Angus Herd Talk
Discussions with Registered Angus Breeders across America about their operations, breeding philosophies and herd sires used in the past and present.
Angus Herd Talk
Genetic Hedging Solutions
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In this episode I talk with Isaiah Shnurman about his time as ranch manager at Square B Ranch and his marketing company Genetic Hedging Solutions.
Welcome to Angus Earth Top. I'm your host, David Yackley. On today's episode, I'm talking with Isaiah Schnerman from Winchester, Virginia, owner of Genetic Hedging Solutions. And I believe one time you were the ranch manager at Square Beat. Is that correct? Yes.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to the show, Isaiah. I'm excited to be here. First time I've been on the podcast.
SPEAKER_03I wasn't sure if you're the ranch manager, but you and I, the first time I ever spoke to you, and you probably won't even remember this. I spoke to you in the late fall of 2019. Um I called you because I was looking for some supercharger team. And Select Sarge is completely out. They're completely out of supercharger and rainfall at that time. Gotcha. I I don't know if you remember that phone call. I gave you a call because I wanted some rainfall, but it was more in Ton supercharger. The bull had been raised up at the by the Dodds, and she had seen him and she said that bull was something to use. Scott's Angus ranch. They were co-op at that time. And that bull was right. The graze bull still in the Dods backyard. So anyhow, I gave you a call, and somehow he worked some magic, and I got five whole straws. I got five straws. Yeah. And so because the way Select Sires works, it had to go to Slick Sires. King just coming from Square B. It had to go to Select Sires so the guy can literally drop it off of my house. I got five units out of Red Bull. I got two unbelievable heifers that I still have. A bull that I'm holding back this year out of Cherokee, KO Cherokee. His grandson would be Supercharger. I want to jump into Super Charger and your career at Square Beat.
SPEAKER_01So, anyhow, how did you end up at Square Beat? At the time, I had Elation up in Iowa. When he was up at our family farm, and at that time I had kind of a little micro bullstead and ET facility. And prior to that, I'd done some work with Herbster Angus, and we would have collected president and governor at the time and got them going. And so that kind of carried over into Elation when he sold the following year. And that's how I met Brian. And we kind of got along and saw cattle eye to eye and business eye to eye. And I learned an awful lot from him. But he gave us an invitation to come down to the ranch and I'd gone down and Parkas Ultrasound did some cattle down there for one of their sales and really liked the crew, the facilities, the cattle that were there. And so it took us a little bit of talking back and forth to figure it out if we were ready to go for that move. And turns out it was probably one of the best decisions we ever did because right before that, or right after that, when we moved, COVID happened. And prior to that, I was doing a lot of traveling around the country, semen checking bulls, preg checking, carcass holder sounding, and that all just kind of stopped. And so didn't know that was going to happen. So it was just the right opportunity at the right time. And we moved to Square B and started working there with the cattle and then building the bullstead and collecting semen and promoting semen and genetics and really awesome two and a half years of our life that we spent there and had our daughter. She was born two weeks prior to the move to Missouri. Okay. So it was all a whole lot of things going on at the time.
SPEAKER_02So you're originally from Nebraska? Iowa. Iowa. Okay, sorry. I was thinking herbs for the be Nebraska, but yeah, just cross the river. Yeah. Just crossed the river there.
SPEAKER_01So born born and raised in Iowa, and then that took us to Missouri for a few years. And then when the ranch sold down there and the bullstead sold, I wasn't ready to get back into doing the cow calf side of it. And I knew there had to be something else out there, just to know what it was, and kind of decided, well, let's go back east where my wife's family is from. And that's kind of how we settled in Winchester, and we're right here on the Virginia, West Virginia line. And so from that point on, that's kind of where the genetic hedging solutions came out.
SPEAKER_03We'll touch on that later. Did you say you had interest in elation?
SPEAKER_01No, we were collecting election. Oh, you're collecting elation.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01Yes, sir. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03He bought that bull in 2018, I believe. Yes, sir. So it seemed like there was just a little a vapor. Square B just came out of nowhere and then blew it in fast.
SPEAKER_01How many years was Square B in operation? They'd been there for almost 20 years, and a lot of that was commercial cattle, though. So, you know, they had a quite a bit of experience in land and facilities with running commercial cattle and running the cattle on that side of it and trying to figure out, you know, a better way to make money, if there is a another way to add more money to these cattle. That's where the quality beef program came from, which turned into helping producers with owning, owning the cattle through the feeding process, retained ownership. And, you know, showing them if you invest in these genetics now, you keep the daughters, you follow the calves through. You know, we were proving out a lot of bulls going through that process. So that's kind of where the quality beef side of it came from, and that fed into Square B directly as far as a lot of the bulls that Brian was buying, inhalation, rainfall, supercharger, ancestry, conviction, legendary. So there's quite a few bulls that came through that.
SPEAKER_03Why'd the pivot towards shoft and uh other well-known priorities?
SPEAKER_01They were a high-performance candle. They did a really nice job for us. The females worked in Missouri, they worked on the fescue. That combination, along with some caneally genetics that brought in a little higher marbling EPD on some of those cattle. That was a really great combination between those two.
SPEAKER_03So speaking of candle outlier on Porpoise, the marbling, Rainfall. Rainfall was really the first saw bull. He outplayed his sibling on Porpheus. So I'm not rainfall. He's got a huge influence to the breed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's he did a really nice job on that side. Cabing ease, plenty of performance. I would say the cattle were probably a little more moderate framed, but they worked really well in Missouri on fescue. Females did a really nice job. Probably the only fault he had, maybe for a few guys, was they were a little too moderate, you know, not quite a high enough gear like some of the other shoff genetics, like ancestry and some of those. But the females he left behind did a really nice job. The bulls were easy to sell, they had caving ease, they had muscle shape to them, good footed, semen checked very well. So he was a really easy bull to move forward with and promote and do a lot of things with.
SPEAKER_03You're still seeing a lot of operations, still punching out rainfalls.
SPEAKER_01Yep. You can see a lot of his uh influence and a lot of pedigrees anymore. And there's still a little bit of semen out there here and there that guys have got stashed away. And so you see him pop up, you know, quite a bit. But yeah, there's a lot of good influence that he had.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Bruin Ranch has a huge influence of rainfall, sort of strowing up there in North Dakota. Those guys that like more of a moderate now, they just punch that bull in over and over.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that would have been the first time I talked with Joe Fisher was when he had called the ranch and was asking about rainfall. So yeah, that the Square B opened up a lot of opportunities, a lot of introductions, and still kept up with a lot of folks, you know, just from that short two and a half years that we were there and running. So it was a really cool opportunity in my in my life. Do you like the ham I'm wearing today? Yes, there you go.
SPEAKER_03I'm representing Ruin Ranch, Joe. So Rainfall, you guys spread in to a cow that Brian bought from Pawnee. She was the pick of the dam. See Paul Nealie, I think, in 2017. What was her name?
