Montana Angus ranch: data-driven quality from the start

2016 CAB Commercial Commitment to Excellence Award

by Miranda Reiman

It’s hard to pinpoint when the transformation began, but on the Christensen family’s western ranch, it’s evident that it happened: a commitment to excellence.

The views of the Rocky Mountains look much the same as they did when Grandpa Karl homesteaded near Hot Springs, Mont., a century ago, but third-generation rancher Shawn Christensen and wife Jen now raise their two daughters there.

Ranch talk might center around the same challenges then and now, from lack of moisture to grasshoppers, but a quick glance at stacks of artificial insemination (AI) records and carcass data provides a clear distinction. The diversified crop and livestock farm that once housed milk cows and chickens is not the same as the commercial Angus ranch the family operates today.

Shawn’s dad brought in Angus bulls and then switched to the breed completely in the 1970s, a decade later Shawn participated in the 4-H carcass contest and later learned to AI.

There might not be one central event, but there’s evidence of the fruits of that commitment.

“They’ve just been good gaining and good converting cattle,” says Ryan Loseke, of Columbus, Neb. He’s bought the family’s cattle for most of the last 20 years. “It’s been neat to see how he has done a good job of maximizing carcass quality but not getting poorer performing cattle.”

Loseke specifically remembers the pen that went 100% Choice and Prime. It also made 65% Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) brand, and gained more than 4 pounds (lb.) per day.

That kind of cattle and the lifelong dedication to produce them earned Shawn and Jen Christensen’s Springvale Ranch the 2016 CAB Commercial Commitment to Excellence Award, which they accepted Sept. 24 at the brand’s annual conference in Tucson, Ariz.

“He’s always thinking and always evaluating and looking for ways to improve his genetics and his management, too,” says Ben Eggers, manager of Sydenstricker Genetics, Mexico, Mo. “Kind of a student of the Angus breed, really.”

For Christensen, the award is gratifying, a validation of the vocation that he’s made his life’s work.

“When I was 3 years old, I wanted to be an airplane pilot,” he says. “It was pretty obvious I was ready to want to be a rancher when I was probably 4 years old. I think ever since I haven’t really changed my mind.”

Christensen got an early start, helping his dad do everything from watch gates to rake hay. As a teenager he started making business decisions, as his dad focused on growing an irrigation business.

“He kind of says, ‘Okay, you’re going to build this program,’” the son recalls.

At first Christensen studied sale books and sent his dad to the sale with a wish list. Then he was making decisions himself, but his dad’s influence remained.

“That’s how we were raised. Whatever you are doing, you want a product that the consumer wants,” Christensen says. “We are raisers of beef, but you still have to raise cattle that can calve out on the range, get bred back during a drought, and go on to the feedlot and have a feedlot want to come back and purchase your cattle.”

When he became an AI tech in 1983, it was a two-fold purpose: tightening calving season while individually assigning specific sires to certain cows.

“We’ve always raised our own replacements….” Christensen starts, as Jen continues, “…he knows the cowherd many generations back. To look at an AI bull, he knows what that cows’ milk or marbling has done for many generations. It’s not that he just sees the cow’s numbers on paper.”

Jen says she doesn’t catch her husband reading the latest best seller. Instead, free time is devoted to researching genetics.

“He spends a lot of time perfecting that,” Jen says. She then hand-enters all records so he can study the Excel spreadsheets.

“If you don’t know who the good one is or the poor one is, how do you make changes?” Christensen asks. “It seems like you can make it happen in a few years, but it takes time.”

Getting connected with the Loseke family gave them the ability to get individual tag-transfer data.

“That’s when I was able to really see what sires are doing and what the cowherd’s doing and trying to make small adjustments,” Christensen says, while trying to ensure he’s being “budget-minded and dollar-driven for everybody in the industry.”

Loseke tries to buy the straight Angus cattle every year. They gain and grade and, “disposition-wise, there’s hardly any better. Because of that, they wean well,” the feeder says.

Fifteen years ago the cattle reached 71% Choice, with 25% CAB acceptance. Today very few miss the Choice mark and 65% of them meet the brand’s 10 specifications. Carcass weights have improved 73 lb., with a younger calf crop, while mature cow weight has gone unchanged.

“He’s a commercial guy that’s pretty rare, really, that believes in turning in the data to improve the accuracy on the bulls he buys,” Eggers says. “Shawn’s one of those guys who believes in doing things right.”

