Calculated change

Missourian Jeremy Zoglmann turns risk into reward for his commercial Angus herd.

By: Nicole Lane Erceg

It felt like an impossible scenario.

The sudden cancellation of a 20-year lease put commercial cattleman Jeremy Zoglmann on notice. He had to find a solution and find it fast.

“We had 200 cows and nowhere to go,” he recalls.

Affordable pasture inconceivable, herd dispersal out of the question, he was left scratching his head. Though the 325 Angus cows compete for Zoglmann’s time as he farms 6,000 acres in tandem with his father and brother, he wasn’t letting years of investment in the cattle business dissipate.

His solution? What you can’t buy, build.

He erected a 50 x 480-foot hoop barn just around the corner from his family’s Milo, Mo., home. Keeping a beef cow herd in confinement might be unorthodox, but progressive thinking is just the Zoglmann style.

Wife of 18 years Mindy is much the same, and while it may have been his idea, she’s boss lady at the barn. The addition was more than an investment in broadminded cattle-care for the couple. It propelled a career switch for Mindy, promoted from nurse at a hospital in town to cattlewoman. She’s the most familiar face for the barn cows.

Primarily a spring-calving herd, the cattle in their care split their time between pasture and barn. The stocking rate maxes out at 240 cows, but it’s regularly home to 200 at a time.

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Innovative problem solving

Hoop barns hold hidden advantages. The confined space creates a more intimate relationship with the cattle, making them easier to feed, handle, wean, calve and breed.

“It’s the easiest weaning we’ve ever done,” says Mindy. “We just shut the gates. There was hardly any bawling since mom was right there. It’s the quietest weaning we’ve ever had.”

In the sweltering Missouri summer, the barn is a comfy 18 to 20 degrees cooler than standing in the sun. Natural, consistent air flow keeps flies, odor and moisture to a minimum, saving dollars on pest treatments.

“The cattle don’t really want out of here,” Zoglmann says, leaning over to scratch one behind the ears. “If we were to open the gates at the end, they would not leave.”

Adding value

The truck clock reads 4:00 a.m. on what’s fixing to be a hot July day and Jeremy Zoglmann wipes the sweat off his brow, pats a donor cow on the rump and sends her jogging out of the chute. He’s a commercial cowman, but does cooperating embryo transfer work with a registered Angus breeder across town. Later today, he’ll be sitting on the tractor seat before checking on his cows. Tonight, you might catch him flying his drone.

He’s not your average Missouri cowboy.

Ancestors relocated his family from Kansas in the 1950s when the farming operation began. Crops may be his heritage, but if you get Zoglmann talking, it’s easy to tell the Angus cows are his passion.

Zoglmann studies his cash flow and watches for opportunities to learn each day, often picking up clues to valuable innovation. Tired of not getting paid for his investment in upper-end genetics, he decided to try retained ownership in 2013.

“I sure don’t have anything bad to say about a sale barn, but it just seemed like we were spending more money on bulls and getting better genetics,” he says. “The calves always sold well, but not as well as I thought they should have.”

Six years have gone by since he’s marketed weaned calves at auction, with no regrets.

The data speaks for itself with closeouts hitting 80% Certified Angus Beef^® brand, including a good share of CAB Prime. In the last three years, a single Select calf appeared on his cutout sheets. For a man feeding an average of 150 head every year, the premiums motivate him to stay the course.

“The best set we had brought $280 per head, over what I could have sold them for at the sale barn,” he smiles. “It’s not like that every year, but it’s impressive to know it’s possible.”

Variety and control in cattle marketing appeal to the calculating cattleman’s mind and the Hy-Plains feedyard team at Montezuma, Kan., is on speed dial. He’s a consistent student of the markets, along with the management techniques that help him through their price swings.

Staring change in the face can be fear-inducing, but when there’s progress to be won, Zoglmann stands ready to place calculated bets.

“In today’s market, if you look at futures and figure a breakeven on these calves, it doesn’t look very appealing to feed them,” he says. “It would be super easy to take them to the sale barn and just walk away, but we have fed these cattle enough to know that $5 to $10-per-hundredweight premium is easily achieved. When you go talking a $10 premium on an 800-pound carcass, it’s a pretty significant difference.”

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Vision with strategy

There’s a science to picking winning strategies and he’s constantly adjusting with the times, numbers guiding his way forward.

“We know we have those premiums in our back pocket at about $100 to $150 per head,” he says. “It allows us to play the market a little more because we know what those cattle will do at the end and we have a little bit of cushion.”

Those kind of premiums didn’t pop up overnight, but the result of years of focused breeding. Still, when the first carcass data came back, it was a pleasant surprise.

“Our goal when we started this was to get some kind of value added to our cattle,” he says.

For years, he invested in bulls with strong carcass genetics, preparing his herd to produce cattle that can capture premiums.

“We try to watch bloodlines, making sure we use something different than we have in the past,” he says. “Then we focus a lot on carcass data and scan data when picking bulls. Carcass EPDs (expected progeny differences) are a big thing for us. We watch marbling and ribeye area on these cattle to make sure we get the best carcass we can get.”

The biggest thing he watches today is carcass data on bull bloodlines. It’s not something every seedstock producer has access to, but Zoglmann says it’s one of the biggest determining factors in his sire selection.

Analyzing extensive herd data influences his maternal selections. Every year, he culls the bottom 20% of the herd and retains the top 20% of his heifers. Choosing the ones that stay is a decision based primarily on genetics.

Zoglmann is confident any will make a quality cow, so lining up the best genetic potential for carcass and ranch performance is a priority. Feeding the heifers that don’t make the cut and lining up cow families with the progeny that grade well points him in the right direction.

“Honestly, our first heifer calves are often the best in the feedlot,” he says.

It’s balanced, data-driven management across his herd that allowed him to add to his bottom line and the pride that comes with creating cattle that create exceptional eating experiences.

“Knowing we raise a product like Certified Angus Beef brand and Prime is pretty rewarding,” he says.

Today it’s small tweaks, not giant leaps Zoglmann works to make.

“We are changing things just a little bit all the time,” he says of their strategy. “It’s not big changes, but little things to make the calves more uniform and higher grading.”

Originally ran in the Angus Journal and the Angus Beef Bulletin.

Drought Impact and Cattle Industry Dynamics

by Courtney Weekley | Nov 8, 2023

As drought conditions persist across much of cattle country, farmers and ranchers are at a pivotal juncture in the cattle industry’s landscape. What impact does this prolonged dry spell have on the nation’s herd numbers? When will heifer retention begin? How will industry dynamics influence the spring bull sale season?

Nebraska Ranch Receives Certified Angus Beef Commercial Award

by Morgan Boecker | Sep 25, 2023

Troy Anderson, managing a Nebraska ranch, focuses on breeding thriving maternal cows that will grade premium Choice and Prime, while respecting livestock, people and land. Anderson Cattle receives the 2023 CAB Commitment to Excellence Award. Their journey includes improving genetics, feeding home-raised and purchased calves and using data for better breeding decisions, all with a bottom-line approach.

Magnum Feedyard Earns Certified Angus Beef Award

by Morgan Boecker | Sep 25, 2023

While Magnum hasn’t always had pens filled with Angus-influenced cattle, they’ve invested in infrastructure, improved quality-based marketing and sought better genetics. Their dedication to detail and employee appreciation drive their success to high-quality beef production.

Breeding for the brand

New thresholds, familiar program guide bull buyers

By: Miranda Reiman

“Just because.”

It’s rare that anything great happens just because.

Sure, there are instances where a nonchalant approach turns out better than expected, but more often it’s a goal—a lofty aspiration, with progress along the way.

The Targeting the Brand^TM program helps commercial cattlemen find bulls that will incrementally improve their carcass quality, and their ability to hit the Certified Angus Beef ^® (CAB^®) brand specifications.

For those who keep a scorecard, it helps them win.

“If a bull buyer wants a calf crop that has a greater chance of making CAB, it helps him identify the genetics that will help him do that,” says John Grimes, owner of Maplecrest Farms and CAB board chair. “The trait that sorts cattle out of CAB quicker than anything is lack of marbling.”

Flipping through a salebook or semen catalog, the Targeting the Brand logo shows up on bulls that excel in marbling (Marb) expected progeny difference (EPD) and the Grid Dollar Value Index, or “dollar G” ($G).

That’s been its purpose since 2017.

“It’s important to let people know which bulls meet the criteria that CAB is looking for,” says John Teixeira, of Teixeira Cattle Company. “There’s no premium for Select, there’s less premium than there used to be for Choice, but more for CAB and Prime. We’ve got to allow these bull customers to have the opportunities to know these might bring them a premium.”

His family’s ranches in California and Oregon have used the mark to identify bulls the past three years. Those who retain ownership will reap the benefit directly, he says, while those who sell at weaning can count on buyers putting more stock in that as time goes on.

The Teixeira sales were two of more than 130 that used the logo during the 2019-2020 sale season—that number up 76% in two years—to identify more than 6,500 Angus bulls with a likelihood of siring brand qualifiers.

Breeders who took advantage of the Targeting the Brand designation did it as a service to their customers, as a marketing avenue to showcase the quality in their offerings and as a way to elevate the importance of meeting consumer demand, says Kara Lee, CAB production brand manager.

“We have tremendous tools available to registered breeders through the Association, and they all serve a purpose, but we also know digesting all that information can be a challenge for the average commercial producer,” Lee says. “Targeting the Brand is a way to help those looking to keep a focus on carcass quality.”

Teixeira wants his genetics to build cow herds, maintain moderate growth and increase marbling.

“Our bull customers get so much information that it’s easy to be overwhelmed. When you put this label on there, it’s an easy way for them to identify, ‘Hey, I don’t have to know what their parameters are, but I know this bull meets them,” Teixeira says. “We do a lot with our eyes and it’s a quick visual that says, ‘Hey, this bull is in the world that I need.”

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Beyond 35%

The CAB acceptance rate for the 2019 fiscal year averaged 35% of all Angus-type cattle. The CAB team is driving toward 50%, Lee says, as they push to meet consumer demand for quality and hit two billion pounds of sales in the next decade.

