About Us
Brewin Tarentaise, owned by Kerry and Patti Brewin, is located near Strathmore, AB. We specialize in raising fullblood, purebred, and crossbred Tarentaise cattle.
Kerry was raised on a mixed cattle/grain farm in southern Alberta. After his parents sold the family farm, he went to university, obtained a Master of Science degree, and pursued a career as a fisheries biologist/environmental consultant. He met Patti while at university. Patti obtained her Masters of Agriculture degree studying DNA fingerprinting in cattle. She focused her career in the not-for-profit sector.
In 2003 we decided to move the family out of Calgary and bought a small farm east of the city. We wanted to raise our kids in a country lifestyle while still pursuing professional careers off-farm.
After considering a few different breeds, we decided the Tarentaise breed was the best fit for the operation we wanted. With both of us working full-time off of the farm, we needed low maintenance cows who were efficient mothers with strong maternal traits that would raise fast-gaining, beefy calves with lots of length and depth.
We have gone to great lengths to find top quality genetics to develop our fullblood and purebred herd. We’ve bought seed stock from herds in western Canada, as well as from reputation herds in the U.S. We have also used AI sires from North America and France. To further enhance our herd’s bloodlines, we recently purchased a large number of full blood and purebred embryos from a retired Tarentaise breeder. Many of the donor cows and sires, or their parents or their progeny, were champions at National Shows in both Canada and the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s.
While we have always kept a strong focus on raising easy-calving cattle, this hasn’t been done at the expense of calf performance. Our cows are great mothers, are of moderate size and raise fast-gaining calves that typically weigh 50% or more of their mother’s weight when they are weaned. Our bulls are easy-calving, docile and pass these traits on to their progeny. Whether you are looking for crossbred or purebred stock, we are confident our cattle will work well for you.