Tradition, innovation, loyalty and trust

Bledsoe Cattle Company earns CAB cattle feeding honors

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.

Drought Impact and Cattle Industry Dynamics

Nov 8, 2023 | Cattle Markets, Cow Herd, News Release, Premium Potential

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?

CAB Brand Sales Third Best in 45-Year History

Oct 25, 2023 | CAB Insider

In this CAB Insider,shifting market dynamics have already marked trend changes in the 2023 cattle and beef markets. These shifts are most succinctly summarized through two factors, fewer cattle and higher prices, that will further entrench themselves in near term trends.

Certified Angus Beef Celebrates 45th Year with Strong Sales

Oct 18, 2023 | About the brand, News Release

It has been 45 years since Certified Angus Beef’s first customer purchased a strip steak at Renzetti’s IGA grocery store. Since then, consumer demand for high-quality beef has grown, ultimately driving demand for premium Angus genetics.

Beef supply chain traceability could boost value

by Nicole Lane Erceg

Talk about a national beef traceability system in the U.S. might seem like a broken record. It’s been discussed often, but no efficient structure yet encompasses the entire supply chain.

Advances in technology and evolved consumer buying trends might breathe new life into the idea. As more beef sells under branded programs, consumers expect a promise with each purchase, from cooking performance to flavor and guarantees about how the meat was produced. Brands may be forced to verify additional marketing claims to maintain consumer trust.

According to the National Meat Case Audit 2015, nearly all beef at retail sells under a brand name, jumping from 51% branded in 2010 to 97% in 2015. With a sea of brands now vying for attention in the meat case, consumers buy their beef based on brand loyalty and label guarantees.

Mark McCully, vice president of production for the Certified Angus Beef^® brand, says a traceability system could have merit.

“Traceability itself is not a marketing claim,” he says. “However, I do believe it can be used in the future as a framework for identifying marketing claims that add value to beef products.”

The added information traceability could provide is the opportunity for branded beef, as McCully told the National Institute for Animal Agriculture earlier this year.

The 2017 Power of Meat study showed nearly 70% of meat consumers want more information about a company’s social, economic, animal welfare and environmental practices, and they are willing to pay for it.

“We continue to see consumers looking for more assurances about products. As a brand that operates in a premium category, we believe scrutiny of our brand is probably even more rigid,” McCully says. “There’s an expectation, not just about how our product performs, but the social responsibility we have as a brand around the entire supply chain.”

While some labels make claims like sustainably-raised, humanely-raised or locally-sourced, verification and even definitions of these terms depends entirely on the brand’s production chain. Vague assurances without distinct standards lose their value in the consumer’s mind.

A consistent traceability framework could help verify those claims. Combine quality products with verified assurances and the pull-through demand could benefit the entire industry.

“I believe the economics will support traceability,” says McCully. “Certified Angus Beef is an example of how consumer-driven, pull-through demand can support the economics of verification. The key with traceability will be designing a system that fits today’s current pace of business.”

It’s not just domestic consumers who are hungry for information.

As one of the few developed countries that does not have a mandatory beef traceability system, the U.S. is at a disadvantage when it comes to global beef trade. A new framework could open up American beef to markets around the world where it’s currently not available to countries that require traceability for market access.

Many beef brands have already begun using some traceability systems to add marketing value and CAB is no exception. The Path Proven program enables marketing CAB brand with additional production claims, and labels like Georgia Proud, GoTexan and Fresh From Florida are proving the source state.

However, traceability ends at the feedlot, not the ranch of origin.

In this case, information value is only half captured, because a large portion of the beef journey is still unverified. As one system varies from another, it also creates a lack of consistency across the meat case when consumers compare different brands.

A new traceability method could open the flow of knowledge for beef producers, too, McCully says. If information could move forward with the animals, it could flow back to provide a more robust picture of animal and meat quality.