“If everyone wants to get a piece of the pie, we have to keep making the pie bigger,” Lee says. “That’s a cliché that a lot of people use, but the bigger the CAB pie becomes, the more room for commercial producers to capitalize on the value of buying high-quality registered Angus bulls.”

The better the ability to build bull-sale demand, the better the pull-through model works.

“The one-billion-pound mark seemed unachievable not too long ago. What can we do to keep that growth curve going up?” Grimes asks. “Breeders have done a great job of increasing the percent of cattle that qualify for CAB, but to get to that lofty goal of two billion pounds? We’ve got to do better.”

How do we get there?

One goal: encouraging more use of the Targeting the Brand logo within the seedstock sector, and communicating with their customers how to use it, Lee says.

Another step is updating the calculations behind the logo requirements. Until now, the standards were based on bulls at breed average or better for both Marb and $G.

“If we could keep moving average higher, that was a step in the right direction, and we based that on the best information we had available,” Lee says.

But actual carcass data provided a real-world, high-volume case study.

“We feel a sincere need to continue to encourage breeders to turn in phenotypes, because the numbers are only as good as the phenotype they’re based on,” Lee says.

That proved true when an Angus Genetics Inc. analysis of 8,600 sire-identified carcass records found the combined Marb and $G threshold most likely to produce CAB from at least half of a calf crop. As of the May 29 EPD update, the requirements for Targeting the Brand are now +0.65 for Marb and +55 for $G.

That is slightly higher than the previous breed average threshold, so one in four non-parent Angus bulls now qualifies for the designation. Those numbers will be evaluated every two years, and adjusted based on the most current information.

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A place to start

“These are just minimums,” Lee says. Producers who already get 50% or higher CAB acceptance rates should aim higher.

“We know marbling is highly heritable. We know that genetics impact roughly 40% of the marbling potential in those cattle; but that said, there’s another 60% not explained by genetics,” Lee says. When environment plays a role, high-quality management has to match to get intended results. “The Targeting the Brand logo is not a guarantee that progeny from any animal will hit CAB. It’s an indication that the genetic potential is higher with that animal.”

And the sire is only half the equation.

“There are some people out there who will say, ‘All Angus grade high,’ or, ‘The average Angus is good enough,’” Grimes says. “But we don’t feel like average is good enough. The database says we have to up our game.”

Don’t mistake that for a marbling-only message though.

“These numbers give producers a lot of latitude to place emphasis on carcass but still select for other traits that we know are really important,” Lee says. “We always discourage producers from single-trait selection.”

History shows progress can be made on multiple fronts at the same time, Grimes says.

“People used to think we couldn’t have calving ease and high growth, and breeders have shown that they can do that. So it’s not realistic to think we can’t do the same with elite carcass merit and maternal function,” he says.

But multi-trait, focused selection doesn’t happen “just because.”

It happens every time a breeder gives it attention and helps their customers do the same.

Originally ran in the Angus Journal.

Targeting excellence

by CAB Cattle Crew | Oct 4, 2021

First-generation seedstock producers Kevin and Lydia Yon, along with their children, Drake, Sally, and Corbin, have been continuously improving their farm since they drove the first fence posts on what was a 100-acre abandoned peach orchard in 1996. 

One tour at a time

by Kylee Kohls Sellnow | Sep 22, 2021

Telling their story to the cattle curious was awkward at first for John and Gaye Pfeiffer. Now, they look forward to hosting hundreds of people every year, sharing everything about the beef cattle life cycle and why they choose Angus cattle on their central Oklahoma farm. Their dedication to teaching and connecting with those further down the supply chain earned them the 2021 CAB Ambassador Award.

Targeting excellence in all they do

by CAB Cattle Crew | Sep 22, 2021

Establishing a world-class seedstock operation in the Southeast didn’t happen overnight, and the family humbly insists they’re no different than many others. Indeed, their vision, use of technologies, and dedication to deliberate improvement make them unique.

A pen of Primes

Brothers from Detroit succeed with their own ideas

By: Laura Conaway

It was meant to be a brief exchange on a visit last fall.

A Missouri farmer who’d ordered a roller mill made small talk with the salesman who delivered it. In passing, he mentioned his pen of steers that made nearly all USDA Prime.

The farmer retells the story:

“He asks me, he says, ‘There’s been people at this way longer than you. How come they’re not getting the percentages you are? You’re only the first generation trying it.’”

The question was legitimate, the salesman late to a long line of already-inquiring minds.

“I says, ‘I don’t know but I could take a guess.’”

That’s when Bill Boyer shrugs his shoulders, laces his fingers and starts from the top.

At his kitchen table near Perryville, Mo., the 64-year-old finds clemency from the cold outside. He’s at home here, in the big white house his father helped build.

But a few “yuns” and “I says” give him up in a hurry; he’s not native to this Missouri land.

“We talk different than people around here,” he says, including his older brother Jack. “Any time we would start speaking, they’d start guessing.”

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City Grown

The Boyer boys were born in Detroit, Mich., the second and fourth out of five, Jack six years Bill’s senior.

They had an aunt and uncle with a little hobby farm in southeast Missouri where the family would visit and the kids would take baths in the creek. No indoor toilet or running water, but the air was clean and the sky showed them every shade of blue.