SPEAKER_01The the Kananga 1209.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And so that mating was fire.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Yep, that did really well. That was that was actually a mating that Brian had done before I had got there. And those embryos ended up getting sold. And so did the cow before I I had even got to the ranch in 2019. So my experience with with that Atlantis and True North was was very limited from that point on.
SPEAKER_03Really? You guys didn't raise them, just get the square beat prefix?
SPEAKER_01Correct. Yes, sir. How did that work?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01They ended up going with Brent Lonker, and he was involved with those bulls and got them moved and promoted. And when I talked to Brent here the other day, I think he said True North was maybe the highest semen sales bull this quarter or this year for ABS. So pretty neat to see the history and everything that went along with them. They just were not kind of the direction we were moving towards and had a had a good opportunity to move them, Brian did. And so that's what he that's what he was after. He was he was a businessman at heart. And so, you know, you guys get attached to cattle, but at the end of the day, they're there to help us make a profit. And so that's where those cattle end up being, and those embryos as well. And so they ended up selling and kind of the the rest of the story, and they they've kind of taken off on their own.
SPEAKER_03Atlantis ends a pretty big influence on Montana Ranch, David Brown.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_03He's got some sons of his that are propagating going for. I like the Atlantis bowl, but I think True North was better of the two. That bowl's really propagated. With True Great, and uh with BCC were for I guess he was on. I didn't realize that he sold the embryo. And he has that never never had them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So back to Supertarl. I really am a big fan of Supertarian. How far he didn't get that much traction.
SPEAKER_01What was the issue there? Early on, he had uh an injury and he was out breeding cows, and he actually had a stick that got run through his testicles, and so that definitely slowed up the semen production. Yeah, yeah. So that caused quite a few issues there for six to eight months, and that's kind of how the AI industry is that if you don't have it right when guys need it, they move on real quick. And so by the time we got him healed up and kind of coming around with some more semen production, guys had kind of already moved on already.
SPEAKER_03His pedigree, an amazing pedigree. I think a lot of people missed out on that bull. He comes out two of the greatest cows ever to come out as soft. On the cows that I have, it's as if he put an extra vertebrae or two in the dollars. Great personalities, super docile, and the teats and others are unbelievable. I don't think I've ever seen anything better than those.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that would probably be some of his strongest points that he's done is the females he's left behind. The bulls were okay. They did a nice job, they had lots of growth performance, ton of length to them. But the females, you know, and that that's I feel like that's where a really good bull should shine is in the daughters he leaves behind.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I got two bulls out of them, and when I first moved to West Tennessee from Western Washington, my sights on what a bull should do for weeding were still on Western Washington. And now since learned that there's two bulls that cold them, I should allow them to become full. I didn't realize how horrible fisky was on these cattle. Looking back, the bar that I set on them was a little bit too high. But if I put the bar where it needed to be, they would have been just fine. They were just like the girls, they were just cool personalities, style, tons of length till. Sure. Yeah. The things he did well were just phenomenal. So I think I'm actually probably gonna dig up some more seaming somewhere. Yeah, plug him back in because those daughters are just fire. Don't have to screw with them. Easy to run through the shoot. Once they get older, I really appreciate that stuff.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah, it if a guy can be a little patient with those cattle and just wait until they have that third or fourth calf, I think that's really when they start to shine. And I I mean, I don't think that even matters for what environment you're in. Yes, fescue can be a little tougher on them, but they just have a little patience with some of those. They really blossom into some beautiful cows that have fertility and longevity there. So just one of those things. And I've I've learned it the hard way too, that just be patient with them. They might not look the way you want, you know, coming right out of the gate the first year, but usually they come around pretty nicely.
SPEAKER_03The one cow, she's probably my second favorite of mine, you know, attire her. I kept back her some this year. I'm you know, used him as coverable. She weighs all of maybe 1,100 pounds on her. Oh, really? Yeah, that's it. Maybe a whole 1100 pound. Okay. Weaves them off at 700 every year. She's never had her for me. But her bowls, you know, 700 or 1100 pound cows is a mean.
SPEAKER_01Yep. I I think that's an awesome target and a goal to have for any kind of cows anymore. That I think that's something we should look at a little closer, is what those cows are weighing and compared to the calf that they're weighing off for sure.
SPEAKER_03I got a little thing to piss the money back on my association. Her contemporary, she's always ratioing 98, 99. Right. She's the smallest cow. Yep. The smallest cow. For her to pull off these 690s and these 700s is far more impressive than the 1400-pound cow I got.
SPEAKER_04Sure.
SPEAKER_03Of course, the 1400-pound gets the ratio that well. Gosh darn it, this poor girl, she's just doing everything everything she can. I consider her far more productive than the 98, 99 than that 1400-pound cow. I love my 1400-pound cow, but it's not a really fair ratio on her. Right. Her weed numbers are probably never ever gonna move up. She's got a solid 39 for her weed.
SPEAKER_04Sure.
SPEAKER_03Well that's my bowling pick with the association. Amongst others. Sure. Yeah. Amongst others. That's not anything over 10 years old gets just trashed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Those are the cows I enjoy finding anymore. That yeah, it's neat to see those cows and find those cows that can ratio and you know have a 104, 105, 110 weaning weight ratio. It's the cow that, you know, is a 98, 99 in a really tough environment like Fescue Country, that weans off a calf that's over 50% of her body weight and does it consecutively every year. Like that's the kind of cow you can take almost anywhere and get that much more performance out of them just on your management alone. So those are the fun cows to find for me anymore.
SPEAKER_03My buddy Core Crawl, he always says 98, 98 is making money. Um, it's the 106 you need to worry about. And he always tells me eventually your herd shouldn't have 106 anymore if you're doing everything right. Everything should be around 101 and 91.
SPEAKER_01Yep, yep. As you tighten up that that consistency in the cows and the genetics you're using, I would agree with that. It just takes a long time to get those cattle there for sure. A lot of a lot of disciplined breeding and decision making.
SPEAKER_03Take us back to Little Ivo. Did you grow up in Iowa?
SPEAKER_01I did. Yep. Born and raised in Iowa, uh 300-acre family farm, and I have five younger siblings. So we we kind of grew up raising all our own cattle and beef and chickens and vegetables and spent many a summer butchering chickens and all that kind of stuff growing up. So yep. Butchering chicken is a negative meal.
SPEAKER_03The amount of calories it takes to pluck them and all that stuff, it's a negative calorie meal by the time you get done.
SPEAKER_01We we had quite the little assembly line. So it was my mom and dad, and there was five or six kids, and so everybody had a task, and we spent one summer. We butchered a thousand chickens, and that was our summer vacation. We were doing a a hundred chickens every weekend.
SPEAKER_03Are your parents still ranching the original place?
SPEAKER_01My brother is. He ended up buying it here just a couple years ago, and so he's still on the family place in Iowa and running cattle, and he does quite a bit of construction off farm too. But the goal for him is to kind of move it, move everything towards some making his living off just the cattle.
SPEAKER_03Got grew up on the farm. Now take the next step towards where did I will go when he turned 18 or 19?
