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Tag: Award winner

2019 Feedlot Commitment to Excellence

All-in cattle feeding

Timmerman family receives CAB honors

 

Story and photos by Miranda Reiman

September 25, 2019

They were raising children with diverse skillsets and diverging dreams.

Veteran cattle feeders Norm and Sharon Timmerman, of McCook, Neb., encouraged their children to follow their own passions, and they did. After college, Jason started with Timmerman Feeding near Omaha, while CPA Kristin ran her own accounting firm and Ryan pursued a degree in business management with a sports and recreation option.

Today, they have all returned to the family business that now includes, Jason and Wendy, Kristin and husband Jeff Stagemeyer, and later Ryan and wife Nicole.

“It’s nice to be that good of friends with your family members, who like to work together,” Norm says. “It all fell into place.”

The family brings a shared trust and camaraderie to the work they do for the feeding company they jointly own: NA Timmerman Inc. They started in 2012 with yards at Indianola, Neb., and McDonald and Colby, Kan., now also including locations near Holyoke and Sterling, Colo., with a one-time feeding capacity of 80,000 head. 

For their dedication to grid marketing, feeding premium cattle and a call to doing the best job every time, the Norm Timmerman family received the 2019 Feedyard Commitment to Excellence Award from the Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand.

The quality kind

“There are a lot of small feedlots that specialize in the high-quality type, but larger feeders don’t always have the benefit of picking and choosing what cattle they feed. They need to keep the pens full and often feed a wide variety,” says Paul Dykstra, beef cattle specialist for the brand. “They’ve really evolved over the last 20 years or so, under Jason’s vision, to procure cattle that will do well on a grid.”

In 2005, the Timmermans tested grid marketing with sales of 2,100 head on a Cargill formula. Today that number is closer to 150,000 annually. It’s changed their procurement and it’s changed their harvest targets.

“We keep the feedyard full and we manage our risk and we try to maximize our performance to the best of the ability of our cattle,” he says, “versus the old cash system: hurry and sell, or wait and make them too big. When they’re ready, they’re ready, we just keep rolling and just manage the risk on the other side of it.”

Despite a difficult winter and early spring for Great Plains cattle feeding, the Timmerman marketings still hit 38% CAB and Prime for a three-month average into this summer. In recent years with more cooperation from Mother Nature, their branded quality numbers have been significantly higher across the board.

Jason and Jeff have extensively used artificial insemination on the 700-head cow herd they own together, which shows them the impact of genetics on the final results. Three years of feedyard data on the progeny reveals more than half of make CAB and Prime.

“When we get a pen of high-grading cattle that have a lot of CABs, it directly affects us,” Jason says, “because it’s money in our pocket.”

The entire Timmerman family is committed to excellence. See why we love them and their quest for quality.

Extra effort

“Hard work will give you a lot of luck,” Norm says.

Pen maintenance, feed delivery and cattle health monitoring—they all add up.

“There is no room for error. It’s a sole responsibility,” Ryan says. “The job we do at the feedlot impacts our customers. There’s a lot of money involved…it’s their livelihood.”

It’s not like a Timmerman to let people down.

“These are the things that are important to the Timmerman family: their faith, being a good family member, working hard at what you’re doing,” Kristin says.

She and Jeff bring a fresh perspective to the finances, giving purchasing advice and making insurance decisions.

“My dad and I knew the outside very well, but needed someone in the back that could complement us–luckily we had family that could do that,” Jason says.

Leo’s legacy

They had a good example of seeing partnership in action. Timmerman Feeding of Springfield, Neb., started by Leo Timmerman, was into the hands of the next generation, brothers Gerald, James, Ronnie and Norm, when they expanded to Indianola, some 250 miles west.

“This was a farm and we built it from scratch. The office started in our trailer house, where we lived,” Norm says, giving credit to Sharon. She kept the books there by day and made it a home by night.

By this decade, with the third generation involved, it was a natural time to let each Timmerman branch individually exercise their entrepreneurial spirit.

They gave their children the opportunity Leo Timmerman gave them.

“It evolved to where I was doing more, more and more,” Jason says, noting the risk management shifted to him through the years. “Then it’s how do you keep it organized? Trial and error. Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes.”

Years like 2014 remind them it’s fun to make money. Years like 2015 keep them humble.

“I don’t think it will ever be easy. You’re in an environment dealing with people, dealing with Mother Nature. You’ve got the element of risk,” Jason says. “It will never be easy, it’s just about how you manage your way through it.”

History says they’ll do it. Being a Timmerman means they’ll do it well.

As good as his word

Bohn receives FQF Industry Achievement Award
7

Some statements are easy to make, harder to live.

“I hope I’m known as someone who keeps his word and does what I say I’m going to do.”

For Jerry Bohn, longtime manager at Pratt Feeders, it’s not a flippant remark, but an honest assessment of the career he’s had. It was never plastered on a wall or written in a planner, but it’s the motto he’s tried to model his life around, both personally and professionally.

“You don’t run a business for practice, so obviously making a profit and doing it right was important for us,” says Bohn, who recently moved into part-time retirement after 34 years at the helm of Pratt (Kan.) Feeders. “That allowed us to be successful because we did focus on doing things the right way, being honest and having integrity. We did what we said we’d do.”

Every time. No exceptions.

For his leadership to the beef industry and dedication to raising quality cattle, Bohn was named 2019 Feeding Quality Forum (FQF) Industry Achievement Award winner in August at Amarillo, Texas. Past recipients selected the honoree for the Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB)-sponsored award.

“Being recognized by your peers is the ultimate compliment,” Bohn says.

During his tenure at Pratt Feeders, it grew from one yard operating at half capacity to as many as four, with an Oklahoma yard at Buffalo and other Kansas locations at Ashland and Hays (sold in 2014), with close to 120,000-head total capacity.

“It’s treated us really well, as far as the investment,” Bohn says. In 1980, local businessmen purchased the yard, but when Jerry brought his wife Julie and their young family to Pratt a few years later, he took immediate ownership in its success. Since then he’s literally bought into the company, serving on its board now with some second-generation stockholders.

“We had a lot of interaction, but at the same time they weren’t micromanagers,” Bohn says. “They laugh when I describe them as ‘bottom-line oriented.’”

He took his job seriously and personally: “Did everything always go well? No. Were their challenges? Sure.” There’s no sugar coating droughts like 2012 or winters like 1993.

“That was the worst of my career,” Bohn says. “And when you’re going through something like that you’re saying, ‘Man, did I really want to get involved in this?’”

Price challenges weigh heavy, and sometimes a “cow that stole Christmas” rocks an industry.

“I don’t miss the day-to-day headaches, the weather and the markets dropping out,” Bohn says. “I do really miss the interaction with the customers.”

Florida, South Dakota, Kansas—the calls still come from across the country, even though he doesn’t have to relay marketing dates or pen conditions.

“It’s a relationship business,” Bohn says. “It takes a pretty big trust for someone to put a load of cattle, that’s worth $40-, $50-, $60,000 on the road, send them to people you might not have met and trust that they’re going to take care of them.”

Bohn’s name was on the line, but everybody from pen rider to trucker to office clerk played a role.

“It takes a team to run an operation like this,” Bohn says. His 80-some employees probably knew him as particular, but level-headed and fair.

“Some of that I had to grow into,” he says. “You learn by doing. You learn by making mistakes and correcting them, and by surrounding yourself with good people.”

