Standards of Perfection

The BueLingo, Where does the belt come from? PART 3 of 3
Final of three parts compiled by Russell Bueling
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In the last two issues of The BueLingo World, I told of the belting gene in cattle and where and in what breeds it had been found. This issue will deal with how and when the idea of a new breed was formed. Sometime in the late 1950ís I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Russell Danielson, who has been connected with the Animal Science Department of North Dakota State University. Mr. Danielson has a very good knowledge of beef cattle and is perhaps one of the most sought after judges in the nation. He is a man that I had a lot of respect for and I admired him. We became close friends and so he was the man I went to for advice when I wanted the challenge of developing my idea of the perfect cow for my needs.

We decided to research the merits of the breeds that we could use to produce our color pattern. I wanted the cow to have a distinguished look. Something that you would be attracted to, not only for her beauty but that she would attract attention. We studied the characteristics of the Lakenvelder. The literature on them was quite scarce, Mr. Danielson went to the college library and sent me quite a bit of information on the breed. We noted that they were a very docile breed and extremely fertile. We also noted that they had a very strong gene for belting. I did locate a man in Miami, Florida who was their secretary at the time by the name of James Hendrie. He sent me some promotional material and a list of breeders. They were few and far between. I also made a trip to Scotland in 1983 to see if the belted Galloway cattle could be of any help to us. Mainly I was interested in them because of their polled heads. I also went up into Canada to a town called Swift Current where a man had imported the Grand Champion Belted Galloway bull from the national show in Edinburgh, Scotland. I came to the conclusion that all of the Belted Galloway cattle that I saw were too small, too shortlegged, too wild disposition and had too poor hindquarters to be very useful to me. The man at Swift Current had eight yearling bulls for sale that were sired by this herd bull and seven of them had white on their feet.

I lost interest in using the Belted Galloway and, after considerable searching, I located a man from Purdue University that steered me onto a bull on a dairy farm in northern Indiana near the town of Goshen. He was a registered Lakenvelder bull and was five years old. The man agreed to sell him to me, so I purchased him. This bull turned out to be an excellent breeder and did us a lot of good. He was the bull that we called Freightrain of Flying Cross. He was sired by A. I. By a bull named Davie B of Tillamook who was owned and used in a Dutch Belt Dairy in Tillamook, Oregon.

Freightrain was not a large bull, weighing about 1500 pounds at five years of age. He was a very docile bull and very easy to handle. We decided to use him on both Angus and some thick Shorthorn X Limousin cows. We figured the Angus cow was a very good cow to use, on account of her polled head, and there was a good selection within the breed to pick from. Through my dealings with Mrs. Alice Blazer of Tillamook, Oregon, I learned of Mr. Alfred Ostrum from Reed Point Montana. I made a trip to meet him and this was the start of another very good friendship and partnership. We became close friends and I had a lot of close dealings with the Ostrums.

Bernice Ostrum was a lady with a keen eye for cattle and loved animals. Each of the cows they had, had a special meaning to her and she could recall the history and record of all of them. Some few years before I got to know her, she had purchased two Dutch Belted heifer calves from the dairy at Tillamook to grow out and use as ranch milk cows. The calves were shipped out to her in crates from Tillamook to Big Timber and she raised them. The Ostrums were raising Angus cattle and used Angus bulls on these two cows and usually always got belted calves from this cross. Alfred, Bernice and I worked closely together after this, as we seemed to have the same desires and interests.

They decided at that time that they would like to have a belted bull to use on the belted cows and heifers that Bernice had started from the two cows, so they got a son of Freightrain from me and I later delivered several more bulls to them. At this time, I purchased one of the best calves we had in their herd out there and brought him to use on our Freightrain daughters. He turned out to be quite a good bull and was named Big Sky of Flying Cross. Since he had an Angus mother and our cows were mostly all half-bloods, we did not get belted calves, but kept selecting the ones that most closely fit our ideals.

By this time, a close working relationship had developed between myself and the Ostrums. We decided to correlate our efforts and strive for the same goal. A lot of switching went on between the two herds. I would make two trips to Big Timber each year ñ one in June to help with the branding of calves and one in the Fall when we would be switching cattle around. About that time, we had a single brand recorded in both states to simplify things.

