Hello All:

Uncommon Value: As I’ve gained experience and perspective through the years, I’ve chosen a phrase, “uncommon value,” to describe interactions with people, places and things that rise above what I may consider to be “common” value. Unfortunately, the common value in many instances is lateness, shoddy work, unkept promises, products that lack quality and/or longevity and so on. I’m oh so amazed when people compliment our family in a restaurant for being so well behaved…because I don’t think we are (myself included!). What this tells me, however, is that the common value for children is to misbehave in a restaurant. With this concept in mind we at ICE Cattle strive to provide uncommon value in the seedstock we sell. How do we do this? I start by trying to determine what uncommon value would look like to a cattle producer. As a cattle producer, I would want a momma cow, or bred heifer, to calve unassisted, to be interested in her calf but not overprotective. I would want that cow to care for her calf for at least 7 months and for the calf to wean at or around 50% of the body weight of the cow. I would want the cow to survive on grazing forage, in our case corn stalks, through the winter on nothing but salt, mineral and water, no need of protein to maintain her. When I learn about other operations and the props people use to maintain their cattle, I believe cows like what we have contain uncommon value.

We provide uncommon value because our bulls and bred heifers are out of the kind of cows I just described. Since we are in the unique situation of trying to pare down our herd, because we don’t have the bull demand, we look for reasons to get rid of problems not for excuses to keep them. Try to imagine a seedstock producer who is averaging $4000 or more on their bulls having the incentive to cull harder on their cows. The more cows you keep the lower your quality will be because there is always a bottom 10%. We don’t have any trouble selling bred heifers but when we can’t sell bulls they lose their nuts and get fattened for slaughter. This doesn’t crush our bottom line because we simply don’t have that much in the bulls, I would argue we are truly THE low-cost producer for bull development. They (bulls and heifers) get grazing forage, salt, mineral and water for nearly 2 years before they sell. We don’t feed expensive hay or protein pellet supplements or grain or any other input, and we don’t have an army of hired help to support. Our cattle learn single hot wire grazing at an early age, and if they develop any problems, they move to the fat pen immediately. Our customers get uncommon value because we have paid the “price” in making it so.

Maybe someday, hopefully someday, we will have $4000+ averages for our bull sales and we will be looking to expand our herd. I do think spending that kind of money on a bull can be profitable but currently isn’t necessary…of course I’m trying to sell bulls (oops, the salesman popped out again). Our bulls used to average $4000-$5000 in Pharo Cattle Company bull sales, I think our highest selling bull was $12,000+. We are struggling to get bids on bulls with a $2000 base price, and haven’t on several bulls. I have little doubt that many share the misconception that because our bulls aren’t as high priced as others they aren’t good bulls. Maybe it’s because no one wants to brag about buying a $2000 bull; that reasoning sounds dumb to me. Tell you what, if you want to take home one of our bulls for $2000, I give you permission to tell people you paid $10,000 for it. I have zero doubt in our genetics but little faith in my salesmanship. I just had a contact today who claimed he had been spending $8000+ on PCC bulls but who wants to see what we have. Please come look, and make your own determination.

Grace to you.

Lanny