“The progress we could make on the production side through genetic selection based on carcass quality feedback would be remarkable,” he says. “Traceability could help provide accurate data backwards so that we could link genomics to performance traits beyond the ranch gate and help improve our overall beef product.”

As the conversation continues, the question remains: How?

It’s an inquiry left unanswered for today, but McCully sees a future system as a real possibility because of rapid developments in technology.

“Maybe it’s block chain or other technology, but I think we have the capability today to make it work.” he says. “What I do know is that it needs to be mobile and inexpensively fit into today’s speed of business.”

Smiles, success

by Nicole Lane Erceg

By the end of the day, my cheeks hurt from laughing.

Normally it’s my feet that hurt after a ranch visit, not my face. I didn’t know what to expect on my first visit to a Canadian ranch. I sure didn’t expect to smile so much and leave with a sunburn.

What I did find was that the Bolduc family loves big, laughs hard and their passion for Angus is difficult to beat.

Their story is one that’s been told so many times, it might soon become legend. But no matter how many times I hear it, I always learn something new.

You could say Cudlobe Angus began on a whim. You might even call it teenage spontaneity or a desire to go against the grain. Dyce, the son of Shorthorn breeders wasn’t even twenty years old when he bought his first Angus cows in the 1967. Back then, black cattle sold at a discount.

But Dyce and his brother David saw potential where others only saw lost profits. This mindset difference set in motion an adventure 50 years ago that today is carried on by their children.

Cudlobe genetics and their program make them unique – but it’s the people and their vision that make it something special.

“We’re trying to service a whole industry that begins with us,” Dyce says. “We realize consumers have to have a quality product that they want to pay good money for, and that starts here.”

The journey from three Angus cows purchased at a sale barn to a more than 600 head seedstock operation that hosts two sales a year took decades of learning and investment risk. As soon as a new technology became available, the brothers implemented it, including expected progeny differences, ultrasound, DNA testing, carcass data and more. Now, they are heat checking from high frequency ear tag technology that connects to an iPad. If it allows them to gather more data, you bet they’re going to try it.

“I really enjoy the science part of our industry,” David says. “We have technology that if we make use of it, we can make a difference in our cattle. Seeing that science produce results, like actually seeing a client’s data where their cattle grade 16% Prime, that’s my favorite.”

Results matter to these cattlemen because they know it helps more than just their operation.

“We have to use the best technology available to us to generate a product that can be raised sustainably, efficiently, relative to the environmental inputs and be accepted by the consumer at a level that drives demand for our whole industry,” David says.

It’s that pull-through demand the pair always understood. It drove their emphasis on carcass quality.

Many might have called them crazy to care about carcass genetics since beef quality grading didn’t launch in Canada until the ’90s.

“When Cargill first opened in Alberta and they had several producer meetings with their cattle buyers,” David says grinning at the memory. “I’ll never forget sitting in that room and smiling when I heard one of them say, ‘We’ll be looking to source a lot more British cattle… and I’m not talking about Herefords.’”

They set their sights on raising bulls whose progeny would make it into the Certified Angus Beef program. Inspired by the vision set by its early founders, they considered the brand a mark of success.

“Who wouldn’t want to be aligned with an organization that has that much vision and that much ability to impact the industry?” David asks rhetorically.

But it’s never been just about their own accomplishment.

“It doesn’t matter the amount of success we have here at Cudlobe, if the folks we provide genetics to don’t capture some of that success,” Dyce says.

It shows in how they’ve worked to pay it forward. Beyond both brothers’ extensive lists of service to the beef industry on boards ranging from the Canadian Angus Association to the Beef Improvement Federation, they are always focused on how to make their customers more profitable.

Their first feeder calf sale marketed 2,500 Cudlobe sired calves that sold for a $50 premium to the rest of the market on that day.

