1-7-2025 ICE UPDATE

Hello All:

Sale Preparation: Ashley formed a crew last week and got all the animals in the upcoming sale videoed. She now needs to keep “hand to plow” and get the videos edited, all of the information organized and a catalog compiled and sent to DVAuction and uploaded to our website: icecattle.com. Lord willing this will be completed sometime in the next couple of weeks. GO ASHLEY!!!

ALL our breeding cattle…including the sale cattle, are currently grazing dead, mostly ligninimous, forage that is either attached to the ground or has leaves/husks that have fallen to the ground. They are doing this grazing through several inches of snow. It was -5 degrees this morning and it looks like they are going to be in the freezer for about a week. They will not receive any hay, tubs, pellets or protein (or energy) of any kind. In short, they will not be fed, they will graze. The May/June calves are still at the momma’s side. I’m not claiming we have the toughest environment. I’ve driven across Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico…anyone east of those states better not claim they have it tougher. We’re not as cold as ND and MN and we’re not as hot as TX. However, in my cattle career (beginning in 1996) our cattle have survived from -33 to 111 degrees. I’d call the PERFECT environment for our cattle to be a farming operation that has access to native grass in the summer and cornstalks in the winter and be within a few hundred miles of our headquarters. However, our cattle have worked much farther away than that. If you can, find a local bull producer who has philosophies similar to yours’ and who has the discipline to develop their cattle that way…and buy your bulls from them. When you find them, please let me know and I will let everyone know in an UPDATE. We are here to improve the cattle component of your lifestyle. If you can be helped by someone else in this business I’m not afraid to let you know about them. James Coffelt of Ohio Land and Cattle is a bull producer who has philosophies similar to ours’.

Epigenetics Part 2: In the last update I aimed to explain epigenetics as the environmental impacts that affect genetics. Ashley has furthered my understanding of epigenetics (she just graduated from UNL with a degree in Animal Science) with the following: G + E = P. Translated, Genetics plus Environment equals Phenotype. Environment is divided into 3 areas: Permanent Environment, which calves experience in utero or when very young. For instance, a calf gestating inside a cow with access to high quality forage in the form of hay and expensive protein supplements is going to have its genes expressed differently than a calf inside a cow on low quality cornstalks with her previous calf at side with no supplements available. The second environmental factor, Temporary Environment, is the month to month, year to year, available forage, supplements, vaccines, etc. that an animal has access to as they live. A bull being developed with feed, alfalfa hay, protein pellets, corn, silage or supplements of any kind has a different temporary environment than one developed on forages or varying quality and grazing only. The last environment is Contemporary Group which is comparing animals of the same group (sex, breed, age). For instance, if you were to purchase same-aged, red angus heifers from 4 different producers and run them together you would have a contemporary group. Once they are running together they would have the same temporary environment as well but they will never have the same permanent environment. All these environmental factors, to varying degrees, have some sort of affect on the expression of the genes of the animal. These environmental factors, over time, contribute cumulatively and significantly to the phenotype of the herd. I can’t overemphasize the following: Do not buy bulls from someone who is developing their bulls to be pansies. Regardless of how you run your cows you don’t want a bull that has to be fed. The need for feed will be genetically programmed into all his offspring. A yearling bull is nowhere close to being fully developed but they can be fully ruined.

Dust: Genesis 2:7 “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Genesis 3:19 “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Part of our human condition includes a fantastic capacity to not see things as they are. Human Christians (pretty confident there are no other kind) are not immune to fractured perspective. On any particular day we may think too highly, or lowly, of ourselves or others. Thinking too highly (a common American temptation?) leads to confidence in the flesh, which is pride. Thinking too lowly can trigger a downward spiral of self-condemnation that robs God of glory in what He has done in a Christian life. Both situations need exhortation, perhaps rebuke even, definitely forgiveness. If you are thinking lowly, maybe thinking the struggle against sin is relentless (you are not wrong), maybe thinking life isn’t working as you want, remember this: God KNOWS what we are, He made us, He has not forgotten, He is not without grace…He KNOWS we are DUST! Psalm 103:14 “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” BUT OUR SAVIOR IS NOT! I Corinthians 15:47 ^“The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.”

Grace to YOU!