Fern Hill Beefmasters -- Cows

Fern Hill Cows

Fern Hill Beefmasters || Bulls || Calves || Cattle For Sale || Reference Cattle || Color Inheritance

This is the "girls" page. Listed below are all the producing cows and up-and-coming heifers in our herd. We keep a small herd, and one of the advantages of Beefmasters is the wide variety of colors they come in. This makes it easy to tell them all apart, and makes calving time a real surprise! In 2007, faced with loss of our leased pasture space and the worst drought in 50 years, we have had to severely cut down our numbers -- we had 27 head at the beginning of the summer and are now down to 9. We have retained a strong nucleus for continuing on with our breeding program, however, and hope that the weather improves enough next year to allow us to grow again.

All of our cows have been inspected by BBU. We are participants in the BBU upgrade program, and all the females below that are not purebred and who are at least a year old have been inspected and accepted into this program. We also participate in the voluntary classification program for our purebred and 2X cows, usually at 1 and 3 years of age -- results are shown below for those that are old enough to have been classified.

Purebreds || Second Cross Beefmasters|| First Cross Beefmasters

Our Purebred Beefmasters

"FH St. Patricia" BBU#C827681, U2-1 (Flash x Cowie Owie). After years of bulls (7 out of 9 calves!), our foundation cow 'Cowie Owie' finally had a heifer on St. Patrick's day, 2000. A good size, bright red cow, Patty has had a good-looking calf every year by a variety of bulls. Like her mother, she has a great udder, plenty of milk, and a great disposition. See Queen's Jubilee, 2002 bull by Secret Weapon; Monsoon, 2003 heifer by Secret Weapon; Shiloh, 2004 heifer by Summers; New Orleans, 2005 heifer by Summers; Chernobyl II, 2006 bull by Summers; and Denso, 2007 bull by Lawrence. She's definitely one of our top producers.	FH St. Patricia (Flash x Cowie Owie)
"FH Richland" BBU#C827682, U2-2 (Flash x FH Easter Clown). Wow, is all we can say about this 2001 cow! She's a great granddaughter of our first Beeefmaster cow, Cowie Owie, but looks more like her than her two daughters did. We love the flashy color and the pretty head, but even more we like her frame, heavy bone, good muscling, calm temperament, and good mothering characteristics. She is a steady producer of great looking bulls -- five so far. Wish she'd have a heifer one of these years! Her calves are: Vermont, 2003 bull by Summers; Ice Show, 2004 bull by Summers; Lawrence, 2005 bull by Summers; Chrome, 2006 bull by Summers; and Erik, 2007 bull by Lawrence.	FH Richland (Flash x Easter Clown)
FH Cortland 03-8, (Chernobyl II x St. Patty) 04/04/08. solid red 2008 heifer with just a few white hairs on her face. Pretty head and good frame -- this calf is another of Patty's fine heifers. She will be for sale at weaning.	FH Cortland (3 days) (FH Chernobyl II x FH St. Patricia)
FH Alexandra 04-8, (Chernobyl II x Richland) 05/17/08. solid red 2008 heifer with just a few white hairs on her face. Nice young heifer, almost a twin to her older half-sister Cortland.	FH Alexandra (1 week) (FH Chernobyl II x FH Richland)

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Second Cross Beefmasters

A Second Cross or 2X cow is at least 75% Beefmaster. Under the terms of the BBU upgrade program, heifers must be inspected by a BBU representative at 12 months of age or older before they can be registered as a 2X. The offspring of a purebred Beefmaster bull and a registered 2X cow are considered to be purebred without further inspection. We usually do not sell our 2X candidate heifers until after they have been inspected and registered. The boys are normally sold at the local sale barn at weaning time.

"FH Mayfly" BBU#S22252, U2-1. Black brindle close-to-paint polled cow, born 5/23/03. Mayfly is a real doll with lots of eye appeal and a friendly personality. A tiny calf when born, she has grown up to be a considerably larger cow than her mother or full sister, July Surprise. Accepted as a second cross on August 1, 2004, and classified as U2-1 in August 2006, she has had three calves so far, including two paints and her 2008 black polled bull calf that is for sale at weaning.	Mayfly (Secret Weapon x September) at 15 months, 8/26/04
FH Iris 02-5, BBU #S22863, U 08/04/05. This handsome black cow was born on Tax Day 2005(IRS=Iris) and looks like a clone of her mother, but with more meat on her hindquarters. This is the one we've been waiting for! She had her first calf in May 2007, a heavy-boned black and white paint heifer that was best of our very nice crop of 2007 calves. Like Midnight, Iris is a wonderful mother with a huge bag and is very caring of her calf.	FH Iris (2.5 years) (Summers x Midnight)
FH Janie 01-8, 03/12/08. Black splash paint like her mother Pasco (see below), this stout and upright heifer is stylish and built right. She sure looks like her mother!	FH Janie (3 weeks) (FH Chernobyl II x FH Pasco)

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First Cross Beefmasters

A First Cross or 1X cow is at least 50% Beefmaster. Under the terms of the BBU upgrade program, yearling heifers must be inspected by a BBU representative before they can be registered as a 1X. The heifers from a cow that passes this inspection and a purebred Beefmaster bull are eligible for inspection and certification as a Second Cross.

"Pasco" BBU#F41228 This 2001 polled cow is one of three full sisters that we have used, and she is the largest. We like her black paint color -- it sure makes her easy to pick out in the pasture. She has had 5 calves for us and they have all been dandies. Her pretty 2008 black paint heifer is pictured above under 2x cows.

Pasco (Flash x Angus)

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