I need a history lesson

[Glenn]

Anyone familiar with Jim Fritz or Errol Fritz and their breeding programs?

[bookcliff]

if memory serves, I think Errol was up in Montana. I know he used to consign bulls in the Top Cut up there. If I remember right they used alot of Piegen breeding along with quite a bit of Holden & Station breeding later on in the late-70's & 80's. ask the Montana guys Glenn, they will probably have a better handle on him than I do.

[Carlos (frmaiz)]

You likely have read this:
www.cattletoday.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=61229

[Glenn]

I guess I should have since I posted it. LOL. too bad the pics are gone or maybe they'd jog my memory. I've seen the names before and knew they were in Montana, just was curious as the type of cattle they bred and such.

[bookcliff]

thanks for posting the link. I don't troll the other cattle sites but maybe I ought too, looks like there is some intersting stuff from time to time.

[bltherf]

He lives on the Highline just east of Shelby MT. If u can get Ace to come back on here I,m sure he knows them well. Ran into him a couple times in the eighties.

[hrndherf]

I believe ace runs cattle across the fence from them now, so he may be the best one to get info from. I am not familiar with their Hereford program back then other than what I come across in the journals. Just know they are in the other breed category now along with auctioneering.

[Deleted]

curious why you ask about them? errol was out of the herefords before jim graduated high school i think and thats getting to be a long time ago. his eldest son joe breeds red angus cattle and production sale - no nonsense kinda guy and cattle. i believe errol is retired and jim was charolais guy and just runs commercial cattle now. pure rumor... but another of my neighbors told me jim's son was bringing up some fine "black herefords" from your country glen! guess they'll have to pull the stitches on their vests again.

[erherf]

I don't know the Fritz's personally, but do know they used L1 DOMINO 78657 which was probably one of the really good station bulls.  The bull wasn't really what people were looking for in early eighties so didn't really get used as hard as he should have.  Personally I have tried to stack this bull into pedigrees as offen as possible.  Turner Bros. used this bull quite heavy at one time.  If anybody knows where some semen is would like to get some.

[Glenn]

Thanks for the great replies. I also talked with Randy about them last night so I got a real good primer. I was interested because I was doing some pedigree research on some cow families and have some cattle that go back first to Jim Fritz breeding then further back to Errol Fritz breeding. It looks like basically they were L1 with a few L12's in there on top of a Piegen base, but that's just the few cows that I traced back.

I hope we can have more threads like this as last night I got to thinking sometimes I can sure get too negative on things like the association. I feel it's much more productive to have conversations like this. I think it helps the new guys like me understand the people and programs behind the cattle. I find stuff like this fascinating.

[Deleted]

next time i see errol i'll ask if they kept any semen on that bull erherf. it might make his day... he secretly loves to reminisce about herefords. errol's uncle (i think) raymond and my grandfather were buds. i worked for raymond growing up. they just don't make guys like they were anymore.