Maybe the best way to describe the herd’s change through the years is more of a natural progression. The cattle are simply an expression of who Shawn Christensen is at the core.

Science-based ranching in the Superstitions

by Steve Suther

Politics aside, every sense of “progressive” describes Chuck Backus.

From his 36 years in education and research to the overlapping 39 years in ranching, this former provost of Arizona State University embodies the aspects of applied innovation, growth by accumulating knowledge, experimenting and expanding boundaries.

“With the data available now and all that we can measure, it’s a complex problem,” the retired nuclear engineering PhD and solar energy specialist says. “It’s also a rewarding challenge to weigh all these factors from genetics to cattle health and range conditions.”

That’s Backus, who contacted the Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) brand in 2006 to see about transforming his desert cowherd into one that could produce premium quality beef.

Feeding his first steers in Texas that year, he found a benchmark of 48% Choice with one CAB that made it by 1% of a marbling score.

It was the first year for artificial insemination (AI) and what became a key strategy that bred 358 head this spring. Among the 2015-born, 65 steers fed at Cattleman’s Choice Feedyard, Gage, Okla., hit a new high of 95.4% Prime and premium Choice, most of them Prime.

The stunning success gets a smile and nod from Backus, but he looks out across the Superstition Mountains at widely foraging cows and adds, “We still have a long way to go.”

The engineer has already amended the blueprint to put equal pressure on efficiency as the academic footnotes resources and the teacher plans new ways to share results with other ranchers.

These are just a few of the reasons CAB recognized Chuck and Judy Backus and their Quarter Circle U Ranch, Apache Junction, Ariz., with the 2016 Progressive Partner Award at the CAB Annual Conference in Tucson, Ariz., Sept. 22-24.

“What Chuck has done and is still accomplishing is truly unique given all constraints,” says Paul Dykstra, beef cattle specialist for the brand. “Identifying genetics as such an important part of beef production is a lesson for others in any environment. But he takes it much farther by not allowing ‘accepted’ limitations to dictate what his cows can produce.”

First, Backus spent 30 years on range improvements for the 40,000-acre ranch, starting on the headquarters east of Phoenix in 1979 to the summer ranch near Show Low, Ariz., acquired in 2000. Ramping up beef quality with Angus genetics became top priority in 2007.

Incredibly, the herd of nearly 400 makes a living on the winter range of cactus and mostly sleeping rattlesnakes from November through April.

“It’s 22 square miles of rocks, cactus and mountains that we call pastures, but we have animals that do well in these conditions,” Backus says. He rides several days each week to monitor that.

Angus bulls brought calving ease, and in 10 years he’s never lost a heifer. Today, increasing efficiency is the key to making life easier for his cows, and more money from feeding their calves.

The American Angus Association publishes an expected progeny difference (EPD) for residual average daily gain (RADG), which Backus looks at along with mature height and residual feed intake (RFI) comparisons. Those measure how much an animal eats each day for the same gain, which can be plus or minus 8 lb.

He aims to use bulls with an RFI of -5 or less because their daughters would need 1,000 lb. less feed per year.

“Think what that would mean for my pastures, my calves and my breed-back the next year,” he wrote in an Arizona Cattlelog article. “If they are all just 10% more efficient, I can run 10% more cows on the same forage.”

Last year’s calf crop converted dry matter at a 6.69 to 1 ratio in 200 days on feed, gaining 3.27 lb. per day. Those are already among the best at his yard, says Cattleman’s Choice manager Dale Moore, who specializes in feeding for natural and non-hormone-treated targets.

“If you can’t depend on technology like implants and feed additives, you darn well better have the genetics,” he says. Those are often fed longer than average to achieve growth and quality grade targets.

“It works because Prime premiums outweigh the discounts, but only when you know the cattle can do it,” Moore says. He feeds thousands each year that beat 30% Prime, but none from a more unlikely place than that cactus canyon.

“Chuck has taught me not to judge a book by its cover until you have read it at least three times,” he adds.

In an essay on feed efficiency, Backus recently recommitted to quality.

“Ranchers that don’t produce higher quality (marbling) calves are going to be left to compete with the cull cow market as hamburger,” he wrote.

Given the huge Angus gene pool, database and DNA testing all breeding stock as an entrance exam for the past three years, Backus looks forward to continued rapid improvement on all fronts.

