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The Anchor D ranch located outside Rimbey in the state of Alberta is a true family-run operation. Husband and wife Dan and Karen Skeel run the 600-cow herd, with plenty of help from their children Mackensie and Garren, along with Dan’s parents.
Dan bought his first purebred Simmental in 1981, before making the shift to breeding Fleckvieh animals.
“We’ve being Fleckvieh breeders for ever,” says Dan. “Fleckvieh cattle here are just a smaller-framed, thicker animal, but in the showing world these cattle typically don’t do well.
Fleckviehs are a dual-purpose animal, with the breed originating in Germany in the late 1800s when local animals were crossbred with imported Swiss Simmentals.
Over 7,000 from their European origins, the Fleckviehs on Anchor D ranch are thriving in the North American climate, and growing ever more popular.
Breeders decided to downsize. Some people went for Fleckvieh, but more people probably chose to go red and black because the commercial cow herd here was more so that way
Dan has noticed quite the shift in breeding from his 1980s beginnings, saying: “For the most part there used to be more full blood cattle around here back in the 1980s. Everyone was breeding for taller and taller cattle and the cattle got too hard keeping and not desirable for our climate. That’s when the transition took place.
“Breeders decided to downsize. Some people went for Fleckvieh, but more people probably chose to go red and black because the commercial cow herd here was more so that way. The taller, traditional cattle definitely became tougher to sell and certainly less desirable.”
Calving
The Anchor D herd has now grown to in excess of 600 cattle, with a combination of both purebreds and full bloods in the herd. “We calve about 600 per year – they’ll start at the end of December and should finish about the end of February,” says Dan.
“In the first three weeks last year we had 310 calves. When they start calving, they explode. Typically what we do is, if they calve in the morning, they’ll stay in the barn that day and they’ll go out the next day.”
Included in the 600 yearly births are around 50 embryo transfer calves. These are mostly from cows within the herd, but on occasion an outcross bloodline is purchased for the purpose of flushing.
Full blood numbers are now much larger than purebreds, allowing Dan to use AI on the purebreds.
“The reason we do it that way is we have enough numbers to justify the bull power on the full bloods. We always have some purebred bulls, but to keep enough fresh genetics and change things up for our bull customers, it’s easier for us to artificially inseminate.”
Important traits
When asked about the use of expected progeny differences (EPD), Dan says he looks at them, but doesn’t have much faith in them and doesn’t include them in their annual sale catalogues.
“It’s interesting when you’re at the show that you’ll see more emphasis on EPDs from the purebred world, the full blood not so much.
"The EPDs on the purebreds we find are much more accurate than on the full blood cattle, so we tend to not focus them.
“If you import any foreign cattle, they start them all on zero. It doesn’t matter if it’s the highest ranked animal, in another country it starts on zero.”
Instead, the breeding programme at Anchor D begins at monitoring calving ease and following performance.
“We don’t focus as much on birth weights. Calving ease is more important than birth weight. So we can actually sell a few bigger birthweight calves and get away with it. Feet and legs, udders, longevity and performance are our key attributes.”
Sale
Like many Canadian herds, the Anchor D ranch runs an annual sale of young bulls and select heifers. These sales have made quite a name for the herd, with top bulls reaching as high as $60,000 and averaging around $7,500 each year.
Calves will stay with their mothers without supplementation for eight to nine months. Following weaning they’ll be put on a daily mix of 25lb of silage and 4lb of grain for the heifers, with bulls on the same silage and 10lb of grain.
“We bring 100 bulls through to sale, they’ll stay on that ration and get upped obviously as they get bigger to about 12lbs of grain,” says Dan.
“If we get really, really cold weather up to -45°F (-43°C), which we do, then we’ll up their feed just to keep their energy up.”
On this diet, average bull weight at sale time will hits 1,450lbs (660kg).
With calving from December to February, animals spend between 13 and 16 months on farm before the annual February sale.
We had a couple of years where we averaged around $9,000, but typically we’re around $7,500
“We’ll sell a lot of bulls into purebred herds because we’re one of the bigger purebred breeders. The bulk though are going to commercial guys. There’s a lot of exotic cattle in this area, the further south you go the more you’ll run into British-based cattle. We influence a lot of Simmental herds.
“We had a couple of years where we averaged around $9,000, but typically we’re around $7,500. The highest price bull was [Anchor D Raptor at] $60,000 a couple of years ago.
“The elite bulls will definitely bring more money, but we have such a strong commercial clientele. Our commercial bull buyers will pay in the region of CA$7,000 to CA$10,000. We have one customer who has bought over 100 bulls from us.”
The herd also runs a separate heifer sale where average sale prices generally reach $500 less than the bulls.
A lot of work goes into the background to make these sales such a success. Not only do the Steels pre-sale fertility test, they, for the most part, deliver all the animals too.
“We try deliver all the bulls. The furthest we’ve gone would be about 14 hours. We sell bulls that go further than that, heading to Mexico and eastern Canada, but they go on a commercial truck.”
Environment
Farmers in all countries face different challenges brought about by climate and geography. Rain and wet land are a big inconvenience for us in Ireland, while parts of Canada see predators as their big concern.
Dan says: “There is more of a predator problem the more north you go. I had one customer ask me how quiet the cattle are. I said ‘they’re pretty quiet’ and he replied, ‘I hope they’re not too quiet because the wolves will have them in a week’.
“A lot of the herd bulls up there won’t have tails because they’ll stand and fight the wolves while the cow herd gets away. Due to this, shredded ears are also very common.
“The biggest thing we have to watch here with the big bulls is to give them straw so their testicles don’t freeze. They might come back if they freeze, but not always.”
With that warning in mind, it might be worth reminding Irish bulls how easy they have it.
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