Frank Ellis Charolais Although we are new to the Charolais business, we are not new to the cattle business. The Ellis family has been in the cattle business since the civil war and over the years many things have changed. One thing that we have learned over the years is that you have to be willing to change with the times to be successful in any business. Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant was successful because he was willing to change when it was necessary to be a winner. After establishing a successful herd of Beefmaster cattle we decided to make the change to Charolais in early 2001. This decision was based on the direction of the market over the past several years and the obvious success of the Charolais breed. We have several friends in the Charolais business that have been very successful and we knew we could buy quality cattle from established breeders to establish our seedstock. Two other lessons we learned in the horse and cattle business is that there is no substitute for proven, predictable genetics and that it costs no more to feed a genetically superior animal than an average one. Therefore, we have built our Charolais herd from proven genetics from some of the most successful programs in America. During 2001, we purchased outstanding cattle from the following purebred breeders: David & Ann Latham (Latham Charolais), Morris and Pam Orr (Orr Charolais), Tony Walden (Walden Farms), Buck Compton, (Compton Charolais). We are very proud of the set of females we have put together. We will continue to add to our herd with high quality cattle. Our herd consists of daughters of the following leading sires: JWK Impressive D040, VCR Sir Duke 914, Eastwood, Orr's Perfect Package, VCR Mac's Gossip and BCC Double-shot 417, HBR Ace 230 and ASC Eliminator 032, HEP King Grazer and LT Wyoming Wind 4020. The average EPDs for our females are: BWT 1.1 WWT 24.1 YWT 39.6 Milk 10.9 MTNL 22.3. Our females are gentle, functional and sound with good utters. All of our broodcows are polled. Herdsires:
We are very excited about our herdsire FE Mr.
Impressive. FE Mr. Impressive was calved on 2-25-2002 on our ranch
with a birth weight of 85 pounds. He is sired by the great JWK Impressive
D040. His dam is Orr's Lady Duchess 948 P who is a daughter of VCR
Sir Duke 914 out of Orr's Benita B53 who is by J Bar J Mitchell 503
and out of the great Compton cow, CC Benita 825. We purchased Orr's
Lady Duchess as a bred heifer from Morris Orr in Albertville, Alabama. She has a
beautiful udder and is a model charolais female. When she calved we knew we had
something special. FE Mr. Impressive was the top performing calf out of
our 2002 crop. As he continued to develop we decided to sell the herdsire we
were using, LCF Sandman and retain him as our main herdsire. His weaning weight
was 813 with a ratio of 108.7 (not bad for a heifer's first calf). His EPDs are:
BWT 0.7 WWT 31.9 YWT 49.8 Milk 8.1 MTNL 24.1. He is smooth polled, thick and has
a very gentle disposition. His first calves will be due in early 2004.
FE Mr. Impressive: Copyright © 1999-2006, Frank Ellis. All rights reserved. |