Alberta Beef Magazine - BeefNews.com

A walk down memory lane with Shirley Bilton by Bonnie Warnyca
March, 2010

In the late 1890s, Shirley Bilton's paternal grandfather was the sheriff of Lyn County, Ontario. But grandpa Bilton hung up his badge to answer the call of the west in 1891. After riding the train as far as Calgary, he rented a horse and rode till he found a beautiful wooded area with a fast running spring, one which the local Indians told him ran all year round. A year later, he returned to this piece of frontier along with his family and several train car loads of cattle.

"My family helped to settle the community known as Knee Hill Valley which is located 15 miles southeast of Innisfail, Alberta," says a proud Shirley Bilton. "My Aunt Jenny's husband started the first Knee Valley store and set up a post office. My dad was the cowboy in the family and tended the cattle. As far as I can figure out from the family history, the cattle were a real "mixed bag". There was a lot of dairy influence in them which aren't the kind of cattle to stock a ranch with. Many of them were later lost in a huge prairie fire, but the ones that survived fed the family. My grandparents bought supplies with the cream from the progeny of those cows."

The senior Biltons quickly went to work and erected three log homes. Although the log home where Shirley's dad was born burned down in 1922, it was rebuilt that same year. The land is still in the Bilton family who celebrated the ranch's 100th anniversary in 1992.

When Shirley Bilton was just 15 years old, his own father began losing his eyesight. The young man had to become both the farmer and the herdsman. "I learned to swing an axe and cleared a lot of land that way until the V brush cutter came along," he remembers. "But it was expensive to rent this type of equipment, so we could only use it to clear a small amount of brush at one time."

Shirley married Marjorie Strong at the age of 28 and together they raised seven children on the original homestead. The cow herd was by then Angus but they were small and slow growing animals typical of the type of cattle back then. One fall day in the mid 1950s, after Bilton sold his calf crop to a local cattle buyer, he decided he could no longer afford to feed his growing family with these cattle.

At six or seven months of age, his Angus bull calves averaged 350 lbs. and the heifer calves were about 315 lbs. "I got somewhere between 25 to 30 cents a lb. live weight," he says still shaking his head. "I'd read about some white cattle in the States that had a lot more growth potential, so I decided to give them a try. I bought a 3/4 domestic Charolais bull and the resulting calves out of my black cows averaged 100 lbs. more than from my straight Angus calves."

After the first calf crop, Bilton drove down to Oklahoma and bought himself seven of the big white cows. "Nothing ventured nothing gained," says this spry 88 year-young producer. "My family has always had an adventuresome spirit and we've never been afraid to step out and try something new." Bilton quickly learned that when those white cows calved you'd better have a fast saddle horse. Many a family member has memories of old Z56 every time she calved. These early Charolais cattle were known as domestic Charolais. But Bilton was intent on trying one of the Full French Charolais bulls.

Says Bilton, "Using the Full French Charolais semen turned into a disaster! The calves were huge resulting in a large number of cesareans that year. In those days, cattle were cattle and we didn't pay much attention to birthweights. The Charolais breeders weeded out the hard calving bulls, but I was already on the look out for some new genetics. I soon read about another French breed that held the promise of great growth potential, ease of calving and high ratio of meat to bone. Those were Blonde d'Aquitaine cattle. I didn't have enough money to buy one, but I bought semen from some of the first Canadian imported Blonde bulls and used it on my Charolais cows. That was in 1972."

It was common for Bilton to take short courses in order to be self sufficient. When the power came into the country in the 50s, he took an electrical course, a welding course and a plumbing course. In 1966, Bilton was one of the first in Alberta to take an A-I course. In the early 1970s, he bought the first half blood Blonde d'Aquitaine female sold at auction in North America which was sold at Airdire and AI'd his Charolais cows to a couple of the first imported Blonde d'Aquitaine bulls. Today, only a few purebred cows remain at West Wind Blonde d'Aquitaine near Stavely, Alberta with the oldest being Syms Antoinette 6A, a 19 years old cow due to calve in March. This was the breed he had spent much of his life looking for. Over time, he bred all the cows up to purebreds using the upgrading program instituted for the majority of the exotic import breeds.

In 1996, with the purchase of a few fullblood heifers and the use of AI fullblood sires, West Winds changed their focus to basically a fullblood Blonde d'Aquitaine operation.

Bilton was a member of the Canadian Blonde d'Aquitaine inaugural board and a tireless worker to help get the Alberta association going. He also went to Denver, Colorado to lend a hand to help the American Blonde producers create their own association. He is still a member of the American Blonde d'Aquitaine Association.