Bohn wanted his crew to do the work as if he were personally feeding, doctoring or loading each head himself.

Anything out of place at Pratt Feeders didn’t stay that way for long. If there was a way to improve, they were doing it.

The company was an early member of U.S. Premium Beef (USPB) and became a partner in the long-running CAB Feedlot Licensing Program in the early 2000s.

“It caused us to do a paradigm shift a little bit, with more focus on quality and we became more active in looking for ranch cattle, particularly Angus,” Bohn says. “It was something that we needed to do to change our direction.”

The industry is catching up, but Bohn set that in motion at Pratt nearly 20 years ago. That’s when his path crossed with Paul Dykstra, beef cattle specialist for the brand.

“Over time, working with Jerry personally and with the other managers in the Pratt group I really gained an appreciation for his analytical style and approach to business,” Dykstra says, remembering many meetings spent poring over data in the Pratt boardroom. “Together we measured the progression of carcass quality in the cattle they were feeding.  As the industry embraced carcass quality and what that meant for the economics of cattle marketing, Jerry was on top of that, finding better and better cattle as well as customers who wanted to feed the ‘grid kind.’”

The feeding company implemented individual animal management early on. Pens are still sorted into three or four outcome groups, each one marketed at an optimum finish.

“Today almost everything we sell is based on a grid,” Bohn says. “There’s a risk ratio when you get paid for actually what you have, and sometimes people didn’t really want to find out what they had. More of them are becoming comfortable with that and it’s a way that we can supply more quality to our end user to keep them coming back.”

Doing right for the cattle, the customer and the bottom line—it seems to come natural, but it wasn’t a mapped career path for the farm boy from Wabaunsee County, Kansas. He grew up baling hay, raising pigs, cattle and corn.

“You had to go out when it was raining and snowing and cold, and I guess it didn’t deter me enough that I decided I wanted something different,” he says.

Thanks to an area farmer-turned-coach, Bohn judged livestock all over the country, his high school team winning the National FFA contest at the American Royal in 1968 and the National Western Stock Show the following year. That experience followed him to Kansas State University, where he competed under livestock judging coach Bill Able and earned his animal science degree.

That period also holds memories of a sorority girl who caught his eye, and a first date spent sledding. He and Julie will celebrate 47 years of marriage this fall.

“She’s been so supportive.” But he doesn’t have to say it; actions already tell that tale. Where he went, she followed.

The first stop was Austin, Minn., for a brief experience with Hormel before he was back in Kansas to fulfill a commitment with the National Guard. After a start in the feeding business with an eastern Kansas yard, he moved on to seven years as an analyst for CattleFax in the Denver area.

“I turned the Pratt job down once before we made the decision to come here. It was a hard move,” Bohn says. “When I first came, we

They raised three children in the bustling farm town, had a church family and were active community members. For 36 years, they called Pratt home.

“It was hard because our days here were relatively long, but as our children became more involved in school activities and athletics, we always tried to make an effort to be there,” Bohn says. There were days spent on bleachers and in 4-H horseshow barns. “It’s something you really have to focus on or you can let your work become the main focus.”

As a 21-year member and lieutenant colonel in the Guard, the cattleman had drill assembly once a month and two weeks of service in the summer. He wasn’t home for everything.                  

“My goal is to leave a legacy, not only for my family but also with my involvement in the industry,” Bohn says. “You owe it to the industry you’re involved in to work with it and promote it and be involved.”

He’s served as Kansas Livestock Association president and volunteered with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which put him on track to become president there in 2021.

 “I’m not sure that I thought when I came into this job here that we’d accomplish everything we’ve been able to accomplish,” he says. “It’s been a good career.”

He did what he said he was going to do…and then some.

Story and photos by Miranda Reiman

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Not one for small talk

Uncomfortable silence.

If you don’t like it, you know the kind. Perhaps you’re just getting to know somebody, and you reach a point in the conversation where that silence hangs heavy and it makes you uneasy.

I’m a talker by nature and profession, so I usually fill that space with idle chatter. I find one more question to ask or one more observation to make.

But after spending half a day with Jerry Bohn, longtime manager at Pratt Feeders in Kansas, I realized sometimes silence isn’t uncomfortable. It’s necessary. It’s beneficial.

Jerry isn’t the type of guy who talks just for the sake of talking. His words carry weight.

People have said that about him. (See Mark Gardiner’s comments as he won the Kansas State University Stockman of the Year award in February.) And I have interviewed Jerry before, but something about riding around, looking at cattle and talking about a career devoted to raising the best—that really cements it in my mind.

I ask about the ups and downs of decades in the business, more than three of them at the helm of Pratt Feeders. He doesn’t give me any rose-colored version. It didn’t really start out as a “dream job” or some higher calling; it was just a good opportunity that stuck.

“I was ready for a new challenge and these guys were looking for someone to run this facility,” Jerry says. “But it was a hard move.”

He turned down the position the first time the owners sought him out. He’d spent seven years as a CattleFax analyst and he and his wife, Julie, liked the Denver area.

“I tease that when you see a ditch along I-70, that was her feet dragging the whole time.”

But the couple grew to love Pratt and people they found there.

I ask about how his family life and career coincided. He doesn’t make use of any false pretenses there, either.

“It was hard because our days here were relatively long, but as our children became more involved in school activities and athletics, we always tried to make an effort to be there,” Jerry says.

As a 21-year member and officer in the National Guard, the cattleman had drill assembly once a month and two weeks of service in the summer. He wasn’t home for everything.

“It’s something you really have to focus on or you can let your work become the main focus,” Jerry says.

They are coming up on 47 years of marriage—a fact that stands to tell me they got the balance figured out.

There have been many changes over time, both personal, like raising three kids and now enjoying five grandkids, and professional, like improving genetics and marketing methods. They added more yards to the Pratt Feeders umbrella, became members of U.S. Premium Beef, partnered with the  Certified Angus Beef ® brand, and he bought into the feeding company. Jerry grew his influence as a Kansas Livestock Association president and volunteering with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association put him on track to become president there in 2021.

But no matter the role or where you meet him, whether he’s shaking your hand over a cattle deal or greeting you in church, Jerry’s steady. Solid.

“When people think about your career someday, what do you hope they’ll remember?”

There’s a pause.

I resist the urge to rephrase the question or keep talking.

“I hope I’m known as someone who keeps his word and does what I say I’m going to do,” he replies. “I think that’s important.”

May your bottom line be filled with black ink,

Miranda

 

P.S. Jerry will receive a special recognition at this year’s Feeding Quality Forum in Amarillo, Texas, Aug. 27 to 28. Register now to take in some top-notch educational sessions and see that award presentation.

 

About the author: Miranda Reiman

I love this life. Things that top my list? God, my family, rural life, agriculture and working for the brand. I’m officially the director of producer communications, which basically means I get to learn from lots of smart people and pass that information along to other smart people: YOU. I’m fortunate to work with producers and others in the beef community from my Nebraska-based home office here in the heart of cattle country. (One other delicious job perk? Any time we meet, there’s sure to be good beef involved.) 

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Coming Home

“His name is Panic Switch,” says Colton Hamilton with a grin. His father Gavin helps hold the stuffed bull’s head nearly their height.

But I didn’t hear the word “panic” clearly. I don’t know what I heard, even after asking a couple more times. Maybe the Canadian accent was fooling me.