They walk their commercial customers through retained ownership, too. One reported a $143 greater return per-head by marketing those cattle on a quality-based grid. They encourage commercial partners to collect the data and take the time to explain the cutout sheets. A 2018 group of 180 Cudlobe-sired feeder cattle graded 99% AAA or better, with 73% qualifying for CAB including 26% Prime.

On June 9, 2018 they were presented the inaugural Certified Angus Beef Canadian Commitment to Excellence Award at the Canadian Angus Convention.

18_05_NLE_Cudlobe-321 (1) — Matt, David’s son manages the day to day operations of their herd, allowing David to give more time back to the industry, serving on the Canadian Beef Grading Agency Boards, as a member of the Canadian Beef Breeds Council and more.

It’s their pay it forward attitude that’s earned them business success and recognition. It’s an understanding that making it better for the next person in line, isn’t just about making things better now, it’s about leaving a legacy.

“It’s a mindset to work as a family,” David says. “It’s quite simple, treat everyone like you want to be treated yourself.”

The journey to success isn’t worth much if you don’t enjoy, it’s important to have the right partners by your side. It’s doing something they love with the people that matter most.

“We’re really happy. It’s been great to raise these cattle alongside our children and now to see them grow, go on and come back to the farm,” David says.

With a smile on his face, Dyce respond, “Cudlobe is going to exist long into the future.”

That, they both say, is their greatest success.

Until next time,

Nicole

Living their story

Meet Lucile: She’s 96 and flies a Beechcraft. Then there’s her son Bob, who started digging up dinosaur bones on their ranch as a relaxing hobby. Bob’s son Grant fly fishes in Alaska.

When I visited the Bledsoe family near Wray, Colorado, last week, it was a bit like reading a page-turner. With each question, I learn something surprising. I laugh at the fun details sprinkled in, and every answer makes me want to get to the next chapter.

“The FAA doesn’t discriminate, but the insurance company does,” Lucile says with a feisty smile. Due to her age, the matriarch now flies with a second pilot. Grandson Grant might take her along when they make a daytrip to check on their stocker operation in western South Dakota.

With his parents, Bob and Becky purchased the place several decades ago from an older widow. “We’d signed all the papers and were about to walk out of the office and she said, ‘Oh, there’s something I forgot to tell you,’” Bob recalls. “She said, ‘There’s dinosaur bones all over the place.’”

He doubted the seller… until he found his first one.

This Bledsoe Cattle Company office may be the only one I’ll ever visit where instead of a laminated sign that says, “I’m out to lunch,” the note clipped to the office door reads, “I’m downstairs working on my dinosaur. Call my cell….”

Bob’s office is chock full of fossils and arrowheads, paintings and antiques.

Across the building, Grant runs the everyday feeding, farming and ranching activities surrounded by everything from an Alaskan bear to a Colorado moose. His family, which includes wife Katie and their kids, Jackson, Emma and Eryn, provide help in summers and on weekends.

Producing high-quality Angus cattle at the 6,000-head feedyard is not only good business, but also family tradition.

The Bledsoes have been buying cattle from some of the same Wyoming ranches for 35 years.

“We have good communications with a lot of the suppliers we buy from. 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?’”

The family and their employees wean nearly 8,000 calves each fall, then send them out to cornstalks for winter grazing. Grant says their success depends on having those cattle set up to deal with that stressful period before they ever leave the ranch.

“Ranchers, if they have a good vaccination program, that is very important to a feedyard. And also good cattle handling skills, so those cattle get here and are acclimated to people,” Grant says.

They start on feed better, they gain better and in the end, they grade better.

“Quality grade is very important to us,” the feeder 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.”

Another thing that was clear? They surround themselves with good people, too.

We need b-roll video of Grant interacting with an employee, but as they casually chat back and forth, Cruz’s smile doesn’t seem forced. When Adrienne and Sheila say, “Help yourself to anything in the office, pop or water…”, it’s a hospitality that comes from taking ownership of their job.

“We have really, really good employees,” he confirms, telling me about some second-generation folks now working for their family.

