Quality down the tracks

There’s something about the contradiction of freedom confined to a track that seems to grab my attention.

But as I stepped foot over Georgia’s border into Cusseta, Ala., cattle were the ones that kept it.

The train merely took me back in time.

The roads weren’t paved, the land in row crops and highly eroded, but James Smart Collins II wanted cows. Beef cattle to be specific. From Montgomery, Ala., he and his family operated J.S. Collins Dairy through the Great Depression and came to know and later purchase the land 75 miles northeast of him that had no flowing water but nearly 40 natural springs.

In the 72 years since, generations of Collinses have raised even more generations of Angus cattle on the ground that’s sustained them both.

“My grandfather bought the farm in ’43,” James (Jimmy) Collins IV tells me. Having “showed many a Hereford steer through high school,” Jimmy switched to Angus his senior year and soon after, the herd followed suit.

“We were looking to grow from carcass information and wanted rid of the problems with udders and eyes. Crunching numbers, Angus looked like a better alternative. It’s such a strong breed.”

Living on the farm and commuting to town each day, mornings and late afternoons for Jimmy were spent tending to cattle while workdays went to financing crops, cattle and equipment for neighboring ranchers and later real estate sales. Five decades later, the Collins family is a case study of how each person can find their niche in the world and on the farm, all the while supplementing the cattle enterprise with outside income.

“If you characterize all of us, my granddad [James] was the consummate agronomist,” says Jimmy’s son, Jim. With his own growing family, the two partner in Collins Farms today. “He [James] was also the engineer – with a high school degree, but still the engineer.”

“Without question, my dad is the nutritionist,” Jim continues. “And then my specialty’s been genetics and marketing.”

The commercial cows, 350 of them, are carefully managed and selected with the same detail as the family’s 50 head of registered stock. To avoid being culled, cows are expected to grow a calf 60% of their mature body weight, have adequate milk production given the natural forages, and have some longevity. Many a Collins cow is in production to the age of 12.

“We try to run a balanced program, rather than chasing outliers,” Jimmy says. “Sure, it’s a slower process, but when you get there, you’re there. We look at growth and carcass quality and strive to be a tier above the industry average.”

In an industry that sometimes resists change, the Collins men embrace it, like, for instance, when they decided to transition from complete phenotypic to a combination of genetic and phenotypic selection.

“It’s a matter of surviving really and truly,” Jimmy says. “You’ve got to be productive and you can do what you want, but it better be successful and work for the folks who are going to be consuming the end product.

What’s working appear to be the Collins cattle.

Terry Harris, Boston, Ga., can tell of cows he purchased from the Collinses 11 years ago that maintain and reproduce today. Then there’s new cattlemen to the business like Jones Woody, Culloden, Ga., who has followed his calves on feed in Iowa and received data showing 81% CAB and USDA Prime.

Faint in the distance, then all at once overpowering, again the train bursts through the family land as I stand and learn their lives.

A constant. A reminder of what’s been and what’s to come.

For years, three generations of Collins men worked together with their families to improve their cattle and impress the consumer at the end of the line. Rest assured they’ll continue.

Right on down the tracks.

Thanks for allowing me to tell your story,

Laura

To learn more about Collins Farms and their commitment to the brand, check out this video.

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