SPEAKER_01So I went to a community college for two years at DMAC and probably learned as much as I could have learned there, but I still went on to Iowa State University, graduated with uh Ag Studies degree, and my plan was always to come back home to the family farm. But my last semester at Iowa State, my dad passed away from a heart attack. And so I moved back home that last semester and graduated remotely before doing college remotely was a thing, and learned real quick I was not a fan of row crops. So we had we had 300 acres and a lot of it was corn and beans, and we had a few cows, but I learned real quick that that was definitely not my passion. And so shortly after that, I had some other cows, and my brother and I were running some cows together on the family farm. And I learned real quick that college did not prepare me for the real world as much as I thought it did. And so had to go and find off-farm income, and that's where I started Hawkeye Breeders in Adell, Iowa. And that was really the kind of the beginning of my cattle reproduction journey and career was with Hawkeye breeders. They're an established bullstead. Okay, 50 plus years now, I think, is is where they've been at in production. And I started in the lab processing and freezing, evaluating semen. And then about two and a half years into that, I transferred over to traveling for them and semen checking bulls, collecting bulls, carcass ultrasounding. And then it wasn't too long after that. I kind of got tired of working with some of the Holsteins and the Dairy Bulls and realized how dangerous those were and it wasn't quite as thrilling. And that's when I started Schnurman Sire service, which was another small business I had, and kind of took that role on myself and traveled to Iowa and all the surrounding states offering those on-farm services.
SPEAKER_03So you found out the hard way, dura bulls are no fun.
SPEAKER_01Yep, yep, yep.
SPEAKER_03They they're the assholes of the animal kingdom.
SPEAKER_01Yes, sir. Yeah, yeah. It was neat to be around them. You know, it was exciting for the first couple years, and then, you know, going in at 4 a.m. to help collect bulls, you kind of started scratching your head like, boy, I I don't know if this was the smartest decision I've ever made.
SPEAKER_03So you started your own thing. Take us forward from there.
SPEAKER_01And that's kind of where I met I met Herbster Angus was when I was doing some on-farm collecting. Okay. And then that turned into housing and collecting some bulls, which would have been president and governor, and that rolled into elation, and that turned into how I met Brian.
SPEAKER_03Let's go back to Herbster. You were doing those collections. Are you the brain's behind collecting the 40 million cells, the thing that Herbster professes?
SPEAKER_01So we started that when I was doing a lot of on-farm collecting, that we only had one opportunity to collect a bull a lot of times, and so we were putting a higher concentration in there, just that, you know, we we had one shot to get this bull collected. I had five to eight hours of travel time back to the stud to process it, to freeze it. And so we didn't see any reason on bumping the concentration that would hurt anything. And Herbsters, they agreed with that kind of thought philosophy too, and so it worked really well for them, and they adopted that, and I think it's been extremely successful for them. Everyone I've talked to that, you know, has done the 40 for 40 from Herbsters has gotten along with exceptional semen quality and conception rates, and so yeah, it it's been out there, but they definitely were able to utilize it to their advantage with the bulls they had, and they had a lot of high fertility bulls. So, I mean, it was a win-win.
SPEAKER_03President, if we go back to president, wasn't he a little bit delayed in getting collected for some reason?
SPEAKER_01Not that I know of. I mean, we'll I I felt like we got along with him pretty quickly and got seamen rolling. I think governor might have been just a tick behind, but I think if I remember correctly, president got to roll in fairly fairly quickly.
SPEAKER_03So if I remember I thought Rainfall got out to market before his brothers did.
SPEAKER_01That I couldn't tell you. I I did not have rainfall there. I think he was over at Nichols Cryogenics along with Supercharger in Iowa. Okay. But I would have had president and governor at the time, and so it was one of those deals I was pretty focused on on those two bulls and what I had to get done with them to get them working. And they were really cool animals to have on site.
SPEAKER_03So then you like a square bee, you worked for Brian. I think you found yourself probably short on a job as he was closing out.
SPEAKER_01Then you went off to Virginia or where did you go from there? Yep, yep. From there we moved to Virginia, back where Kimberly's family is from. And so Pearl, she gets to see her grandma and grandpa quite a bit more and everything, and it works well for me because I travel quite a bit from that point. So they're a little closer to home that way, especially when I'm on the road for two or three weeks at a time. How do you sell for a job? What did you do for work? So at the time it was, you know, trying to figure out what I could do in the cattle industry that was not managing and calving cows and breeding cows. I'd looked at almost every bull stud, every ET facility, sent out resumes, got nothing back. Got kind of sour with it there for a little while, probably about six months, as Kim will tell you, and figured that there's got to be something I can do to work with cattle guys to help them get their cattle promoted. And that's kind of where the genetic hedging solutions came from. So it turned into helping guys on the social media side initially and evolved pretty rapidly into some genetic consulting and sale management. And now I've got about 12 programs that I work with from coast to coast. So it's it's turned into something really neat. I I enjoy it. And I've got some really neat programs I actually get to work with, and I enjoy the cattle and the people, and it's a lot of fun for me.
SPEAKER_03You started this genetic handy solutions. I remember seeing shortly after you left Square Bee, I'm gonna see some of your stuff getting posted online. You got multiple facets of what you do with the company. Let's start at number one. What's the number one facet all of your company?
SPEAKER_01It's gonna be the social media side of it for programs. Working with them to better utilize Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Snapchat so that they can get their content out there so people see it. And it is by far the cheapest and most effective marketing tool that cattlemen have at their fingertips. So working with them on the phone. Photos, the videos, scheduling content, what kind of content, you know, folks get tired of seeing sales pitches every single day. And, you know, so if we've adjusted some of that to where it's informational and educational and entertaining, they build that they get invested into a program or a calf or a cow that they've seen so that when there is an opportunity to sell an animal or to buy an animal, they know everything about it already.
SPEAKER_03What do you think is the best social media outlet right now for a rancher?
SPEAKER_01The Facebook and Severian, TikTok? Probably Facebook and TikTok right now, just because of the video content, folks like to see the cattle move, they like to see them walk, they like to see them in the environment. So the video side of that has done very well for a lot of programs. Do a lot of ranches use TikTok? More and more, I'm finding. And it's really working well as an educational platform, too. For for whatever reason, folks, you know, they don't like to do the live feeds and that kind of stuff on Facebook, but they sure take to it on TikTok. And, you know, the amount of information you can find about a program or learn about different cattle topics, feeding, nutrition, breeding, I think there's just more of it at people's fingertips.
SPEAKER_03Is Facebook just more waste of time now?
SPEAKER_01No, there's a lot of good, a lot of good information and marketing you can do with Facebook. That is, I I kind of guide guys to use Facebook as your day-to-day information to keep up with people and post the information there so that you can drive them towards the website where they can find the history, the semen sales, donors, bulls, all the main information, but the Facebook side of it still has a lot of good content and it's an easy way to keep in contact with folks too.
SPEAKER_03Do you teach your people that a bad photo is worse than no photo?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we tried to. And it it's it's funny on some of that stuff. It it just takes time. You know, we we get so excited about an animal and we snap a photo because we in our mind we have a different picture of what the animal is compared to what the phone shows us. So it it you gotta you gotta take a step back and you can't be born blind about what you're looking at, I would say.
