Details

Last Updated on Tuesday, 28 July 2009 03:17

Written by Jennifer Womack

Lingle — When the opportunity arose to test bulls for efficiency — how well they convert feed to pounds — Larry Morrison of 7X Ranches near Lingle welcomed the news. “You’ve got to work at it,” he says of improving feed efficiency, “but it’s one that has an actual dollar value.”
    Testing bulls at the Midland Bull Test and with the Wyoming Beef Cattle Improvement Association (WBCIA) test since the late 1990s, Morrison was already watching the numbers as they related to his cattle. Larry doesn’t have cattle on test with WBCIA this year, but his long-time involvement with the program and his commitment to quality seedstock production have earned him recognition as the WBCIA’s seedstock producer of the year.
    Raising show cattle and working as an airline pilot from Washington State, Larry and his family have a long history in the cattle business. When Larry, a Wyoming native and a University of Wyoming alumnus, returned to the state in 1996 he purchased a farm and ranching operation near Lingle. He also began the change from show cattle to seedstock production.
    A few year’s back when Larry came down with West Nile Virus, he asked his son Wayne to return to the family operation. He and his wife Carol have two other children who live in Texas. Wayne says he was glad to return to the family ranch.
    Establishing a family trust, Larry says there are educational and other requirements members of the family must meet before returning to the ranch. “You should always have goals,” comments Larry not just talking about his cattle, but life in general. “Once you have a goal you can talk about what you need to do to get there.”
    “I researched what bloodlines would work on what we had,” says Larry. “I got started with a Traveler bull. It’s a bloodline that’s worked very well for us. Most everything we have has 6807 in it.”
    “We can walk up to almost any cow out there,” Larry says of the 7X Ranch’s focus on docility. “If I need to pick up a calf and take it someplace I don’t have to worry about the cow.”
    The ranch collects its own bulls and then artificially inseminates the heifers and the cows. “We were starting to get strung out on our calving season,” says Wayne. “When you’re the night calver, that’s not any fun.” Beyond a goal to shorten calving season Wayne explains, “The bull that cleans up is the same bull the semen came from.” For paperwork reasons he says it makes it easier to determine sires.
    Larry says they choose high-quality bulls to add to their program. “On these bulls we buy we’ve competed with some of the AI people who have bid on them as well,” he says. This past year he says they used Rito Prime 1I5 in exchange for sending on of their bulls to Texas for the breeding season. “Rito Prime has been in the AI catalogs,” says Larry. Happy with the calves, he says, “We’ll go ahead now and bring one of our own bulls back in. It’s nice to have an animal out there that’s a sire when someone comes to look at the calves.”
    The top end of 7X Ranch’s bull calves go to test at Midland. The remainder sell via private treaty at the ranch. Larry says they only sell their best bull calves.
    With one of the top performing bulls through the second weigh-in at Midland last year, Larry laughs, “He must not have drank water the day the last weights were taken.” Despite the fact he fell back in ranking, he was still among the top-selling bulls at the test. Larry says with their cattle numbers increasing that they plan to participate in additional tests in the coming years.
    Wayne sees the information they receive on efficiency, based on a GrowSafe system that measures individual feed intake, becoming broader and increasingly more important. “They’re finding out that the big, punchy, chunky one might not be the one eating the most feed,” he says.
    “Efficient animals will always be popular,” says Wayne of their commitment not to chase fads. “Nobody wants to feed any more than they have to. Going forward we’re going to maintain the line.”
    “If you chase a fad,” says Larry, “you’ve lost what you’ve accomplished.”
    “You’ll see the fads go up and down and hopefully we’ll be right in the middle,” says Wayne. “There’s a lot to be said for staying the course.”
    Cows returning to the herd are an equal, if not sometimes greater, part of the plan to reach the goals they’ve set for the 7X Ranch cattle. Larry and Wayne spend a lot of time studying bloodlines, performance records and any bits of information that might aid in their goal to produce increasingly better cattle.
    “When I look at the production of the dam I want to see the calving interval, what their ratio was with the rest of the herd and just how much performance they’ve brought on,” says Larry. “This is a maternal breed. I spend a lot more time on the dams than the bulls sometimes. You can go back into those pedigrees and see what all of them have done over time.”
    He says he’d like to see more sale catalogs with in-depth information. “When they don’t have a full pedigree, it’s awful hard to make a decision on that.”
    Larry says that Wayne is beginning to take over the operation. “This is always something I’ve enjoyed doing,” says Wayne. “When we were five years old we got our first cow. At five you do what you can, but pretty soon that developed into a show animal. I didn’t have a skateboard, but I really enjoyed this kind of lifestyle.”
    Larry says he’ll still be watching over Wayne’s shoulder. There’s little chance, however, he’ll need to stress his belief in testing. Wayne’s likely to continue. “It’s a snapshot of where you’re at,” says Wayne, “and provides you the information to go forward.”
    Jennifer Womack is managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Details