I was a long way from home. The Hamiltons operate Belvin Angus near Innisfail, Alberta, and I was having this aside while on a story visit there. The seedstock ranch recently received the Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand’s Canadian Commitment to Excellence Award. 

Learning their story, I knew they deserved the honor. It was no big deal if I had a minor moment of panic …

Fearing I’d be made out as unable to track with them, I stopped asking about that name and typed into my phone what it sounded like: a rhyme with paddock, maybe “pannock?”

Colton looked over my shoulder and began laughing… “No, no. It’s spelled P-A-N-I-C.”

Two seconds later, a flash of recognition had me bellowing with laughter. Father and son joined in, chuckling at my mistake.

I felt like I was home.

See, I grew up on a cotton farm north of Lubbock, Texas. I’m used to terms if not details surrounding row- and cash crops. The extent of my cattle knowledge centered around nine years of stock showing.

I always felt removed from the farm because my dad and uncle raised their four daughters to grow up, get an education and leave. I didn’t know much about crops, much less cattle production.

The Hamiltons didn’t want their kids to feel pressure about coming back to the ranch, either.

“I don’t think we ever really talked about [them coming home] because I never wanted to make them feel like they had to,” says Mabel, Colton’s mom. “It just sort of happened.”

And not before he and his sister Quinn tried other paths.

Colton worked just outside Vancouver for a while after getting a degree in economics. Once his boss came over, looked in his employee’s empty fridge, and told Gavin he knew Colton wouldn’t be sticking around for long.

“Where I was living was very urban, and you start to miss [home] a lot more when you’re living somewhere like that,” Colton says.

Quinn was working at a bank after school and would come home nearly every weekend like her brother. “I never really established other roots,” she says. “I think it was just getting tired of sitting in the office all day…and I was thinking, I think I’d rather be home.”

The move to CAB was my first big move outside of college. When I left the family farm to go to school, I thought I would be leaving agriculture behind. But like Colton and Quinn, leaving made me realize how much I loved where I grew up – and the industry behind it.

The Hamiltons made me feel like family – like I was home.

Because their 40-year operation is very much a family operation.

Laughing in their new sale barn where Panic Switch would reside, I knew that I had made the right choice to join the CAB family. I’ll get to meet with families like the Hamiltons all over North America and feel just at home, as if I were on my dad’s front porch watching the sun set over the cotton crop.

That day, I just happened to watch the sun set over the Angus cattle in the rolling hills of Alberta.

Talk to you soon,

 

Abbie

About the author: Abbie Burnett

I grew up among the cotton fields of Texas, loving God, my family and a camera in my hand. As a 2018 graduate from Texas Tech, I jumped at the chance to be a CAB storyteller because I know it’s the farmers and ranchers who have the greatest stories to tell. I look forward to meeting you and telling your story while snapping a few (OK, maybe a lot) of sunset pictures along the way!

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Where they're going, where they've been

Focus, commitment and work pay off for Belvin Angus
7

Sometimes there is no formal succession plan. There are no conversations about what might come to be.      

Sometimes there are just little clues as to what the future might hold.

When Gavin and Mabel Hamilton’s children grew up and left their ranch near Innisfail, Alberta, the couple were on their own for daily chores. Still, Colton would jump on a plane from Vancouver to Calgary and then drive north another hour just to help with processing calves or clipping bulls.

During busy seasons, their firstborn was home more weekends than he was in the city where he worked in finance but spent nights wondering what was going on at the ranch. Would he come back for more than weekends?

“I don’t think we ever really talked about it because I never wanted to make them feel like they had to,” Mabel says.

Colton and younger sister Quinn grew up in the cattle business, first showing alongside their parents and later blazing their own path as members of the Canadian Junior Angus Association. Then each went off to college and started their careers and volunteered time back in the industry.

There were no formal discussions or lawyer meetings.

“It just sort of happened,” Colton says.

But sometimes the heart knows before anyone even speaks it out loud.

After it sort of happened, Colton’s boss told Gavin, “I looked in his fridge once and I knew that kid wasn’t sticking around.”

Quinn admits her homemaking wasn’t much better.

She enjoyed her work as an ag lender but says, “I never put down roots anywhere. You just get sick of being in an office every day.”

Eight years after Colton made the move, Quinn—then engaged and now married to Brendyn Elliot—returned.

After their August 2018 wedding, they likely became some of the very few who can claim Whitman, Neb., as their honeymoon destination.

“We wanted to go to Connealy’s and we’d never been,” Quinn says. A well-known bull sale, in a remote corner of the Beef State seems fitting for a couple whose work and recreation both often revolve around the ranch.

“Colton and Quinn have always gotten along so well, and now Brendyn fits right in,” Mabel says. “Those three are really lucky to have each other.”

They make up the next generation at Belvin Angus. That’s the beginning of Chapter 2, the one being written right now.

Shorthorn + Hereford = Angus legacy

The first part of the ranch’s tale starts four decades earlier when the son of a Shorthorn breeder asked for the phone number of a Hereford girl who had caught his eye. Her brothers wouldn’t give it out.

So Gavin tried again.

With a keen ear for numbers and a solid memory, he caught what she flippantly rattled off, which led to the phone call that led to a first date. Their courtship was one of cattle shows—Gavin was quite the fitter—and rodeos—Mabel running barrels. They were married in 1975. Mabel earned her degree in elementary education and began teaching while Gavin worked his uncle’s ranch.

After a few years, it was time to get their own place and stock it with their own cattle. Angus cattle.

“We had to find some common ground,” Gavin laughs. “But I’d always liked Angus.”

The maternal function, the docility and the end-product merit all in one package—it was an easy choice, Gavin says. He’s not too proud to admit they dabbled in exotics in the early years, noting “they were hit and miss,” but they always came back to Angus.

“They were the best,” he says simply.

In 1978, the couple bought their original farmyard and a quarter-section of ground. Next came three Angus heifers they registered in 1979. This year they’re celebrating 40 years with the breed.

The last syllables of their first names blended together gave them a business name. Connections from their show ring experience gave them customers.

 “It was a good way to get our name out there,” Gavin says.

In the converted dairy barn that served as their sale barn, there’s a wall that still shows evidence of success on the shavings. Seventeen Calgary Bull Sale banners either read “Grand Champion” or “Reserve,” more than any other ranch in the history of the program.

They’ve been members of the American Angus Association for decades, partnering with breeders in the U.S. who run in similar conditions.

“We’ve sold a lot of bulls, sight unseen,” he says.

One long-time buyer called 28 years ago, and Gavin asked when he’d like to look at the bulls.

The answer? “You just sell me three bulls that will make me want to buy more,” Gavin retells. The next year that same cattleman bought 10. “He’s never bought bulls anywhere else since.”

Uniformity has always been important. “If he was going to like one, he was going to like them all,” Gavin says.

Today, what makes a bull stand out is his ability to move the program forward while still fitting in.

“Feet and structure is No. 1, but we’re always trying to improve carcass quality without sacrificing anything we need,” Brendyn says.

So they research new genetics that complement the herd that traces back to some of their original lines of Lady Blossoms and Boardwalks.

They recently purchased a bull in the top 1% for marbling as well as beef value ($B) in the American Angus Association registry, noting their genetics also have to work in “big country.”

“We want the commercial guys to be profitable,” Colton says. 

Growing into the market

Their customer base has changed. In the late 1970s, Angus was not the breed of choice and registrations were on a downtrend.

