Core Principles
all cattle are run on large summer and winter pastures, pushing their need for overall structural soundness.
Structural Soundness:
all heifers follow a timed AI protocol at 55% of their mature body weight forcing only the most fertile to cycle, followed by a short exposure to bulls for no more than 45 days. This allows for animals with lower fertility to be culled from the program at a young age. Cows are limited to a 63-day exposure window.
Fertility:
the longevity of a commercial cow herd is directly related to the operation’s profit. Our data collection process allows us to critically examine the overall differences in longevity among our genetics lines and allows us to make strict culling decisions.
Longevity:
every female is given a score for udder structure and for teat size directly after calving, this allows us to eliminate females with poor quality udders. It also allows us to identify bulls that offer maternal traits. Before a sire is used in the herd, the dame and paternal grand dam are evaluated to ensure that their udders are of the highest quality. We have been collecting udder scores on all our females in both our purebred and commercial herds for 20 years. This has allowed us to make strict and objective culling decisions.
Maternal Traits:
cows should not only survive in harsh environments but they should be able to thrive. From weaning to calving, our purebred cow herd is co-mingled with out large commercial cow herd. While together, they spend the winter extensively grazing crop residues, followed by swath grazing in the spring before calving on large stubble fields.
Do-Ability:
selection for docility is continuous, removing any hard to handle or wild animals from the program.
Temperament:
this is one of the newest traits we have been selecting for. In order to maintain a profitable cow herd, input costs must be reduced. With feed being the largest component of a herd’s input costs, selecting for feed efficiency allows us to reduce these costs without compromising performance of our cattle.
Feed Efficiency:
cows and calves are run in large contemporary groups from birth through weaning and maintained in the same groups until they are yearlings. This allows for direct comparison of performance while removing any influence of environmental factors. Cow weights are recorded on a yearly basis, allowing for selection of high growth animals while maintaining a moderate cow size.
Performance:
in an effort to improve lean muscle yield and carcass weights, all sale bulls are ultrasound for ribeye area, marbling and backfat. In addition to this we finish all of our cull bulls and heifers, as well as commercial steers and heifers, collecting their carcass data from the packer. We also collect carcass data from our bull buyers’ calves.
Carcass Characteristics: