Hello All:
Let me begin with a preg. check update: We had a conception rate of 96% on the cows and 89% on the replacement heifers…we are joyful, thankful and deeply humbled. We have NEVER had anything close to those percentages in any year in the past. I give the praise to God and credit to the cows. They did it on nothing but grazing forage, water, salt and mineral, zero feed. Last winter they carried a calf on them through February grazing nothing but cornstalks. I believe there is a distinct difference between feeding your cows and letting them graze. When you feed cows you do the work, and significantly increase your expenses. If they graze they are doing the work. Your fastest road to profitability is decreasing costs not increasing weaning weights. The primary cost in any cattle program is feed. Is it better to save a dollar or produce a dollar? Saved dollars have zero tax consequences. Think about this as you consider your cattle rearing philosophy. Produce the kind of cattle that are efficient on grazing forage and combine that with well-behaved, easy-calving, long-living, problem-free traits and you have a herd that is profitable…and fun to be around! Ichthys Cattle Enterprise is aiming for just those types.
We have had some inquiries about pre-paying for the March 12 sale. Please let me know if you would like to discuss this.
Back to my original update: We are a fledgling (let’s be transparent: struggling) seedstock program. We struggle not because we don’t have an excellent product. We produced excellent, high-value bulls for years for Pharo Cattle Company…and have an even better product now. What we struggle with, now that we are on our own, is getting the word out that we are here! Interestingly enough, this struggle has led to higher quality cattle that we can offer for sale as seedstock. I will explain.
We started with PCC in 2003 and leased 30 registered Red Angus cows from Kit and Deanna. In subsequent years we also leased their Black Angus and composite cows. In our 13 years with PCC we built our seedstock herd up to about 300 cows. We were selling around 100 bulls in PCC sales at the end. In our first “on our own” sale we offered about 100 bulls. We sold about 20 bulls that day then totaled around 40 with some private treaty sales afterward. I was demoralized! Sometimes reality hits you harder than you can ever prepare…but God. The Callicrate Bander instantly became a much heavier utilized tool. A bull can be converted to a steer very quickly. I determined that though I needed to better learn how to sell bulls I also needed to figure out how to sell beef. I will share that story in the future. We are now down to a herd of about 150 seedstock cows.
Economics aside, one tough thing for me was banding bulls that would have sold for $5000 in a PCC sale. Even though the best bulls sold, there were still excellent bulls that people would even comment as being such but they just didn’t need more bulls. Supply far outpaced our demand. However, as we kept trimming the bottom off the bull lineup the lineup itself got better and better.
As time has gone by it is easier to cull bulls and make them steers because while our bull sales are struggling our beef sales are skyrocketing. In some respects Covid has made making lemonade easier. As we continue to cull bulls the bottom end keeps getting better. We will not offer a bull in the sale that we wouldn’t be able to use as a clean-up bull post-A.I. in our own herd to produce seedstock. Come see for yourself (or look online)!
On Friday, March 12, 2021 at 11 am we plan to offer a set of bulls and bred heifers that are better than any we’ve ever produced. They have a solid foundation of grazing and maternal genetics and have been sorted (culled) through the crucible of our system. Only the best will sell. Will they look like typical sale day, over-fed seedstock? Absolutely not, you will see them in their working clothes, near the end of a winter in which they only had grazing forage (mostly corn stalks), water, salt and mineral for ingredients. When they get to green grass in the spring they will explode.
Asking a livestock producer to trust you with their gene pool is an enormous ask. Every seedstock producer is asking that of their customers. We take this stewardship very seriously.
Grace to you!
Lanny Greenhalgh | Steward
[email protected] | (402) 984-6375
www.icecattle.com
