Not just a carcass program

“Are you patient?”

I asked Doug Stevenson as he and Sharon showed me around their Columbus, Mont., ranch. The way he half-smirked, thought for a mere second, then chuckled and glanced back at his wife, gave him away.

“Maybe I ought to let her answer that.”

Sharon’s response? A laugh that told me I hadn’t quite pegged the reason behind Basin Angus Ranch’s steady march toward raising bulls that are consistently in the top 10% for both $W and $B.

Then it hit me. Patient and disciplined aren’t always synonymous.

2017_05_mr_Basin Angus-97-4s — Together Doug and Sharon have raised three daughters and a whole bunch of high-quality Angus cattle on their ranch.

“Rather than going for extreme, we make sure the cattle do everything else right and then pick the best you can for the traits you’re trying to improve,” Doug says. “It’s been a long-term approach. We’ve been very fortunate to end up with some cattle that rank at levels that most people would call extreme on the carcass traits, but we didn’t do it by chasing the extremes.”

Methodical. That title fits.

A self-proclaimed “data freak,” Doug anxiously awaits the Friday morning American Angus Association updates each week.

He uses that and anything else available—like carcass data from cooperator herds and DNA testing nearly every head—to produce bulls that fit range environments, create females with staying power and steers with carcass quality worthy of premiums.

“We can’t give up on making a quality product,” Doug says. “The biggest increases we’re going to see in demand for Angus beef are all from areas where price of the product is a lot less important than quality of the product.”

As the sun went down over the Crazy Mountains, lighting the Absaroka and Beartooth ranges to the south in an orange glow, we talked about the most influential sires and dams in their program. I heard stories of growing up in the Judith Basin, raising three daughters on the ranch and about making hard decisions.

2017_05_mr_Basin Angus-123-6s — Don’t let the green grass fool you. Their little spot of paradise only gets about 12 inches of moisture in a year…a lot of that in the form of snow.

It was then that I knew these people were as good as the cattle I’d already heard so much about.

We talked about selling animals and the land that the family had worked so hard for—almost too hard—and how Doug anticipated a career in consulting. Then he saw that “last” crop of embryo calves in a cooperator herd, and it wooed him back to breeding some of the best.

“I realized I had what I’d been working my whole life for,” he says. “I knew we had some things that were going to be able to have a real impact in the breed.”

2017_05_mr_Basin Angus-391-5 — Calving season is Doug’s favorite time of the year. That’s when he can see if his breeding decisions worked out as intended.

I’m not patient by nature. Perhaps that’s why I look for that trait in others, to see if I can learn from them. But really, it’s life experiences like my trip to eastern Montana this spring that help me practice it.

It’s been almost five months since I jumped in the pickup and crisscrossed pastures looking for the perfect shots. I visited the family because they are our 2017 Seedstock Commitment to Excellence honoree, but I couldn’t share that tale with the world until they walked across our annual conference stage in Nashville to accept the award.

Doug and Sharon accepted their 2017 Seedstock Commitment to Excellence Award during the brand’s annual conference last month. Supply development director Justin Sexten (left) and president John Stika presented it.

As they did, I was proud of them. Not because I had anything to do with the Stevensons getting their moment in the spotlight, but because I got a small glimpse of all it took to get there.

Steady, methodical, unwavering commitment to excellence.

May your bottom line be filled with black ink,

Miranda

PS–Check out the October Angus Journal to get “the rest of the story.”

Commitment you recognize

Just when does the lifelong road to excellence start?

For some, it seems it’s inherited as easily as blue eyes or a deep voice. For others, there’s a turning point, some life-changing event that causes a seismic shift in the way they do business or live their lives.

I’m always looking for the clues as I chat with cattlemen and women who earn CAB honors. My summer story trips have included these “Commitment to Excellence” award winners for more than a decade, and even though they all share some traits—work ethics, smarts, tenacity—it seems the path to quality is different every time.