Last Updated on Monday, 06 December 2010 08:23

Written by Christy Martinez

Bridger Valley – In the first year of his four-year term on the Board of Directors for the American Hereford Association, Hereford producer Dale Micheli of Bridger Valley says the experience has been both interesting and frustrating.
“Some things are pretty good for the Hereford business right now. Demand is up, and there are a couple of exciting studies on heterosis,” says Micheli of research initiated by the Angus breed. “We cooperated with those studies, which show a benefit for black baldie females throughout their lives.”
Micheli says Hereford bulls are selling well this fall, particularly in the eastern and southern U.S. “We were a little slower going to black cattle in the west, and maybe we’ll be a little slower going back to black baldies,” he notes, adding that some of the south’s interest in Herefords is a Hereford/Brahma cross. “They’re really popular down there, and are selling really well. A friend of mine sold two $9,500 bulls to a Brahma outfit there, and those kinds of things are exciting.”
The Certified Hereford Beef Board oversees the Certified Hereford Beef (CHB) brand, and Micheli is a part of that leadership. “That’s been a little disappointing,” he says. “Business all the way around is a little disappointing, because there are cheaper proteins available.”
The CHB Board works with staff on promotions and developing new products, like the recent Western Ranchero – a marinated Spanish line that Micheli says is selling well.
“We have two packers that slaughter and cerfity the carcasses, and there’s an online CHB, from which anyone can order, and we have several stores and distributors with the CHB brand,” he explains, adding that black baldies can go into either the Certified Angus Beef (CAB) or the CHB programs – they qualify for both.
Micheli is also a part of the Breed Improvement Committee, which he says is another exciting aspect of today’s Hereford breed.
“There’s excitement, but also frustration with genomics and DNA markers,” he says. “Some companies are getting ahead of the game, and selling packages to breeders for genetic improvement, even when there’s no accuracy. We’re not finding consistency for marbling and other traits we already have some EPDs for, but they’re selling them to breeders, and the accuracy is around .0006.”
However, he says the Hereford Association is heavily involved, and he thinks Hereford genetics have a great future. “We have more testing on individual cattle than anyone else, but there’s nothing yet to suggest we have enough accuracy to count on. We’re still doing research and gathering data.”
Micheli says the association’s goal is to have data on every walking herd sire. “We’re asking breeders to send in samples to gather information,” he notes. “If we could find a marker for cancer eye, for example, and eliminate that slight problem in Herefords, that would be great. But for right now, the accuracy is so low and they haven’t found enough common ground yet.”
In addition to his committees, Micheli says the Show and Sale Committee does a lot of work, as well as the association’s Marketing Committee. The association spent three days in Kansas City, Mo. last spring to develop a strategic plan for the next five years.
“We brought in outside help and other breeders to brainstorm and come up with a good plan for the next five years,” says Micheli, who will again head to the 2010 annual meeting the day after the Micheli Ranch’s bull sale in late October.
“The board is made up of a really good bunch of guys, and you’ve got to appreciate them,” he says. “They’re all producers, but one is an attorney, another is a retired three-star general who owns a few cows and is very smart, and another breeder used to sell tires as a huge distributor, so there’s diversity to the board.”
Micheli says he’s attended the Hereford Association’s annual meeting off and on for 30 years, but he’s only been in leadership since he was elected to the board in November 2009. He’ll serve his four years on the 12-man board, which replaces three members each year. He says being elected to the board was a nerve-wracking experience. “I had to give two speeches in front of 500 people, telling them why I was better than the other guy,” he recounts.
In addition to face-to-face meetings, Micheli says he participates in conference calls generally twice a month – one for the whole board and one for CHB.
“Marketing is always the biggest issue,” he says. “I feel like our job as a board is to help the association help our membership sell their cattle, and to get the market share back that we have lost in the Hereford business. The Angus people have done a good job, especially with CAB. They are, by far, the biggest branded product, and there are 40 different Angus lines. We are the second biggest branded program, but Angus just trained sales staff and sent out 300, and we have four or five.”
“My grandfather started with Hereford cattle in 1917, and we’ve had them ever since,” says Micheli of his personal involvement with the breed. “I’m very partial to them, have grown up with them and love them. They’ve been awful good to us, and we still sell our Herefords very well, but not as many as we used to.”
Micheli’s grandfather also started the Southwest Hereford Association, and the family sold their bulls at the Kemmerer sale for years before starting their own sale at the ranch in 1988.
“We prefer their attitudes and disposition,” says Micheli of the breed. “That’s the number one thing. Nothing, no matter what they say about any other breed, can compare to the dispositions of the Hereford. Very rarely will we get a bad Hereford. They’re easy to handle, and they’re good cattle.”
“When we were on top of the world, we were probably guilty of not being hard enough on the bottom end. Probably the best thing that has happened to us is that we’ve had to be very selective, and as a result the Hereford breed has made great strides in quality,” says Micheli, who says he sees the breed’s comeback happening by region. “We’ve seen demand pick up, and we’ll see here in a couple weeks at our own sale. The Angus are still very popular, and they will be, but most herds across America are now black, and they need to look at crossbreeding for black baldie females. There are not enough black baldies out there, and you can about name your price right now. That’s a benefit to us. In our experience with desert cattle, I think that’s still the best cow out there.”
Micheli says he’s pleased that George Oschner and Marvin Berry were nominated for the Hereford Hall of Fame during his term on the board. The two Wyoming producers will be inducted into the hall of fame in November at the annual meeting.
“It is a big honor, and they’re good people, both of them. I’m tickled that it happened while I was on the board, they’re very deserving,” he says.
Of serving on the board, Micheli says, “It’s a real honor, and something I wanted to do. As I watched, I thought I’d like to be involved, help out and do what I can to promote the Hereford breed. I don’t have an agenda – I just want to promote the Hereford cattle that I love.”
Christy Martinez is managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Details