Their father had made a good living in the automobile industry and offered Jack a job, but the late 1960s were no picnic in Motor City, where integration-born riots would not relent.

“I saw a friend get stabbed at work and that was it,” Jack says. Leaving that job for those Mississippi Valley blue skies he headed south for good to a farm his folks helped buy.

Two weeks after turning his tassel, 18-year-old Bill reported for work there. That was 46 years ago, his identifiable red beard now mostly white.

It was tough, a stark contrast to the modern home where the boys grew up in suburban Detroit, but their parents “were always supportive,” he says. On vacations and once retired, their father helped them expand the living quarters of what was then just a cabin. They even added a second story. That homestead sits close by the cattle the brothers feed.

“We earned every dollar the hard way,” Bill says. Each lesson the same way.

“Growing up, we didn’t know which end of the cow was what,” a fact made glaringly obvious after their inaugural purchase of 15 Hereford heifers.

“And ’course, we weren’t smart enough to think we needed better fencing. Soon as we got them here, they just took off,” he says. “Straight through the fences and ended up about five miles away.”

A neighbor helped corral them, “and we started fixing fence,” Bill says, perhaps just getting around to forgiving himself for the decades-old blunder.

“We were greenhorns. We didn’t know what we were doing.”

So maybe that’s why it worked like it did – that’s one of the reasons Bill considers. Success rode in on the shoulders of naivety, and what felt like common sense bore victory.

Whatever the recipe, as financial woes sent many farmers packing, the Boyers met them on the way out, hungry for a life the polar opposite of their city roots.

Innovators from the start, they installed 16-foot gates back when the standard was 10, steel fence posts when most went for wood, before pushing boundaries with the cattle, too.

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Angus Foundation

They came to Angus almost by accident, an alternative.

Those 15 Herefords as their base, the brothers looked to expand with more red-and-whites.

“We had one neighbor who had Angus, and all the Hereford people made fun of him because they were real short,” Bill says.

Regardless of commercial popularity at the time, seedstock sources were scarce, he recalls. “It seemed like nobody wanted to sell any, so we thought, okay, we’re going to try Angus then.”

An Alton, Mo., breeder by the name of Uel Tusher, Stone Briar Angus, gets credit for the genetics that solidified the starter herd. He sold the out-of-towners 20 registered Angus heifers and the Boyers built on them from there.

“They made some wonderful crosses until the Angus just naturally took over,” Bill says. He smiles at memories of a black baldy cow.

The brothers dabbled in some three-way crosses for more pounds on the rail, throwing Charolais into the mix, but County Extension Agent Roger Akins pointed out a premium program called Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®), “and we figured we could get paid a little more.”

Jack figured they should double down on Angus to hit that target.

They were already achieving Prime in some finished loads, having bought a Rishel New Design 036 son from the University of Missouri sale, when growth bulls were selling for much more than sires known for marbling.

With carcass already on their minds, it seemed only fitting to make a trip to southwest Kansas.

Having read about Gardiner Angus Ranch in cattle magazines, “I thought I’d just like to try them,” Bill says, “see what they’re like.”

With stronger fences set, it still seemed like any time the brothers would go anywhere, they’d get home to an unwelcome fact.

“We’d have cattle walking down the road or something, so I got the job of buying bulls,” Bill says.

He’d called Henry Gardiner days ahead, and then he and a girlfriend packed a truck and headed west.

“I started late in the afternoon, drove most of the night,” Bill says. He had his picks circled in the catalog on the back seat.

Mark Gardiner, now president of the seedstock supplier, was a young man when Boyer first showed up to his family’s place near Ashland, Kan.

“We didn’t know what to think except that this guy looked like Santa Claus” – Bill prefers a ZZ-Top reference – “and was interesting to visit with.”

“I’d try to find something that looked good but most of his bulls looked good,” Bill says, “so you’d have to rely on the numbers.”

He would get there early, like three days before the sale, to look around, take his time with the cattle and prove the numbers in the book right.

Right up there with marbling, disposition was an equal priority.

“It doesn’t matter how many Primes you get if you’re laying in a hospital bed,” Bill says.

So the Boyers aim for one with an expected progeny difference (EPD) for docility in the 30s with a marbling EPD no lower than the 0.80s. They want at least average ribeye and feed conversion, and to avoid yield grade (YG) 4s, they shop for negative back fat EPDs.

The rest, they do at home.

With no hired hands nor outside income, the brothers have managed to carry out their dream and, frankly, the dream of plenty of others.

When they achieved 90% Prime on a load, Bill thought, “Well, we gotta do a little better. We’ll just keep at it, keep going. Just keep marching along.”

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Cadence of quality

It’s a perpetual drumbeat, obvious the moment you set foot on their place. The Boyers keep their heads down and their hands anything but idle.

To secure the champion spot in the CAB Angus Value Discovery contest, their best load of finished steers went 100% CAB with all but one Prime; 76.9% went YG 3 or lower. That lone calf wasn’t a disappointment but it keeps them hungry.

“I think it would be neat to hit 100% Prime,” Bill says, “but my goodness, a person has to be tickled to death to get 39 out of 40 on a load.”

That visiting salesman knows plenty who have fallen far short while trying.

