REGINA – A dismal year at one southern Manitoba farm looked brighter when the family run operation won the supreme champion pen of commercial bulls at Canadian Western Agribition Nov. 21-26.
Downey Farms of Coulter won with a pen of three black yearling Simmental bulls that came from an embryo flush on the farm. Allan and Jacquie Downey’s 14-year-old son, Ryan, owns the bulls.
Ryan is trying to start his own purebred herd. His cow yielded five eggs, which all resulted in bull calves. He needed a marketing plan and with encouragement from his parents, decided to try the commercial competition in Regina.
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Sired by Wheatland Simmental bulls, they created buzz from the traffic in the commercial barn.
“It is amazing how people react,” said Ryan.
The bulls were all around 309 days old and had an average daily gain of 3.60 pounds per day.
Allan has been in the Simmental business for 40 years and prefers the traditional full blood cattle with their red coats and white faces.
Ryan wants to build a herd of solid reds and blacks. The farm has 285 commercial cows based on traditional Simmental breeding and 90 purebreds that have been shown in Brandon, Edmonton Farmfair and Agribition.
It was a big win for the Downeys, who lost most of their pasture this year when the Souris River flooded and washed away forage and prevented them from seeding crops.
The challenge when they return to Manitoba is finding feed this winter. Pastures are still covered with furniture, black matter and sediment.
“Our pastures have been in trouble for a couple of years. We’ve had bad floods before, but this was the worst,” Allan said.
“We’ll wait till next year. We made it through BSE so surely we can carry on,” said Jacquie.