—

2012_07_12_mr_Schiefelbein Farms-118-22 — When the Schiefelbeins won the 2012 Seedstock Commitment to Excellence Award I started my day at their family meeting, seeing their teamwork in action. “Quality.” I heard it many times from each of the brothers, including Don who is pictured here.

When I visited the Schiefelbein family in 2012, they said it was a given.

“Dad always said, ‘If we’re in the beef business, we better raise good beef,’” says Angus breeder Don Schiefelbein. “He’s just been laser-focused on how do we produce efficient, great-tasting beef?”

So the eight brothers continued the tradition, using more technology and implementing marketing that would reward commercial customers for doing the same.

—

Cattleman John Moes, of Florence, S.D., is "always looking to try something new." — John Moes volunteered to be a real-life laboratory of sorts for the nearest land-grand university. They test breeding protocols and application of DNA technology on the commercial Angus producer’s herd.

In 2014, commercial cattleman John Moes said his dairy farm upbringing taught him the value of “sweat equity,” but it was a partnership with South Dakota State University that gave him the tools to make sweeping herd improvements in a shorter amount of time.

“You can’t just work hard to make a living anymore,” the cattlemen says, noting his widespread use of timed artificial insemination (AI) and DNA testing. “You also have to work smart.”

—

2010_6_18_mr_Triangle H-354 — Sam Hands and his brothers operate Triangle H, a diversified farming and feeding operation near Garden City, Kan.. He won the 2009 Feedlot Partner of the Year honors. (Today that is called the Feedyard Commitment to Excellence award.)

In 2009, Kansas cattle feeder Sam Hands talked about the way his father brought he and his brothers in as equal partners from the start.

“We’ve made errors along the way, but we learned from them and kept working to make it better,” he says, noting that the cattle enterprise has always been a way to add value to their farm-raised feedstuffs. That doesn’t mean they’re an afterthought.

“We’ve got a unique product— it can adjust to a lot of different environments, a lot of different feedstuffs, and still put out the most nutritious, most sought-after flavor, but the consumer is boss and we’ve got to keep that in mind,” he says.

—

Do you know somebody who has taken an interesting path to quality beef production? Perhaps they learned from the “school of hard knocks” or maybe they found quality as the only way to bring back the next generation? Maybe they’re your genetic supplier or your cattle feeder? Or if you’re in the registered business, it could be your customer.

We are currently accepting nominations for our 2017 Commitment to Excellence awards, along with one Progressive Partner award. Read this to find out more about qualifications, but do it fast—nominations close Friday.

I can’t wait to find out who I get to meet next.

May your bottom line be filled with black ink,

Miranda

Competition and carcass

Pulling up to the Davis family’s Angus operation I was in awe of all the Oklahoma State memorabilia on the front porch. Being a student at OSU, it made my heart swell and made me like this family from the start.

But let’s be real, after you meet them, you can’t help but like them.

Walking into their home reminded me of my own. There were cookies on the stovetop, paper records stacked on the table and a warm smile on Debbie Davis’s face. In a back room filled with show cattle accomplishments, I met up with Jim Davis and their daughter Jordan Cook and her family: husband Nocona and son Denton.

This family raises show cattle that are also carcass cattle, near Foss, Okla. While they are very “down to business,” they also light up at the opportunity to tell what they do every day.

Jim and Debbie set the stage for the family business philosophy, stressing a desire to raise quality cattle with “carcass and conformation without compromise.”

A foundation experience for them was the Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) brand’s Value Discovery Project, “back in the late eighties, early nineties,” Jim says. “I was all in for that. I enrolled three head of steers, met a truck in the parking lot of the local co-op at 3 a.m. and loaded these steers up on that truck. My wife asked me if I’d gone crazy, if I’d lost my mind.”

That was their first taste of feeding, and they fed a few at home over the years. Then when corn prices got high about eight years ago, the couple had a conversation about selling for a loss.

Jim remembers telling his wife, “Well, I guess I’ll haul them to the sale barn unless you can find a place to feed them.”

That was when Debbie discovered Buffalo Feeders and Tom Fanning.

“The next day or two, we loaded the little rascals up and away we go,” Jim says.