“I think the thing that’s unique about them is they don’t view this as some unattainable goal,” Gardiner says.

His family sells 2,600 registered Angus bulls each year to customers aiming for genetics that include superior marbling. It’s one thing to say it’s a part of your program, a whole other to do something about it.

In a statement that could be applied to life beyond good cattle, Gardiner says, “Oftentimes we go through the motions but we don’t do the things that matter most.”

The Kansas seedstock giant says quality in a cowherd deserves top billing, that it makes no sense to not pursue marbling for the sake of other goals while ignoring the consumer.

“It’s not brain surgery,” Gardiner says. “We’re talking about a trait that is 40% or higher heritable. Marbling can be free.”

The Boyers prove it’s profitable.

So what is their secret if there is one?

Maybe it’s because they started as greenhorns, not filled with conventional wisdom.

Bill will tell you it’s probably a little of that, but he credits that Stone Briar foundation more for stellar results in what grew to a closed herd of 300. Then there’s the added nutrition cows get in their third trimester, carrying calves from those marbling-rich Gardiner bulls.

“The Boyers take their husbandry, take their feeding program, take their study of genetics to make cattle better,” Gardiner says.

It’s the meticulous selection, and then providing the environment to allow them to succeed that he attributes to his customers winning ways.

“Those cattle are healthy, comfortable and never have a bad day.”

So, was winning that carcass contest part of a plan?

If it was, it wasn’t for bragging rights. Candidly, the brothers prefer to be left alone and get the job done.

“We just came down here with different ideas,” Bill says, his tone dismissing adulation.

It seems like the perfect recipe, but it’s not the only way to go, they’ll readily concede.

Rather Jack and Bill Boyer were just two guys from Detroit who didn’t know any better than to try, and it worked.

Big time.

Originally ran in the Angus Journal.

Following Second Dreams

by Morgan Boecker | Oct 7, 2022

Cow work, genetic improvements and breeding plans are on the table for hours because building the perfect cow takes constant adjustments to the plans they lay out. The Larsons are working on a masterpiece that moves their families and customers closer to “best” every day. Their determined journey toward elusive perfection helped Larson Angus Ranch earn the CAB 2022 Seedstock Commitment to Excellence award.

Following the numbers

by CAB Cattle Crew | Oct 7, 2021

Diversification proved to be key in evolving the ranch. What began as an Angus-based commercial herd, the trio took signals from the data and sought new avenues for revenue. The Woolfolk men have a target: creating more high-quality, profitable cattle. As for how to get there? They’ll continue to follow the numbers.

Targeting excellence

by CAB Cattle Crew | Oct 4, 2021

The way to do it

Noble Ranch takes care of business on 18-year journey to excellence

Story and photos by

Morgan Marley

September 25, 2019

Ryan Noble says it all started in 2001. After watching his friend’s Angus cow herd develop and prosper, he finally had the means to buy the same genetics for his own herd.

“As soon as we can get to Montana to buy some of those bulls, we’re gonna make the trip,” Ryan promised his wife.

Married in 1998, the young couple had lofty goals. Ronella was teaching in a country school 35 minutes away, while he was driving silage trucks, working on harvest crews or artificially inseminating (AI) thousands of cows to pay the bills and save a little on the side. While he was working on whatever he was hired to do, part of his mind was always at home planning the next move at his family’s ranch near Yuma, Colo.

“Ryan didn’t have a paycheck from the ranch for the longest time,” Ronella recalls. “I had a town job, sometimes Ryan had a town job and he rode horses on the side. But we brought things together and things started going in the right direction. So now we are reaping the benefits.”

2001 is the year they made their first trip to buy at the Basin Angus Ranch bull sale. They’ve gone back every year, partly because of the spectacular changes those genetics have brought. The cows are producing. The calves are thriving. Yet the human connection is the strongest.

“Doug and Sharon Stevenson are our friends,” Ryan says. “They reach out to us. They want to know how the kids are doing. We’ll talk about our family and then we’ll talk about the cattle.”

No more is the rancher searching for what changes to make, only continuing progress toward quality.

In everything he does, Ryan pushes the limits of success to what some would call overachieving. To everyone else, it’s no surprise Noble Ranch was named the Certified Angus Beef ^® (CAB^®) 2019 Commercial Commitment to Excellence Award winner.

Humble to their core, whatever the Nobles have achieved only comes with the job.

“We are just us,” Ronella says, “and it just feels normal. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like we are doing anything special, it just feels like what we should be doing and the way that we should be doing it.”

Century of learning

In 1910, Ryan’s great-grandfather stepped onto a train from Nebraska to Colorado. After walking nearly 9 miles, he found a piece of land south of Yuma that moved him enough to file a homestead claim. For more than 100 years the ranch has been under operation by the Noble family, making Ryan the fourth generation. A few years ago the state of Colorado recognized the ranch as a Centennial Farm.

“We take a lot of pride that this place has been in the same family,” Ryan says. “We hope that continues. But it’s also got to be financially stable.”

The family’s only source of income is cow money, so the business focus on growth is essential to supporting ranch and family affairs.

“We’re a business-first family,” Ryan says. “We’re going to get our business taken care of so that we can enjoy our family time. We have our mission and a vision all worked out.”