“We were discounted at market. It was not a popular breed,” Mabel says, noting she was on the board when that reversed. “It was a celebration when Angus was on top.”

For many of the early years, they consigned bulls to sales in the western U.S. and to the Calgary Bull Sale, drawing more than national attention.

Today, they hold a production sale on the ranch each March. They’ll get customers who plan to sell at weaning, but about half background them for some period or retain ownership through feeding.

“Our customers are keen on the value-added, so that means they’d like to have a branded-type product they can get a premium for,” Mabel says.

There isn’t a big market locally, so they draw producers from hundreds of miles away. If they’ve created cattle that work both in their fertile farming area and in the wide-open ranges of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, they’ve succeeded.

“There’s some tough range so they’ve got to be efficient, and structure and calving ease is huge, but growth is obviously still important as well,” Colton says. Calving pastures are measured in sections and the summer pastures stretch up to half a million acres.

“When you go to a branding and you see hundreds of calves out of your bulls and when you see the people that use your genetics do well, that’s what you want,” Brendyn says.

Longtime bull buyer Larry Sears, Stavely, Alberta, relies on the Hamiltons’ judgement to help him reach his end-product goals.   

“They do the research and they’re aggressive” in moving ahead, says the rancher who has retained ownership for the past two decades. Profitability can be “hit or miss” without carcass premiums, Sears notes. “But selling on the grid has been lucrative enough to entice us to feeding more often.”

Recent carcass data reports show 90.9% AAA and above.

“We’re all in this together, so the consumer, at the end of the day, gets a product they’re happy with,” Mabel says.

beyond being in the black

That all-in approach is not only how the Hamiltons look at the wider beef industry, but also how they relate to their family business. Each one knows their strengths and each one contributes.

There are still no formal meetings, but they often gather at the main house for Mabel’s home cooking at lunch. They discuss the tasks of the day and who is going where when.

Maybe every so often they get a chance to reflect on how far they’ve come since the beginning.

“The bank told me I’d never be able to pay for it,” Gavin says with smile.

He now runs cattle on a two-thousand-acre land base, and also plants canola, barley and wheat. The business supports three families, and includes the farm his grandfather homesteaded in 1892.

But the new sale barn and the house that sits next door, the cattle that gain national and international attention…they didn’t just happen. They represent a lot of hard work.

“We waited a long time for this,” Gavin says as Colton quickly adds, “Now we’ve got to work to keep moving forward.”

 

Story by Miranda Reiman, photos by Abbie Burnett.

 

Belvin Angus wins CAB Commitment to Excellence Award

 

The Hamilton family has a business card and a standing invitation from a steakhouse owner in Vancouver. They’ve gotten a personal tour of a sushi restaurant in Calgary. On their ranch near Innisfail, Alberta, they’ve shared meals with a fishmonger turned meat salesman and some of the most renowned chefs in the country.

There are perhaps no better Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand ambassadors in Canada than Gavin and Mabel Hamilton, says CAB president John Stika. 

“They’ve always been willing to open up their gates and share their hospitality with people from all over the beef production chain,” Stika says.    “Those firsthand experiences are critical to giving these guys the knowledge they need to sell more beef.”

For their involvement with the brand, along with their focus on producing quality cattle that work for their commercial customers, Belvin Angus recently received the CAB Canadian Commitment to Excellence award.            

“We like to host the people CAB brings because it’s a way of telling our story,” Mabel Hamilton says, “and with any luck, getting rid of some of the misconceptions that are out there about what we do.”

 

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From one overachiever to another

Picture this: Two sprinkler irrigation pipes standing nearly 30 feet tall made sturdy by a cross brace. A perfectly calculated swing hanging from the center of the brace. A 12-foot platform attached to every kid’s dream jungle gym.

Any guesses what this makes?

The largest sack swing in Yuma County, Colorado. Built by Ryan Noble.

I was fascinated by the contraption.

What started as a childhood adventure has been passed from his father-in-law to Ryan’s wife Ronella and now their children. When she first approached Ryan to build a sack swing for their children, all Ronella could remember was how big it was. The escalated height portrayed by holding her hand high above her head.

Once complete, Ryan saw a photo of his father-in-law next to the swing from his wife’s childhood. The original platform? Maybe a whopping 6 feet tall. Needless to say, when faced with a challenge Ryan goes far beyond expectations. 

The same is true on his ranch.

“If I’d taken this interview when I was 8 years old,” he said, “and you asked what I wanted to do, I would’ve said ‘run cows.’”  

The same answer his 12-year-old son Will gave us. A kid after my own heart.  

Ryan is smart. And goal oriented. For example, he set a goal to grow the herd from 120 to 300 cows, which quickly escalated to 750 cows and a large number of developing heifers.

Need I say again? He is an overachiever.  

Ryan, recalling the hard work and sacrifices he and Ronella made to reach their goals, instantly drew my reverence. For years he worked side jobs on harvest crews and artificially inseminated thousands of cattle.

“It was just burning a hole in me that we weren’t using that good of genetics,” Ryan said. For a time, they were just unaffordable.

After watching his neighbor’s herd transform by using Basin Angus Ranch bulls, Ryan promised Ronella as soon as they had the money, they would be headed to Montana for Basin bulls.

The time came when they made it to Montana and came back with five bulls. The next year they brought home 18 bulls.

And boy, does he have something to show for it now. The top Angus genetics are echoed throughout his ranch, proven through GeneMax testing. The entire Angus cow herd is made of females with maternal function and the ability to raise calves that go on to achieve Certified Angus Beef ® brand acceptance.

Though my time at the Noble’s was short, one thing was certain: this family business is made by everyone working together. I’d say it’s more than luck that there’s nowhere else Ryan would rather be than the pasture checking his cows, unless it’s the dinner table sharing beef with his family at the end of the day. They work hard, so they can play hard.

My last day at the Nobles, there was something I just couldn’t leave undone. I had to ride the sack swing. Well, to be honest I was a bit nervous after watching the kids ride it effortlessly and with no fear.

All I was thinking… “That platform is really high off the ground!”

My hesitation meant Miranda was the first one up the ladder to go sailing off the platform, hanging onto a rope while straddling the rubber ball. I couldn’t let her be the only brave one. So up the ladder I climbed. And yes, the platform was just as high as I anticipated it would feel. I’m not one to back down from a challenge, especially when my boss was about to show me up. So I stuck the seat between my legs and gently stepped off the platform. I only let out a little yelp and then enjoyed the ride.

Catch ya later!

 

Morgan

About the author: Morgan Marley

Nothing beats a medium-rare steak with family… or new acquaintances who quickly become like family. Lucky for me, my job presents the opportunity for both. Moving from my family’s ranch in northwest Arkansas to officially join the CAB Cattle Crew in May 2019, I love getting to tell stories about ranchers and what it takes to raise the best Angus beef.

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Time tested

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Entepreneurial Genes and Cowboy Dreams

Timmerman receives Feeding Quality Forum honors
7

Each week, Nebraska cattleman Gerald Timmerman would flip open Sunday’s thick Omaha World Herald. After morning chores, he’d scan the want ads, taking note of which ones might fit his skill set, “just in case.”

“It was amazing back then, there was quite a few jobs I’d fill in, and I haven’t looked lately, but I think it would be pretty narrow what I’d be qualified for today,” says Timmerman with a chuckle.

Sure enough, he didn’t finish high school—a chance to cowboy in Texas called in his junior year—but his resume quickly grew with life experience.

