The story behind STgenetics® global sensation Stantons CHIEF began many years ago when Jim Stanton’s grandfather and his brother started farming in 1951. His grandfather and dad moved to the North end of London, Ontario where they began doing commercial cattle sales and selling bulls into A.I., until 1997 when Jim and his brother returned to the farm and changed focus on better cow families. Nine years later, they built a new facility focused on geneticsnorth of the original farm. Today, as they are milking about a thousand cows, Jim says their genetic goals center on breeding commercially sound cattle with outstanding udders and good feet and legs, that become healthy, problem-free cows.They also emphasize good cow families and genomics.
With these genetic parameters in mind, Jim set out to find the best cow families. CHIEF’s mother is an Uno Jim purchased as a young heifer, “I was blown away as to what an impressive individual she was, at the time she was one of the higher index Unos around,” he says. CHIEF’s dam, Rockymountain Uno Cheyanne was mated to High Octane, calved in to be a VG 85 Two-Year-Old, and was continued to be flushed. “She was a super, super uddered cow, one of the better Uno daughters around at the time. Out of an Observer and then a Shottle from LarCrest. I loved her from the moment I saw her,” Jim recalls. “CHIEF wasn’t an accident, there were a lot of people who spent a lot of years, before we got involved, to getting that family to that point,” Jim adds.
Jim goes onto say that they “Have a real nice representation of that family, from the CHIEF branch, the LarCrest Family.” As for CHIEF daughters in Jim’s herd, “We have quite a number still here, we’d have more, but with our quota system we have to sell more than we really wanted to. They were fortunately cows that people, when they came in, they really liked. They are good uddered, they milk well, generally components are good, good feet and legs and they are just the kind of cows that really stand the test of time.”
As a more commercial dairy, with a focus on genetics, and often selling other bulls into A.I. when asked why CHIEF was different, Jim’s response was “ When CHIEF himself was born he was a really nice calf, I really liked him, he had quite a nice profile, his downfall at this time was unfortunately calving ease, which was higher than some of our High Octanes. We used a lot of High Octane and calving ease wasn’t a problem, so if you took that away the rest of the bull was really kind of special, as time has gone on calving ease as improved on CHIEF,” Jim adds.
STgenetics® acquired CHIEF when “Patrice Simard was in and bought a bunch of bulls, and CHIEF was one of those bulls. I really pushed Patrice to make sure he was one of the bulls included in the package.” Jim says. As the first CHIEF daughters began to calve in Jim recalls, “It was unreal, actually the buzz from around the world. We could get calls, messages or Facebook pictures of really nice CHIEF daughters. There was certainly a lot of early excitement on him.” With some of the best CHIEF daughters yet to calve, Jim says “I think we’re a long way from the end of the ride on this bull.”
CHIEF, who was once seen as a commercial production sire, has now crossed into the show side of the industry, “CHIEF is at a spot where he is used on great show cows or just great cows. It’ll be exciting to see how he does on the show ring side and now we’re at that stage where he can line up mature cows all the way down to young calves, it’s exciting.”
Jim credits CHIEF’s success to a lot of people. “His success started here with our team, it’s passed onto the STgenetics® team, Patrice for believing in the bull like I did, the STgenetics® sales force. If any of those steps are missed, he doesn’t get the start. And then all the people that have had the confidence to use him. All the breeders’ generations before him, it’s a big team effort, you got to give some credit to the bull because he has really stamped a mark on the industry, making as many daughters as he has done,” says Jim.
When talking about being the breeder of CHIEF, Jim says “It’s a huge honor and very humbling, to think the little guy that started here as a calf has gone on to be worldwide known, a great promotion to our farm. CHIEF has kind of exceeded our wildest dreams.”
While Jim and his family’s dairy are mostly commercial based, they have pivoted to focusing more on polled genetics.
As for the future at Stanton farm, they hope to continue breeding more bulls like CHIEF to continue impacting Holstein genetics on a global level and as for CHIEF himself, “I don’t think we’re anywhere near the end of the legacy of him,” Jim says.
To hear more about CHIEF and how he grew to who he is today, visit the links below!
Spotify: http://spoti.fi/3jhDmps
Apple: http://apple.co/3kZqBQQ