The calves went 100% Choice and 50% CAB, earning $150/head in premiums.

“I was all excited about that,” Jim says. “But Tom said the thing we should be excited about is those calves fed $150 cheaper than the average.”

That was one turning point for their cow herd.

Father-daughter combo, Jim and Jordan Davis learned all about the show ring together.

Another was when Jordan decided to show cattle. Always being a “numbers guy,” Jim went on a mission to produce cattle “pretty enough” for the ring, but right on the numbers to have carcass quality calves.

When I visited, the family reminisced about their show ring endeavors and what they learned, starting with heifer hair spray.

“I thought the more of the stuff you put on them the better it was,” Jim says, of their first year showing in Lawton, Okla. They marched a heifer into the ring only to see “her tail was glued to her leg, so when she walked her tail went with her leg.”

They can laugh now, but then they acted. They took a fitting class and won the whole deal the next year. Their travels took them from Reno and Indianapolis to Louisville and everywhere in between, competing in live animal shows and participating in events like in the CAB Cook-off.

Today, the Davis family focuses on raising bulls, but still save back a few show animals for customers. They rely on today’s available technology, excited to see where things progress from here with the next generation squarely involved.

There will be work, smiles and more stories to tell, Jim says. “We have fun. It’s not easy. If it was, everyone would be doing it.”

-Katie

Katie Alexander is a senior, majoring in agricultural communications at Oklahoma State University. She grew up in the show cattle business in western Oklahoma and credits her lifelong passion for animal agriculture to her parents and grandfather.

Angus Therapy

Besides a set of old scrapbooks that reveal a rich history in the Angus breed, Abbie Nelson’s table is tidy, well kept like the rest of the place.

“It’s not always this way,” she says of the family gathering spot, “especially not during breeding season. We AI all the cows and that’s always a big decision time.” Books sprawl across the table, dinner plates replaced by spreadsheets as precise detail goes into selecting Five Star Land and Livestock’s next outcross, determining their own coefficient, and so forth.“We want to generate cattle that will go into our customer’s commercial operations and increase the value of their herds,” Abbie says simply. That includes making genetic breeding decisions that will put progeny in line to hit CAB marks. “We hope to do our part in increasing the level of brand acceptance.”

“It’s an added benefit to our customer,” she says of the focus on quality and the subsequent dollars it can bring at harvest. “We look for high accuracy carcass EPDs, then of course we DNA all of our bulls with the Zoetis HD50K test.” They’ll ultrasound, too. When it comes to marbling, $W and $B EPDs, “way above average” sets the threshold.

An ideal cow has a minimum frame score of six. Quick to cull on problems with fertility, docility, “We like a big top with muscle expression, nice udders, good feet and legs,” Abbie says.“I do like pretty cattle,” she says. Years of showing hold too dear to her heart to ignore phenotype. “I’m not going to just breed off of paper. I want a bull to be attractive.”

Specifically designed for the California customer, the Nelsons have both spring and fall herds, but are steadily transitioning to just the latter. Calving ease is particularly important for fall calvers as customers tend to use a yearling bull purchased in September and turned out with heifers in November.

If it seems like too much detail, it’s actually to the contrary. Five Star’s just another example of a registered operation that enjoys getting down to the nitty gritty and sticks with the Angus breed because of it.“They’re my therapy,” Abbie says. “I love the decision making, the genetics, the indexes. ‘Is your eye as good as you thought it was,’ or ‘Is this mating backed up by pedigree and performance?’”

“I just love the ride,” she says as we gaze at the herd, the sun beginning to set.

Remember that good California light I was hoping to catch? I nearly missed it, but so be it when you start talking cattle.

Thanks for allowing me to tell your story,

Laura

PS – If you wonder how Mark and Abbie Nelson have time for all the decisions that come with maintaining a successful registered herd, that’s not all they do! Check out Friday’s post to see how they wear the “host” hat as well.

True grit with a grin

Grit.

I’ve never tossed the word around lightly. Like there are only so many available slots and I have 10 for a lifetime.

