Excalibur Sires Breeding Advisors
travel to Germany for Progeny Tour

ROCHESTER, MINNESOTA – July 7, 2006 –

Excalibur Sires has become known as the source for the most elite genetics in the world. One important factor that helps Excalibur Sires select the best bulls to offer their customers are frequent trips to visually inspect the daughters of the bulls whose semen they are selling. This gives Excalibur Sires’ Breeding Advisors first-hand knowledge of the bull’s strengths and weaknesses that can not be obtained by merely looking at a computer print out. Recently David Winkels, owner of Excalibur Sires, and six other Excalibur Sires representatives traveled to Germany to view sire’s daughters and to attend the All-European Championship.

First, the Excalibur Sires entourage attended the special “Day of the New Comers” event.  At the special event 5 to 10 daughters of approximately 20 different German Genetics International (GGI) bulls with first crop daughters were gathered together and on display in large barns located at the GGI office. There were a number of sire analysts and other personnel on hand to answer in-depth questions. All of the cattle were clipped, washed and show ring ready for the event. Over 800 people from 18 different countries attended this dazzling event. As always, the Germans were extremely gracious hosts with a large amount of food and drink available for everyone who attended.  This event allowed everyone in attendance to see huge numbers of progeny that otherwise would have taken several weeks and thousands of miles of travel for each person in attendance to view.

The Excalibur Sires delegation attended the All-European Championship on May 31^st and June 1^st. The best cattle from all over Europe competed for the honor of Grand Champion in both the Black and White as well as the Red and White breeds. There was also a competition similar to the state herd at World Dairy Expo, but in this case the competitors were groups were from France, Italy, Spain, Germany, etc. In conjunction with the show there were groups of 10 daughters of a large number of bulls that had second crop daughters exhibited. This was very informative for the Excalibur Sires group as it allowed them to see 10 daughters of Juote, Ticket, Strunz, and others from 10 different farms all in one location. It would again have taken several weeks and countless thousands of miles to see all of these cattle had they not been collected in a central location.

Also during the trip to Germany, the Excalibur Sire’s group spent several days visiting many German farms to see daughters of powerhouse bulls such as Douglas, Laudan, Jefferson, and more. David Fiske, Breeding Advisor from New York, commented that Laudan daughters “have fantastic foot angle and terrific clean boned legs that any commercial dairyman would love.” When visiting the farms that had Jefferson daughters, Canadian Breeding Advisor Tom Barnes stated “The udders have nice veining with exceptional suspensory ligaments!  Rear teat placement was perfect.” Jerry Lawyer, Breeding Advisor from Iowa, was impressed with Jardin daughters and wrote “he will sire tall, strong, and open ribbed daughters that will have big hearts that can circulate the blood necessary for good udder health.  These cows will work well in different types of barns and will be long lasting.”

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Excalibur Sires, based in Rochester, Minnesota, is the fastest growing A. I. company in North America.  In cooperation with global partners, Excalibur Sires progeny tests over 1000 Holstein young sires a year.  For more information, please contact your local representative, or call the office direct at 507-282-7451.