For all the precision and planning with land and cattle, Backus cares most about people.

Judy, his wife of 59 years, leads all in traits there. She once ran a real estate business in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert, which daughter Beth now operates. Daughter Amy and her husband Mike Doyle have a percentage interest in the herd. Son Tony and wife Blanca are also much involved in ranch operations. All live nearby and were in attendance at the award presentation. Quarter Circle U manager Dean Harris and wife Kris, computer records keeper, might as well be family, too, like Casey Murph, head cowboy at the north ranch.

“Ranching relates the person in all of our complexity to the real world, animal and earth kingdom that we live in,” Backus says. “We have come from a million years of gathering tribes to farmers and sustaining communities and civilization.”

Though evolution has distanced humans from their food suppliers, Backus aims to close the gap.

“I have a personal drive to leave the world a little better than I found it,” he says.

You could call that a progressive attitude.

A different breed of stars

California Angus family 2016 CAB Ambassador honoree

by Laura Conaway

“Five Star Land & Livestock” the barn reads. The curious eyes that travel 30 miles south of Sacramento to the Wilton, Calif., ranch meet the name that started it all.

“Do you think it’s too bright?” Abbie Nelson asks of the chosen shade of new red paint that surrounds the white block letters of text. It’s just right, but even so it will surely fade under the California sun.

To Nelson these things matter. If not for her, then for those who venture down the bumpy gravel driveway and make a right at the red barn. The consumers.

For this diligence and a continued commitment to open their gates and host, the Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) brand honored Five Star Land & Livestock with the 2016 CAB Ambassador Award Sept. 24 in Tucson, Arizona. At the conference, Mark and Abbie Nelson accepted the award with their daughter, Andra, and their son, Ryan, with his wife, Hailey.

It’s almost too picturesque, to drive around the circle, past the barn and “Welcome” sign to the United States and California flags twirling in the breeze. It can be difficult to imagine actual work taking place before and after visitors leave.

But it’s a lone gate beginning to drag, a calf bawling in the distance that demands attention. It’s a few loose straws of hay that escaped this morning’s feeding and now lay strewn across the manicured lawn that give it away. It’s real, the rolling hills and golden grasses, the grape vineyards of zinfandel and petite sirah. The way California should look.

“We’re a small operation, typical of small breeders; we have about 100 registered cows,” Nelson says, downplaying the 300 acres she convinced husband Mark to keep and where she raised their family. The 1,700 acres they lease down the road is a necessary blessing.

Transparent, the Nelsons don’t shy away from the existing constraints of raising cattle in an environment where rule makers know more about Rodeo Drive than they do the American cowboy’s traditional Friday and Saturday night pastime. Issues of dust or truck length, water rights or taxes – it seems it would be a relief to move to a more secluded spot, build fences high and lock the gates. Instead, the Nelsons stay in the middle of it all.

“You just have to work with them and stay above it,” Nelson says of California’s growing list of rules and regulations. “We have a big job to do and that’s to gain the trust of the end consumer, to make sure they know we have a safe product.”

That’s the great responsibility, one that parallels nicely with the CAB brand and leads the Nelsons to match every request with a “yes, absolutely, we’d be happy to host.”

“Some of the very first events we ever did were at Five Star Land & Livestock,” says CAB Vice President of Production Mark McCully, recounting the now-familiar days of taking distributor groups or media out to ranches to show the real faces of the brand in action.

“We’ve literally had our chefs in their kitchen cooking dinner,” McCully says recalling a 2014 group of bloggers who spent a day on the ranch touring and asking questions. As the sun went down, hospitality continued on the Nelsons’ back deck.

Mary McMillen, CAB strategic partnerships, remembers another time when the family welcomed an entire TV crew for scouting and a 13-hour production shoot of the CBS award-winning cooking show, “Recipe Rehab.” Television may look glamorous, McMillen says, but it’s tedious and very hard work: “To be fully engaged and do on-camera interviews for over 12 hours, Abbie is just the epitome of gracious western hospitality.”

“I wasn’t nominated for some kind of Emmy,” Nelson jokes of her TV debut, “but it was an honor to represent CAB. We enjoy people and the opportunity to directly relate our industry to our consumer,” whoever they may be.

State legislators and lobbyists, journalists or Rotary members, eighth graders, politicians and friends leave Five Star Land & Livestock with an understanding of the industry and a family that embodies it.