As I head back east, I think how leaving that visit was like finishing a good book. I’m a little sad it was over so quickly. I’d just vicariously lived a little of their story, and I left feeling better for knowing it.

May your bottom line be filled with black ink,

Miranda

PS–Watch for their story in an upcoming edition of the Angus Journal.

Time and data will tell

My red Ford Focus looked out of place at the Richmond, Kentucky auction barn. Surrounded by pickups and trailers, my Ohio tags were a long way from home and looked it. But when I walked through the doors of the salebarn restaurant, I was greeted like family.

It was clear I wasn’t a regular, but Billy and Scott Turpin waved me over to their table. They insisted we order lunch before we talking cattle over a checkered tablecloth in the hometown haunt.

The father and son can only be described as good ‘ol Kentucky boys. Passionate about their farm and family, they are commercial cattlemen with deep tobacco farming roots. On the drive from Richmond to what they call their ‘main farm’ they pointed out where they had gone to school, told stories of their grandfathers and memories of what the farm had been before today.

The Angus cowherd, once secondary to the cash crop and their vocational ag teaching careers, have now become Billy and Scott’s sole focus. Pulling into the drive, I saw a familiar sight for the state of Kentucky — a traditional big black tobacco barn. Today it serves as their headquarters. Inside hang pictures of their successful land judging teams, Billy judging at the North American as well as relics from the time when they regularly harvested tobacco. Though you can see what it once was, they’ve added updates to better serve its new purpose. Next to where the tobacco plants once hung to dry is a warming room that serves as a haven on days when a newborn calf needs to be sheltered from Mother Nature.

Like most in the cattle business, they sell by the pound, but have always focused on ways to provide added value. Their goal is to be a supplier of a premium product, with their sights set on the Certified Angus Beef® brand.

There is a place for commodity cattle,” Billy says. “But there’s a place for upper-end cattle too.”

Scott explains, “We’d rather be on the premium end than the commodity end.”

However, feeding cattle and getting carcass data has never been in the cards from a cash-flow perspective. The father and son have worked on choices that pay off at the ranch level, including an emphasis on selecting for Angus bulls with optimum Angus Dollar Value indexes including $B and $W, investing in developing quality forages and health programs.

But so far, they’ve only been able to hope that it’s working for the consumer, too.

“If you’re going to invest in good, high-quality genetics, you should be able to get some of that value,” says Scott. “I know there’s a lot of value in these cattle that we never see.”

Cattle buyers sent signals that always seemed positive, but this year they retained ownership on a few, wanting the data to tell them the truth. Partnering with other local Angus producers, they sent a partial load to Pratt Feeders in Kansas and soon hope to discover the results.

“We want to be able to capture the true value of the genetics we’ve invested in,” Billy says. “And to do that, we need to hang them on the rail and see what they’re worth.”

On the Turpin farm, time tells a story. It’s one where the family hasn’t been afraid to make changes to do what makes sense for profitability. Time will tell what decisions are working and which aren’t, but they know the numbers will indicate what needs to happen next.

Until Next Time,

Nicole

P.S. For more of the Turpin family story, check out future editions of the Angus Journal and Angus Beef Bulletin.

Better beef on the horizon

The sun was just peeking over the hills surrounding Hardyville, Ky., when I drove right past Jay McCoy’s ranch. My GPS told me I had arrived, but I knew there was no way his was the place surrounded by Holstein cattle.

On the hunt for pastures that told me I had arrived at a commercial cattle ranch, I found nothing and begrudgingly turned my car around and up the driveway towards the Holsteins, wondering exactly what I was about to find.

Jay quickly set my heart at ease.

“We run a dairy backgrounding operation too, but let me tell you about my real passion — the cow herd.”

You can hear it in his voice, the way he cares about his 150 Angus-cross commercial cows. From the backseat of the pickup, his mother and business partner, Sharon, tells me all he’s ever wanted to do is work with cattle.

