About Our Cattle
Ringstead Ranch presently maintains a herd of 700 purebred Angus cows, 200 commercial cows and 100 purebred Simmental cows. One hundred percent of our cows calve in May/June in either our Drake or Cayley ranches.
At Ringstead, we are big believers in both A.I. and embryo transfer work to continue to improve the quality of our purebred Angus herd. We A.I. a large percentage of our purebred cows each year to a small group of select sires that have proven and predictable performance. We look for sires that have been proven to pass the traits we want to enhance. For our embryo donor program, the very best purebred females are chosen from our herd which are then flushed to the best sires available. The resulting embryos are implanted into the commercial cows and our own Angus herd sires are used as clean up bulls. Over 100 embryos are implanted each year and the program is specifically designed to give our customers the best possible combination of genetics, performance and conformation money can buy. A lot of the bulls sold at our spring and fall sales are a result of both our A.I. and E.T. programs.
After A.I. or embryo transfers, we use the best quality clean up bulls that we can obtain. Most of our purebred herd bulls are "A.I." sires themselves and are used in other purebred herds throughout Canada. Our bulls are breeders, while many of them have been shown, they still work in the breeding pasture each year.
Herd Health Program
Our herd health program was designed for us by Dr. Ted Shacklady of Okotoks, Alberta. All cows are vaccinated against Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD), P13, Infectious Rhinotracheitis (IBR) and Clostridia diseases.
Calves are vaccinated against BVD, IBR, P13, Haemophiliosis, Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus and Clostridia diseases. Cows and calves are all treated for external and internal parasites as well.
Ringstead Feeding Program
The 2 year old bulls are calved in May/June on grass and pastured throughout the summer without any creep feed. The calves are weaned late in the year and then fed a pellet/silage/hay backgrounding ration over the winter. The following summer they are put back out to pasture and are not given any supplemental pellets until the September before the Bull Sale, slowly increasing to 1% of their body weight by November.
The 2 year old bulls are not pushed, they are developed slowly which is why you will notice slightly lower 365 day weights.
Our Marketing Program
We have found that the coming 2 year old bulls offer better longevity and breeding performance to our customers. They winter better in ranch environments and can cover more miles and more cows than yearlings. The majority of the bulls offered in our December/March sales will be 24 months old before they see their first cow.
These are virgin bulls that have never yet boon offered for sale. they have been through 3 stages of culling and only 40-50% of our bull calves born finally make it to the sale. We are very particular about feet, legs, conformation and disposition, and are confident that all animals sold will fit into whatever programs our customers chose to run.
Our Guarantee
When you buy a bull from Ringstead Ranch, we view it as our responsibility to make sure you have sufficient "bull power" during your breeding season.
We stand behind our product 100% and maintain a large inventory of high quality bulls for our own cows and use these bulls as well as our purebred bulls as backup for our customers.
If you purchase bulls from us and experience any problems whatsoever during breeding season, you can expect a suitable replacement bull on site within 24 hours of your phone call. Unfortunately it is a fact that bulls do hurt themselves and when that has happened in the past, new customers are frequently surprised at the speed with which a replacement is delivered. With ranches at both Drake Saskatchewan and Cayley Alberta, we are within easy reach of most places in Western Canada.
Our policy is to "Replace the bull first and ask questions later". After the bull has been replaced and sometimes after the breeding season has been completed, the problem bull can be properly diagnosed and a satisfactory agreement reached between us and our customer. Looking after bulls is our business and often we can help diagnose problems and nurse injured bulls back to good health.
Purebred Simmental Program
In an effort to help fulfill the bull requirements of our customers, Ringstead has purchased a small yet productive herd of Simmental cows. The goal is to offer a strong set of coming two year old Simmental bulls to compliment the Angus genetics that our bull customers have based their cow herds on. We will be striving to offer bulls that will produce an outstanding steer calf, as well as maintaining strong maternal traits to produce the best crossbred females possible.