SPEAKER_03Does your company handle a producer's social media for them, or do you just give him ideas on what to do?
SPEAKER_01We do a little bit of both. So I like to travel and I like doing the photos and the videos and going through and studying cattle. And so we provide a lot of photo and video services, and they can help write the content and the captions. And sometimes that's the hardest piece is writing about the cattle. And that's the part I enjoy the most is digging into the pedigrees and the production records and you know, finding that hidden gem in their program that you know might have been overlooked that you know they they take a second look at, like, yeah, that's that's a cow we should probably be doing something with. And so a lot of that then turned into, well, how about you help us with the sale and write notes for the catalog and you know, different pieces there. So it just kind of snowballs as it goes.
SPEAKER_03Well, so you travel to these ranches, I'm sure it's more than just doing the social media if you're traveling to a ranch. Am I correct?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, so I mean, a lot of photos, a lot of videos, and then it's really we try to help them produce content so that it's never out of date. So, you know, posting a calf when he's born, and then the next photo you see is when he's being weaned. There's an awful lot that happened in between. So the most of the programs I visit every 35 to 45 days, and we go through the cattle, we look at nutrition, we look at the genetics, what's working, what's not. And sometimes just getting another set of eyes on the cattle really helps a producer out as well.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I agree with that. It happened, you're rolling cattle, you can get barnblind. You can get barnblying in two ways. You can be like me, where I go out there and I want to top their heads off every other Tuesday.
SPEAKER_04Right?
SPEAKER_03They should be in the cold pan by now. Then I go on these little tours when I get out and do mortality insurance to get a further extra stuff. I come back home. Damn, no, I guess we can house. Then I've seen the other side where people put it, they're want to sell XYZ, Sunnel, ABC, and then put them on Facebook. You're like, do you own a knife? And I think guys get barn blind both ways.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yep. And that's that's that's just part of it. I mean, we're proud of the products that we raise and you know the time we've put into it. And so that's why I encourage folks to get out and travel if you can and go see some other programs and see what's out there. And it's not to it's not to critique or criticize your own cattle or someone else's, it's to learn. You know, if you're going to a program to see, you know, if my cattle are better than their cattle, you're going for the wrong reason. And and we run into a lot of that. You know, guys say these cattle are too big or too small and you know, they're not feed efficient enough or they take too much feed. You know, you don't know that until you actually go set foot on that farmer ranch and visit with them and understand their philosophy and see the cattle in person.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_01I just encourage people to get out there.
SPEAKER_03So I didn't mean over talk to speak won't play. If you think you like a farm, you want to emulate what they do, you want to use their bowls, maybe purchase cows. Yes, take a trip, go see what they're doing. Because you may find out number one is number one thing you can find is their program, it doesn't emulate your program. So you don't want to emulate them. Or B, you find out that they do all the same things you're doing. Well, it's just gonna be a parallel move for these cattle that their ideals fit your ideals, and then of course, you can start stealing some of their stuff from them. I do to my friends all the time. I have like my friends, and so when they use a certain bull and it works, I'm like, okay, I can use that in my herd because we have very like-minded ideals of how we hope do things. But if you just assume I I think I'm gonna use Joe Fisher here. I think there's something a lot of times Joe Fisher has toad for cows. And it's not until you go out and see those cattle, you realize they're not toads. You're not gonna be rocking seven frames. Joe's cattle between five and six frames through and throughout his or I think he gets to moniker a lot of times having toad cattle. You know, I know it kind of irritates him that people think that, but his cattle aren't small.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03And so yeah, you gotta go see them. I hear you can go for yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that's I mean, that's a prime example right there. I I've always heard, you know, for example, oldies, OCC, you know, everyone has always said, well, they're too small a cattle, they're this, they're that. And I was like, I just need to go see the cattle and see what they're like. And I I absolutely love their cattle. Well, they're they are the perfect size of cattle. They're good footed, good udders, quiet cattle. Like I'm really glad I took the time to drive to Kansas to spend the day with Tim and Trudy and look at the genetics they have. There's an awful lot of good in those cattle that a guy could utilize. And yes, some of them might be a little small for some programs, but when they're a 14 to 1600 pound cow that's weaned off a six to seven hundred pound calf easily, no creep feed on grass. I mean, those are the things that to me I want to learn, I want to see and experience. And I I guess I try to go to every program I go to and take something away from it that I can learn and apply.
SPEAKER_03One thing is I I will start about all these, they kind of like soft to me. Putting a shot of that somewhere in the pedigree was never gonna hurt. It was just never gonna hurt if you can get a shot of wall. If you look at some of the soft stuff that's come out over the years, what's it got? That's shot of OCC. Sure. Yeah. Tim's a freaking savant.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03The interior, they're savants, and I'm sure you learned a few things going out there. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I really enjoyed that and it was well worth the trip. And I I plan on visiting them a few more times to go through the cattle. It's just there's so much knowledge to try and take in in a short trip like that that it's it's almost impossible to do. And, you know, for guys like you and me, and I just had a conversation with Joe Fisher on this too, that, you know, the downside for us is that older generation, you know, they carry so much intelligence and knowledge and experience that it's not necessarily always being passed on to the next generation. And when they're gone, all of that information is gone with them. And so, like the podcasts that you're doing, I think that's a crucial element to continuing on the history, education, the understanding of what the cattle industry is for these programs.
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SPEAKER_03What's the second thing genetic hygiene solutions dies?
SPEAKER_01So we've really started getting into the genetic consulting and as far as helping people understand cattle phenotype. Not necessarily peddling semen, but improving the cattle, finding the holes in the cattle, what their strengths are, and finding genetics that complement those, how to fix them, how to get these cattle to the point where they're lasting eight plus years in the industry. And, you know, those might not always be mainstream genetics, and it takes time for a person's eye to adjust to some of these things. And, you know, it's easy to look at EPDs and say, yeah, this is the easy option to just numbers on numbers. It takes a little more time to understand pedigrees and phenotype and you know how to improve those pieces. So that's been a large part of it. And then also just finding cattle for programs, too. You know, these farmers and ranchers, they're doing everything right. They're have good cattle, they have good programs, they just don't always get the opportunity to go see cattle elsewhere. And so I've kind of well, not necessarily jumped into that, but it's kind of evolved into some of that of finding bulls and females for them that you know would complement their program. So not necessarily genetics they would typically use, but genetics that would definitely help move their program one more step forward.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01You were gonna give you a little question how do you like to weave together I guess I like to look at the phenotype and then the pedigree and the performance behind them. And if none of those three match or have anything that to that'll move a program forward, it doesn't matter how good the pedigree is. So, you know, if you look at a pedigree that you really like and the phenotype doesn't match, it's probably not going to be worth plugging in. But I do like to weave in emulation and Rito influence. That seems to be probably one of my favorite combinations, that those genetics are so tightly line bred that it's hard to mess them up. So Rito on emulation or vice versa really provides a consistent genetic base. So whether that's resource or renowned, or you know, anything that followed back into there, Rito 707, 7075, the old FO203 bull, even for example, you combine those bulls with EXT, Elation, Elation Sons. I mean, there's just a handful of a multitude of bulls out there that you can do that with and get away with a lot of faults in the cattle and improve them in one generation.
SPEAKER_03So resourcing Renow almost can be a hard thing for somebody to purchase. So what are some other options out there for getting that 707 into the pedigree?
SPEAKER_01It it depends on what's what side of that that you're trying to improve. I suppose finding a straight Rito bred bull can be a challenge. So, you know, going to Jorgensen's, they would have quite a bit of Rito influence in their program, a lot of foundation genetics there. Quarterback would be one of those, regard would be one of those. Okay, you know, anything that stems back from the old Rito 707 bull in this.
SPEAKER_03You can't get rid of guard either.
SPEAKER_01No, but there's some sons out there, you know.
SPEAKER_03I use Cherokee. Yep. There you go. And there's respect as well. I use Cherokee to get into some of that 707 line. We got some answers there for the 707 line, probably just still the Albrex pick out a bull or pin. Since they had a guard, they break pretty hard on that. What about the emulation line? What bulls are we looking at for that?
SPEAKER_01So we've used a lot of EXT, a lot of A1747 semen and sons. We've gone back and used some bulls from Sinclair's like Shadow Rider. So there's a lot of those genetics out there. They're really easy to find.
SPEAKER_03Elacian, is he still pretty easy?
SPEAKER_01It he passed away, it would have been last summer in Iowa at my brother's farm. Okay. When they got finished up with breeding with him, the other owner did. He was ready to take him to the sale barn, and he said, if you want them, come get him. And so Elaation lived out the last of his days as a yard ornament in Iowa at my brother's place.
SPEAKER_03And there's still some semen available on him.
SPEAKER_01Yep, still a good bit of semen out there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm gonna throw one out to record crop. Well, Procmell owned the GVC emulation. That's it, double bray, EXT son. Okay. So all of the link on there's actually YouTube video that bulls emulation v90, you gotta check them out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it and it doesn't take much to do it. You know, if the biggest part probably on the call is there is making sure they have a good udder, good teeth structure, fertility, you know, and a lot of times that means that it can't be a cow that is 1800 pounds. You know, there's not many places that have the kind of environment that's low input that can that can maintain an animal like that. So, you know, there's a little bit of sacrifice there on getting some longevity built into these cattle. And when they get that heavy, it's hard to have the phenotype hold up as well. The feet, the legs, the joints. You know, I don't think cattle were cows were meant to be that big.
SPEAKER_03Well, what's in the ideal cow?
SPEAKER_01Sure seems like the ideal cow for a lot of programs is anywhere from that 1200 to 1600. And I know that's a big weight range, but it's the difference between frame and width on some of these two.
SPEAKER_03Depth can get sneaky, I mean.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yep. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03I like a 1400-pound cow. That's kind of where I like to be on my own herds, right around 1400.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's something I would encourage guys to do too, is to weigh your cows. You know, weigh them and then go back out afterwards, whether in the lot or in the pasture, and just walk through them and look at that number and look at the cow and see if that matches the type of female you're wanting to build. You know, there's a lot of cows that are bigger than what guys would suspect, and there's probably a lot of cows that are smaller that are raising a bigger calf than what a lot of guys would suspect as well.
SPEAKER_03One thing, if you weigh them right after the calf and then weigh them at we, you find out real quick who's actually a milk producer, can't follow the work. You find out who's milk produced in both and which weather great with genetic hedging solutions, what's the third thing that you provide?
SPEAKER_01We've got into doing building websites, and uh it's not my favorite thing, but it is necessary, I feel like still. Probably not as much emphasis on a website anymore as social media that I would put out there, but it works as a very nice place to host all of your herd information for sires, donors, give someone kind of like a an encyclopedia of knowledge about your program that they can go to once they found you on social media. That's been part of it. Like I said, not my favorite, but that it's one of those necessary pieces I still think guys need.
SPEAKER_03And you're probably not talking about a producer, my side with 20 more. You're talking to somebody a legitimate producer with probably 100 to 400 head, right?
SPEAKER_01Not necessarily. It does not take much to put a website together and to host it and have it be online. That's a minimal yearly subscription fee to have a website, and it's just another way for people to find you. Google search is way underutilized, I think. And when you figure out what the the power that Google has, it's a very easy marketing tool to get your program out there as well.
SPEAKER_03For that producer, the website is ideal for being able to get in there and glee information because if you can't go see them, you can at least go in there and start gleeing information and see who they're using. Yep, absolutely. The dams and stuff, you start giving yourself some ideas better than social media, because social media can give you awareness, but it won't give you information.
SPEAKER_04Sure.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Yeah, you build websites for them too?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03That's it. You're doing everything here. All right. What's the fourth thing for Gek Solutions?
SPEAKER_01Probably starting to get into a little bit more sale management. Okay. And that's probably a touchier top topic to talk about because what I feel like a sale manager manager should be and should do is maybe not what the rest of the industry believes. You know, so if I'm gonna help a program have a sale, they've got to be the type of cattle that I'd be willing to stand behind as well. And not just the top lots, you know, helping them sell one high-selling bull or one high-selling female. It's got to be every single animal. And if if you don't have the oh the the guts to stand behind the program that you're working with on those kinds of things, I just feel like that's it's that's what a cell manager should do. So I've started to get into doing more of that. Hawk Angus down in Bolivar, Missouri, is one of the programs I'm working with. Holotop Angus in Pony, Montana, JNJ Angus in Arkansas, and SP Cattle in Iowa will be the programs I've got for sale management this year. And it's just one of those pieces that if you're gonna do it, I feel like you have to help promote every single animal, not just the top-end ones.
SPEAKER_03You'll see horrible sale management. The worst thing I think about that sales managers can do is create the dumbest sale book you've ever seen in your life. Where ninety-nine percent of the people selling out for the sale and online for the sale are commercial producers. Oh, sure. And they have nothing but moronic seed stock stuff in there. Dollar C, $N, and we didn't even bother putting in a real weight. There's no birth weights in there, no adjusted we, no adjusted yearly, no yearling high. Playing to get an ultrasound done, you know, commercial guys on the bench out there living by these candles.
SPEAKER_01There's there's there's programs out there that are like that, and that's it's a challenge. I mean, it you've got to be creative on how you help a program set themselves apart from everybody else. And yes, EPDs are part of that, but I really like to dig into the production records. You know, that type of depth into a program. Hawk Angus, for example, their sale catalog last year, there wasn't a single animal in their catalog that we talked about EPDs. It was production records, damn production records, the sires, what the animal's actual performance is. So that was a really cool thing to be able to put together and sell that many cattle. And not once did we mention EPDs in the marketing of those animals.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna have to check out that sale catalog.
SPEAKER_01I'll critique it.
SPEAKER_03I'll let you know when it's like.
SPEAKER_01I would look forward to it.