Last Updated on Tuesday, 28 July 2009 03:18

Written by Jennifer Womack

Casper — “Get educated or get educated,” says Garret Falkenburg of one of the many rules by which he and his wife Shelly operate their ranch south of Douglas. “It’s easier to learn on your own terms because the other way hurts,” he explains.
    “Getting educated” — Garret’s quest for knowledge — is one aspect of what earned him recognition as the Wyoming Beef Cattle Improvement Association’s Commercial Producer of the Year. Willing to consider new ideas and opportunities, he’s a participant in the Wyoming Business Council’s source and age verified program, he retained ownership on his heifers through harvest this past year and has gathered valuable data to help improve his herd.
    Returning to the family ranch after high school, Garret says he and his father operated the ranch as a spring calving operation, selling calves in the fall. In 1983 they changed part of their spring-calving herd of Black Angus to a fall calving program to address scours. In 1986, with the help of his parents, Garret and Shelly bought an adjoining ranch, which is very suited for summer calving. Garret has since moved all of his cows over to summer calving.
    “In the beginning we used to calve from July into August, but have since moved to June and July with weaning as early as December,” says. “In the early years we used to haul the calves, leaving the cows at another place. After weaning, the calves were fed whole second cutting on the ground and grain in a bunk, and ran on a meadow. Not liking the results, I built a feedrack to feed ground hay and hold calves a little more in confinement. I was trying to put on ‘average daily gain’ instead of ‘day of age.’ In one year, selling weights were 100 pounds heavier,” says Garret. Fenceline weaning, says Garret, has also improved the health of his calves.
    “They’re weaned in half the time,” he says. “It contains the shrink,” he explains of the system where the calves are fed in bunks adjacent to a pasture that holds the cows. Coupling that with nutritional advice from Jack Settlemire with Ranchway Feeds, he says the calves are not on feed, they are on a balanced ration.
    After sorting heifer calves to determine which ones will re-enter the herd, this past year Garret retained ownership on the remaining heifers and fed them out with Decatur County Feedyards in Kansas. Healthy animals, aided by the benefits of fenceline weaning, are a tremendous value according to Garret. “Sickness in the feedyard costs you three ways. It costs $18 per trip each time one of my animals had to be doctored. It also reduces returns in lower feed conversion. If they’re doctored once they may not drop a grade, but run them through more than once and you are guaranteed to go from choice to select,” he says.
    Garret says he learned a lot from the data from his heifers. For one, he says he needs to address the size of the ribeyes in his cattle. Hanging, he says, the expectation is 1.1 square inches per 100 pounds of hot carcass weight.
    “When the cattle don’t meet industry standards, you take a deduction. You don’t have anyone to blame but yourself. If that isn’t incentive enough to change your cattle, I don’t don’t what is, He who took a hit was the one who needed to,” he laughs. “We learned so much. Producers live in this cocoon and do not understand feed or the kill side of the business.” Garret says he’s learned a great deal after feeding out this first pen and sees new opportunity for improving his cattle from a new, more end-product-oriented viewpoint.
