Welcome to the BHR web site.  I hope that you have taken the opportunity to research our breeding program with our new web site.  It has been a work in progress that has taken more than a year to get to its present form with much more in-depth work to be done for it to become a history of not only the BHR breeding program, but a comprehensive history of the Simmental Fleckvieh breed as it relates to our genetics.  Credit for all the hard work for editing and research, must go to my office manager, Donna Anderson, along with the design and programming skills of Edge Technologies, allowing BHR to establish such an intensive look at the genetics that have brought us to the present day cattle at BHR.

Fall calving has gone very well with an impressive set of calves now on the ground and we wait with much anticipation for the late winter and spring born calves that are truly the next generation of genetics at BHR.  I say this with a large degree of satisfaction since the fall born 2009 calves are now approaching breeding with the strongest set of weaning and yearling data that we have had in years.  The ultra sound data on these cattle was off the charts and the late winter and spring born calves are developing at the same pace and their data should be as impressive as their fall contemporaries.  I must admit, that it must be genetics that has created this data, because the weather continues to be a challenge with below average rainfall and above average temps.  No, I don’t believe it’s global warming.  My Dad always said that the average is only the middle of two extremes and it is our time for one extreme before we head towards the other.

If you are a believer in EPD’s, and most of you know where I stand on this, the average calving ease and birth weight EPD’s have moved to breed average at BHR during the last 5 years.  The journey to this point, has taken longer than I ever expected and yes, we have lost some performance, but that too has started to increase to a point just below breed average and by weaning of the fall 2010 calves we should be at or above average for the breed in all categories.

Although production costs have risen, the price of cattle has increased to a point that most of us cannot remember.  Cow numbers continue to decline worldwide, so unless everything goes to hell in a hand basket, cattle prices should continue to keep pace with increased production cost, giving us a window for profits.  The key will be how well we manage our cost and how well our genetics perform to meet the need of our industry.