Last month, Timmerman added another when he received the 2018 Feeding Quality Forum (FQF) Industry Achievement Award for his long-time dedication to putting the consumer first.

Equal partners and sweat equity

Timmerman was the oldest of four brothers who grew up at the family’s Springfield, Neb., feedyard where, “The work ethic was pushed on us pretty hard, but then we got a passion for it.”

It was no guaranteed career path.

“I was about 28, and I had 2 brothers in the army during the Vietnam war at that time and one brother graduating from high school,” Timmerman says. “[Dad] said he was going to sell the feedlot to an individual there in Omaha or to us, if we wanted to buy it.”

They did.

Leo Timmerman did them “a great favor” by selling, rather than giving it to them, he says. “We had to assume a lot of responsibility. He didn’t sign on any credit or anything for us.”

Instead, they built it with hard work and a simple business plan. There was no hierarchy or titles, no company vehicles, and no bonuses.

“I think we went about close to 10 years at 7 days a week without ever taking a day off, every one of us, and as we went through we just drew a salary,” he says.

Don’t believe him? Just ask his wife or his sisters-in-law.

“All of us would have to say that if it wasn’t for our wives, we could have never made it,” he says.  They stuck by their men during the rollercoaster that is the feeding business—and there were many ups and downs, from record prices to declining beef demand and the Farm Crisis.

“We were so, so fortunate that we had a lot of good mentors that went through a lot of things that we were going to go though and luckily we listened,” the feeder says.

One of his father’s friends frequently told them to save back half of all profit. “He always had a saying, ‘Put it in the tomato can because they’re coming back after it.’

“In some respects, some of those things I think are good because it will humble you. You get to going along pretty good and you get to feeling pretty good about yourself, and you get in one of those and you’ll get a little humility back.”

Mechanization, marketing and marbling

For all the challenges, there was success.

Today, the brothers and their sons have independent operations and joint ventures. They have ranches in Nebraska, South Dakota, Colorado and Texas, feedyards in three states and interests in other beef industry enterprises.

“Mechanization really relieved a lot of back labor,” and then as technology grew, the number of cattle an employee can care for today “would have never, ever seemed possible then,” Timmerman says.

Cattle genetics improved, from longevity and reproductive efficiency to the way they hung on the rail. Marketing changed in step.

“That was one of the reasons my father wanted to move closer to the central market,” Timmerman says, describing his agility in responding to packer demand in short-run weeks. “And as time went by, he and another gentleman were the first ones to start selling cattle direct rather than going through a commission company at the yards.”

Then came selling “in the beef” and on quality-based grids.

Timmerman credits the Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand for guiding cattlemen toward the kind of product that builds beef demand.

“They took the whole cattle industry, not just the black Angus, and proved to the industry that consistency and quality will sell and that’s what the people were craving,” he says. “We were in the commodity meat business. Choice was Choice. Prime was Prime. Select was Select or they were Good (grades) at that time, and I think the restaurant business, they were never assured of that same consistency. CAB is the one that revolutionized that.”

Timmerman is quick to pick up new technology, if it’s practical. If a drone can’t travel far enough to check windmills, maybe satellites will work. He’s direct and decisive. It’s hard for him to understand why others resist progress.

“I’m a consumer advocate because I believe you have to produce what the consumer wants, not what you think he ought to have,” he says. “If you give them what they want, you can rest assured you’re going to have a profit. You’ll be rewarded for your work.”

It’s that attitude that caught the attention of the past FQF Industry Achievement Award winners, who nominated the feeder for the honor.

“The Timmermans are just one of the really good cattle feeding families in Nebraska, coming from humble beginnings,” says retired long-time CAB vice president Larry Corah. “Gerald has always shown leadership in keeping the consumer first, no matter what everybody else thought.”

At 78, Timmerman is still highly involved in the business, though he tries to spend more time in the saddle, making up for lost time on his boyhood dream of being a cowboy. You’re just as likely to find him at a branding as you are a board meeting.

“When you get in the business you’ve got to be smart,” Timmerman says. “Smart isn’t IQ—just savvy, hungry and have a little humility and you can have a pretty good career.”

Growing a family of feeders

When he proposed to his future wife on Good Friday, Gerald Timmerman says he was “flying high.”

By the time he got married in June? “I was broke.”

 It was just a wrench in the fairy tale. He and Lynn, his wife of 54 years, made their first home in a trailer house, and then filled it with five kids.

Remembering cold winters, he won’t put an employee up in a mobile home to this day.

He will, however, still get as many family members as possible to gather together. They built a barn on their place to house events that will draw all the cousins back to where it all began. He has five grandchildren, and the older ones have even started working in the feedyard.

“Family…I think that’s what it’s all about,” Timmerman says. “And longtime employees. Without good employees you’re not going nowhere.”

He gives a lot of credit to those around him, to his wife for raising the kids and to others who helped support them along the way.

“I always felt—and my brothers, too—that if you’ve got the opportunity, always be around people that are smarter than you are and have done more, and you will learn something,” he says.

Written by Miranda Reiman, this story was originally published August 2018. 

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Raising the right kind right

CAB award-winning 2 Bar Angus is about cattle, kids and quality
7

It was the perfect sale day, full of energy and buyer enthusiasm. The bulls were selling hot.

The only problem Steve Knoll could see? His genetics weren’t up for bid.

“People wanted those cattle,” says the Hereford, Texas, rancher.

He went to the auction to buy a few Angus bulls to put on his registered Salers herd.

“I was blown away with what the bulls were bringing. The bulls I thought I would just go and buy and bring home, I couldn’t afford,” Knoll says. Instead, his trailer carried two registered cow-calf pairs. One nursing a heifer, the other, a bull.

With one flush, he’d start his embryo transfer program. Today, it’s still about 75% embryo transfer—so “your good cows have litters”—and about 25% artificial insemination, “so you can use the best bulls in the breed, instead of the best bulls you can afford.”

When we switched to Angus, I wanted get my numbers up as quick as possible so my Salers became my recips,” Knolls says. “My dad always told me to just make do with what you’ve got. That’s kind of what we’ve been doing ever since.”

The “ever since” is more than two decades and “making do” means growing into a program that is sought after by large commercial ranchers who want high performance genetics that work back at the ranch, too.

They sold 117 bulls in this year’s auction, many to repeat buyers who depend on that functionality.

“The majority of them aren’t out here playing and trying to spend the family fortune. Most of them have been here generation after generation, and they make a living off of these cattle,” Knoll says. “Fertility is first and foremost. They’ve got to have a calf every year.

“Then if you can add these other bells and whistles, like a little more growth and maybe a little more marbling—that’s more money they can put in their pocket, pay their bills to keep their place,” he says.

Steve and Laura Knoll’s focus on quality earned their 2 Bar Angus business the Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand’s 2018 Seedstock Commitment to Excellence Award.

A look at their sale book shows marbling is more than an afterthought. The 117 bulls in their March catalog had an average marbling expected progeny difference (EPD) of 0.93, compared to a breed average of 0.53.

“Cattle that marble don’t cost any more to have in your herd,” Knoll says.

But he knows they pay, a lesson learned early and often.

Between naps

Born and raised a Texas ranch kid, Knoll took his degree from then-West Texas State University in Canyon to work for Cactus Feeders.

“I was getting to see enough of the information that I knew there was a difference in cattle that would yield and cattle that would grade,” he says. “If you could figure out how to make Yield Grade 1 Primes, you could do very, very well. We’re still chasing that unicorn today.”