That shouldering of responsibility, the someone-has-to-do-it-so-we’ll-step-up attitude keeps the requests pretty constant. Or maybe it’s the fact that Nelson’s had TV producers rifle through her closet, only to call the experience “fun” that makes the family an easy target.

Whatever the reason, on top of the typical requirements that come with ranch life – growing the herd, maintaining a business and keeping together a family that includes nine grandchildren and growing – the Nelsons are never too busy to stop and answer a question. Or two.

“We’ve had Polish and Chinese. There was just a Japanese group in September,” she rattles off. Not to mention the couple’s time spent off the land with past and present leadership roles in California Cattlemen’s Association, California Angus, California Beef Cattle Improvement Federation, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, American Angus Association and the Angus Board, to name a few.

“I love cattle. They are in my heart,” Nelson says. “I have a passion for taking care of them, for breeding them, the decision making and the genetics.”

There’s more to life though, of course.

“The legacy of my children and how they’ve grown. I think it’s a good strong legacy,” she says of her greatest contribution.

A five star one.

Progressive quality

I first “met” Chuck Backus in the early 2000s. It was before we had a blog so we used the email list then called BLACK-INK. I still have the exchanges but of course can’t find them… Anyway (as he and I both say a lot) the retired Arizona State University provost with a 40,000-acre ranch wanted to convert his desert-based herd to high-quality, high-percentage Angus.

Few believed he could do that, even before we saw how tough the environment is. “It’s 22 square miles of rocks, cactus and mountains that we call pastures, but we have animals that do well in these conditions,” he says, noting the frequent day-long rides to monitor that.

Chuck often hosts groups for educational presentations on the Quarter Circle U.

We all admired the drive. By the time Angus Media President Eric Grant and I stopped in to capture his story in 2013, nobody could doubt the success. But Chuck wasn’t done, still isn’t.

A couple of days ago, capping off a year of cooperation in our Following the Calves series, Chuck and Judy, his wife and partner of 59 years, accepted one of the highest honors from the Certified Angus Beef brand: Progressive Partner. Click that link to read all about it.

Their Quarter Circle U Ranch near Apache Junction is the home of highly focused and applied innovation. They keep their eyes on a vision of ideal cattle, using science and technology to keep getting better each year. As a benchmark 10 years ago, the first load of ranch calves finished in Texas made 50% low Choice but only one made CAB, and by 1% of a marbling score.

In March, we wrote about the steers he sent to Oklahoma, promising a report later: well, 95.4% of them qualified for CAB, and most of them Prime.

That seems hard to beat, but the moving target now includes much greater efficiency. I’m sure there’s going to be more to write about and learn from on the Quarter Circle U.

The Quarter Circle U has been 100% solar only for several decades.

At the CAB Annual Conference in Tucson this past weekend, the 650 other partners from around the world applauded Chuck’s video comments.

“Ranching relates the person in all of our complexity to the real world, animal and earth kingdom that we live in. We have come from a million years of gathering tribes to farmers and sustaining communities and civilization.”

Though evolution has distanced humans from their food suppliers, he aims to close the gap.

At the end of the day, I enjoyed refreshments with Chuck, Judy and manager Dean Harris in 2013.

“I have a personal drive to leave the world a little better than I found it. Ranching combines improving mother earth with the quality of the products that come from it. That quality is much better, either because of my direct contribution or setting an example that others could use to pursue goals.”

We call that a progressive attitude from a friend of the brand, the planet and everything on it.

Let’s keep building tomorrow together!

–Steve

PS–That opening shot shows Chuck and Judy Backus accepting the 2016 CAB Progressive Partner Award Sept. 24 in Tucson, with CAB Supply Development Director Justin Sexten, left, and President John Stika, right.

Catch up on Chuck’s whole story with these posts:

Our “Following the Calves” series also takes you to Florida and Nebraska in these installments:

Corah honored by Feeding Quality Forum

by Steve Suther

Seven years ago when Larry Corah suggested adding a people element to the Feeding Quality Forum (FQF) he helped launch in 2006, he certainly didn’t expect to be a recipient of the Industry Achievement Award one day.

Now “mostly retired,” Corah was an easy choice for the FQF committee, which moved to honor one who served the beef community – from ranch to consumer – for more than 50 years.