Ryan’s mom was a teacher, too, so education is a natural priority, with an open invitation to the ranch for any person or group who wants to learn. The vision came into sharp focus when the couple completed a Ranching for Profit course, an investment they say constantly pays its way.

“We’re constantly going through our gross margins and looking at the economics of ranching,” Ryan says.

At the end of every quarter, the family sits down and compares those numbers across the perspectives of cow-calf, stocker, fed cattle and heifer development enterprises to clearly see which ones are economic drivers.

Through that process, the ranch quickly embraced the opportunity for a heifer development program that has made an impact on selected heifers from nearly 6,500 cows in all. It’s a progressive initiative to help Basin Angus Ranch customers reach their maternal and terminal goals through selective breeding and GeneMax™ genomic testing.

“It’s very rewarding,” Ryan says. “We also enjoy interacting with other ranchers, and it gives us an opportunity to have a hand in helping them better their genetics.”

Different from grandpa

The Nobles haven’t always bred Angus genetics. The ranch looked like a lot of other operations jumping into the Continental breeds 30 years ago. That’s about when Ryan began noticing changes in the Angus breed. He was intrigued.

“Expected progeny differences (EPDs) were gaining momentum,” he says. “I could see it was going to be a very valuable tool. I really believed back in the late ’80s, early ’90s that Angus was going to outpace everybody in almost every aspect of beef production.”

From a young age, Ryan was given responsibility for the ranch. He remembers his father saying, “My dad never let me do anything. I’m going to let you do all the worrying, so you’re in charge.” That’s when the young man realized to reach his goals, he would have to do things different from Grandpa.

When he got the chance to call the shots, he didn’t hesitate to start using the business breed.

“Angus just covers every base that we need covered, and with fantastic results,” he says.

Since 2001, all other cattle breeds were history. Ryan found what worked for their operation, and made it thrive. The bottom line: his cattle must have minimal inputs, along with docility, longevity and fertility.

“Economically, the Angus cow covers a lot of bases for us,” Ryan says. “She can make a living out here in our semi-arid, tough environment. She can use some resources that nothing else is really going to use and she can upscale protein like crazy.”

Average isn’t an option. Their philosophy is to build cattle that are in the upper 25% for the breed. By selecting animals for their best and highly heritable traits, the results are seen in the calf crop and following cow herd.

“We don’t like to leave things to chance,” he says. “So let’s bet on a sure thing and let’s bet on the best thing. Right now, that’s Angus cattle and it probably always will be.”

The carcass quality his herd achieves meets his standards as a beef consumer.

“I look at it on the other side of the plate and all I can think is a beautiful ribeye, grilled medium rare, plenty of marbling, juicy, great taste and very marketable,” he says. “Everybody’s going to leave with a smile on their face.”

Carcass quality speaks for itself.

“The Certified Angus Beef brand has always stood for quality and doing the right thing every chance you get,” he says. “That mirrors what we’re trying to do out here on the ranch.”

Retaining ownership of steer calves and marketing them on the grid proves their strict breeding standards are paying off.

“When I got the carcass data back on our 2018 steers, we crowded 70% Certified Angus Beef,” Ryan says. “They yielded about 63%. They were almost 30% (low) Choice and there was zero Select in the whole pen. That’s on 14 month old calves. The pay weight was around 1340 pounds. I think we’re doing okay.”

The Golden Rule

The Noble vision, by another name, means treating employees like family or fixing the neighbor’s fence that’s busted. Keeping their word is part of the mission.

“As far as our cattle go, I want to represent our cattle exactly as I say,” Ryan explains. “I want to do it right and I want to make sure people are satisfied. If I tell you that these heifers are gentle, they’re going to be gentle. If I tell you they’re bred to a certain bull, they’re going to be bred to that bull.”

That continues past their ranch gate.

“If I sell Tom Williams at Chappell Feedlot a group of calves,” he says, “then they need to be healthy. They need to have all their shots and be preconditioned so they perform for him because I am not interested in a one-time deal.”

Ryan is interested in long-term relationships, sustained partnerships that result in repeat business.

“I believe everything in the beef industry and life in general is all about relationships,” he says. “If you hold up your end of the bargain and the other person does, too, you will have a fantastic relationship and it will work every time. It’s all about the people.”

The journey

If you would had asked Ryan in grade school what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would have said, “a rancher.” Even after years of discouragement from people in town and at school, his response never changed. It only solidified his determination.

“Luckily the people that mattered most, my parents and my wife, never doubted that I wanted to be a rancher and that’s what I should be,” Ryan says.

Twenty years ago an opportunity came to expand the ranch. Ryan was apprehensive, but his parents were ready to take the chance.

“The ranch was paid for,” he says. “I asked my parents, ‘Are you sure you want to get back into debt to expand this place?’ They said, ‘Absolutely.’ They had been waiting 20 years for this opportunity. So we took the chance and never looked back.”

The journey has been long and hard, but an enjoyable one nonetheless, Ryan says.

“There’s been a couple places that weren’t quite as much fun,” he admits. “But I really have a passion for taking care of the land, taking care of the animals and taking care of the people. I feel like this is just what I was made to do.”