That’s information he’d file away until he needed it.

In between the seven years at Cactus and that Angus bull sale, Knoll married wife Laura, moved to Hereford, began running Salers cows on his in-laws’ land and got a job in maintenance at a local feed plant.

“It was pretty much eight hours of work in town and then eight to ten hours of work at home, then get a nap and go back,” Knoll says. That’s why he and his father-in-law made ideal business partners: “I had the sweat equity and he had the finances.”

It wasn’t a blank check arrangement, however. It needed to support itself, worrisome when sometimes more Salers bulls headed to the packing plant than to be herd sires.

“It was a hard way to learn,” he admits.

The couple welcomed firstborn Wesley into the world and Knoll went to full-time ranching all in the same year. They switched to Angus the next breeding season.

“You kiss your income and your insurance good-bye, and my bet was I had to generate stuff to cover that,” Knoll says. “We still had way more to do than we could ever get done.”

Sometimes Laura called her husband to remind him to come home.

Betting it all on Angus

The workload hasn’t lessened, but the workforce has increased.

Knoll’s “early hired hand,” started out sitting on a briefcase to see over the steering wheel. Creeping along in “low four,” a kindergarten-aged Wesley drove the pickup down row after row of square bales as his dad loaded them.

Some kids have battery-operated Power Wheels; for Wesley, there was no need.

At 24, he’s still his dad’s right-hand man.

“Summer, spring break, any major project we need done, we’ll run it largely with family,” Laura says. “You’d be surprised how good they are at it.”

Joe, 18, and twin daughters Anita and Marie, 17, fill syringes, gather cattle and record numbers.

“The Angus herd is 100% of our livelihood,” Knoll says.

A licensed pharmacist, Laura traded her first career in 2005 to become head bookkeeper and a vital member of day-to-day operations.

“I decided I kind of liked this business better,” she says with a laugh that seemed to acknowledge things like sorting mishaps or Mother Nature’s unpredictable indifference.

In the Texas panhandle, they’re never far from a drought. The area averages 18 inches of rainfall annually, but through mid-August this year had only four.

“Right now survival is the name of the game,” Knoll says, casually noting, “It’s a little dry.”

Both optimistic and realistic, his backup plans include relocating cattle or leasing ground to preserve rangeland.

“It’s just part of living here,” Knoll says. “You either adapt or you go away.”

That goes for the bulls they’re breeding, too. They have to be able to take heat, mesquite brush, traveling long distances and a bitter north wind.

When a new rancher comes looking for one or two bulls, Knoll says, “My goal is to sell them one or two pot loads of bulls over the next 20 years. You can’t do that if they’re not happy.”

The 2 Bar “club”

Part of the draw is in the HD50K DNA-tested bulls. Part of it is in the people behind that data.

“I believe whenever they bought that bull from me, they paid a membership to get their cows breed. Whatever’s got to happen for them to get their cows bred, we’re going to try to do,” he says. “If you get their trust, you better do things to make sure you’re not leading them astray.”

Over the years, they’ve taught customers to look beyond the ranch gate.

“A lot of these guys when we first started would come and say, ‘I need a bull,’” Laura says. “Through the years, Steve had done a lot of education on which EPDs pay.”

Deaf Smith County is one of the top cattle feeding counties in the world, so it’s the ideal place to talk about the next person in line…even if many customers sell at weaning.

“We’re trying to raise cattle that people will come knock on your door and want to buy the second set of calves you sell after you prove what you’re raising,” Knoll says. “The numbers on these cattle aren’t any better than the people that stand behind them.”

Jim and Lucy McGowan are neighbors turned friends. The couple runs cattle between Paducah and Childress, and weans calves on farm ground near Hereford.

“I was actually Steve’s first customer,” Jim McGowan says.

An advertisement caught the commercial producer’s attention; then he liked what he saw in the pasture. Nearly two decades later, McGowan continues to add 2 Bar bulls to his battery because they’ve helped him steadily increase weaning weights, carcass quality and docility.

“We select for dollar B ($B), but also height of the bull. I go pretty heavy on EPDs, but I like the bull to be good looking also,” he says.

Having well-rounded sires allows for marketing flexibility. McGowan retains ownership only when the feeder calf market dips really low. Feedback reassures him all options are available. Last year’s calves sold after weaning and the feeder who bought them shared a closeout showing 41% Prime.

“Steve is good to work with. He works hard at doing a good job,” McGowan says.

Tell that to Knoll and he might shrug, or even laugh a little uncomfortably at the idea he’s doing anything more than what he himself might expect of a seedstock producer.

“We haven’t found that perfect cow or that perfect bull,” Laura trails off before Steve finishes, “If you’re not improving, then you’re backing up, because everyone around you is improving.”

Cow lessons seamlessly transfer into life lessons. Knoll often says raising cattle and raising kids go together.

“We’re not a very fancy place, but we believe in hard work,” he says. “I hope the kids take away that when you’re responsible for something, you don’t walk away from it. Good intentions are one thing, but you’ve got to figure out a way to make everything work.”

The goals for the next 10 years aren’t long or complicated.

“I want to get all my kids graduated from high school and college,” he says simply. “My job’s to raise a family, and that’s still my goal. And we’ll do it with cows. We’ll do it with Angus.”

Walking the walk

Saying you support the Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand is easy, but producing sires that are likely to increase the supply? That takes some intention.

“When I was going into Angus, I don’t know that I realized how much Certified Angus Beef really drove the price of bulls and calves,” says Steve Knoll, 2 Bar Angus. “Of course now I know it’s huge.”

Brand demand was building at the same time his registered herd was growing. Carcass quality has always been part of his selection criteria.

“But the truth of the matter is, I don’t care how good of bulls you’ve got, if nobody knows what you have they aren’t going to come knocking,” the breeder says. “I wanted to use the logo to stir more people to think about how important marbling is. There’s a premiums to be made there.”

Last fall, CAB started a ‘Targeting the Brand” incentive program to encourage Angus producers to use the special logo to help identify bulls more likely to improve CAB qualifiers in a herd. Cattle must meet minimum requirements for grid value ($G) and marbling before the mark can appear next to specific animals in the catalog.

Out of 117 bulls in their sale, 97% qualified for the Targeting the Brand logo—the highest of any breeder using it.

That tells a story, says Kara Lee, CAB production brand manager. “It may be the first year we’ve been asking them to put a logo in the catalog, but it’s not the first year they’ve been emphasizing quality,” she says.

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Pride & Precision

Arkansas cousins use technology to drive Angus success
7

A hardware salesman and a hand surgeon walk into a pasture…

For Phillip Smith and Dr. David Taylor, there’s no need for a punch line. What might sound like the start of a tall tale is a typical Tuesday afternoon.

Cattle have always been in the cards for these cousins from Ozark, Ark. Their grandfather, John Jacob Taylor, settled there in the Cecil community after the Civil War and brought cows soon after.

“Back then this was row cropped in cotton,” Smith says. He tells of ancestors with orchards who sold fruit “—whatever they could sell off the land—” but cattle soon took root and provided a smarter harvest.

“Any kind of cropping just doesn’t work well here,” Smith pronounces.

“The soil is silicone based,” Taylor adds. “It’s thin and retains little water, but we grow grass really well so cattle are the best way to approach it.”

Then the corner of his mouth starts to shift.