The Ostrum Ranch in Montana is between the towns of Reed Point and Big Timber. Interstate Highway I-90 crosses Bridger Creek at the ranch, and here in North Dakota, one of our pastures runs about a mile along a state highway, so the cattle attract a lot of attention by passersby. They are not only noticed, but people like what they saw. We would have many people that would look us up to ask about the cattle ñ some from as far away as Italy and South Africa and many states.

We were soon selling calves into a wide area. Those that purchased cattle were pleased with them and wanted more. Our cattle were getting a good reputation. Word passed that the BueLingo cattle at Sheldon was the only herd with records in our state that produced four 100% calf crops in a row.

This was also about the time that Russ Danielson and I decided that the University would start to record the pedigrees of our cows. So a pedigree form was developed and all of the cows that met our standards were identified with tags and tattoos and records of production were kept on all of the animals in both herds.

The herd prefix on our herd here was the Flying Cross, as this is our brand and the name of our Sandhill ranch. We registered the Montana herd under the prefix of Bridger Creek, as the ranch was located there. Bernice knew the history of each animal, and we could determine their age by the Brucillosis tags and they were all tagged, tattooed, named and registered at that time.

This relationship continued for sometime until Alfredís health started to fail and Bernice was unable to care for the cattle. The two herds were then merged into the Flying Cross and were all registered under that prefix from then on.

When a lot of these calves that were sent out started to reproduce, applications for pedigrees started coming in from all over. So, Mr. Danielson and I thought we had reached a stage where an official registry should be formed. I, then, went to a lawyer who formed a nonprofit corporation for us.

I, then, invited all of the owners of BueLingo cattle to meet at Lisbon, ND. We adopted rules and by-laws and elected our first board of directors of the BueLingo Cattle Society.

Alfred and Bernice were both able to attend. Since Bernice was the first person to make an effort to develop the cattle, it is fitting that the first part of the BueLingo name, Bue, should relate to her maiden name, Bernice Bue.

By this time, we had quite a few good looking cows that we thought were something that we could work from. They had some traits that we certainly wanted to keep, such as good tight udders and small teats from the dairy blood. The early puberty and fertility, the good birth weights and calving ease and the very docile dispositions. However, in conversation with Mr. Danielson we wanted to increase the frame size and try to increase the muscling of the cattle, without losing some of the desirable things that we had accomplished. We had found that some of the daughters that carried the Limousin blood had too nervous a disposition and, so most all of them were eliminated. We gave a lot of thought to using the Amerifax breed, but were hesitant because of their Fresian blood. We may be unable to get rid of the white feet that we were beginning to have a problem with.

The next breed that we considered was the Chianina. I was very skeptical about them. Though I had not had any experience with them, they had a reputation of being wild and hard to handle. I did not want to lose the docile dispositions that we had, which I was very proud of. The breed did have some real good qualities about them that could be of real benefit to us, such as their very good feet and legs, well balanced bodies and straight lines; and, we thought that they could change the type faster than anything else that we could come up with. After much discussion with Mr. Danielson, we decided to try some Chianina semen. Mr. Danielson studied the breed and, of course, found that there was quite a bit difference within the families of the breed, as far as disposition was concerned. So, he selected the bull named Yuma. Yuma was a grand champion Chianina bull at Denver as a yearling. He was a very large bull that we thought would help to shape up our cattle faster than most. He was seven-eighths Chianina and one-eighth Angus. He was also polled. I then purchased ten straws of his semen and we thought, if he did not meet our expectations, we would not keep any of his offspring.

We got six calves from the ten straws of semen ñ two of them being heifers and the balance of them were bulls. None of them carried full belts except one bull calf. They had birth weights from 80 to 90 pounds and all were excellent individuals. We decided to keep the best bull calf of the bunch as he was from a very good cow, though she was a rather small cow. We named this bull Chilingo of Flying Cross and he did us a lot of good. He surprised me with his good disposition and when he matured, he weighed 2510 pounds. One of his main contributions was that he eliminated our white foot problems. We never did get a calf from him that had any white on the feet or switch. He did, however, have some slight scurs and some of his daughters carry scurred heads.