C78A3691 — Jay, pictured with his wife Renata and son Zackary, is passing on his passion for quality cattle production. As we stepped out of the pickup, he pointed out the cows that are the beginning of Zachary’s herd.

“This is what I want to do everyday,” he says gesturing to the beef cows grazing in the pasture. “Keep breeding black cows that will grow our numbers and perform here on the ranch and beyond.”

In 2002, when the mother and son duo purchased the land they run cattle on today, their herd consisted of just 20 cows. Since then, they’ve focused on consistently investing in the best Angus genetics they can afford to make progress toward their goals.

“The end consumer is always on our mind because, ultimately, that is the determining factor whether we survive or fail,” Jay says. “We want to produce the very best animal we can that works both for the farm and the restaurant.”

It’s something he and his seedstock supplier, James Coffey, agree on.

“We focus on adding value all the way through the production chain, beginning with genetic selection and ending with the Certified Angus Beef® brand,” James says.

C78A3743 (1) — In addition to his spring calving cows, Jay calves a small portion of his herd in the fall. He is waiting to see carcass data on the load sent to Pratt before he decides how to market the fall group this calf belongs to.

Typically, Jay would raise his calves to 800 pounds and then send them on to the local salebarn, but this year, he’s doing things differently. Partnering with James, Jay sent his spring 2017 calf crop to Pratt Feeders in Kansas.

He wants to know if what he’s doing on the ranch is really working, “to get the information back and understand how they are really performing.”

He didn’t mind my asking him to show me around the ranch at sunrise so we could capture optimal lighting for photos and, even with the early hour, excitedly shared what’s on the horizon for his herd.

“This will be the ultimate test, getting some of our carcass data back,” Jay tells me. His goal is to use the data to get a better picture of how his cattle perform after leaving his ranch – something he can’t get at the local sale barn.

He doesn’t know exactly what the data will tell him, but he knows it will help him make decisions that result in higher quality beef.

Until next time,

Nicole

The footsteps we follow

“Now, I don’t want you to focus on just the carcass on this deal,” he said as we pulled off the gravel road to a pasture approach.

It was a soft-spoken plea, not a demand, but still: Gulp. Pit in my stomach.

Had something changed in the past 15 years since Senior Editor Steve had visited this Rea, Missouri, pasture? I got out of the passenger seat to open the gate, then watched Johnnie Hubach pull through, wondering if I was watching my story pass by, too.

“I know you work for CAB, so that’s what you care about – and that is where they end up – but you’ve got to have a functional cow out there, too,” he said when I hopped back in and we approached the herd. “That’s what I care about.”

Now that’s a story, and it builds on a previously told one.

Back in 2002, when Steve and intern Heather Hopper first visited Johnnie to highlight the family’s 2002 CAB Commitment to Excellence award win, the title was “Taking The Luck Out of It.” Indeed, luck had little to do with 55% of his calves meeting the Certified Angus Beef® (CAB®) specifications when industry average for black-hided calves was just 17% at that time.

Even then, Johnnie preferred to talk about the cows, and the mentors who influenced and helped grow them.

“It wasn’t just a carcass deal with him, either,” Johnnie recalled of his early work with C.K. Allan of Woodland Farms. “He wanted to make a good cow and a good package there for a lot of different traits, not just the carcass traits.”

Still, the updated data is worth mentioning: In 2014, 2015 and 2016, 100% of the Hubach cattle earned the CAB mark, while 15% on up to 29% of those cattle graded Prime in the past five years.

That caught Aaron Walker’s attention in a conversation with Gregory Feedlot manager David Trowbridge. The Springfield, Missouri, cattleman is about where Johnnie was in 2002—a dozen years into decisions and building a foundation, seeking good cows and even better mentors.

He bought a group of six-year-old cows from Johnnie last year based on their progeny’s carcass data and mothering ability.

