.

Another Excellent Durham daughter.

While I was in Kansas for the Ratliff Proof of Progress sale I also took a quick trip out to the farm to see the remaining animals left in the herd. Although they sold a majority of their milking herd, there are still some big names and familiar faces in Christy & Ron’s barn.

Of course, one of the most familiar faces was Ratliff Price Alicia (EX-93) the reigning two-time Jersey National Champion. Alicia, who is currently dry, looked great and could be ready for a run at three-in-a-row this fall!

We got to the farm right at milking time, so we followed the group up to the holding pen.

The cow on the right is Ratliff D Dean Allie, who was just Grand Champion at the Wisconsin Spring Jersey Spectacular show this spring. She is a perennial show-ring contender.

Some promising young cows that remain on the farm. On the left is a Governor daughter of Alicia, and on the right is a Mason Sr. 2-Year-Old. Mason is a homebred bull that has done well for the Ratliffs. He is a Juno out of Pleasant Nook Rene Myriah (EX-95). His full sister, Ratliff Juno Madison (EX-94) has been Reserve All-American twice as a 4 & 5-year-old.

The feeding lot for the milking herd – Christy commented that it “looked pretty empty!”

The whole sale crew after the successful Ratliff Proof of Progress Sale which averaged $3,680. For more on the sale head here.

On Tuesday 13th April, Willsbro Holsteins hosted an Open House around their 1000 cow facility, attracting nearly 1200 people from all parts of the UK and Europe. Basking in glorious spring sunshine, visitors were treated to a wonderful tour of their facilities, and also were given the chance to see some of the cows at Willsbro which have enjoyed considerable show success.

Feeding up at Willsbro- Much of the equipment and freestall metalwork was sourced from the U.S.

A 60 point rotary parlour is in operation at Willsbro, on average milking 400 cows an hour.

All cows are fed a TMR diet, the 1000 cow unit currently averages 25,465lbs. milk and 3.82% butterfat.

Over 180 lots were presented in the Willsbro Sale at the fantastic facilities of the Royal Cornwall showground, whilst over 1200 people attended the cheese and wine reception at night!

One of the biggest crowds ever at a European sale witnessed a record breaking trade.

Willsbro Emilyann (Planet X Wabash-Way Emilyann) the #1 GTPI heifer in Europe-smashed the previous European record for a female sold at auction- selling for $144,500 to Spanish buyer, “La Ponderosa”

A fantastic sale crew helped make this one of the most memorable sales in European History, great hospitality, fantastic pre-sale promotion, and a great standard of presentation really paved the way for a most memorable sale.

Holstein World’s Frank Putman rode along with Gary Tubolino recently on a visit to Dave King’s Midas Touch Holsteins.

Dave welcomes us to the housing facility for flush cows and the youngsters from the donors that are housed there.

Jordan Fisher (Dave’s nephew) was home from Cornell, and joined us to show off his recent purchase that is housed at Midas Touch. He is on the left with Gary in the middle and Dave on the right.

Big Cows-Big Scores! From left: 13th generation EX Astahoe R Rose Riatta-ET; Jordan’s recent investment, Allimar Durham Stetson (EX-92); and Ellbank Cherry Coke-Red-ET (EX-92).

Calf comfort – Spacious calf stalls at Midas Touch. On the left is an Aftershock out of Roxy Royale

Ridgedale T Roxy Royale (EX-90) – a 7th generation EX “Roxy”

“Things go better with Coke” or in this case, Cherry Coke! Another view of Ellbank Cherry Coke-Red-ET EX-92 (bred by Holstein World’s Lynnette Wright), a Jordan daughter that completes five generations of Excellent cows! Jeff King, Dave’s brother, purchased her for Dave in the Cobleskill Fashions sale in 2009, and in a few weeks, Dave will be selling a pick of Cherry Coke in the 2010 edition of the sale. (Lynnette’s proud breeder note – she looks an awful lot like her momma in this picture! It’s almost scary!)