Charolais Connection • March 2016 23

Dick and Sandra Hamilton, WindyRidge Farms Ltd. operate a successfulcattle and grain operation nearDarlingford, Manitoba, with their sonMichael and his fiance Kayla. Theireldest son, Matthew Hamilton liveswith his fiancé Stacey in Toronto,where he is finishing school.

They run 270 cows and this is abouttheir capacity for pasture. The winterfeed isn’t the issue at this point. Theyrun two calving periods. About 40cows calve from October 15 toDecember 10th. “It gives us forty nicebig calves and we background themto 1000 lb. and they go to Ontario. Itgives us a more spread out cash flow.I don’t mind calving that time of year,things are pretty much cleaned upand it gives us a month gap to whenthe main herd starts calving.

“We usually have four loads go toOntario each spring. This year oneload had a high average of 1080 lb.”

“We run 260-270 cows but throughBSE we probably got to 325 cows. Wesurvived, but there were a couple ofpretty tough years. The first 1000 lb.calves we sold went for $.45 perpound. It was a good thing oats werecheap.” Dick remembers. “So weended up fattening all of the calves for

a few years during BSE.”

“We try to buy good Charolaisreplacements because we don’t reallyhave a space for heifers. Before BSEwe raised our own heifers. They wereall 100% white and quiet. We foundafter BSE we could sell the heifercalves and buy a decent cow for closeto the same value and gain a year,”explains Dick. “We have people

keeping an eye out for good whitefemales every year.”

“You know if you are going to asale, you might as well buy a load,”Sandra adds with a laugh.

“The whiter the better is what ourOntario buyer says.”

“I don’t know how many times wesee ads in the paper for Charolais

Michael, Kayla holding June, Sandra & Dick Hamilton–everyone works on the farm

Calves enjoying a sunny day on the hugestraw pack

Younger group that will go to market in March

cows and we go to see them andthere isn’t a white cow there. We areso disappointed. Now when wephone to arrange to have a look atthem, we ask what colour they are,”says Sandra. The Hamiltons strivefor a uniform herd and inquiringabout the colour of a package offemales is part of that uniformity.

“I phoned a guy with a hundredCharolais cows for sale and askedhim how many were white. Hereplied there were five or six,” Dick recalls.

“They get off the truck and I think‘What is this?’” exclaims Sandra. “Wedon’t mind a little gold or tan, but

reds just don’t fit in to our herd. Welike an even coloured pen.”

When the calves go to pasture atthe start of June, the Hamiltons try tohave them as vigorous as possible,usually 250-400 pounds. The calvesare weaned in mid-October between600-700 pounds. “We get used towhat our cattle look like and whenyou get out and compare, it is sosurprising,” shares Sandra.

“We feed our cattle well. They getwhat they need to grow and we getpaid by the pound,” Dick adds.

“We have them on creep feed inApril and May. It is pretty light, butit keeps them out of the way when

❝We try to buy

good Charolais

replacements because

we don't really have a

space for heifers.❞

24 Charolais Connection • March 2016

continued on page 26

Mix mills are used to produce thebackgrounding rations for the feeders

26 Charolais Connection • March 2016

the bulls are put in with the cows. When we breed insidethe pens, it has saved many accidents. We learned to do itto protect the calves. It has made a big difference,” tells Dick.

“Even when we are taking our calves to the communitypasture, ours are already so much bigger. Genetics, creepfeeding and early calving all contribute to this.,” says Sandra.

“We love to talk cows, but this time of year (interviewwas in August), the grain sort of takes over. It gets a littleoverwhelming doing both grain and cows. In the springwe are busy with the cows and we don’t get seeding realearly,” tells Sandra.

“Those years when it was too wet to seed, those guysthat only had grain would get out there in the mud,getting stuck and complaining. I just told them theyshould have a couple hundred cows and they wouldn’t beworried about the fields until they dried up,” Dick laughs.

Dick and Mike do the swathing and seeding. Sandra and

Kayla do most of the baling and combining. Everyonepitches in to get the work done. The discussion quicklyturns to whoever swathes the canola, should have tocombine it and how having a cook would really help in thebusiest seasons of the year. The laughter around their tableis quick and free-flowing, showing just how much theyenjoy their work.

They crop about 2700 acres and all four of them maketheir income from the farm. No one has an off-farm joband they just recently incorporated as part of a succession plan.

Dick’s dad passed away when Dick was only 23. Hedidn’t have any brothers and it was up to him and Sandrato keep things going. His Dad had 30 Shorthorns, but theyswitched to a Charolais bull in 1977 and haven’t hadanything since.

Dick has been farming since 1973 when he was still inschool. They had 40 cows when Dick’s father, James diedin 1982 and slowly started to build up the herd. “When we

continued on page 30

Older calves ready to be marketed, averaging 950 to 1,000 lb on January 25. Weaned in September & October.

got to 100 we thought, wow,this is a pile!” At the time, landwas really hard to get. Nowthe farm rents more and ownsnine quarters. Half of theseeded acres are canola every

year, 1000 acres are wheat and 300 acres are barley or oats.This year the farm has 80 acres of corn for silage for thefirst time.

“The barley and oats are for feed. The feeder cattle won’tget any corn silage this year, we will give it to the cowsuntil we are set up better for that. The calves here arealready on creep feed, when the calves come home fromWoodlands (a community pasture that used to be a PFRApasture) towards the end of October, they will go in thepen and be on self feed and the cows will go to fallgrazing. They are so early they need to be weaned by thenanyway.” They do this to prevent losing pounds duringthe critical weaning period.

“The first load should go out in the first couple weeks inJanuary. The load will be the 40 fall calves and the biggestof the spring calvers to make up the load. So some of ourJanuary calves will sell in January at a 1000 pounds. TheMarch calves will go in March. They will eat about 20 lb. ofoats a day. We crush it and mix it with the better hay and fill a couple of self feeders.”

They aren’t afraid of work, using a lot of square balesand individual pens when calving. “It was definitelydifficult when the boys were playing hockey, but it is whatwe do.”

They start breeding on the first of April. The cows go toWoodlands pasture around the first of June. “The calvesare all tagged, pre-vaccinated with Calfguard 2 and givenTiclaserol at birth. The Ticlaserol is for coccidiosis andcryptosporidiosis. Crypto can be really bad. We think wegot a bit of it from somewhere during the BSE years, wearen’t really sure where, but the Ticlaserol has reallyhelped to clean it right up. We shouldn’t have to give them Calfguard 2 because they should be covered by the cows getting Scourboss 9,but rotavirus can come up through the manure and theCalfguard covers it. When you calve in tight spaces, you have to protect yourself and we are pretty safe withthis protocol. The calves also get Enforce at 5 days in bothnostrils. As soon as 30-40 days are up, they get Pyramid 5,”explains Dick.

❝Genetics, creep feeding and early

calving all contribute to this…,❞

continued on page 32

30 Charolais Connection • March 2016

“Castration is done in May bypinching them with a burdizzo. Theyget a blackleg and 8-Way at this time,too. I like to see the vigour in the calves. Iknow banding is quicker, but theyseem to grow better if you can leavethem until they are three months oldbefore we pinch them. I think it is toour advantage, we get pounds andthey are healthier. By then they are abig strong animal and if we get bad weather, they cantake it. We don’t put the CCIA RFID buttons on untilthey are going to pasture. They get abooster shot when they come homefrom pasture.”

“We have our own pasture inWoodlands and get to take our ownbulls. They are mostly bred when theygo, but it is a requirement of thepasture that bulls be with them. Wesend three, two younger ones and onemature bull for the 120 cows. We haveenough bulls at home for 25 cows perbull for the seven weeks before theygo to pasture,” says Dick.

“The cows are vaccinated beforebreeding with Express 10 and VitaminA. All of our cows get Rumensin allwinter and it sure seems to make a

difference in their overall health. Wejust started a few years ago and theyseem so much healthier. They tell us‘healthier stomach, healthier cows,healthier fetus.’ It just helps themdigest the food better.”

“All of our creep feeders for the

calves have Rumensin in them now.It’s not only grain that makes them dowell, it’s the little things in there thatmake a difference. The feeders get32% Beef Builder and Rumensinmixed in with the crushed oats rightfrom the start. You only want them toget a pound a day. So as they start toeat more, you have to keep calculatingwhat they are getting and cut back onthe 32% Beef Builder and Rumensin. Ifthey are on Rumensin they can’t getcoccidiosis even as large feeders. It is

preventative, it isn’t a cure. If it is intheir stomach, that bug can’t exist. Ithink it helps with crypto too. Theyare kind of related, crypto is a bug itisn’t a virus. It definitely holds itdown in the cows. They can hold it intheir stomach for years and years andevery time they pass manure it is onthe ground and the calf can pick it up.It’s kind of like spraying wild oats, themore you hold them down, the less ofthem there are out there. It has made ahuge difference.”

“They used to tell us to just spreadthem out, get them out of the pens.That only helped minimally and ifyou got a heavy snow storm whilethey were spread all over you hadanother problem. Now we have gonethe opposite. We keep them confined,keep it clean, keep them wellvaccinated and we can controleverything else. Now if there is astorm, something we can’t control,those calves are all inside. We use a lotof straw.”

“We like bigger birth weight bullsand that saves us some moneybecause they are not in as muchdemand. We go up to 110 lb. We bringin replacement females and it helps tokeep us going to the same purebred

❝For us, if we

have a calf under

100 lb., we are

disappointed…❞

150 in this pen of calves averaging about 850 in January, with some March calves in the bunch. Amazingly clean with the whole pen bedded.

32 Charolais Connection • March 2016

continued on page 34

breeder as they aren’t related.”

“For us, if we have a calf under 100lb., we are disappointed,” Sandraexplains.

“We weigh some of our calves sowe have an idea what we are dealingwith. Sandra keeps track of thebreeding dates and if the weatherchanges fast, we know who is closeand who to watch,” Dick explains.

“If it is really, really cold, they don’tseem to give you much warning. Withthe dates we know who to get in thepen, as they don’t seem to show asmuch,” says Sandra.

“When it’s thirty below, checkingsix times a day just isn’t enough,”Dick adds.

“Every hour or hour and a half iswhat we do when it is that cold,”Michael confirms. “If you don’t checkthat often you miss something and arekicking yourself for the next few days.”

“Mike played Junior A hockey forthree years in Winkler. They wouldn’tlet him live at home, so calving was

pretty hectic those years.”

“Now between herd checks duringcalving we read the Connection andwatch the website for news,” Dick says.

“We like to check things outeveryday on the Charolais Bannerwebsite. It’s kind of funny, you can goto the sale and it seems like coffee rowknows the results when you get totown the day after the sale. Even grainguys are talking about it. They watchthe grain markets and watching thecow market is interesting for them

too,” Michael explains.

The cows come home from thecommunity pasture between thefifteenth and twentieth of October.

The bulls all have to be sementested and trichomonisis tested to goto the pasture. They pull them fromthe pasture on September 10. Weeither have to pick them up or theyput them in a small paddock. It is areal struggle to keep the bulls awayfrom the cows in the fall when youdon’t want to be feeding them. Wekeep the bulls in pens of three or four.We put two yearlings with one olderquiet one, so they can have enoughspace that they can both eat and notlet the big guy get it all. Shorterbreeding periods are less labour butyou need more space at calving time.

When you mix this family’s highstandards of quality Charolais femalesand bulls, top management and light-hearted viewpoints along with theirquick to laugh characters, it is easy tosee they will continue to enjoy whatthey do with success.

❝We feed our

cattle well. They get

what they need to

grow and we get

paid by the pound.❞

34 Charolais Connection • March 2016