Together, the family’s operation grew from 150 head to the capacity of nearly 1,300 cows. These days, Ryan and Ronella get to watch their children grow and take on more responsibility at the ranch.

“Hopefully they want to come back and raise their families here, but they know they have the freedom not to,” Ronella makes clear. “I hope they have learned the value of hard work, family and raising quality livestock.”

Their son Will and daughter Addie are the fifth generation. Ryan explains the greatest reward is watching his dad work alongside them.

“I’ll look out and I’ll see my dad working with my kids,” he says. “I have very fond memories of myself working with my grandparents. The circle is completed again and that’s a lot of fun.”

They see this in 12-year-old Will preparing the semen during breeding season—one of the most tedious and important jobs during AI. Or when Addie doesn’t even want to get off her horse at the end of a long day.

“One of the legacies I’d like to leave my children is to do the best you can with what you’re given every chance you get,” Ryan says. “Quality never has to apologize.”

Originally published in the Angus Journal

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Of dreams and going all in

“I wish I could just move west and buy a ranch.”

It’s something I’ve heard my dad mutter for years. He’s been around agriculture all his life, stacking hay as a teen and raising Hereford steers for the freezer as an adult. But Maryland is not big country. These days, he’s living vicariously through his three daughters’ 4-H projects and FFA events (and my internship here at CAB^® of course).

It wasn’t until I decided to attend Oklahoma State University and chase my dream of sharing agriculture’s story that he really fell in love with the wide open spaces. Now when he feels fenced in, he jokes about packing up, heading west and trading in his ball cap for a cowboy hat.

So when I got to Pocatello, Idaho, and listened to Greg Brown tell how he got his start in cattle ranching, I couldn’t help but think, “Man, you’re living my dad’s dream.”

The son of a sugar beet farmer, Brown dreamed of starting his own ranch, “always wanted to be a cowboy but didn’t know how.”

In 2006, he and wife Stephanie made their first attempt, but it was nothing to be proud of.

“We got our house and it had this little field, so I bought a pair. We didn’t have a clue,” Brown admits.

The stories they tell from that first year are like something out of a cartoon. A cow gets out the first night home and runs miles and miles away. They buy their first horses and get bucked off, over and over again.

But lessons learned the hard way pay off. By 2010 they shed all other jobs to make their living on the ranch.

How did they manage that in four short years? A chance meeting with a future benefactor and a whole lot of perseverance.

“I didn’t even know who he was, but I said something to him about wishing I was in the cattle business and he replied, ‘I can probably help you with that,’” Brown says. “He gave me his number and told me to call him next fall. It was winter. I had to sit on his number for six or eight months and wonder what this was all about.”

On the first day of fall, Brown’s phone call and short visit leads to an offer of 25 lease cows and space on the nearby ranch to run them.

“We leased those 25 cows. Again, a total wreck,” he says. “We didn’t have a clue what we were doing, but we had friends. We asked people. Studied. The next year [the leasing rancher] had somebody retire and there was room for 30 more head.”

More lessons learned led away from a Hereford cow base to Angus.

“I see Angus as the way forward with our herd,” Brown says. “I believe we can make the highest quality product with the most functional cow.”

Today, he runs 500 cows on the Idaho desert. The growth and added profitability came with the decision not to let just any animal into his herd.

“Out of all the things that I can control, genetics to me is the most important thing,” Brown says.

Bulls he buys must at least meet the Certified Angus Beef^® Targeting the Brand™ recommendations. He doesn’t discount functional traits, but also keeps his eye on carcass merit through that brand target. Keeping his dream alive means adding value for the next person down the line.

“You can’t take your calves to the sale barn every year. You have to market them in a progressive way.” Brown says. “We’re always looking for ways to add value to our product and produce something that a customer will be like, ‘Yeah, it’s worth more than that to us.’”

Few peers and mentors held back when advising the young man that it’s nearly impossible to make a living when you start from scratch in today’s cattle business.

“It was just the fire I needed,” Brown says. “At the time I didn’t like those people, but I look back and sometimes it’s the people that discouraged you that you actually owe more to. It builds a fire in you that you’re like ‘No, I’m not giving up.’ There is no too late. There is no too early. We’ll do whatever it takes to make this happen.”

Brown’s story resonates with me. It’s easy to talk about dreams, but making them a reality is a different story that takes faith, guts and going the extra miles.

Maybe one day my dad will pack his bags and chase his dreams to these open ranges. But until then, I’m happy to be the boots on the ground, ready to share the stories of America’s cattlemen.

Until next time,

Chelsea

About the author: Chelsea Dinterman

Originally from Woodsboro, Maryland, a small town in the shadows of Washington D.C., I grew up surrounded by people who didn’t understand agriculture. Through my time in organizations like 4-H and FFA, I found a passion for closing the gap between farm and fork. My passion led me to Oklahoma State University’s agricultural communications program. Now an intern here in the Wooster office, I am excited to learn from the best and share the stories of America’s cattlemen.

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.