One of the daughters we got from Yuma was a cow that we named Kikanina of Flying Cross. She was a nearly belted cow with excellent confirmation. She was bred to a bull we called Dingo of Flying Cross and produced a bull we named Kikadingo of Flying Cross. He is the best bull we have ever bred and at this time is our herd senior sire. The Chianina blood has really shaped our cattle up, without harming their good dispositions. They have really eliminated the white foot problem.

Quite a few of the half-blood cattle that we had from the Chianina were too large framed, but when crossed back with animals that were too small, turned out about right. Several of the sons of Chilingo turned out to be good sires and have been a good influence on the breed. Some of his sons, such as Chingo, Cowpoke, Chigore, Chertwell, and Chad have sired some very good offspring and influenced the breed in the right direction.

After using several of these herd sires on our herd with what we thought were good results, we realized that we would have to bring in new some blood. Since our methods all of this time was a trial and error method, it was always an experiment of what to use next -- without destroying the characteristics we wanted to preserve. At this time, we decided to establish what we called the test pasture. This was a small pasture out in the hills (160 acres) that could easily carry about 25 or 30 cows. This was where we could test young bulls or breeds on our cows, to feel our way, without harming the genetic pool of our best cows. Our herd by this time had grown into fairly large numbers and we had to have them split into four different groups to control the breeding and get them all with the sires we wanted them with and could be sure of all the ancestry of their offspring. We have found that our cattle do not breed with the same prepotency, so it gives us a chance to make a young bull prove himself before he is allowed to run with some of our best cows. In this pasture we usually run four or five off breed cows, such as Chiangus or Amerifax, which gives us a test on the young bull's belting ability and see what his calves are like. If this bull meets our expectations, we will then use him in one of other pastures on some of our better cows.

In the search for new blood, the next breed that we introduced was a half-blood Amerifax bull that I had a chance to purchase in South Dakota. I had attended the South Dakota State Fair at Huron and noticed that they had a very strong Amerifax show. I admired some of the yearling heifers that were weighing 1250 pounds as summer yearlings. This bull that I bought had a very good confirmation and growth and I looked over his offspring. I thought that they looked quite good and the seemed to have nice quiet dispositions. The bull was fully belted but carried a real crooked belt. We used him one group of cows for three years and had good results with him. His calves from our cows all carried good belts and had a very good growth rate. This bull was named Dingus Du of Flying Cross. We have retained quite a few of his daughters in our herd and they have mostly all had yearling weight of over 1000 pounds. One of his sons that went into the Gene Kissner herd in Minnesota, weighed about a ton as a two-year old. When Dingus Du was sold for slaughter at eight years of age, he weighed 2450 pounds.

At this time, we have several young bulls that we have been using in a limited way so they can prove themselves before we use them to their fullest extent. Some of these bulls are named Slammer of Flying Cross, Rewind of Flying Cross, Pedro of Flying Cross, and Gringo of Flying Cross. All of these bulls have passed the 1200-pound mark by the time they are a year old. The two sires that we are depending on the most and have the best proven records are Kikadingo of Flying Cross and Cowpoke of Flying Cross. Both of these bulls seem to be passing on to their offspring the traits that we believe we are searching for. Their daughters seem to be very feminine, have good dispositions and seem to grow fast in their first year of life, which we believe is a very important trait.

We believe that the first year of growth on a calf tends more to lean meat. Just what the consumer is wanting. As an animal gets older, they tend to have excessive deposits of outside fat, which is what the consuming public wants in diminishing quantities. The gains on young cattle are put on at a much lower cost than can be done with older, more mature cattle. Younger beef is usually more tender and palatable than more mature carcasses. We believe that our animals can produce carcasses that will reach slaughter at 13 to 14 months of age and think that we should have a goal of doing this at one year of age.

[Where does the belt come from? Part 1]
[Where does the belt come from? Part 2]
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