COW HERD
Here at Coldstream Ranch we run a commercial beef herd of 2400 mother cows. The cows are British breeding based from Angus and Hereford with a percentage of modern type Simmental in the more current cows. 

Since purchasing the ranch in 1994 Keith has done some major changes to the cow herd with only a small percentage of it based from the original cows the ranch owned at that time. 

We have taken great steps in working towards creating well bred (though still commercial) animals with excellent conformation and health as well as consistency by studying and working on the genetics of the bulls chosen in order to achieve the best type of animal.  

We strive for good length and depth of the body with medium leg, good healthy udder with plenty of milking ability. Maintaining the feminine looks all with a very good doing animal that can travel our extensive types of range land. On average our mature cows are between 1300 and 1400 pounds. 

When breeding our mature cows we strive for a birth weight of 100 pounds or less.

In the past few years we have gone to a Simmental and Hybrid Simmental (Angus x Simmental) bull on our mature cows. The hybrids have been for the most part ¾ Angus or ½ Angus with the remainder Simmental. These bulls (over 80 of them) have all been purchased over the last few years from the Lazy S Ranch, located in Mayerthorpe Alberta. Owned and operated by a fine family the Ainsworths. You can read and learn more about these fine bulls and the Ainsworths at Lazy S Ranch in the bull section.

This past year we began purchasing Charolais bulls for the 2004 breeding season. This is a totally new program for the ranch and we are very hopeful it will do well. We are using these bulls for a terminal outcross on 20 to 30% of our mature cow herd.  In our experience the Charolais cross calves (or buckskins as we like to call them) are thrifty and tough with good body type and do well on feed. We will have our first crop of them entering the feedlot in the fall 2005.

In the future we may look at going back to the Hereford bull on part of the herd for a maternal cross.

Our mature cow herd begins calving in March and wraps up by the first week of May. We strive for a tight window of calving to help with consistency in re-breeding as well as giving us time to get the herd branded and the calves strong enough to make the journey up onto the range land. 

We pasture breed much of the herd before they head up onto the range. This helps us maintain the window of calving as well as cutting down on the amount of traveling the bulls have to do. The bulls do go up on range with the cows to continue breeding any females that may have been missed down below.

We wean the cow herd usually starting around October; our average weaning weight is 600 pound heifer calves and 650 pound steer calves. (This includes the first calvers whom we start weaning in September).