REGINA – Scott Watson is no stranger to winning at the commercial cattle show at Canadian Western Agribition.
In the last two years, the young rancher from Wolseley, Sask., has taken home the banner for grand champion pen of bred heifers. For the most part, those black and red baldie heifers came off ranches in the shortgrass country on either side of the Cypress Hills.
Watson bought 144 head of heifers last February at Medicine Hat’s Rocking R Auction, but most of the top cut of 30 head – two pens of 10 and two pens of five – ended up being one-iron cattle raised by Wayne Bircham at Piapot. The pens were rounded out by heifers from Watson’s 250-head herd.
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Still, it was Watson’s eye that was able to put the pens together. Not only did Wolf Creek Livestock (Watson’s business name) win grand champion, but the champion pen of five heifers, entered by Scott’s parents Bob and Norma Watson, won reserve grand champion. The Watson’s second pen of 10 was named reserve champion.
Since the cattle run on the hills of the Qu’Appelle Valley on hard grass, they need good feet and legs, he said.
Favorable characteristics
Scott also looks for “length, depth, muscle, femininity and hair coat,” he said. And he looks for udders that are tightly attached, with room between short teats. “I don’t want it to hang like a $2 drape.”
Watson aims to pick heifers that will mature at 1,200 to 1,250 pounds. April calves weaned in October should weigh at least half the cow’s weight. “This is the real world,” he said.
And that’s without any infusion of exotic blood. The pens entered at Agribition ran with the Watson herd. The red baldie cows were bred back to Red Angus bulls, the black baldies to Aberdeen Angus bulls.
Getting that Angus blood into what had previously been a straightbred Hereford operation took some convincing on his part, Watson said.
About four years ago, he worked his way through the U.S., fitting cattle on the American show circuit. He said he always liked the low maintenance of black baldie cows, but the swing through the States, where black calves sell for a premium, cemented that liking.
It was about that time Watson realized commercial cows generally were getting too big for his liking.
“Don’t get carried away by fads and trends,” he said. “Just stick to your own game.”
For Watson, that game is British-bred females.
