What wears red and is in time for Christmas?

Until our Tiroler Grauvieh semen from Austria becomes available, we are exploring another Alpine breed: the Tarentaise.  The benefit of the Tarentaise cattle is  that they are already established in Canada, like the Braunvieh, and we have access to live animals. Colin and I made contact with a reputable breeder in Alberta, Canada, from where we hope to purchase a young bull for our girls. A Braunvieh-Tarentaise cross should result in beautiful, dual-purpose heifers, and excellent steers.  

We have had mixed results with Artificial Insemination, and look forward to leaving the whole business of heat detection to a bull again.  It can be frustrating to try and hit it just right with the short but intense heats of a heifer, and the longer, subtle heats of an older cow. Without a bull we would have needed to resorted to having the vet come out twice, twelve hours apart, to artificially inseminate our cows during heat, in order to avoid a “misfire”. The success rate of a resulting pregnancy would be greatly increased, but so are the costs! Enough so to reconsider keeping a bull.

This Tarentaise yearling bull from the family Folkmann of Westcan Farm in Alberta is expected to mature at a weight of 2,000 lbs. That is 1,000 lbs. LESS then what we can expect from today’s Braunvieh bulls, and much more manageable for a small farm.