This summer I met Richard Tokach on his Angus ranch near St. Anthony, N.D. I shook his hand and I knew he had it.

North Dakota summers aren’t quite like its winters but as I stood atop the highest point of the family’s expansive land, I could picture it. The bitterness of the cold, the surprise of sudden storms, the helplessness that’s felt when man battles the elements.

You can see it in Richard, too. A cowman proud of what he’s accomplished and humbled by the lessons learned along the way.

“There’s certainly a lot more good times in the cattle business than the other side,” Richard says with a grin. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be any cattle ranchers.”

Richard and his brother Brad were born into the Angus world when their great-grandfather homesteaded the place in 1898. Nine years between them, the oldest and youngest of the Tokach boys partner in the seedstock operation their father, Dick, set in motion.

Marketing to customers young and old, the Tokaches boast in their cows’ ability to support a calf with little assistance. There’s no creep feeding at the ranch. Look out over the herd and you’ll notice a familiar toughness shared by their keeper.

“We can have cattle that survive a blizzard up here at 20 or 30 below, and the same cattle can stand 110 or 115 heat in the summer, and yet produce a great, high-quality product,” Richard says.

He’ll credit that to the genetics of the breed.

“Our job as seedstock producers is to multiply the better genetics, the superior genetics and pass them on to our customers and consumers.”

Adding on to their father’s foundation, the men took a herd of 225 in 1979 to 750 by the time Richard’s son Ben decided he, too, would accept the responsibility of generational cowman.

“I always say if you’re not growing or expanding, you’re going backward,” Richard says, “Every year we try to make our cattle better.”

That’s music to my CAB ears – an entire symphony when you hear longtime brand partner Terry Beller, Beller Feedlot, Lindsay, Neb., share that a recent closeout of Tokach culls achieved 85% CAB or CAB brand Prime.

“We’re producing a product that other people are going to eat and we keep that in mind every day,” Richard says. “Every step we take along the way has been to make sure that we produce something quality.”

Through storm or celebration, it seems that’s the attitude that will endure another century in the business.

Thanks for allowing me to tell your story,

Laura

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

To raise cattle for over 33 years with someone, you’ve got to love what you do and who you do it with.

Kathleen and Bob Buchanan along with the “Kindergarten Crew” (aka their border collies) don’t just love it, they live for it.

“We make it work,” says Kathleen. “It’s a lifestyle, it’s a love. You have to love the cattle, the good, the bad and the ugly.”

“But you don’t have to own the bad and the ugly!” finishes her husband.

These Klamath Falls, Oregon, producers have strayed away from the bad and the ugly cattle. Instead they raise Angus seedstock that perform for their customers helping them earn Certified Angus Beef^® premiums and grades better than 70% Choice.

Kathleen and Bob describe themselves as “hands on” and “micromanagers.” In order to serve their customers and bottom line the best they can, they are meticulous about each part of their operation.

“Anybody in the industry has access to the same AI sires that we do,” says Bob. “So what has to set us apart is our cow herd, our selection and our management.

(And as a West coast girl, I’ll say that Western hospitality doesn’t hurt one bit, either.)

That’s why this couple travels across the nation to select their herd sires, involved in every step of each animal’s life from selecting the genetics to dropping them off at the customer’s house.

With the Kindergarten Crew tagging along, they feed their own bulls and manage their annual sale so as to be involved in every step of the process from AI to turnout.

“We want to be responsible for everything along the chain,” says Bob.

A reputation for honesty in their product, genetic performance and a sale that exudes “Western hospitality” has kept some customers coming back for more than 30 years.

Their customers who look for thickness, easy keepers, marbling and maternal traits are supplied by a husband-and-wife team who concentrate on breeding cattle that grow to make quality carcasses.

“If we had a mission statement it would be to raise cattle that are good for the industry and good for the breed,” says Kathy.

It’s that mission that has helped them sort through the good, the bad and the ugly to provide their customers with quality Angus seedstock today.

Until next time,

Nicole

Exponential Impact

What do you get when a researcher and a CPA decide to buy 6 registered Angus cows?