SPEAKER_03My favorite sale catalog every single year. Actually, I have two of them. Two of my favorites. One of them is Spickler North. Love that sale catalog. I don't think he talks about indexes in any way, shape, or form. It is commercial cattleman's catalog. It is so dialed in to his commercial people. Great catalog. It's black alive, very rumory, no velocity pictures, but love it. Love how it's put together. This second one, Joe Fisher's. I love his sale catalog every year, even though he has not used an up-to-date picture on the bulls that he's selling for probably four years now. He's just recycling pictures from bulls that he sold five years ago, or the sire of said bulls. But his footnotes on the cattle are amazing. I really enjoy cleaning through his catalog, going through the pedigrees. I think the way Joe weaves his pales, he's like a master at the internet. He's probably one of the most underrated breeders in the breed. And the way that he weaves and uses the pedigree to his advantage. That and Justin Stickler, both of them make great, great catalogs.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna pay attention to this Hoffman off to pull it out. I actually probably go past that place twice a year out there. I think I know gotcha. I think I know it's where it's at because I go out past Ballarborough to go to Nevada.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yep. Yep. You'd probably be going right by their place, right along there. Yes.
SPEAKER_03I think on the east side of the highway.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's a beautiful place. You do the website, and then you're doing sales management.
SPEAKER_01Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_03Is there a fifth thing that you do?
SPEAKER_01Well, I've been doing a newsletter that I do every Tuesday and email it out, and it it's pretty basic as far as just trying to provide folks with good cattle information to start a conversation. Not necessarily trying to be preachy about this or, you know, you have to have this size of cattle or genetics to be successful. Just hopefully it's a short read that people can go through and think about their cattle and start a dialogue. And I think it's been fairly successful so far. We've got a lot of good feedback on it and had a lot of good conversations with mostly commercial cattlemen, which is kind of what I was gearing it towards. The other piece I'm going to be starting up this fall is a podcast that will be called The Stockman Standard that will visit with programs that I'm working with already, as well as other programs that are in the industry that have had an influence, maybe not as mainstream as some of the bigger programs, but they've been around for 40 plus years. They're got to be doing something right if they've lasted that long, right? So kind of collecting the information and their history and their story and putting it out there so that people can find it down the road. Kind of what I'd mentioned earlier is there's just starting to be a generation and a gap in those generations of all the information and knowledge not being recorded and put for people to find. And it's something I'd I'd like to try and tackle and get the story of these programs out there so people know the history and the genetics and the philosophies that were in place.
SPEAKER_03Dang it, Isaiah, you're taking my job away from me.
SPEAKER_01No, nope, nowhere near that. I I just I I think there's a a need to record that kind of information and visit with those kinds of folks that have been doing it for that kind of time span.
SPEAKER_03With this podcast, I have tried to dig out some of their different programs. There's a couple other authors that I've talked to have been doing it for 40, 50 years. They're not on the tip of everybody's tongue. Give them a voice, let people listen to what they're doing. Those younger people can come into this breeding. They don't need to reinvent the wheel because the wheel's been invented by a lot of guys out there that have carried the water for us. And I think it's good to talk to the guys that have carried the water.
SPEAKER_01Yep, absolutely. Yeah. And then I but sir. I I thought I kind of right along the same lines is I just I hope it's something we can leave for the next generation, especially, you know, like your podcast. You know, Herd Report does an awesome job with their stuff. You know, I'd like to put something out there that can be found online for the next 20, 30 years. And I I think that's that's what our responsibility should be as cattle producers for the next generation, anyhow, is to make it as hopefully as easy as possible for them to continue the cattle industry. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03The herd report is also the adult first one of those podcasts. The production on that thing is phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Scott is taking it to another level this year for sure.
SPEAKER_03You know, Flamels coming down the road. I know about this. I just seen this, I think, earlier today. I think you just shared it just a day or two ago. You got an app coming out called The Hedge.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yep. So I I've been working on an app here this summer. It's gonna be called The Hedge, and I'm trying to take it and make a cattle management software that is for commercial guys, registered guys that can go from start to finish on whatever farming, ranching, record-keeping needs a person would have. And so it started as trying to take 3,000 head for a program and create a database, and it just kind of evolved from there that we got it, and then well, why couldn't we add this piece to it or add this piece to it? And so now it's it's gone from you know simple data management to being able to produce reports, run all your accounting information for farming and ranching, grazing management, satellite imagery, tried to think through every possible aspect that we could on it. And on the back side of it, I'll be putting together a once, oh, a first sale page basically, uh cattle that would be available and cattle that people are looking to find. So whether that's bulls, females, donors, but they'd only be available to folks that are utilizing the program. Okay. Try to get it tight enough in there also that all of their vaccinations and records could be kept in there where they could have a health affidavit that their veterinarian could sign off on that these cattle have had these kinds of vaccinations, health protocols have been followed. So try to give them something, a reward basically for doing all the record keeping that they can easily utilize in the market of those cattle as well.
SPEAKER_03This is a better version of Cattle Max.
SPEAKER_01I hope so. I I've used Cattle Max and it's a good program. And so it'd take pieces from Cattle Max, Gym, Breeder. I mean, there's there's tons of cattle programs out there that folks can use. And I've tried to take the best of each of those that I've worked with and you know, also trying to think through some of those that pieces that they don't offer. So seeming an embryo inventory and management that keeps track of all that. That once you put the embryo in, it pulls it out of your inventory and matches it to the cow that it went into, also. Just trying to streamline it so that you guys aren't having to go back and forth with recording different pieces. It just you do one piece and it's taken care of through the whole program. Another thing I'm pretty excited about this app for is getting the voice to record keeping side of it. So you can hit a button on your phone, say Cal 234, had a calf this morning, 3 a.m. that weighed 65 pounds, heifer calf from a brewing ranch bull, and it would put it all in there automatically for you, for example.
SPEAKER_03I got something for you to add to the app. I've actually talked to a couple board members about this, or apparently I'm a mouthbreaking moron. It was accepted with a loud thud. I just think it makes too much sense. Is an AI program where you just take a picture of the feed and it scores it for you.
SPEAKER_01So there's there is a program in North Carolina, I think, Bovey PhD. Yeah, that is working on that technology right now.
SPEAKER_03I want I want teaching others, I want teeth and others and feet score that way.
SPEAKER_01Yep. So I know that gal is working on putting that stuff together, and that's something I've included into this app so that you can take pictures of the feet and the udders and kind of build out your reference data for an animal if you wanted to. So you can have your sire photos, your damn photos, but every single animal in your herd could have a photo as well. So that when you go back through later to critique animals or review animals, or what did that udder look like when she calved, all of that information is stored there right at your fingertips, also. And it's one of those pieces. I mean, it it garbage in, garbage out, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it it the information going in is only as good and accurate as the person who's entering it. And you know, uh, unfortunately, that's part of every industry, not just the Angus industry. And I work with some programs at Ren Angus, and you know, starting to get into some other breeds as well. And it's it's amazing they all have the same critiques of their own associations. You know, it's just part of it. You get big enough and the marketing gets easy enough, and EPDs are a useful tool to some extent. I'm not opposed to EPDs, I just don't feel like they are as accurate as they should be for the majority of programs that have been taught to use them. Yeah. Uh is how I would say it.
