REGINA — Everything old is new again as far as Pat Butler is concerned.
When she decided to offer semen from a Shorthorn bull born in 1967, she and her brother, Dice Bolduc, were not sure what might happen.
However, the phone started to ring at her farm near Rocky Mountain House, Alta., once the Canadian Western Agribition Shorthorn sales catalogue was mailed to potential buyers.
She has an inventory of Shorthorn embryos and genetics and decided it was time to distribute some of it.
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“I’m out of the business, but I’m not,” she said.
Butler offered six vials of semen, which sold for $600 each to Shane Sawley of Melville, Sask., at the Nov. 22 sale in Regina. Some of the interested bidders remembered the roan bull and others were looking for outcross genetics.
Her family has been involved with Shorthorn cattle since 1898.
Her parents, Floyd and Alice Bolduc, bought Olive Grove Century from a commercial breeder in 1970 after they saw an ad in the classified section of an Alberta newspaper. It was a polled Shorthorn, which was not common at that time.
The bull went on to sire a number of champions, including the junior and senior Shorthorn champions at the 1974 Agribition.
The 2003 Northlands Farmfair grand champion bull has Century in its pedigree. It also sired a bull that eventually went to New Zealand.
The semen was drawn in the 1970s by Prairie Breeders. Bulls usually had to have a nose ring and wear a halter when semen was collected, but Century was never halter broken. The company managed to figure it out.
Butler said her father wanted the semen as insurance in case the bull was hurt or died.
“We never sold semen from that bull. Dad didn’t believe in it.”
She said her father argued producers could buy the sons of the popular bull if they wanted its genetics.
Life with livestock carried through the generations.
Butler’s grandfather, Steve Swift,was a master livestock breeder showing swine, draft horses and Shorthorn cattle from Brandon to San Francisco, moving animals by train in box cars.
Her mother, Alice Bolduc, was a sheep shearer in her teens. She was also the first female judge in Western Canada when she evaluated cattle at the bull sale in High River, Alta., in the 1960s.
Butler showed the grand champion steer at the Calgary Bull Sale and the Edmonton spring bull sale in 1960 when she was 12 years old. It was the only time the same person won the big prize at both events in the same year.
“The girls showed but they didn’t stay and do the work in the stalls. I did,” she said.
A man was usually hired to take care of the stalls and wash the animals.
Steer shows were huge at that time, with as many as 400 head on display. The champions were killed afterward at Canada Packers and carcass information on rib eye sizes was returned to the exhibitors. Her family maintained the records.
“We were playing with carcass, in essence, because we could see what those steers were like. They were purebred Shorthorns,” she said.
Today, her brothers Dice and Dave own Cudlobe Angus at Stavely, Alta. They have also continued the winning traditions.
“Because of our parents, we got to learn from the best of the best in the industry,” she said.
The children attended 4-H judging clinics and mixed with the who’s who of the purebred industry.
Her children were encouraged to do the same thing and have gone on to have livestock careers.
“I said I would never be a hockey mom, but I would drive a million miles with their heifers,” she said.
Her daughter, Val Townsend, owns Lone Star Angus with her husband, Deone, at Sylvan Lake, Alta.
Their children, Dakota and Wacey, have been avid show people since they could walk. This summer Dakota had the reserve grand champion at the Calgary Stampede steer classic.
These days, Butler keeps her hand in the business by raising purebred black miniature donkeys.
