Sometimes it’s easy to see where a person is and forget where they’ve been. It’s easy to stare down the success in the here-and-now, without even a glance at their past. When I learned Gerald Timmerman won our Feeding Quality Forum Industry Achievement Award, I knew the family in generalities…for their feeding businesses spread across Nebraska and surrounding states. I knew they had some ranching and other beef industry interests.
Few producers strive for average—from cow productivity to cost reduction, we all want to be better than that. Yet half of every herd is below its own average, so the bar we compare against is important for context. As the summer video sale reports come in, we hear lots of comments wondering how some cattle trade at such exceptional prices.
Certified Angus Beef ® is the Brand that Pays®. At a rate of $8,500 per hour, 24-7, that was $75 million for 2017, up from the $52 million paid in 2015; the linking year came in at $63 million. That brings the 20-year total for CAB premiums to $688 million, more than half of it paid in the last seven years.
You could say Cudlobe Angus began on a whim. The journey from three Angus cows purchased at a sale barn to a more than 600 head seedstock operation that hosts two sales a year took decades of learning and investment risk.
“We want to be able to capture the true value of the genetics we’ve invested in,” Billy says. “And to do that, we need to hang them on the rail and see what they’re worth.”
I met Fred Roberts this summer outside a diner in western Wyoming. He ordered his coffee and I asked him questions about Angus cattle. Fred’s a sheep guy, too.
Riding for the CAB® brand for nearly 16 years, Paul Dykstra has learned a thing or two about “First class feeder cattle marketing.”
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