“It’s just a giant solar panel that takes oxygen, carbon dioxide, water and sunlight to produce grass,” he says. “Grass doesn’t have a lot of value, but we have these great machines out here, these black machines,” he laughs, “that take that grass and make something of high value.”

It’s true, evidenced by a recent closeout of the cousins’ cattle that says 73% achieved Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) and Prime.

“Having pride in what you are producing is very important,” Taylor says. That’s why he and Smith raise cattle with a specific purpose and why CAB honored them with the 2018 Commercial Commitment to Excellence Award.

Their partnership, STP Cattle, is built on what the brand stands for, and those “machines” are top of the line.

“We want to grow something Phillip and I wouldn’t hesitate to eat ourselves,” Taylor says.

So in 2009 they purchased a tract of land and combined resources. From there they researched their options, analyzed every possible avenue and reached a conclusion: there are economic opportunities and additional profit to be made for those willing to produce high-quality cattle.

“I mean, we have the grid system in place now that reflects that,” Taylor says.

They background calves, sort off replacement heifers and then finish the rest to see those dollars. But how can we see why the unlikely duo committed to The Business Breed?

“I guess, to bring to life The Grateful Dead, what a long, strange trip it has been,” Taylor says.

Better together

Born a year apart, he and Smith grew up together near the 65-acre homestead their grandfather purchased in 1865. Family, but even better friends, they went through adolescence and high school together before Taylor went to college and Smith carried on his father’s legacy in hardware and electrical work in town.

All the while he kept a herd of “sale-barn cattle,” but Taylor sold his herd of similar quality after his parents’ early passing. It was medical school and surgical residency after that.

Cattle and circumstances called him back.

“It just kind of evolved,” Taylor says. Life led him to an almost-retirement that puts him back in Cecil “four out of every 14 days” to check cows.

The Dallas-based doctor spent years studying and decades fixing people before picking cattle up again as a second job. Nerve reconstruction, improving on birth defects, his specialties earned distinction from peers and gratitude from patients. Both bring humility to Taylor, who enjoys the chance to bring precision to what many consider the simpler world of ranching.

“Is there anything you would suggest we improve,” he asks visitors observing the herd. No matter the information he holds from hours of research, he knows there’s always more to learn, something he and Smith can do better.

Fast and furious

The commercial pairs grazing both sides of the road reflect that desire. The simple terms they use to describe partnership goals seem inadequate to account for how their cattle appear: planned out, with intention behind every mating.

“We want a bull that has balance, strength, no extremes in one area or another,” Taylor says. An expected progeny difference (EPDs) in the high percentiles for marbling with moderate birth weight and frame size rank high on their list of sire qualifiers. Docility can serve as a tiebreaker.

Discouraged by the cost of replacement heifers that met their strict standards, the cousins started selecting for and breeding their own.

“The bulls that we are purchasing for AI [artificial insemination] and cleanup aren’t typically terminal sires, so they pretty much have to do everything,” Taylor says.

They find those bulls at Gardiner Angus Ranch, near Ashland, Kan., even though they AI every female.

“We have more control over our own destiny,” Smith says. “We’re selecting bulls that we could never possibly own.”

One result? Carcass quality is on the rise.

That’s not all.

“AI simplifies the management,” Taylor says. By shortening the breeding window—80% of STP calves are born in the first 30 days of the season—they’ve seen improvement in management, marketing and grass, he says.

It all ties together in a near-complete package that Tom Williams, Chappell (Neb.) Feedlot, takes off their hands come December. Since STP has both spring- and fall-calving herds, Williams will feed four or five groups of “peewees” off of corn stalks, weighing 550 lb., throughout the spring before the fall calves arrive.

He credits the cousins’ use of technology and genetics as reason for improvement – acknowledging the cattle were off to a good start the first day he ever saw them.

“I’d classify their cattle this way,” Williams says: “They were among the better cattle we’ve fed when they came [back in 2010] maybe top 15-20%.”

In the six years since, STP cattle have improved in marbling, cutability and performance, “now being the top or one of the top,” Williams says. “And we feed the good ones.

“I just believe there’s likely no one else in America that puts the detail into selection that he [Taylor] does,” Williams says. The doctor visits the feedyard twice a year, in the meantime sending the manager new research he’s found, or inquiring about how to get better.

“Being a hand surgeon, somebody told me, ‘he’s going to be a detail guy.’ Well, he is, and you know, it shows up in his cattle too.”

 

Details

What’s behind the improving performance and uniformity?

“My guess is he’s got a frame score on every cow, probably down to the hundredth,” Williams says. On top of that, ribeye area [REA] and marbling are improving in tandem. An average of four groups show 14.6-inch REA actual on a 14.4 REA required for the carcass weight in yield grade calculations; the most recent had a 14.2-inch REA actual on a 13.6 required as more proof of continuous improvement.

“Not many people can do that,” Williams says. “That’s on 400 or 500 a year I’m feeding.”

For Taylor and Smith, that’s merely par for the course to compete with the best. To do that, they utilize available resources to their advantage.

Technologies such as reproductive tract scoring have eliminated cystic ovaries or other abnormalities that can exist in the uterus. Indexing for return on investment from retained ownership helps them eliminate the bottom end of future calf crops. Then there’s DNA-based evaluation.

“Genomic testing is a game changer,” Taylor says. “It’s revolutionary.”

With 40% of heifers in the mix, Williams says he’s not even getting the best STP has to offer. Even so, they are always above average. While gaining nearly 700 lb. in the yard, they’ll boast an average daily gain of 3.9 lb. and convert at a ratio of 6.4 to 1. Yield grade 4s are held to 5% while, on average, 66% qualify for the CAB brand and its CAB Prime extension.

“We feed a lot of northern cattle here, obviously more than southern,” Williams says. “When I drive by them in the lot, I’ll tell people, ‘These cattle are from Arkansas,’ and they just give me this ‘What?’ face like they can’t believe it.”

For that part of the world, it may be easier to raise something that’s less straight Angus, Williams says. “But phenotypically, these cattle are stout, their frame size fits their muscle package and they marble. He’s striving for 100% CAB.”

Striving—perhaps that’s the best way to describe the cousins, rather than driving through their herd on a sunny afternoon. They’re on a good trajectory that keeps getting better.

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Tradition, innovation, loyalty and trust

Bledsoe Cattle Company earns CAB cattle feeding honors
7

The rapid pace of change, with new technology and ever-evolving, better genetics sends a message to today’s cattle producer: don’t do things the way Dad and Grandpa always did.

At his feedyard near Wray, Colo., Grant Bledsoe knows there’s a time for change, but his greatest strength may be knowing there’s a time to stay the same.

“We buy predominately Angus-based cattle from the northwestern United States and some ranches we have purchased from going on close to 35 years,” he says.

“Grandad” Henry started relationships that have carried into the third generation of both feeders and ranchers.

“We purchase from people that raise good cattle, but they’re also extremely good at handling their cattle,” says Bob Bledsoe, who transitioned out of the feedyard manager position shortly after his son Grant returned home. “When the cattle are handled well, they get sick less often when we own them. They’ll eat faster, and the calmer cattle really perform better.”

Sometimes, the best plan is what Dad and Grandpa always did.For their continued focus on procuring and feeding high quality, Bledsoe Cattle Company earned the Certified Angus Beef ® 2018 Feedyard Commitment to Excellence award.

