2-15-2024 ICE UPDATE
Hello All:
What you will find in ICE cattle: Cattle genetically bred and relentlessly developed to produce sires for herds that want cattle that can run in a low input environment without all the conventional props, most specifically protein supplementation (including alfalfa hay) or grain/silage. People who buy our cattle want good momma cows. After sowing to our principles for nearly a quarter-century, we are reaping cattle that can thrive on all sorts of grazing forage, water, salt and mineral…and nothing else. These cattle calve easily, are gentle…but tough, are easy fleshing, efficient, moderately framed, fertile and long-lived. I am proud of our cows, it amazes me every year what they go through and still produce and breed back.
What is a good bull worth? According to a recent article in Drovers:
They conclude between $5000-$10,395. I’d say that range would likely get most bull sale averages across the country. I’m thinking we should file for charity status since our average is about half the low end of that range. BUT…we don’t have the expenses in our bulls most operations do. In fact, the expense we have in a two-year old bull is almost identical to the expense we have in a coming two year-old bred heifer. When you breed and develop bulls with a no-props, forage-only model in mind you drastically cut your expenses. We are basically a commercial cow-calf operation that produces excellent seedstock…because we don’t know any better. We don’t do anything to keep animals in the herd (which is a VERY expensive thing to accomplish), we actually encourage them to get out. Our cows are still nursing their May ’23 calves, will be nursing them until March ‘24, then must calve again in May, and breed back in August, and do that EVERY year. 90% of our cows are pregnant after a 50-day breeding season and almost 40% of our cows are 10 years old or older. We have a 17 year-old still in the herd and looking good. How much is a bull that produces cows like those worth?
Leading or following? A few years ago my wife was in Arizona with two of my daughters. Grandpa Frank took them to a rock formation in the form of a slide. It was March and the snow was melting which made a stream in the formation. The air temperature was warm but the water was very cold. The place had all sorts of college students, on spring break, who wouldn’t get into the stream. My daughters, probably around the ages of 10 and 12, changed into their swimwear and jumped into the stream…soon after followed by the hoard of college students. Everyone there had the same conditions, they all saw the same opportunity, but it wasn’t until two brave (in the Greenhalgh family brand, “brave” could be interpreted “insane”) young girls acted, not thinking or caring what the “older kids” were doing. So much of LIFE is lived in such a way…unfortunately. Do you believe most people are living a great way? Consider: If you don’t like the way you see most or a lot of people living (or farming/ranching) you can’t live that way and expect different results.
Dennis, Kansas Customer: “I can’t wait to see this year’s cattle. Your program and your cattle improve each year, as mine are finally doing.”
We all know, it takes time to see your herd improve when you start trusting a new philosophy and/or use bulls from a new source. We had neighbors when I was growing up who used bulls from different seedstock producers, and who sold their cattle in different sale barns, every year. They were either never satisfied or never found what they were looking for, that’s troubling regardless.