    Garret hopes the market dynamics will allow him to retain ownership again this year. He uses a program on the Risk Management Agency’s website that predicts returns on feeder cattle. If it isn’t showing a profit on retained ownership, he says he’ll sell them as feeders.
    Regardless of this year’s outcome, he’s still planning to add an “under the hide” component to selecting this year’s replacement stock. Dr. Steve Paisley, Extension Beef Specialist with the University of Wyoming and a certified ultrasound technician, will be ultrasounding Garret’s heifers. The size of their ribeyes, says Garret, will be a factor in which ones he keeps.
    The ultrasound information will build on the foundational program through which he’s kept an eye on structural soundness, a good udder and muscling. “Now we’re going to have a look under the hide,” he says. “Up until now it’s been cosmetic. This is one more tool to make a better end product.”
    “I used to look at weaning weight, yearling weight and milk EPDs on bulls for the cows, plus birthweight on bulls for the heifers,” says Garret. “Now I’m thinking I don’t care if he’s an ugly bull if his calves hang well.” Garret says he’s seeking out seedstock producers who offer additional carcass information as he plans to make his future bull purchases.
    Another change Garret plans to make is keeping his heifers longer before sending them to the feedyard. It’s a move he hopes will bring his cost of gain down. It may also help increase ribeye size as the cattle will have more time to develop a muscle base before being put on a gain ration. Last year Garret says his heifers gained an average 3.65 pounds per day at Decatur County Feedyards.
    Plus he says, “Days on feed equal days at risk” in terms of animal health. He doesn’t, however, want to push the timeline too far and not have the cattle harvest ready prior to the 20 months old threshold set by the Japanese market.
    By participating in the Wyoming Business Council’s source and age verified program with John Henn, Garret says he saw a $25 per head premium on the first bunch of his fat heifers that went to harvest and $40 on the last half. Decatur County Feedyard uses a unique program through which fat cattle are sorted into pens of “days to finish” instead of by ownership.
    “There’s a rainbow at the end if you can get there,” says Garret of the opportunities he sees in retained ownership. Premium opportunities, he says, exist through programs like Certified Angus Beef and on the choice to select spread. It’s also brought a new challenge and opportunity to ranching.
    Garret and Shelly’s son Mitch – a student at Eastern Wyoming Community College – has also brought a touch of retained ownership to the ranch. Selling fat beef to area customers, he’s established a healthy clientele. Garret says it has proven to be a value added outlet for open heifers and another place to gather data off of his cattle. Mitch will receive a welding degree and a beef certificate from EWC this spring and plans to further pursue his education studying meat science at the University of Wyoming.
    Garret serves on the Wyoming Stock Growers Association Board of Directors as well as the Converse County Weed & Pest board. Shelly, who teaches fourth grade in Douglas, is a member of the Wyoming Agriculture in the Classroom Board and serves on the local Conservation District Board.
    Jennifer Womack is managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Details