“We’re picking up Johnnie’s cows at six years old and we’re expecting at least three more calves out of them, and I’m confident there will be more than that. They look like black refrigerators out there – their feet, their mouths, maternal instincts are just solid,” Aaron said. “Johnnie is just a really good example of what we’re trying to accomplish. He’s a good role model.”

Just as Johnnie continued to guide my carcass-driven questions back to the cows at hand, Aaron and another young cattleman from Springfield, Rick Aspergren, kept moving from the cows to the man behind them.

“Johnnie’s kind of our hero – he’s doing what we want to do. He’s got that perfect set of cows, those cookie-cutter cows,” Rick said. “They’re foundation cows.”

I’m happily detoured here, asking more about why Johnnie’s are the footsteps these two have chosen to follow, knowing just how important it is to have those leaders walking ahead.

Because, still, before any story trip – especially one where I know he has actually gone before me, or when I get one of those sinking pits in my stomach mid-interview, I find myself wondering: “What questions would Steve ask here? How would he approach this?” Then, I call Miranda: “I saw this on the feedlot close-out… how do we learn from it? What’s the best way to present this data?”

Ask Johnnie how he’s made strides in his genetics in the 15 years since we last visited, and he’ll tell you, it’s in the questions you ask and those you follow: “I’ll just put it to you this way – I’ve learned a lot. I had good help back then, too. I had people to mentor me, and people I was lucky that they were around.”

We’ll share more about those footsteps and the impressions the Hubach herd is leaving for others in the next Angus Journal.

Until then, keep questioning!

-Laura

Laura Nelson is based in Big Timber, Montana, where she writes, captures images and tells farming and ranching stories. She’s a former CAB Industry Information Specialist who became passionate about the brand and the pursuit of high-quality beef while working at the company headquarters in Ohio. Then wide open spaces, small-town living and those beautiful Crazy Mountains wooed her back west.

Predictable cattle in a business that’s anything but

Steady.

In a world where changes seems hard to predict, where prices are volatile and weather is, too, it’s nice to have something constant to rely on.

That’s what Nebraska cattle feeder Terry Beller has in Montana rancher John Riley.

2017_05_mr_Riley Ranch-93 — John Riley is one of those cattlemen you can count on. Just ask Terry Beller.

“The cattle, they’re real predictable. I know how they’ll gain. I know how they’ll grade, and he’s got enough stretch in them so that if I have to play the market card for a few weeks or even a month and fight it just a little bit, his cattle will continue to grow and grade,” says the Lindsay, Neb., producer.

Spring-born calves are weaned in November and then backgrounded on the Riley Ranch, a partnership between John’s family and his brother Mike’s.

“We’re feeding them in the 70- to 80-day range—it kind of takes the bawl out of them,” John says. The key to perfecting that growing phase? “Time. You know, we had to learn how to feed those kind of cattle.”

Dried distillers grains (DDGs) helped, too, bringing up the protein levels with a cost competitive and palatable feedstuff.

As I visited John on one of those perfect spring days, I thought everything about him and his cattle seemed solid. Then my chat with Terry earlier this week confirmed it.

“They get in my yard and it’s just a quick transition onto feed and away they go,” Terry says. “They don’t look back.”

2017_05_mr_Riley Ranch-58 — The family went Angus several decades ago and they’ve never looked back.

Many years Riley will source sires from the Midland Bull Test, always studying numbers like the American Angus Association’s beef value index ($B), and EPDs for docility, growth and marbling. He’s looking for improvement and balance.

“All the genetic testing and stuff…..to me, you’re somewhat obligated to yourself to explore it. That’s good, solid information that you probably should be using if it’s there to use,” he says.

If his dad were around to see it, John says he would be mystified by the volume of data available and used today, but he might well be proud of the relationship the ranch has built with its customer.