Bilton first retired 20 years ago
"My children suggested I should slow down," Bilton remembers with a slight chuckle in his voice. "I didn't think too much of it. I had kept my cows and there were too many things I still wanted to do in the cattle business. About this time, I met Myrna Flesch, and her and I made a good team. She's a stickler with the record keeping and helps me process the cattle. She's now President of the Canadian Blonde d'Aquitaine Association." Together, the couple has taken West Wind Blondes d'Aquitaine to new levels.

Bilton kept breeding his polled fullblood Blondes and was lucky enough to find, after much DNA testing, that he had a homozygous full blood bull. He used semen from two polled fullblood bulls that traced back to a Manitoba born polled fullblood female whose horn status was a mutation and bred the resultant females back to a live polled fullblood bull, whom West Winds purchased in Ontario. The rest is history. "We knew this bull calf was the only recognized homozygous polled fullblood Blonde bull in Canada but Independent Breeders at Airdrie, Alberta, indicated he was the only one recognized in the world at that time."

Over the past few years, West Wind has been able to market 35 to 40 offspring including calves, bulls, bred heifers and bred cows by private treaty annually. Buyers hail from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. Semen sales have gone to the United States, Argentina, Australia and across Canada. Embryos have been shipped to Sweden.

"We have customers that have, over the years, bought as many as 25 to 30 bulls from us," reports Bilton. "These cattle have one of the highest meat to bone ratio of any breed. We've had young bulls that when ultrasound tested averaged from 68-71 percent with the females being 3-4 percent less. That is a lot higher than the British breeds. We don't worry about calving any longer, these long torpedo-shaped calves weigh in that 85-90 lb. range."

Bilton doesn't believe that even though he's still puts in a full day's work that that he's a workaholic. He's just focused on results. Today's technological advancements have ignited a new passion in this seasoned cattleman. "You either use the technology to your benefit or get out of the business," he says with renewed zest. "We've added Igenity Profiling to our program and the results are unbelievable. We've been able to market some of our bulls that have tested high for tenderness to new customers in Quebec. They supply some of the high end restaurants in the province and the tenderness assurance has helped them get a premium."

West Wind Blondes test their bull calves under the supervision of the Beef Improvement Opportunities (BIO) of Guelph, Ontario which gives them a full range of EPDs, their accuracies and within breed percentages for performance. A bull calf now born a purebred or with horns no longer makes the grade under this program.

Myrna makes sure that their website changes often and it has attracted many new customers. She says, "We have sold a number of animals into the U.S. and our customers have come to rely on the website to keep them current with our program. We were lucky to sell the first Blonde bull from Canada to the Republic of China in 1999. Many of our customers call us when new calves are born from bred females in their herds and keep us updated on their progress."

West Wind starts calving the 1st of January in order to sell long yearlings to their bull customers in the spring. By mid February, there were 37 calves on the ground. "I actually feel better calving in the winter," says this weathered cattleman. "We have a nice little heated calving barn and a camera set up inside the barn and one overlooking the outside bedded area. I learned my lesson years ago to be close by during calving. I once enjoyed calling square dancing which paid pretty well, but one evening while I was out calling a dance, I returned home to find a young cow had calved close to water and the calf had drowned. I gave up square dance calling to focus all my attention on my first love, and that is the cattle. One has to always pay attention to business."

Shirley and his wife raised seven children on the original homestead. The family took in foster children as well of which three became part of the family and stayed until they finished high school. Shirley's family includes oldest daughter Marjorie who is in Medical Research in the U.S.; oldest son Leigh is an oil company executive/consultant who purchased the original Bilton homestead and raises cattle and grain farms; second daughter Terresa is now retired from an administrative position with a school division; second son Robert is an owner-manager of a metal fabricating shop; youngest daughter Laurel works as a physiotherapist and youngest son Clay is an engineer. One son Eric was killed in a round baler accident when he was 24 years old. The family now includes 12 grandchildren and 3 step-grandchildren.

A bit of "name" trivia
Bilton's great grandmother's name was Jane Shirley. His grandfather was named William Shirley Bilton and his father was also named William Shirley Bilton. When his father was 24 years old, he married an English lass named Cecilia Hilton Marsh. Hilton was her middle name after her mother's maiden name Jane Shirley Hilton. When she married William Shirley Bilton, her name became Cecilia Hilton Bilton.

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