Chapter 23
Improving The Herd

We had installed an automatic watering system for the livestock about 1967 which made it so much easier to do chores. It seemed like it cut the work in half. When everything worked right. the cattle had access to water 24 hours a day. The more electrical equipment we added the more we feared an electrical black out, which didn't occur that often.

In the early 1960's I had started using artificial insemination in our cattle herd. There were some things good about it such as it being unnecessary to keep a bull around. Some of the things I didn't like was that it had a tendency to spread the birth of calves to all times of the year. We thought we had a fairly good herd of grade Hereford cattle, but we were also getting out of milk cows. I had been using Hereford bulls since 1945. In March 1945 I bought a bull from Pete Wilkins at Yellow Grass. He maintained a ranch west of Yellow Grass. The bull was delivered on the 15th of March, a dry warm windy day, there was even dirt in the air. The second Hereford bull I bought from John Heier south of Weyburn. He grew into a very big animal - we have a snapshot of him at the water tank with son Charles on his back and me holding the lead rope. Then I bought two yearling bulls from Tad Achen at least three years apart. I believe one of these bulls was used in the community pasture. I was trying to buy bulls from better herds and finally drove up to Whitewood to see the Davis Brothers cattle. I settled for a polled animal that wasn't very well marked and wouldn't suit a purebred breeder very well. Paul Young hauled him home for me. The last Hereford bull I bought was from Herman Bieber at Wolesley. I had been up there and made a choice and again it was Paul Young who hauled him. He was also a polled bull. It was a stormy, rough day and I well remember Natalie saying that evening that she was worried about us being on the road. The use of these bulls was spread over 18 or 20 years. I suppose but they didn't have the growth performance that European exotics had. So after reading about the European cattle that were arriving every year, I decided to try a few by the use of A.I.

Our first calves of a different breed were sired by a Brown Swiss bull. They were big and made fast growth, and we soon had some half blood Brown Swiss milk cows. In fact, they gave way too much milk for a calf after the cows were five years old and had reached their potential milk production. I tried to get into Simmental without success and also tried Maine Anjou. My opinion of them was that they were way too big and heavy boned. The Limousin finally appeared to meet my needs so I used some semen from that breed and I rather liked them. Not only were they easier calvers, but Limousin carcasses were taking top prizes at some of the larger stock shows. I bought one 3/4 blood Limousin bull at the Estevan livestock auction market. He proved to be of a difficult disposition and I didn't keep him for long. I bought another and he was quiet and I used him in the pasture one summer. Keeping mature bulls proved to be a continuing problem when I didn't have a strong corral to keep them in and I finally went back to using A.I. The first technicians used were Milt Wheeler and Clifford Stewart of Weyburn. Later on Orville Olesor served the need for a couple of years. He found it too time consuming and recommended Vernon Eagles. Vernon was still doing my A.I. work when I was obliged to quit cattle in 1978 due to a health problem. I had quit using the community pasture in the late 1960's and also quit using a government hay plot on the Souris river about 1973 or 74. After the age of 65 I was not entitled to these items. I seeded some more land to tame grass and the grain production became less as a result. At no time did I ever have more wheat that I had a quota for. Other farmers who didn't raise livestock were having problems marketing their wheat. This was during the 1950's and later. I didn't really realize how much year round work we were doing by producing cattle, often selling them at prices that were not always satisfactory. In the end we were not any more well to do than the straight grain farmers. But then I was used to working with cattle and I even enjoyed it to some extent, especially in my younger years. Eventually I got the feeling that I was working with cattle largely because of tradition, not really a good reason for a farmer reaching pension age.