Terry Beller, one of the most passionate, caring cattle feeders you'll ever meet. — Terry Beller has relationships with ranchers all over the country. The kind he has with families like the Rileys are among his favorite parts of being in the business.

For close to two decades now, at the end of January, Terry comes up to Volborg, Mont., to take delivery of the Riley calves. Trust runs deep, so there’s no need to be on-site, but the Bellers wouldn’t miss it.

“It’s gotten to be a family getaway almost,” Terry says. “Our families have become close.”

They’ll keep up on milestone events, and say an extra prayer for each other when one’s needed. Then when it’s time to get down to business, they settle on a fair price.

“Over all the years, he calls me first,” Beller says. “I know when his cattle are coming. I plan on him and he plans on me.”

Steady.

“What price can you put on relationships like that?” Terry asks, and then answers, “You can’t.”

May your bottom line be filled with black ink,

Miranda

PS–Watch the Angus Journal later this year to see the rest of the Riley story.

Maternal instincts, predictable cattle

Some may take offense to comparing a herd of kids to fresh calves or a mom’s eye to maternal instincts, but I don’t think it’s out of line to say ‘fetal programming’ had a role in how each Loseke kid is developing a passion for the beef business.

All four were riding feedlot pens in utero; June jokes they came out of the womb ready to get to work. They cut their first teeth on steak and one even celebrated a young birthday with a steak-shaped, strawberry red cake. Family vacations involve road trips down far-away ranch roads and photos of all six standing in mountain pastures.

From her kitchen table, June recounts the vacations to me, and in the same breath, recalls the cattle that made the journey from those Montana ranches to their feedyard near Columbus, Neb., that year. She and Ryan discuss the pen they were in, the market prices they got, how they fed, any health issues they had and how quickly June caught it.

unspecified — The feedback on animal health, performance and carcass data, and the two way information flow have developed a partnership between the Keasters and Losekes.

“I think it’s the maternal side of her,” Ryan laughs. “She just knows. I honestly think she can identify a calf the day before it’s sick.”

“It’s just like being a student of your kids. You can’t discipline all four of these kids the same. You have to know them each individually,” June says. “It’s not just a black steer or another animal in another bunk line.”

Looking at Christmas cards on their farm refrigerator, we get back to following the calves I came to ask about: pen No. 4, full of Bruce Keaster’s heaviest steer calves and the first of three shipments from the Belt, Mont., family we introduced earlier this year. The March-born calves that weighed 675 on arrival in late October now lack only about 100 pounds of Ryan’s target finish of 1,400 pounds at 14 months of age.

Pen 4: the Keaster bunch, dipping into their rations.

At 147 days on feed, this pen experienced zero death loss, and less than 10% of the entire nearly 500 head were treated for health issues since their arrival.

“Bruce has done a good job of setting them up to perform well when they get here from a health standpoint and from a genetic standpoint,” Ryan says. “It’s more about management than anything you can find in a bottle.”

Now, they’re talking marketing and Ryan’s watching the Choice-Select spread to decide if he’ll sell on a grid. That day, there was an $8.03 premium for cattle that grade Choice over Select, just below the threshold he likes to see to balance the potential for marbling premiums with potential for yield grade discounts.

“It’s iffy. But having their consistency gives me the confidence to know we could grid them when the market’s right,” Ryan says.

Either way, their 20-year history gives the feeders confidence.

“When we get paid by the pound, Bruce’s steers just plain hang a heavier carcass. They’re not just deep in their rib, they’re wide across the front. If we put a saddle on those cattle, the cinch would have to be extra-long,” June smiles.

unspecified-3 — Friends and business partners take care of each other, and sometimes even a horse sent from Montana to Nebraska can illustrate that. (Although Flash isn’t in this picture, he’s part of that bigger picture.)

She pulls a cinch tight on Flash, the horse Bruce sent back to Nebraska on a cattle truck one year. He’s one of Ryan’s favorites.