He grew up in North Dakota in the 1950s, when technology was reshaping agriculture. His parents attended school to 8th grade, but they never stopped learning on a farm that included a small feedlot. The family cooperated in many Extension research trials to see how electricity, silage unloaders and hybrid seeds could make life better.

Corah loved to learn by doing, whether in animal science at North Dakota State University, as a local county Extension agent in 1964 or digging into the feedlot side for his Master’s in ruminant nutrition at Michigan State University. There, he met an Australian guest lecturer who made an irresistible offer a couple of years later.

Soon Corah, with wife Mary and two children, were living on the southeastern edge of the Outback for two years while he served as technical advisor for an Australian program to develop a cattle feeding industry.

Coming back in 1970, Corah worked in Extension in Minnesota before the family moved to Laramie, Wyo., while the young scientist earned a PhD in bovine reproductive physiology. In 1974, they moved to Manhattan, Kan., to stay.

He joined Kansas State University as a feedlot specialist, with a first mission of traveling the state to meet people and see the booming industry.

“I had seen 1,000-head feedlots, but not the 20- and 30,000-head operations,” Corah recollects. “The first time I saw a pit full of high-moisture corn, I said ‘what the heck is that?’”

He established relationships quickly, helping each new contact think about what they’d like to know with K-State’s assistance. He felt a kinship with each cooperator as they sought to adapt new technologies to their feedyards.

Corah also developed a little-used summer internship program into a network of a dozen committed young people placed at leading yards across the feeding belt.

“Not only did we get a lot of science done, but it was a good training ground for students,” he says.

The feedlot specialist became beef section leader at K-State in 1979 and head of cow-calf research in 1985, becoming the first Wildcat to earn the Extension Achievement Award from the American Society for Animal Science in 1987.

For all the cooperative research Corah was getting done, across 20 years he also mentored a wave of 30 graduate students who went on to take leading positions in the beef industry, academia and allied industry.

His easy-going personality helped him build a thick Rolodex of industry contacts over the years, and those helped launch his own “retirement” careers. Corah left Extension after 25 years to head up producer education at the newly unified National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in 1997.

There he established strategies and programs as a foundation of NCBA efforts to this day, including an expanded Cattlemen’s College.

In 1998, when former grad students with the Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) brand suggested their mentor to lead the company’s outreach to ranchers and cattle feeders, Corah signed on as vice president of supply development, based in Manhattan, Kan.

The next year, he and new staff members that included current CAB president John Stika launched the CAB Feedlot Partners program, and later teamed up with allied industry sponsors to hold the first FQF seminars in Nebraska and Texas.

Always looking ahead more than back, Corah predicts the growing trend of individual cattle management will lead to more of a “supply chain focus, where feedyards will really target a lot of their production” toward specific value-adding programs and brands.

“The fact that we put cattle on feed for 100 to 150 days of a high-concentrate diet creates a really intense flavor profile that has established our beef as not only something that the U.S. consumer wants, but globally it positions us,” Corah says.

These are exciting times for a career teacher and student of the industry.

“It amazes me how dramatically we’ve changed cattle,” Corah says. From breed makeup to performance gains, their evolution didn’t leave carcass quality behind.

“Today nearly 70% of the cattle grade Choice or Prime and CAB acceptance rates – years ago we set a target at 30% and thought that’s just unachievable,” he notes. “Now we’re seeing weeks and months where we’re doing that.”

The many who reach out to congratulate Corah will likely hear the disclaimer, “I’ve always been surrounded by talented people.”

Those would invariably reply they owe much of their own industry achievements simply to being on the same team.

Corah will accept the award just prior to the noon CAB brand lunch in Grand Island, Neb., Aug. 23 and two days later in Amarillo, Texas.

The meetings are sponsored by Zoetis, Roto-mix, Feedlot magazine, Micronutrients and CAB.

Online registration is available at www.feedingqualityforum.com, or contact Marilyn Conley at 800-225-2333 or mconley@certifiedangusbeef.com.

Simply innovative

Steak packaging, quality, label win honors

by Hannah Johlman

If there’s an easier way to home-grill the best steaks – and the search continues at Greeley’s Colorado Premium Beef, which brought Truly Simple™ to market this year – it’s hard to imagine.

But it’s easy to see why the concept featuring the Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) brand just won honors: First Place in Refrigerated & Frozen Foods magazine “Top 5 Best New Retail Products” contest.