SPEAKER_03As breeders, we don't use them correctly. You don't accept them on the face value. For example, when you see a two-year-old bull who's being marketed and you're thinking about using this bull, but you want to see these more semi-proven, go ahead and start tracking, track where it's at. Do you start off as a long way on me? And then track them for a year or two and see where they end up at. If you're a Martinal guy really focused on teeth and utters, you're not gonna grow up, be able to use that bull for five or six years to have daughters, and then watch where that squirt goes. You may not see a massive change in the numbers, but you may see enough to say not quite what he's representing.
SPEAKER_01I couldn't tell you how many hundreds of dollars I've spent on performance progeny reports through Angus. Those are one of my favorite things to run to look at cattle. Costs $2, but there is a lot of good information there. And just like you're saying, you can run it one year and then you go and run it the next year. It's really easy to see how heavily a bull was used and if his daughter's made any progress in the breed at all, as well. If they had any calves that were registered, any data submitted. So it's a neat way to follow some of those bulls on actual performance as well.
SPEAKER_03And there was a one podcast, I forgot who was talking to and what bull we were covering, but there was an old bull that he had like something like 20,000 recorded prosperity. Uh-huh. Oh there was a crazy number where he wasn't a succession type sire. He's about a 50-50 younger daughters versus son. Right. And he had someone like 10,000 recorded daughters in the herd. In the herd. Doesn't work. You've been a crazy having almost every daughter to be in the herd as a race test daughter. You don't see that much anymore. I mean you know you don't. You'll see a bull have 10,000 head and maybe 2,500 daughters.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. And then you look at those daughters and look at how many calves they have that they've produced also that's recorded on there. And that's another great telltale sign on on the female potential for a bull as well. You know, yes, there's daughters that were recorded, but how many calves are recorded from those daughters as well?
SPEAKER_03I said, do you think part of that might be because the huge influx in the ember else where some of these operations are more likely if she's not great on genomics, they're gonna retain her, but she's just gonna be well promoted as well recip.
SPEAKER_01That that could be. I suppose it depends on the boy you're looking at too. You know, that those types of females, it doesn't seem like they get probably a fair opportunity to really prove themselves out. Like if they didn't hit a home run their first year, well, we'll just use her as a recip, you know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Versus, yeah, the first year, if she raised a great calf, that's wonderful. And if she didn't, what did what happened? Was it her that didn't raise a calf? Was it our management? Was it the genetics? We not match her right. I mean, there's a ton of other variables there that I'd sure give her another chance. But at the same time, I know plenty of programs that take all of those heifers and they put embryos in them the first year. Calving yeast, embryos, and let them prove themselves out. Let them get that first calf, let them see how maternal they are, do they raise a good calf or not? And then after that, we'll try breeding them and seeing, you know, what they can do from there. So it it I think it just comes down to a management style and what you have available, but if you're being very aggressive on the embryo transfer side of it, I don't see any reason why you couldn't plug a bunch of those embryos into your heifers right away.
SPEAKER_03I don't think I like that. Yeah, that's it's it's risky. Not so much the risk. I've said this before on the on this podcast. I think one of the worst things we have going in our breed is the embryo transfers. And again, it's not that it's a bad thing to do. I think for a lot of people though, they come into this breed and they don't think that they're a real producer unless they're flushing cows and raising embryos. And I think a lot of people are leaving great genetics behind. They're not giving their cows an opportunity to raise a good one. There's a pedigree in all these cattle. I leave phenotype first, pedigree second. People that look at these animals, there's some great woven pedigree that gosh darn it, there's great news back in there all along with that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I'll throw this out. Maybe some of your listeners can help me with this one. I'm trying to find the catalogs from Sinclair's from 2010 and 2013, that those catalogs would have been 200 plus animals in those catalogs and some of their dispersals. And none of those catalogs are online. But if you're trying to study pedigrees and where animals are stacked and some of those things, finding those old catalogs is a wealth of knowledge for doing homework like that. So I I enjoy finding those old catalogs like that and studying pedigrees because a lot of those are still very relevant today. And, you know, I think they still offer everything that we're trying to build.
SPEAKER_03St. Clair was, yeah, they're masters in weaving categories together. Yeah. Well, gosh. A lot of line breeding there. Um there was a time where line breeding absolutely made sense. It had to happen. It had to get all the defects out or prove the defects. Now we don't need it as much. But there are also places like the XX people, there's some places to use some of that stuff because it becomes an outcross.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. And that that's probably why like the Rido and emulation combination is my favorite. Is it's just been so proven and time-tested, you know, over the last 50 plus years that it's really hard to mess up that combination.
SPEAKER_03What are some other combinations you like? Can't that can't be the only one?
SPEAKER_01No, so there's the I guess there you can look at cow family lines is one part of it, and then there's also the sire lines. So, you know, Rito emulation, the traveler lines have been really, we've done a lot of homework with those and pulling cattle in in those lines. And so there's a lot of good shoff genetics that fit into traveler. There's a lot of old school genetics that fit into Traveler. You know, oldies are in that traveler line as well. You know, so bulls like certified ancestry, they're really strong bulls on that side of it. 6807, if I'm thinking correctly, you know, he falls into there. He starts looking at programs like Jorgensen's, and you know, their entire foundation is built off of Sir Line. So they've got El Dorado, they've got Emulus, they're using some genetics from the old SkyMir bull from I believe he's 1958, that those cattle on paper, EPD-wise, aren't there, but they've got every bit as much performance when you lean a calf off those cows as as they did 50 years ago and they're still competitive.
SPEAKER_03So, Jorgensen, if you're your pedigree nerd, you get that catalog, it's like cow porn.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Check out one two years ago and I saved it. Because I think the first 20 pages of it was just them explaining the different, I think they used five lines, right? Emulus, emulation, the reader, traveler, and I can't remember the other one.
SPEAKER_01But they they've done a better job in the last five years of breaking those lines down so that they are easier to follow for guys that don't typically follow their program. And the reason we kind of got into Jorgensen's with a lot of their breeding influence was with Jeff Ward. Jeff Ward was a major influence for me down at SquareB. And while it was a short time with him, I learned an awful lot from him on evaluating cattle and phenotype and looking at pedigrees and performance pedigrees and daughter data. That he's probably was one of the most influential guys in my cattle career so far.
SPEAKER_03Did he pass away about two years ago?
SPEAKER_01Nope, nope. Nope. He is still he's still out and about and just not involved with the cattle industry anymore. Sorry, Jeff, did you put you in the casket ad early?
SPEAKER_03I've looked at your website here. It's geneticmobile solutions.com, right? No, dot online. Yeah, dot online. Yep. It looks like you are going to at some point in time sell some seamen and embryos.