Well twenty years later Trevor and Torri Lienemann of Princeton, Neb., have four kids, a 300-cow seedstock operation and lots and lots of data.

It was the numbers that Trevor had never been able to see before in cattle that helped them quickly multiply their cowherd. The more he learned about cattle, the more their operation grew until 2008 he quit the day job to become a full-time, first-generation cattle rancher.

“Being called the business breed and being a CPA, the two meshed very well,” says Torri.

Not having a background in Angus or cattle, Trevor became a student of the business and the breed. Once he learned something he yearned to share it with his bull customers. But not until the data had been verified, of course.

While he says they were in their “rookie season” for the first 10 years, Trevor longed to be able to feed out his cattle to validate his ultrasound data. When corn reached $7 per bushel he took the plunge and started a customer buyback program.

His commitment to numbers paid off. His first group of fed cattle earned 65% Certified Angus Beef^® acceptance, and his customer-bought cattle earned 35% CAB with the whole group grading 100% Choice.

A seedstock producer who concentrates on the end product, Trevor works hard to help his customers maintain the same vision.

“We work to help our commercial guys realize that their customer isn’t the sale barn where they deliver their cattle; their customer is the consumers in the grocery store and the retail outlets for beef,” says Trevor.

The buyback program brings it full circle for this family. Trevor admits that if he could collect data on the eating quality of the steaks his cattle produce, he would gladly apply that to his herd selections, too.

“We realize our effect on the industry is exponential through our bull sales. When you start doing the math on selling 50 bulls a year that will breed 25 cows per year and last about four years, you are starting to effect a lot of individual carcasses out there,” says Trevor.

“And a lot of eating experiences, too,” his daughter Maci adds.

What started with just six cows, now affects an immeasurable number of meals – and the Lienemanns are working hard to make sure those eating experiences are top quality.

Until next time,

Nicole

For more about the Lienemanns, check out future editions of the Angus Journal.

Competing with quality

CAB honors Vermilion Ranch for Commitment to Excellence

by Miranda Reiman

From the bright lights and shining hardwood of a basketball court to the cedar shavings of an auction ring, if there’s one ideal Pat Goggins believes in, it’s competition.

Growing up the youngest of six boys born to sharecroppers can do that. It could come from his love of athletics or his early start as one of the most sought-after purebred auctioneers in the country, but whatever gave him that drive, the result is somewhat of an empire around a Billings, Mont., base.

At the center is the Vermilion Ranch, where adding value to customer cattle helped earn the 2013 Seedstock Commitment to Excellence Award at the Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) brand annual conference in Palm Desert, Calif., Sept. 18-20.

Many in the cattle business know the Goggins family story. Pat went to college on a basketball scholarship, graduated with an animal science degree and married Florence “Babe” Becker 62 years ago. They scraped by for many years while he worked as a field man and later as a self-taught auctioneer. That was all before purchasing the Western Livestock Reporter, three Montana auction markets and then the Vermilion Ranch.

Just east of Billings this place would be the Goggins patriarch’s real foray into the Angus breed.

“They were discriminated against for a lot of years,” Pat says, even though the former Vermilion Ranch owner with Herefords used to buy all the black cattle coming through Public Auction Yards (PAYS). “The black-hided cattle just out-gained and outperformed, whether you had them for breeders or for feeders.”

And today they command a premium, but Pat says it’s about reputation.

“Performance testing and EPDs [expected progeny differences] are meaningful and people are paying attention,” he says. “And they should because there is a difference within the breed of Angus cattle.”

Traveling the country to sell at purebred sales and sitting in his own sale-ring bleachers gave Pat a solid idea for “the look” he wanted: clean and long, with good muscle expression.

“He saw lots of cattle. He knew cattle, and he knew what he wanted and that’s never changed,” says Bob Cook, who married Coreen, the eldest Goggins daughter, and manages PAYS and many activities at the ranch.