Henry and Lucile Bledsoe started the farming, ranching and cattle feeding operation that now has a 7,000-head finishing capacity. Row crops and grasslands complement the yard, as they produce their own feed to wean and background most of the calves that come into their pens.

Back then, Henry would keep books by hand, packing up the roll-top desk each night to bring home to Lucile. The spare bedroom doubled as a home office, and she’d get out her adding machine to make sure they balanced. It was one way Lucile could contribute while raising the couple’s son and daughter.

“There was the two of us. We worked side by side, always full partners,” says 96-year-old Lucile.

Then came Bob and Becky. They had a computer the size of a file cabinet. Grant checks his markets by smartphone.

The old gated pipe irrigation has given way to pivots. When driving to cattle sales began to take too much time (thanks to President Nixon signing the 55-MPH national speed limit law) the four elder Bledsoes got a plane and a pilot’s license apiece. Lucile still flies a Beechcraft.

“We’re always for progress. Not progress for itself. Not progress because the neighbors have it,” she says. “Progress that it will fit your business and be profitable in your business.”

Grant inherited the aviation itch, too, and sometimes 96-year-old grandma and grandson fly together to look at cattle.

When Grant returned from Colorado State University in 1998, all three generations worked together. Henry was still out at the feedyard every day.

“I look back on it now and I think of how special that was to learn from him and how he deals with people,” Grant says. “The amount of respect people had for him and my dad—that’s been really important to me and developed me into the type of cattle feeder and businessman I am today.”

Family tradition

Grant doesn’t drink coffee because, well, his dad and grandad didn’t.

Bob and Grant still get to the feedyard at 5:30 a.m. most every day, gathering at the scale house with many of their 18 employees for a quick predawn meeting to make sure the crews all know what’s going on.

It’s their favorite time of day.

“Everything is getting ready to go, feed trucks are rolling and it’s cool. The cattle are coming up to the bunks,” Grant says.

Once a week, the family meets at the yard, giving most of the feedlot crew the day off. It’s a tradition that’s been passed down so now Bob and Becky might join Grant and his wife, Katie, and their three kids, Jackson, Emma and Eryn on any given Sunday.

“It’s good planning time, but it’s a way we know exactly and intimately how the cattle are doing,” Bob says.

Fall is the busiest, as they wean 8,000 head during a narrow window. Most come through the feedyard to be weaned before going out on corn stalks; some are shipped directly up to their stocker ranch in Harding County, S.D. The heaviest calves are sorted to go on a starter ration.

“They’ve been put on a truck, trucked to our place, brought into a foreign situation, fed something totally new that they’ve never eaten before and they’ve had a lot of new things thrown at them. We do what we can to try to make that process as gradual as we possibly can and get them acclimated,” Grant says. “The better job we do, the healthier they stay and the quicker they will start being productive.”

Part of it is just getting the ranch cattle accustomed to being worked.

“My father used to say the only way to move cattle fast was slowly, and that’s very much true,” Bob says.

Good people, good business

Justin and Lynn Mayfield’s cattle have been taking the 8-hour journey from their Casper, Wyo., ranch to Bledsoe Cattle Company since Lynn’s parents first sold to the family in 1988.

“We each kind of understand each other’s programs and we’ve got the same goal. We work together to keep the families and the next generation involved to turn out the best protein we can,” Justin Mayfield says.

When Bob and Becky come in October to take delivery of the cattle, the couples visit like the old friends they are. Last year, the kids even got an impromptu lesson on paleontology from Bob, who is a bit of a self-taught dinosaur enthusiast. He got interested after discovering his first Triceratops bone on their South Dakota ranch.

Call it family tradition or just good business, but many of Lynn Mayfield’s uncles, cousins and kin sell cattle to the Bledsoes.

“We’re both there to try to help one another succeed as much as we can,” Mayfield says. A few years ago the feeders incentivized them to precondition their cattle. “Everybody stuck together through the tough times. There’s years when they’ll win and there’s years when we win but all in all, through it all, we’ve all won and we’ve all grown. It’s been good.”

The rancher is just one of many who come to see their cattle on feed. They’ll talk about management tweaks and bloodlines.

“We have good communications with a lot of the suppliers we buy from,” Grant says. “Some of them come and look at their cattle every year, some of them come every couple years. A lot of phone calls back and forth, ‘How are my cattle doing? How’s the health been? What do I need to change?’”

Thanks to Emma and Eryn’s tag-making handiwork, the cattle are all identified back to the ranch of origin, even though they’re split into as many as five groups and comingled as they enter the finishing stage. That ID allows the feeders to make observations and share packer data with the producers.

 

“We think it’s really important to have good communication over all segments of the industry,” Grant says.

In the early 1960s, Bob remembers jumping in a semi after basketball practice, and he and his dad would each take a load of finished cattle to the Monfort (now JBS) plant at Greeley. They’d get home at midnight and turn around to do it again the next night.

A lot of things have changed. The Excel, now Cargill Meal Solutions, plant at Fort Morgan became their go-to packer 30 years ago. The Bledsoe semis now run the roads with hired truckers—but their desire to deliver the kind of cattle Cargill wants has remained constant.

They know our product and if they see something they would like to improve, we are open to it, because the customer is right, all the time,” Bob says. “Usually what’s good for them is good for us.”

The feedyard is almost entirely full of Angus-influenced cattle. Passersby might notice a uniform sea of black that hugs the west side of Highway 385 just a few miles north of Wray.

“That’s what Cargill prefers, and we generally like the breed, too,” Bob says.

It’s about more than looking good from the road.

“Quality grade is very important to us,” Grant says. “We grid probably 95% of our animals and when the Choice-Select spread is fairly wide, we get a good premium for cattle that grade. So it’s very important to us.”

In a decade’s time, he’s watched the quality grade get better and better. They used to average between 15% and 25% CAB brand acceptance, but now sell loads that top 50%.

A time to change.

“It’s just amazing how quickly those genetics have improved,” Grant says. Over the past three years, nearly 18,000 head per year have averaged 89% Choice and 25% CAB acceptance. In the first half of 2018, they hit 40% brand acceptance.

As a teenager, Grant started by running a feed truck, walking pens and fencing. Today, his 14-year-old son cites those same tasks as his favorite chores.

A time to stay the same.

“I just love what I do and I love raising my family in a similar situation. I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing than what I get to do on a regular basis,” Grant says.

He’s learned from watching and doing. No matter the markets or weather, over the days and the decades, the keys to being a good feedyard manager are timeless: “Being consistent. Not being conservative, not chasing wild ideas, but being consistent.”

Just like Dad and Grandad.

Other stories you might like…

Increasing Carcass Weights and Ribeye Size

Increasing Carcass Weights and Ribeye Size

Oct 23, 2024 |

Feeders will continue to reap rewards in the cost and return equation in a market that has recently moved to higher prices. Grid-sold cattle are, on average, capturing Choice and Prime quality premiums at a higher percentage rate this fall. Yet, yield grade and heavy-weight discounts threaten to devalue premiums for the heavy pens of steers, in addition to fewer CAB qualifiers.

The Second-Best Sales Year for CAB

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Oct 21, 2024 | ,

While the total fed cattle supply declined by 1.6%, this year a record 5.96 million carcasses, up 2.4%, were certified for the brand, with 37.4% of all Angus cattle meeting the brand’s strict quality standards. A record 730,000 carcasses qualified for Certified Angus Beef ® Prime.

Read More