Hello All:
How many of you have been making lemonade the past few years, especially this past year? I have lemon fatigue…but God is good…always good…whether we think our circumstances warrant that kind of praise or not. I’ve read before that if we spent the rest of our lives in a concrete box with no heat or cooling, little food and water and no companionship…God would still be good. And He would be…I Peter 5:10 “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” I should have eternity tattooed on my eyeballs but I so often just see the current, urgent, temporary trial. James 4:14 “Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” We truly are only here for a little while…and it’s going faster EVERY year. When our mist evaporates, if we are in Christ, our glory begins. I urge you Brethren (and Sistren, yeah, made that up) press on…take one more step of faith, one more step of repentance…walk in OBEDIENCE! Not easy…just worth it.
So, what does our lemonade taste like…IT TASTES LIKE BEEF!!! …and pork and lamb. I mentioned in a previous email that we had to learn how to sell beef because I couldn’t sell bulls…and I was not willing to take the packer price. So, what does God do, He gives us Covid…and people were freaking out about whether or not they would be able to buy beef. We have hired a good friend to build a website for Ichthys Premium Meats. Here it is: https://www.icemeats.com/ Our beef, pork and lamb sales in 2020 were our best ever.
What has beef production taught me about our cattle? Number 1 is that they make the BEST beef, grain finished or grass finished, that we’ve ever tasted. The same sentiment has been shared by nearly all our meat customers. Our cattle clearly work in an environment where grazing is the only calorie option. It makes sense that our easy-fleshing cattle would produce excellent grass-fed beef. They do…and we sold more grass fed beef in 2020 than ever before. However, they also make excellent grain fed beef. It is somewhat amusing to see cull after cull become amazing looking fat cattle. I often think, “Oh, yeah, this is why so many seedstock producers “test” their cattle by putting them in a feedlot type of situation.” In this case feed, not love, covers a multitude of sins. Other than my blind culls with 3 legs (yeah, they taste good too) I can make just about all our culls look good with grain. I could do the same thing with premium hay and a protein supplement, which is what some grass-based seedstock producers do. Our seedstock will NOT look like typical overfed bulls at the March sale. I ask that you judge them next September after a summer on good grass, not in March after a winter on cornstalks. Nobody treats their seedstock like we do…our past customers have figured that out and are coming back for more. Thank you by the way!
The “bad” news: In our first 3 bull sales we set the bull base price at $2000 (or less) for multiple reasons. We knew that a base price was simply a starting point and that a final bid could be any amount above that. We knew that we wanted as many producers as possible to be able to try out our bulls also knowing that if people tried us most would like us. I also knew that I was concerned about being able to sell bulls! I’m not certain we could have sold all of the bulls if we had a base price of $1000. We simply didn’t have the demand…but that is starting to change. Please know, I am not trying to jack anyone into buying our bulls. However, also know that we can make as much, sometimes more, money by banding the bulls and selling them as fat cattle directly to our meat customers. With all of that in mind we are raising the base price of the sale bulls to $2500. I am not ashamed to ask that as a minimum for the quality we are producing. If we don’t sell any bulls, we have 46 more beef to sell! I’ve actually been advised to go higher but we’ll try this for now. Some have told me that quality is perceived in the price. Many people who have used our bulls for the past 3 years, and especially those who have been using our bulls since we were with PCC, know that we offer quality. Everyone is entitled to their opinion (unless you’re on the wrong side of the cancel culture) but I believe there is more value in one of our bulls at $2500 than a lot of bulls that are selling for twice that. You are the jury weighing my case. I hope I am arguing the case well.
I pulled the following from a website after Googling “what is a bull worth”: “While no calculator exists to determine the exact price a producer should spend on a bull, there are multiple factors that can be considered to establish a base price,” he said. “Typical thumb rules I’ve heard for estimating the value of an average registered bull include two times the value of a fed steer, five times the value of a feeder calf at weaning, or 25 times the cwt price of feeder calves.” I expect our bulls to be well above average! I will let the jury deliberate.
Ashley and Hannah are spending a lot of hours videoing, editing and preparing the bulls and bred heifer information for presentation to you. We hope to have that information on our website and at DVAuction by the end of the month. Sale is March 12, 11 am here at our headquarters.
Grace to you.
Lanny Greenhalgh | Steward
[email protected] | (402) 984-6375
www.icecattle.com