Today, Pat’s twin sons, Joe and John, have the opportunity evaluate a large number of cattle and specific bloodlines through their work: Joe as popular cattle auctioneer and John as publisher of the family’s paper, the Western Ag Reporter.

They add their expertise as they continue to hone the herd that started with 200 pairs purchased from the Ross Ranch near Jordan, Mont., in 1968. Today they market nearly 7,000 registered and commercial Angus cattle in the annual spring and fall production sales.

“Dad always beat it into our heads on the seedstock side of things, that you can’t upgrade,” says Joe. “You’ve got to start with the very best ones and you don’t cheat on the bulls. He always said you might buy a used pickup, buy a used tractor—cheat where you can—but don’t cheat on your bull and your cowherd.”

The breeding has followed that plan all along, from Oscar to Right Time and VRD, to name a few.

“If we’re going to use an outside bull, we want to breed at least 100 cows to him,” Cook says. “If we’ve got enough confidence to select a bull, we’re going to breed him to at least 100 cows.”

Quality is always a key. Cook worked for the American Angus Association when CAB was just coming in. “There’s been hundreds of brand programs for the last 35, 40 years, but there’s only one that has kept quality its No. 1 criteria. That’s the one reason CAB has prevailed, and that’s why we maintain a high-quality standard.”

Vermilion cattle have changed over time, but customers still come expecting the same things.

Spencer Cooney, of Harlowton, Mont., is a third-generation Vermilion customer. His family’s Cooney Brothers Ranch has built up the predictability in their herd through half-sibling bulls.

“We always strived to have as high quality, functional cattle as we could,” Cooney says. “My grandfather always wanted quality and bought quality bulls, so when my dad started buying it was the same deal.”

Now Cooney and his brother Cavan have begun to source the genetics for the large straightbred Angus herd, and they’re sticking with tradition. For the past couple of decades, they’ve sold much of their calf crop to Goggins.

“A lot of people in the business offer marketing opportunities,” Cook says. “But we’re a little more unique because we’ll buy a lot of cattle from our customers. We own them.”

That enterprise became a key as properties were added in the 1990s, starting with the Diamond Ring Ranch near Miles City, Mont. The 50,000-acre spread is used for backgrounding calves purchased mainly from customers. Cattle are typically resold as part of January’s Diamond Ring Sale, which included 40,000 Angus-influenced steers this year.

At their Pryor Creek Ranch, the family also develops 2,300 commercial and 500 registered heifers.

“We really get a good handle on how our cattle are doing for our customers and how they feed and finish,” Pat says. So it’s a symbiotic relationship: the family gets a snapshot of how bulls work out in the country and commercial ranchers have an outlet for their calves. Those services help build long-lasting relationships, too.

“Because we’re in the auction business and we’re in the video business and we’re in the newspaper business, it’s all part of being in the people business,” Cook says.

The family credits their various industry successes to Pat’s vision and that core philosophy.

“Breeding cattle is a lot like playing a ball game,” Joe says. “There’s a competitiveness to it. The businesses that we’ve really thrived in all have to do with competition.”

Here in the real world

Sometimes I hear commercial cattlemen discussing seedstock producers like they’re some elite class of uber-rich that don’t have to adhere to the same fiscally conservative practices most of the rest of the folks in production ag do.

I’ve also heard talk of how they baby their cattle and that they just “don’t get” what it’s like to be a commercial rancher.

I’ve spent time on registered ranches. Sometimes they have nicer fences or cleaner machine sheds, their places a little showier, but quite often I don’t think you’d be able to tell by looking if they were raising bulls or feeder steers. I’ve also heard many of them talk about their share of tough times and scraping by.

I draw from my boots-on-the-ground experience with today’s falsehood:

Myth: There aren’t any seedstock producers who know what it’s really like raising cattle in the real world.

Fact: Sure some producers are tunnel focused on the bull market, but a great many take great interest in all other segments of the beef business.

The Klausmeyers: a few of the consigners (the winners, in fact) in this year’s Kansas Carcass Data Project.

Take the Kansas Angus Association members. They recently wrapped up their Carcass Data Project where nine breeders co-mingled 79 calves to feed at McPherson Co. Feeders.