SPEAKER_01Yep. At some point we'd like to get that listed on there. It's just trying to get the right inventory built up with the programs that we're working with. And right now, a lot of these matings that they're doing are they're sticking in cows themselves. And so it's almost one of those things. We don't want to put an offering out there that hasn't been proven yet. And so some of the bulls they've even purchased probably we won't get seamen up for another year or so until they have calves on the ground and say, Yes, here's here's what these genetics do. Not just we got to promote them before anyone gets calves in case they don't turn out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, prove them the right way. We're gonna prove them the hard way. The hard way to know if it's the right way.
SPEAKER_01The hard way.
SPEAKER_03A couple bulls that I've been using the last two years were proven the right way. Spickler right time. I just kept tracking that bull, and that's a bull that got proven out over eight years. I think Janet's just checked him out.
SPEAKER_01Yep, it's kind of the same thing. He was a bull that was on my radar there and finally went and seen him and then went back and saw him two more times. So then we got seamen and started plugging him in in some different programs. That yeah, exactly right. That bull earned his spot the hard way through his daughters and his sons. And yep, I think one of the older bulls that Jen X has ever picked up. I think he was eight or nine years old now. Yeah. So pretty to see a bull like that make it into the big bull studs for sure. How do we like him? I like him quite a bit. His calves would just be hitting the ground in some of the programs we're working with now. So, you know, give us a year and we'll be able to tell you. Holotop Angus out in Podio, Montana, they picked up that right time son from Shipwheel. And so he's running on cows out in Montana, and his calves will be coming this spring, also. But kind of the same thing, trying to stack those genetics that are highly proven all the way through on these pedigrees that just minimizes the risk in what your investment is. And honestly, that's where the whole genetic hedging solutions name came from was minimizing risk with offsetting investments, right? That's what hedging is, and so there's no reason we shouldn't be doing that with the cattle side of it, too.
SPEAKER_03A right time monster coming from right now. He leaned off at 791, no creep. Nice he's just so freaking about getting him off too. I think if somebody here is right time, they think that bull's probably a play with right time, but no more from what I'm seeing. He kind of plays more towards a line with the pomegree. Okay on chisel. Yep. Right time so far back on that pomegree. The calves I've got out of him. I have some old lines, calves back in the day. Ross these reminded me so much of Alliance. So deep-sided, a little bit raw boned, but I really liked him. What are some other bulls that you guys have been using that you like?
SPEAKER_01So Sam Hawk down in Missouri, he's got a couple of home raised bulls. One called Reward and another one called Elvis. Elvis would be an emulation son out of a resource cow. So that emulation reto line again. And then Reward would be a renowned grandson out of an old Duke cow that Sam had, who he's really starting to make some phenomenal females down there. So those would be some older proven bulls that are being utilized. SP Cattle and Jason Jackson, they purchased what have been the second high-selling bull from Aaron Strowman's sale this year. Oh who was a robust XXP back to resource. And that Rachel Cal, she is something neat to see up there at Aaron's. She was up at Transova, and I think I walked her around for about 20 minutes out there just watching her walk, how she steps, how she moves. So they're really excited about getting calves out of that bowl. He's one of the younger ones right now. And then out at Hollow Top, there's that shipwheel sum that they have that they're calling all in. That he would be a spec the right time out of a capitalist 316 back to a resource. So just another really good proven pedigree on that side of it as well. So Hulk Angus, did you build their website? That one I did not do. Oh, okay. Nope.
SPEAKER_03Well, no, I'm not gonna give you credit for it.
SPEAKER_01Nope, that's fine. No, but they've got quite a few bulls and donors listed on there that their sale will be coming up here in February, and he's gonna have some really good cattle on there. That's been he's gonna start letting some females go. He's starting to get some numbers up there now, and that'll be a really solid foundation for some guys to build their program from.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Hopper award, his picture looks like a pretty cool bowl.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Really good footed, and and Sam's big on foot structure, and the cattle have to work in the in their fescue environment as well. So, you know, between those two things, it's easy to call cattle out if they if they're not gonna make it just on two categories alone.
SPEAKER_03Are they that fescue? That far west of Missouri? Yes. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_03I thought that if you run on some different grasses all over there.
SPEAKER_01No, there's there's an awful lot of fescue. I mean, you start getting south of Highway 92 in Iowa, and you start getting into fescue, and it just gets that much thicker the farther south you go. So any of my guys in Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, you know, going towards the east through there, they all have pretty good fescue that they're dealing with also.
SPEAKER_03We we have fescue here in West Tennessee. I've tried to convert most of my pastures so that's not the main staple anymore. Sure. It's growth on and then we can grow crab grass to get slow, but gotcha. Yep. I put a lot of crab grass in for the lady. Good. Anything else coming down the road for genetic energy solutions?
SPEAKER_01Fall is getting busy and getting on the road. I don't know. This probably won't be out by the time I get to the monin sale. Their sale's coming up on the 12th, but I get on the road Tuesday and start heading their way. I'm really looking forward to their female offering and starts getting real busy after that with getting sale photos and videos done for everyone.
SPEAKER_03Or the monads? Are they customer first?
SPEAKER_01Yes, sir. Oh, yeah. Been lucky enough to work with them on their sale the last few years and really enjoy their knowledge and expertise on the cattle and the females that they make. That's probably one of my favorite herds to go through and look at cows.
SPEAKER_03Big time underrated sire was Mown in South Dakota.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Yep.
SPEAKER_03Surprise feeding it used more. Actually, they got two of them that I thought should have got a little more use out of them. South Dakota and Dynamite. Okay. Yeah. A pretty darn good price they have those bulls.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Have have you looked at their offering and seen that Abigail Abigail that's the supercharger daughter?
SPEAKER_03No, I I haven't.
SPEAKER_01You might take a look at that one. She's pretty good. I know they'll very afford those kind of cattle up there. She'd be worth it. That's she's a pretty awesome supercharger daughter. That if if you're a fan, that it'd be worth just even taking a look at.
SPEAKER_03She's not the first supercharger I've seen come out of there. So you must like using Apple a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Yep. He worked very well for them, really made some good females.
SPEAKER_03I need to dig through this stuff and see if they're gonna sell a merit daughter. At one time they had the walker rights to profitable merit. Oh, really? Yeah, okay. Be kind of fun to Dave Waddle. Might be too old for them now. I just pulled up their catalog, and there is genetic hedge right there. Genetic Hedgeons in there. Looks like Dave Moles can be an auctioner.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Yep. Dave does an awesome job out there as well. So did you put together the catalog? No, Josh, he does that. He he does all the footnotes and the captions, and I go out and we do some photos and videos and help on some social media stuff too. And you know, their females are pretty easy to sell and promote. They've been really big proponents of foot quality, fertility, longevity. You know, if you're looking for a cow family, it's probably one of my favorites is the jilt line that they have. That I mean, they're just they're hard to beat. Every single one of those is good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the jilts are all over. Thank you for your time or appreciate it. This is a kind of a fun interview. Well yeah, thank you. Maybe I'll talk to you again before nine years goes by. Seven years went by. Thank you for your time. You too. Thank you, sir.