In the early 1970’s Lee and I were shuffling three young ones, the girls Ciaran and Julie and John our son, around the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto. We were looking for a breed of cattle to put on our future farm when we came across the Galloway booth. We spoke to someone involved and they handed us a purple coloured pamphlet. We bought the farm in 1978, actually 97 acres of swamp, rock outcrops and gravel left over from the last ice age and the ancient Lake Algonquin. We started fencing and put up a shed with Dad’s help. We now rent about 200 acres for hay production.
I asked Dad, who travelled the countryside as an ROP inspector for the Department of Agriculture, if he knew of any Galloway breeders. Off we went to visit Avon Acres and the Irvine family. We looked at the silver duns and the blacks. I felt that the duns were a bit bigger so I bought three cows and a bull named Klondike.
A couple of years later the Galloway breeders started showing at local fall fairs and we started hauling cattle to the shows. Showing livestock is the history of the McIlwraith family. We have been recorded in the show ring back to the mid 1800’s – it is in the blood.
In 1982, dragging three even bigger children around, we embarked on a 3 week, 19 farm search in Western Canada to find a replacement silver dun bull. We found a bull calf out of the Diamond B herd named Phantom. He was a game changer for us as our calves were quite a bit bigger at weaning time. Bob Irvine was one of our first purchasers of a Phantom bull calf, Glenfiddich Triumph.
In response to an ad in the Scottish Journal, we got a phone call from a lady in Germany, Hannelore Mastall who along with her husband Dr Heinz Mastall asked to come and see the bull Phantom. Within 3 months Phantom was off to West Forest Galloways and about 300 breeding cows of all types of Galloways. This was the start of a great friendship over the years and increased more so when BSE hit Britain in 1989 . The Germans were still clamoring for Galloways. The export business grew into friendships with many other people in Europe, ones that we still value today.
We started doing our own quarantine and continued exporting for ourselves and other breeders in Canada. At one time we had 60 head in quarantine for different buyers in Germany. We even sent Highlands, Charolais and quarter horses to different countries in continental Europe. This was a high flying time for Canadian genetics. These genetics continue to influence many herds in Scotland and Europe. It all came to an end for live cattle exports in 2003 with BSE showing up in Canada.
Meanwhile Dad and my sister Dawn also got into the Galloway business starting their own herds. We each bought a bred female from Diamond B, I kept the dun one. In the fall of 1983 we took the bull calf from Dad’s cow to Agribition and lo and behold, the Jennings and Peter Hunter Blair bought Sir George of Solway and took him to the Nether Cleugh herd in Scotland.
By the mid 1980’s we were realizing that silver duns like Phantom were hard to replace so I bought a real good black cow at Agribition in 1986 and 5 black bred heifers off the farm at Diamond B. The cow was Globe Cynthia 6th who had Glenfiddich Brodie in 1987. We still use semen off Brodie today as do many of our customers. Brodie was shipped to the Munich area of Germany in 1991 and did his duty until 2002. It was about this time that we were starting to realize what our children’s future would be. Of course picking rocks will determine many futures so Julie announced “I’m not marrying a farmer”.
In the early to mid ‘90’s we were given 4 belted cows and it became a quest to find a really good belted bull. We’re still looking but now we don’t have the cows.
During one of the quarantines we were asked to buy a White Galloway bull so we got a pretty good one from Bob Airth of Walking A Ranches. The buyer decided they didn’t want the bull so we used him on two of our better cows. Thre resulting heifer calves, Glenfiddich Eurythmic and Ecstasy went to Simon Lagace. Simon showed and marketed these calves and their progeny. Their blood is in many of the whites in North America.
We went back to our roots of blacks and duns, too many bulls, colours and problems. We continued our herd improvement through the ‘90’s even though we sold pretty well what the customer wanted to buy. Some years we were pretty low in cow numbers especially when Karen and Larry bought about 40 head over a couple of years. We are now a mainly black herd but still have a couple of dun cows that are descendants of those early silvers.
In 1999, John and Jen got married in the new horse barn so now you see about half the cows (about 18 to 20) and up to 30 horses.
In 2002 we were fortunate to get a bull called Big Deal Knockout 3K. He ended up with us when BSE hit Canada. He was another game changer for us and the mix between him and our cows gave us some great progeny who carried us through the shows at Agribition and the Royal and put gain on our cattle. Most notable of these cattle were Nuance, Pericles ( Beef Expo, Royal, Agribition and 3 time NWSS champion in Denver), Sagebrush, Upperhand, Roxie and Undeniable.
Attached to this story are the many bulls and cows that we have been proud to raise over the years. We sold the bulls to various purebred and commercial breeders including Diamond B, the Blegens of North Dakota, Gerald Wiens and Ron Dietrich of Excellerator Genetics. Our trips to Agribition opened up the commercial market for us and we were able to sell bulls to breeders in the west. Most of our bull market today is to commercial producers. I appreciate the fact that we can use a lot of bulls from the past and not affect the characteristics of the breed or our standard of today. It is encouraging that the next generation of Galloway breeders are starting to take over.
Dad passed away in late 2011 and we’ll miss his advice and the quality of cattle that came out of his herd over the years.
Our 3 children are almost all in their 50’s now and Lee and I have 6 grandchildren ranging from a 13 year old to a 36 year old plus 3 great grandchildren telling us how to do things, our kids have been doing it for 40 years so we are almost trained! We wouldn’t have it any other way. Ciaran is still at home and helps among her many other duties and John is taking over the Galloways more every year. True to her word, Julie didn’t marry a farmer!
The Galloway breed has given our family many friendships around the world, has opened many doors and given us many stories. All are welcome at any time to stay with us and we’ll show you where we keep the key.
In 2016, after a lot of consideration Lee and I decided to sell the farm to John and Jen.
All our best,
John and Lee;
Ciaran, Chris, Stuart and Randy;
Julie, Noah, Keegan, Shaye, and Lola;
John and Jen and Shelby
And great grandchildren Layla, Beau and Loclan.
