Miss Woodie Announces Retirement

Miss Woodie & Bitsy

Miss Woodie Talbot of Hi Point Ranch, New Boston, TX, has announced that she is retiring after many years in the cattle business. Many of you know Miss Woodie for the quality Pinzgauers that have come from her breeding program, her wealth of knowledge about the breed and the unflagging encouragement she has given to many young people getting started in the breed. The brand – HPR – has always meant the gold standard in Fullblood Pinzgauer cattle.

            Miss Woodie began ranching in the early 1950’s in Louisiana with commercial cattle. Her father was a banker and her mother was a Spanish teacher, but her family had been ranching for many years. She herself is the 4^th generation in ranching. Back when she first started with commercial cattle, a good producing cow would fetch $ 50 at a sale.

            In the 1950’s her family moved back to the family ranch in New Boston and they began raising Registered Horned Herefords. Eventually they got into polled Herefords, which they showed with much success, then into the Charolais breed and eventually started crossing them with exotics.

            In 1974, her livestock supply salesman, Jim Simpson, offered her three Pinzgauers for sale. The best one was a half Pinzgauer/half Charolais cow that she purchased for $ 2500. Also in 1974, she purchased a Fullblood Pinzgauer bull, who was the full brother to Concorde. The man she bought him from said that he wouldn’t breed any of his cows, but Woodie used him on all of her crossbreds. In 1978, she purchased a Fullblood son of Red Raider named Renegade. While she had been impressed with the bulls in the breed, it wasn’t until she saw a cow named Toronto at the Fort Worth show did she start to like the females of the breed. That cow sold for $8,000 at the sale, which was out of Woodie’s price range, but the man who owned her, Bill Tobler, said he had another heifer back in Canada that he would sell her. Bill delivered her in Denver, and when she arrived, her ears had been frozen off. Woodie took one look at that cow, Frosty, and thought, “What have I done?” It took Woodie 1-1/2 years to get the cow acclimatized to East Texas, and Woodie said that during that time, Frosty looked like “the tail end of misfortune.” However, that cow became the foundation of the HPR program.

            The Talbot’s began showing Pinzgauers a little and bought another bull, Kount, from Bill Tobler, who was the Reserve National Champion, and then purchased Knockout, who went on to become a National Grand Champion.

            One of her more recent improvements has been the addition of the Diamond T G-Force genetics to her program. She first saw the G-Force bull at the 1999 National Show in Milwaukee, where he was a calf on the Diamond T show string. She was unsuccessful in her attempt to purchase the calf then, but later that year, the Smiths offered a “pick your flush” opportunity at their annual production sale. Woodie purchased the pick and requested that Diamond Foxy Lady be flushed using G-Force. It was quite a chance she was taking, but she was able to get a number of calves from that flush including the aptly-named HPR GR Bold Venture. When Diamond T offered the syndication of G-Force, she was one of the first investors.

            When asked about the changes she has seen in the cattle, she credits some of the later Canadian imports for improving the rear ends of the cattle. She worries that the extreme streamlining of the front ends she has been seeing recently in the females, and the loss of the dewlap, also comes with a loss of bone and substance, traits she is most impressed with in the Pinzgauer breed. One of the things that has always been so impressive about Woodie is her ability to envision genetic matings that continue to improve the breed. She has always said that is she can’t improve each generation, she doesn’t want to fool with them. And truly, in the Fullblood registered business, the goal should be to make every generation better than their parents.

            Woodie maintains that Pinzgauers are a great breed because they are nice to handle, nice to look at and nice to eat. When she went to the Pinzgauer breed from the Charolais breed, she was impressed with how nice they were to handle. She says that in her 57 years of working with cattle, Pinzgauer cattle are by far the smartest cattle.

            Woodie has two sons, John and David, and four grandchildren. Unfortunately, none of them are in a position to continue the Pinzgauer business. She has just completed the sale of her breeding stock to her protégé, Dennis Bryant, of Silver Bullet Cattle.

            We wish Miss Woodie the best in her retirement!

 

Silver Dollar Fair, Chico CA - Youth

Zach  Macfarlane shows off his heifer Raptor's Sunshine at the Silver Dollar Fair in Chico CA in May 2007 Sunshine went on to be the Champion female at the show. Next stop was thed the Butte County Fair at Gridley in August.  Zach's brother Zane showed Diamond Josie and her Bull Calf to the Cow Calf Championship and Zach had Champion Female with Raptor's Sunshine.  The boys have purchased two more heifers for next years shows and for breeding.