Last week, I shared an email from Dayton Steelman who is a retired Professor of Veterinary Entomology at the University of Arkansas. Dayton knows more about horn flies and horn fly resistance than anyone else in the world. He studied horn flies and their effect on beef cattle for 26 years. If you have not already done so, Click Here to listen to the podcast interview with Dayton.
When I re-read Dayton’s email in last week’s PCC Update, I was reminded of a PCC bull that is coincidentally named Dayton. He sold in our 2017 Nebraska Bull Sale. We bought him back in 2022 along with several of his daughters. At nine years of age, Dayton is working in a PCC cooperative herd in Broken Bow, Nebraska. He is 80% Red Angus – with the diluter gene.
When we evaluated this bull in August of 2017 in preparation for the bull sale, he only had two or three horn flies. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, this bull was a 10 for fly resistance. Every year since then, even in the worst of fly season, Dayton has been nearly fly-free! His sons and daughters are also extremely fly resistant.
We are using Dayton, the no-fly bull, to produce a special line of PCC™ cattle with extreme fly resistance. These animals are red or cream colored. We sold our first Dayton sons in our 2024 fall sales in Nebraska and Colorado.