“This was kind of a learning experience,” said one consigner of his first shot at some firsthand feeding knowledge. “A good chance to compare with other good cattle,” said another.

Earlier this summer I was at Schiefelbein Farms in Minnesota, where they not only raise bulls, but also feed out calves.

“It also elevates your knowledge base,” says Don.

Between balancing rations and grid marketing they’re deeply entrenched in the same issues that a feedlot is. They know real-world and that helps direct their breeding program.

2007_6_mr_Downey Ranch-2 — Downey Ranch Inc. knows about commercial cattle: it was their first source of income and continues to be a large part of their operation.

Still, a big handful of breeders are also in the commercial business. When I visited with Barb Downey at the Downey Ranch in Kansas a few years back, we mainly talked about her commercial herd.

“We started this commercial cow herd with the emphasis from the start on trying to produce higher-quality beef. We were already keeping the kind of records that you’d need, and we had established a real firm idea of what we wanted in our seedstock. We have a very grounded idea as to what’s important to a commercial man in our area, because that’s what we are.”

So many places I’ve been to, they talked about treating their cows just like any commercial cattle. They followed the same breeding season, no second chances for under-performers. Some might run a few more cows through a calving barn, but they’re still tied to making a profit. That’s a universal motivator. It’s good for their bottom line to see what makes yours.

As Danny Schiefelbein said, “Our whole goal is for them to be in the business a long time and the only way they can do that is to do it a profitable way.”

May your bottom line be filled with black ink,

Miranda

Schiefelbeins divide labor, unify purpose

“My main job is to keep the boys happy, the daughters-in-law happy and my wife happy. That’s a full time job right there.”

2008_6_20_Schiefelbein Farms -2 — Frank Schiefelbein II, Schiefelbein Farms patriarch

Frank Schiefelbein II told me that four years ago when I visited his family’s Angus seedstock farm near Kimball, Minn. And although he said it half joking, there must be a bit of truth to that.

I thought about harvest time at my family’s house and the coordination it took to have the right people in the right field at the right time. How in the world do they do it with eight sons and their wives, and more than 30 grandkids?

Fast forward. Just a few weeks ago I got to take in a Schiefelbein family meeting—or maybe I should call it the Schielfelbein morning chat. Meeting sounds awfully formal…..but then again, there is plenty of business to discuss.

What price should they lock in for beet pulp? How is the slat barn addition coming along? Did Tim really just buy a couple hundred head of feeder calves at that price?

2012_07_12_mr_Schiefelbein Farms-6-1 — The morning meet up at the Schiefelbein Farm

After they all talk over the comings and goings for the day and give input on the bigger picture, they disperse. Each brother has a job, from managing risk and futures to crop farming to cattle feeding. I took a tag-team tour of the farm—Danny showed me the carefully mated herd, Tim pulled up carcass data on his computer screen, Frank III explained the new feedlot setup, Don talked about the future direction. In the pickup/office/pasture conversations, one thing rang out.

Each one of “the boys” knows their job and they do it well. Bob oversees the crops, Tom is the head mechanic, and so on.

Yet, they don’t function independently. They all vote on the AI sires they’ll use. They take turns once every three nights pulling overnight shifts in the calving barn.

Everybody knows that it’s about the end product. Don says his father’s Twin Cities upbringing, formed his simple, but sturdy philosophy: “From day one, dad always said, ‘If we’re in the beef business, we better raise good beef.’”

And that’s how Tim was able to show harvest data on customer cattle that reached 40%, 50%, 60% Certified Angus Beef brand and Prime.

So that’s the family secret for making it all work. Shared vision.

Seems like the beef industry could take this message from the Schiefelbeins to heart: everybody has a job to do (think cow-calf, stocker, feeder), and they do it well, but all with the ultimate goal (beef) in mind.

May your bottom line be filled with black ink,

Miranda

Not just a carcass program

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

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CAB honors Vermilion Ranch for Commitment to Excellence

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Here in the real world

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