“At his height, it’s hard to find a horse where Ryan’s feet aren’t dragging the ground from the saddle,” June says.

Of course, Bruce knows that – it’s just another way they take care of each other, along with predictable cattle, transparent management and an understood fairness that they’re both in this for the long haul.

“We sleep better knowing that’s the relationship with them, and I think they do, too,” June says.

Until next time,

Laura

PS – To catch up on our first installments about these calves, er, now steers from Montana, visit our previous ‘Following the Calves’ posts: Keaster family checks in, Friends and neighbors 1,000 miles away, and The Golden Rule in the Golden Triangle.

Travel to ranches in Oklahoma and South Dakota, too!

When the Plan B scores an A+

Before Mark Sebranek was a cattle feeder, he had a small cow-calf herd. He wanted to feed a load of cattle, get information back and capture more value from his genetic investment.

“I was another one of those that some people don’t want to mess with: the small guys,” Mark says, noting he never found an eager feeding partner. Although it might seem like a lifetime ago now, he didn’t forget.

Cattle feeder Mark Sebranek knows what cow-calf producers wonder about, because he was one.

Instead, when Mark took the lead at Irsik and Doll Feed Yard near Garden City, Kan., it propelled him to do more: more sorting, more communication, more watching out for the little guy.

That includes ranchers like Troy Hadrick of Faulkton, S.D.

In last week’s, “Following the Calves” update, we talked about the 2016-born calves making their way to Kansas, but what happens to their heifer mates?

“We retain most of our heifers. About 90% of them, we’ll give them a chance to breed,” the rancher says. After one round of artificial insemination (AI), he turns bulls out for one cycle before ultrasounding the females in August.

“We leave it up to those heifers, ‘Do you want to be a mama or not?’ We put a fair amount of reproductive pressure on those heifers to get bred,” he says. “It really sets up the rest of their career because they’re going to calve as early as anything in the herd that following year.”

When they don’t stick, Hadrick has a “Plan B.”

Last year, 23 open heifers shared a trailer with calves from another area ranch, arriving at Irsik and Doll on August 18.

“That way they can still make money, just in a different fashion,” Hadrick says.

The heifers were harvested in December, after gaining 4.83 pounds (lb.)/day and converting at 5.15 lb. feed/lb. of gain. They made 74% Certified Angus Beef ^® (CAB^®) brand and Prime, with 954 lb. average hot carcass weight (HCW).

These 2016-born steers made it to Irisk and Doll Feedyard just about a month after the heifers from the year before were harvested.

“At the end of the day, you have to pay the bank of Rome. That’s why I’ve always thought the total dollars per head is a very valuable number,” Mark says of the final analysis. These heifers gave up some yield grade discounts, “to help increase the dressing percent because the performance was so good,” he says, noting the quality grade was a bonus.

When Troy posted those results on his personal Facebook page, some wondered what’s the catch?

Print “We try to measure as many things as we can,” he says. Everything from an increasing pregnancy rate and ribeye area to a flat yield-grade trend and decreasing mature cow size tells him there have been no trade-offs. “All the numbers tell us that we haven’t really given anything up, but the trait that pays us a lot more at the end—marbling—has increased a lot.”

These kind of results are why the cattle feeder is happy to field questions from first-time customers and to work with ranchers of any size.

“You go through a lot of discussions with them about what you do with the information you get back, how we do stuff, how we sort,” Mark says. “There’s a lot of questions.”

But those questions, they lead to answers. In Troy’s case, they’re leading to pretty steep improvements.

Check back next month when we see how the next generation is shaping up during a calving season update to our series.

May your bottom line be filled with black ink,

Miranda

PS–To catch Troy’s story from the start, read “Rapid change,” “Proud to pass it on,” and “Not in South Dakota Anymore.”

You can also visit ranches in Oklahoma and Montana in our other “Following the calves,” series installments.

Tradition, innovation, loyalty and trust

Family tradition

Good people, good business

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