The center-cut, closely trimmed 4-ounce, 1½-inch-thick pairs of steaks are pre-portioned and packaged to toss on the grill and serve as dinner for two in 8 minutes.

“We combined years of consumer beef research with Colorado Premium’s inherent steak cutting experience to come up with this truly innovative product,” says company president Kevin LaFleur.

Provided with easy cooking instructions and recipes, the label answers any questions consumers may have and promises precision from nutrition and calorie counts right down to consistently delicious results.

“A lot of people are really intimidated when it comes to cooking steaks, so our instructions are easy to follow,” says LaFleur. “That dramatically increases the chance of serving an amazing steak.”

The company’s Truly Simple brand partners with CAB to help all consumers, but especially “millennials, boomers and the nutritionally conscious,” he adds.

Center-cut rib eye, strip loin, sirloin, rib cap, flat iron and beef tips are the six choices in the product line, all offered as two servings per 8-ounce package.

LaFleur points out benefits to retailers and consumers alike.

“At the store level, retailers can age the beef 21 days in the case in the same package,” he says. “Consumers can freeze the items in the package, or serve a delicious, nutritious entrée in 8 minutes. Vacuum-sealed packaging also makes for easy cleanup.”

“Consumer demand for great-tasting beef continues to rise,” says Tracey Erickson, vice president of marketing for CAB. “With these products, customers can enjoy the beef’s complete package of great taste, nutrition and convenience in a satisfying portion size.”

Correlated traits

These are quite possibly the nicest people I’ve ever met.

Myron and Kay Beatty, 2006 Commercial Commitment to Excellence award winners

I distinctly remember thinking that as I left one of my first story stops for CAB. I was covering Nebraska ranchers Myron and Kay Beatty, who were to receive our Commitment to Excellence Award later that year. I rode around in their pickup and learned about their herd and their family, their struggles and victories. I often think of how naïve I was, and how gracious they were.

2007_5_mr_Skavdahl-3 — Jim and Maureen Skavdahl, 2007 Commercial Commitment to Excellence winners

But then, each year after, I find myself with similar thoughts during my summer travels.

These might be the nicest people I’ve ever met.

When the Black Ink crew picks award winners, “nice” isn’t the set of criteria, but it seems it’s a highly correlated trait.

Ranchers who care about their cattle, the buyers of those cattle and the final beef consumers, also tend to be just some of the most genuine, welcoming and humble people you’ll ever meet.

Dee and Gaye Johnson, 2015 Commercial Commitment to Excellence winners

I can no longer pick a “favorite ranch I’ve ever been to.” The competition is just too stiff when I’ve met people like Jim and Maureen Skavdahl, Dee and Gaye Johnson and the Minnie Lou Bradley and Goggins families.

The list could go on and on, and that’s not to mention the dozens and dozens of cattle feeders I’ve gotten to profile.

Minnie Lou Bradley, 2009 Seedstock Commitment to Excellence winner

In two weeks, our team will sit down with a virtual folder of nominations. It’s always a tall task that takes several different rounds to whittle down to our eventual winners. At the risk of sounding like I want to make that job harder, I ask: Is there anyone else we should be considering?

Are you a seedstock producer who knows of quality-focused customers who pay attention to all the details from genetics to management to marketing? Are you a commercial rancher who has found a true partner in helping you produce high-quality beef with either your genetic supplier or a feedlot buyer?

Maybe you’re in allied industry, but work with some of the best of the best, the people you know embody the “CAB spirit.”

2013_06_04_mr_Vermilion Ranch-46 — The Goggins family, 2013 Seedstock Commitment to Excellence winners

We have a very short nomination form, available here, and we’d love to hear about them. (But hurry! The deadline is March 31^st.)

We’re looking for producers who have a proven track record, who see the market rewards for supplying the CAB brand and have their sights set on creating even more.

Of course, it wouldn’t hurt if they’re nice, too.

May your bottom line be filled with black ink,

Miranda

Permission to straightbreed

Four all-Angus success stories

Each day my farm radio reminds me that the bull sale season is in full swing. I hear several seedstock suppliers advertising as “the perfect cross to complement an Angus program,” and they might be right. That is, if you are looking to crossbreed.

They imply you’re missing out if you don’t.

But year after year, our team visits intelligent, strategic-minded ranchers who are not only making money with straight Angus, but who are making more money with a single breed than they say they could in a more complicated program.