Last Updated on Thursday, 16 December 2010 15:58

Written by Heather Hamilton

Billings, Mont. – The Northern International Livestock Exposition (NILE) Merit Heifer program is a project designed to help youth get started in the beef cattle business through awarding heifer calves to project participants, says NILE Merit Heifer Committee member Amanda Moore.
“Think of is as a live animal scholarship,” Moore says. “Any youth that is 13 to 17 years old as of Sept. 15, and a 4-H or FFA member may enter. Project participants are selected on the basis of merit, need, future goals and ability to care for the animal.
“Each participant will own their calf jointly with NILE until the completion of the program, at which time NILE officials will sign off and the participant will take full ownership of the heifer and her offspring,” explains Moore.
For the first year, participants are responsible for raising the heifer, arranging for her to be bred, completing a record keeping procedure and bringing the animal back to show at the NILE one year later as a bred replacement heifer. The program is completed after the heifer is determined bred, all record keeping has been completed and the heifer has been shown at the NILE Stock Show.
Producers donate all heifers, and participants rank which breed of heifer they prefer.
“They give you three choices, and put down Black Angus, Hereford and Red Angus. I looked into other heifers that kids were getting through the program, and saw some really nice Black Angus and Hereford heifers, so I put those as my top two choices,” says 2011 Merit Heifer recipient Morgan Flitner of Greybull. She received a Hereford heifer donated by Beery Land and Livestock of Montana.
Flitner heard about the program from two of her older friends who also received heifers through the program.
“I thought it was an interesting and fun opportunity to show at the Wyoming State Fair and the NILE, so I talked to them and decided to apply,” explains Flitner. “I have two Angus cows that I run with my dad’s, and this is heifer is my first step toward a registered Hereford herd.”
“The best part so far was getting the letter in the mail. It was really exciting,” notes Flitner, who was a couple weeks out from selecting a heifer at press time. “I’ve talked to the people who donated the heifer and they were really happy with the program and liked it. They said they’ve had a great time with the kids they’ve given heifers to already,” she adds.
“I’ve always had an interest in youth, and we’ve always enjoyed the NILE and were founding members of it. We decided it was a good way to go several years ago,” says Padlock Ranch CEO Wayne Fahsholtz of Ranchester, of donating heifers to the Merit Heifer program.
“Once we get a name from the NILE we get in contact with each other and talk about goals and plans and set up a time for them to come and select a heifer,” explains Fahsholtz. “We give them the choice of any heifer they want. We’ve found it easier to choose between 10 and 12 heifers, and we have them penned for the recipient to look at. We see if they like one of them, and if they want to go look at others, they can.”
He continues communication with the recipient through monthly reports on the heifer’s progress, and also provides kids with the opportunity to ask him questions. “Most don’t, which is fine, but it’s something we like to offer,” he notes.
“Hopefully they have an opportunity to have a project heifer the following year, and it’s for those that probably wouldn’t have one otherwise, as I understand it,” says Fahsholtz.
Padlock ranches offer red or black composite heifers, and Fahsholtz notes that most choose a black heifer.  
Jessica Pingetzer of Shoshoni and Wyat Griffin of Riverton were also selected as 2011 Merit Heifer recipients. K2 Red Angus of Wheatland, Werner Ranch Shorthorns of Riverton and Paint Rock Angus of Hyattville all donated Wyoming raised heifers to the program this year, in addition to the Padlock Ranch.
For more information on the NILE Merit Heifer Program email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Heather Hamilton is editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .