Herd profile: HF Angus

In recent years, the bull HF Rebel 53Y has been a popular choice among Irish breeders, with a son Laheens Rebel selling for €6,500 – the top Angus price of 2019. However, the genetics from the HF Angus herd goes back decades, with notable cattle lines such as the Tibbie, Evening Tinge, Rosebud and Blackbird all originating from this famous farm in northwest Alberta.

Run by Rob and Gail Hamilton, the HF herd of 350 animals call a sprawling 6,000ac prairie farm home.

From humble beginnings, Rob and Gail – along with their children Wyatt, Joel and Carlye – have built an Angus empire in the town of Cochrane.

Finding a breed

Casting his mind back nearly 40 years to the origin of the herd, Rob sets the scene: “Gail and I both worked full-time. I was a herdsmen for Purebred Operations and Gail worked at an embryo transplant company.

“We had to have a breed that could kind of manage most things itself. We’d worked with most breeds, but were starting out on our own. Once we started working with Angus, we knew that there was no question. That’s what we wanted to be doing.”

Having chosen their breed, the duo went in search of cows and in 1981 bought a group from Greenvale Angus.

“When we bought the cows originally, Angus wasn’t a popular choice. Simmental, Charolais and Herefords would have been the three most popular breeds at that time, but we were pretty confident that Angus was the right choice.”

With cows but no farm, the couple had to rent land for the initial years until they gathered enough money together to purchase a bare piece of land.

“For the first 10 years we probably were at 35 head because we couldn’t expand. We didn’t own any land and we were both working full-time,” says Rob.

“But then, in 1988, when we bought MVF Tibbie 15T, we started doing lots of flushing and we were putting in lots of embryos.”

Over the following 30 years, MVF Tibbie would become a household name for breeders in Canada and across the world.

“We owned her in partnership with Mountain View Farms (MVF),” says Rob. “They put in embryos out there and we put in embryos here and then we would split up the calves in the fall and sell some and breed the rest, so that kind of expanded our herd quickly.”

While the introduction of Tibbie genetics may have brought a new bloodline into the herd, the foundation females purchased from Greenvale Angus were beginning to make their mark too.

With plenty of good bloodlines coming through, the Hamiltons were ready for expansion, and in 1991 an opportunity came along which led to the genesis of the Blackbird line at HF.

“We purchased a flush at the masterpiece sale from the 1991 Agribition Grand champion female, Knights Blackbird 9Y,” outlines Rob.

“We mated her to the 1991 Agribition Grand champion bull MVHF Dreamwalker 29A, which we raised, a grandson of Tibbie 15T. The resulting progeny from that flush were HF Walk-On 14C and his two sisters HF Blackbird 26C and HF Blackbird 27C. They became the foundation of the Blackbird cow families.”

The additions didn’t stop there. With Rob and Gail keen to establish a few new lines, they leased a select group of cows from Rob’s father’s Rannoch herd in 1993.

From these cows came the Evening Tinge and Erica families, which still feature prominently throughout the herd today.

Since then, only two select cows have been purchased – Duralta 14C Echo 32E and Wilbar Ruby 955N. These cows need no introduction with Ruby producing HF Kodiak, which was later crossed with a descendant of the Echo cow to produce the legendary bull HF Tiger.

Rob says: “We value the production of elite cow families and put heavy emphasis on their genetics. We’ve crossed our cow families using bulls out of every cow family across our herd and it’s helped us to get real consistency in the cow herd.”

Bull power

This crossing of home-bred bulls has been the making of a very consistent cow herd, and has also allowed the Hamilton farm to incorporate outcross genetics without seeing drastic changes in the type of progeny produced.

The aforementioned Dreamwalker was used with great success but, unfortunately, was lost early on in his career so most of his successful descendants were produced through the use of AI.

Moving On and Greens Premium were the next pair of bulls to leave a mark, with the Riverbend Powerline bloodline subsequently introduced.

“Premium was the very first bull to win the supreme at Agribition back in 1999 and then Powerline won it also. Premium was heavily muscled and as long as a pickup truck,” says Rob.

“The supreme at Agribition came with a $10,000 prize and we won it in 1999 with Premium and in 2000 with Echo. We’ve won that thing quite a few times.”

Power infusion

Following this, the herd produced HF Power Source 94M, a son of Powerline out of the original Echo. This bull helped take the herd to the next step, with regard to producing thicker and earlier-maturing cattle.

However, Rob is clear to point out that it was really HF Kodiak that was the definite game-changer in the herd for where Rob wanted it to go.

“Kodiak was born here and we saw him transition from an 81lb calf at birth to knowing he was going to be a real bull at three months old.”

“We thought this is the bull [we’ve been waiting for], but then along came HF Tiger. Tiger is a legend. Every one of the best cows go back to him.”

While the Hamiltons don’t get themselves into the show ring much anymore, they couldn’t resist showing HF Tiger at the World Angus Forum when it came to Canada in 2009. Along with collecting the title of premier breeder and premier exhibitor, Tiger secured the grand champion yearling bull championship, while his sire Kodiak was awarded the title of premier sire.

Big money sales

With Tiger on the ground and doing the business, Rob and Gail decided to sell a half interest in Kodiak – fetching a whopping CA$52,000.

This though was to be just the start of the big money.

“Tiger’s full brother El Tigre came along the next year and he brought in more money. He sold for CA$82,000 and then Tiger’s son HF Rebel sold for CA$95,000.”

The biggest highlight of all came in 2019 though when HF Alcatraz sold for a record-breaking CA$200,000. As Rob outlined to me, the Tiger cows are the best in the herd and Alcatraz’s mother was of course by Tiger.

The supreme at Agribition came with a $10,000 prize and we won it in 1999 ... we’ve won that thing quite a few times

“We’re expecting big things out of Alcatraz. I think Tiger is probably the most prolific bull raised in Canada. He’s just left a legacy of success for everybody who has used him.”

“We’ve been very fortunate to raise some top bulls. Its satisfying to know you have a hand in raising bulls that carry the torch until the next generation comes along.”

Sale

Like most Canadian outfits, the Hamiltons host an annual bull sale in the last week of March. The sale also includes a select draft of females.

The first of these kicked off in 1995 when the Hamiltons jointly hosted a sale with Reich Angus. However, due to their ever increasing herd numbers, since 2003 the HF herd has been flying solo as the sole contributor sale.

“We start out at about 120 bulls that will be catalogued, but after semen testing and dropouts we’ll probably sell 112 to 115,” says Rob.

“I think last year’s sale averaged just over CA$10,000 for about 110 bulls and then we sold another 25 heifers and I think they averaged out at about CA$8,700. So you know, they always sell well.”

Last year proved an impeccable year for the herd, with Alcatraz selling for the record CA$200,000 and those strong figures carried on late into the year too. The herd offered the pick of its heifer calves on offer at Agribition Show, earning a massive CA$95,000.

Similar to many herds in Canada, the Hamiltons don’t base their breeding decisions on EPDs, but try to incorporate them into their programme.

“We have customers who value our animals so we try to breed for them too. Certainly, Alcatraz wouldn’t have made CA$200,000 if his numbers weren’t there. You get a really good bull like that but without figures he’s probably worth CA$20,000 instead of CA$200,000,” says Rob.

Traits

“We’re working on trying to get figures but we won’t sacrifice certain traits.”

To help improve figures within the herd and add outcross genetics to their animals, Rob and Gail introduced a number of American bulls. The Hamiltons either buy these bulls outright or at the least buy the semen rights for the Canadian market.

This year Rob and Gail used two bulls heavily – Alcatraz and a new bull purchased last year called Scheifelbein Showman.

“I actually saw Showman in a sale catalogue and he caught my eye,” outlines Rob.

“I knew somebody who lived down in Minnesota and he went and looked at the bull the night before the sale.

"He recorded a video of him for me and sent on pictures. Obviously, the person who we had look at him is someone we trusted.

“He got us excited enough that we ended up paying US$125,000 for him. We actually bought him in partnership with Six Mile Angus in Saskatchewan. It’s all part of the game, right, to just get the best you can.”

This bull, along with Alcatraz, is the next step in continuing the success story of HF.

Rob finished by saying: “I’m pretty satisfied at my age and where we’ve been and what we’ve been through. We’re pretty happy with frame size, the performance and the longevity of our cows. You’re never done improving, but we’re only going to be making small tweaks.”