Need some proof? Let me re-introduce you to our past four Commercial Commitment to Excellence Award winners:

Oklahoma ranchers Jimmy and Tracy Taylor switched to Angus nearly a decade ago.

1—When Jimmy and Tracy Taylor took ownership of the family ranch in Oklahoma, they had one major goal in their genetic selection: “simply to sell the most pounds of beef at weaning.”

“Over time, we began to see there is more security for our ranch and for the whole industry if we reoriented to give the consumer a better eating experience,” Jimmy says. “We changed with the incorporation of registered Angus bulls to a goal of producing the best steak we can possibly make.” Those first Angus-cross calves arrived in 2006, and when they won CAB honors in 2011, they were reaching nearly 60% brand acceptance.

2012_06_28_mr_Zutavern Ranch-41 — Con Zutavern and his family run commercial Angus cows and feed out the calves on their Dunning, Neb., ranch.

2-“When we talk about revolutionary things that changed our business, we talk about center-pivot irrigation, distillers grains and the introduction of EPDs to help us pick Angus bulls,” says Con Zutavern, of Dunning, Neb.

His family gradually incorporated Angus genetics, going straightbred in 1988.

Birthweight started as the main trait of importance, but as the sole suppliers to their own feedlot, their selection breezes right past common ones like weaning weights to instead emphasize overall growth and carcass traits.

“We’re looking at the dollar-beef ($B) Values, and we don’t want cattle that are too fleshy. Because selling on a grid you don’t want a bunch of yield grade 4s,” says brother Zak Zutavern.

His son Adam adds, “We’ve been trying to keep a count on the wilder cattle and watch disposition. Looking at Angus EPDs, you can basically get anything you want.”

Joe Mayer hones his commercial Angus herd in the Oklahoma Panhandle.

3- Joe Mayer, of Guymon, Okla., fed cattle most of his of life, even owning some interest in a feedlot. “We fed a lot of cattle, and all kinds, but that was back before grids and none of that mattered. When you actually got paid for what you produced instead of one-price-fits-all, I started worrying,” he says.

But worry without action is a futile act.

That’s why he started buying Angus bulls two decades ago with goals of creating uniform performance and quality in calves that would be profitable to feed for the emerging value-based grid markets.

Sensitive to charges that he should be crossbreeding, Mayer says, “I’d love to, if anyone could show me the data relevant to my herd that some non-Angus bull will make more money here.”

2014_06_12_mr_Johnson-158 — Dee Johnson, Dry Fork Land and Cattle, Edgerton, Wyo.

4–“In every aspect, from mothering ability to raising pounds to having less health problems to being a better product when it hits the plate, I’ve thought [Angus] was the most productive breed out there,” says Dee Johnson, who we honored just last year.

For the Wyoming producer, it starts with phenotypic evaluation. If bulls are “deep-ribbed,” with good feet and structure, backed up with “the right muscle structure in the hind quarters,” then he’ll open up the catalog and check out birth weights and expected progeny differences (EPDs) for milk, ribeye and marbling.

He matches selection criteria to resources on his ranch that averages 13 inches of rainfall a year. Dee doesn’t emphasize high weaning weights because, “we’d have to tie a bucket of corn on every animal out here to realize some of those numbers.” Instead fertility and final feedlot results–which recently showed 80% CAB acceptances—dictate his program.

—

Not only are these ranchers true stockman, they’re also smart businessmen. They’re not blindly in love with a breed for the sake of hide color or history. They follow the money and for several years (in many cases 20 or more) it’s led them in the same direction.

We’re not surprised, but are certainly delighted, to know that’s Angus.

For specific tips as you head to this season’s sales, read this post from Mark: Bull buying made simple.

Happy bull shopping and may your bottom line be filled with Black Ink,

Miranda

Maternal function at Marrs Ranch

“Marrs cattle excel both in performance and carcass value.”

That’s all Tom Williams, Chappell (Neb.) Feedlot, had to say about his customers of five years in 2009.

That, and an added page of data to prove it, were enough.

Recipients of CAB’s Commercial Commitment to Excellence award, Dan and Anna Marrs, Whitewood, S.D., were the first to admit their herd of 600 Angus females wasn’t perfect.

Although 2009 was a different market and time for the family ranch northeast of the Black Hills, what attracted us to them then attracts us now.

Consistency.