Entepreneurial Genes and Cowboy Dreams

Timmerman receives Feeding Quality Forum honors

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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Pride & Precision

Arkansas cousins use technology to drive Angus success

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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Nothing owed

Groups more humble than cattlemen and women are few and far between, but I’ve often heard ranchers called “salt of the Earth” people. Many lessons applicable for working with livestock come from simple wisdom, and now and then it’s the livestock doing the teaching.

I’m not talking about the cow that gets protective or feisty around her newborn calf. Nor am I referring to how they always find a pasture’s prime location — where the breeze gently blows and they can ruminate in the shade on hot days. No, this lesson is years in the making.

The Arndt family, living only about 10 miles from my parents’ place in Kansas, own a cow with a lesson to teach. Ear tag No. 122, has earned its spot among the tried and true. It’s an outlier. Over 14 years, she’s given cow-calf manager Ryan Arndt, Emporia, Kan., two sets of twins. Just this year, she finally came up open. Ryan says after those many years, “She doesn’t owe us anything.”

The salt of the Earth recognizes how much an animal gives so that they may make their livelihood out in wide, open spaces.

For an even better image of No. 122, “all winter long if they’re a mile away, she’ll be the first one at the feed truck every time,” Ryan says. “She just hits a long trot and she’s there. She’ll get there with her nose and throw the spout down and be in it until you stop feeding.”

A personality like that stands out, just like her fertility over the years. She continually produced viable calves. While her maternal traits definitely did contribute, the advancement of high-quality bull genetics surely played a part in her raising ever-better calves.

What about how she fits in her surroundings? Ranchers often consider how their cattle mesh with their environment and how they, too, could set themselves up to have a No. 122. It’s understood by most that to identify as “quality” requires balance, including performance in a particular environment. This cow had to be fleshy enough in the winter and maternal enough to be a good momma year after year. The stocking rate has to fit the forage available, its quality and so on.

But do ranchers consider the ultimate environment for performance? Justin Sexten, director of supply at Certified Angus Beef, recently said, “The plate is an environment every animal has to perform at.”

When Ryan sits down at the dinner table with his wife Amanda and their four girls, he expects his beef to be delicious and, of course, nutritious for the growing cowgirls. Better yet, he manages their cow herd for such, targeting improved quality over time through a variety of means.

I know others would agree that those removed from rural life deserve the same mouthwatering eating expereince as those in the middle of it. If anything, we owe that to the herd.

Doing my best by beef,

Sarah

Watch for more about the Arndt family in future editions of the Angus Journal and Angus Beef Bulletin.

Sarah Moyer interns at the headquarters office in Wooster, Ohio. The senior in ag communications at Kansas State University aims to improve her writing by sharing stories of high-quality beef producers, as they work to improve their herds.

Dreamers and doers

If you could have one wish, any wish, what would it be? More resources, greater assets, the best genetics or something else?

My recent time back in Kansas reminded me that everyone works with what they have. It’s fun to dream, but at the end of the day some factors won’t change overnight. Progress requires hard work, focused decisions and effective management.

Take, for instance, the Voran family near Kingman, Kan. Today, they make better breeding decisions and repeatedly finish with higher carcass merit using collected data.

Carol Voran was not involved in 4-H or FFA. Her formal education was to be an educator. Her husband, Dale, has emphasis with crops, not cattle. “So we basically came from zero,” Carol says.

When I hung a right onto their rural dirt road, their operation’s story was yet a mystery to me. I knew little more than what contest awards they won at Beef Empire Days in recent years, and that they had been recommended by neighbor and seedstock producer Gordon Stucky. As I sat with Carol and Dale in their kitchen, they told their tale.

After starting a small cattle herd, they took a risk. Carol describes herself as the eternal optimist and Dale her eternal pessimist. They weighed both sides of the risk and decided to retain ownership of their cattle through the feedyard. Now they’ve seen results, collected data and made changes, continuing to build up their dreams.

There are days where a slower pace sounds appealing, but Carol says, “There’s trade-offs everywhere.”

“Wheat pasture may be cheap,” she says. “But I’ve been told time and time again that if they’re out on wheat pasture, it probably will reduce their ability to grade. So there’s trade-offs any way that you look at it.”

They’ve stood their ground and found ways to not compromise much on quality and still make a profit. And it’s taken time and their fair share of mistakes, they admit.

So what are their greatest tools for maintaining progress in the herd? They say a notebook and a pencil — low input recordkeeping tools. Excel might be tossed in as well.

Diligence over time pays into their operation. Of course, there are many other critical tools they use, but they say it’s important to not discount the basics. They still very much value time spent studying EPDs (expected progeny differences) and regularly reading articles about management or industry news. All contributed to where they stand today.

“I want to encourage other cow-calf operators to follow their cattle all the way and take advantage of the good practices that they’ve been implementing all along,” Carol says. “It’s possible.”

In review, dream a dream, but then go find the load-bearing factors in your operation — genetics, record keeping and feeding probably. Then strengthen them. Think about Carol’s advice. Producers who dot their i’s and cross their t’s can use a little to improve a lot, because no wish could replace the foundations of success with cattle.

For now, with a drought in the heartland, these ranchers will only wish for rain. They already know wishing won’t cover the rest.

Doing my best by beef,

Sarah

Watch for more about the Voran family in future editions of the Angus Journal and Angus Beef Bulletin.

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