They have the numbers, of course – harvest bunches achieving 70-80% CAB – but it’s what’s behind the numbers that have kept them on our radar.

Marrs_1 Speaking more to their way of life and how they raise son Matthew, Anna said in ’09, “In a way, because we don’t have a lot of things – like hi-speed Internet or Nintendo, we just try to concentrate on basics. Reading and phonics. And above all character.”

A comprehensive tell-all, character covers all the bases from family values to their commercial cowherd.

With 24 years of records supporting every decision they make, Marrs Ranch is an example of aiming for balanced excellence and getting it. A forage-oriented, low-input herd, Marrs cattle don’t just hit the CAB target but gain and convert efficiently during the process.

It seems rather simple, really, when Dan explains that records show what “cows we can live with,” in one sense of the phrase. Cow families that show longevity and carcass quality get to stay while those that fall behind hit the road. In another sense of the phrase applied to functionality, Dan adds, “We don’t live with them. If a female gives us any trouble, she can’t stay here.”

Like many breeders who have looked past the myth that says if you want one thing you must give up another, they don’t choose between functionality and quality. Instead, they let them work together, a physical “character” of sorts.

Marrs_3 Leery of fads, the Marrs Ranch has “been breeding black” for more than 35 years because of the ability to target desired results.

“Crossbreeding may work for some people, but we know what our Angus cattle can do in the feedlot, as replacement heifers and in our herd. CAB is really a bonus, and it’s a benefit I don’t see attached to any other breed,” Dan says.

Call me biased, but I’d tend to agree.

Thanks for allowing me to tell your story,

Laura

This is the second in a three-part series on maternal function and marbling. To hear about the Nebraska family who wouldn’t sell their cows in a drought for all they had invested in them, click back to yesterday’s post.

Dr. Phil named to 40 Under 40

It takes a lot to make Phil Bass speechless but a Wednesday morning phone call did just that.

Animated, boisterous, “Dr. Phil” to all who know the corporate meat scientist for the Certified Angus Beef^® brand, is many things, but not silent. An attention stealer, unselfishly and fully justified, there’s something about him that makes you want to stop what you’re doing and watch.

But a call from Vance Publishing’s Agribusiness Group to notify Phil he’d been named one of the company’s 40 Under 40 was enough to slow him down, even if it was just for a minute.

“When I got the phone call, I was speechless,” he admits with a tone that’s more subdued than normal.

Started just last year, 40 Under 40 recognizes those judged most likely to make a difference for their leadership and commitment in advancing the cause to double food production by 2050, says Vance’s Greg Johnson.

“These are 40 of the brightest leaders in the agriculture industry, and we hope readers of all our brands are inspired by the work these young people are doing,” he says.

To be an inspiration. Fitting for the young man who earned his PhD with others in mind.

He’s a teacher. Perhaps not the traditional kind you would find behind a college podium, but his lessons are lasting, rooted in a passion set on educating others about the agriculture industry he loved as a child.

“Phil is a natural teacher, and shares an engaging mix of meat science and the beef production story with leaders and influencers invested in our food supply,” President John Stika says, calling Phil a forward-thinking, creative leader.

Engaging. Maybe it’s the sense of humor coupled with intelligence that makes him so. Or perhaps it’s simply the fact that he smiles a lot. Whatever it is, it’s obvious Phil didn’t set out with any master plan to end up where he is today. Rather he is who he is and people seem to like him for it.

“It doesn’t matter where I go, this is me. This is all you get,” he says. “I don’t know how to be anything different. It’s just that CAB allowed me to really start to grow in that respect and do what just comes naturally to me, to teach, ya know.”

We know. In the absence of any honor or recognition Phil would still be teaching. Humbled by the nomination, let alone the selection, he sees it as his responsibility to keep up with those who work just as hard “behind the scenes” of the industry.

“This is something that other people achieve. I would probably be one of the people writing the nomination, or the guy giving the pat on the back to the other folks,” Phil says when asked if he ever saw the honor coming.

But ask anyone who knows him and they probably wouldn’t be as surprised.

So from all of us who have the pleasure of working alongside the meat scientist, we offer our most sincere congratulations and a pat on the back for a job well done.

Thanks for allowing me to tell your story,

Laura

Vance Publishing’s Agribusiness Group will feature profiles of Phil and the other 39 honorees in November and December print editions of its nine publications, and all will be posted on www.40Under40ag.com.

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