We just got back from the Illinois Beef Expo. Jake exhibited two heifers. Pictures of the show is below. We still have some quality show heifers and steers for sale starting at $1200 for the heifers and $900 for steers. We have a very exciting calf crop consisting of heifers and steers out of Purple Cotton Club 33T ET (National Champion CRR D03 Cotton x National Champion LaGrand Reload).
I also have 1 bull for sale LF 3H L36K CHANNING 510 (Buddy). This 5 year old herd bull has been very successful in assisting with a balancing EPD’s in our herd. I am happy to say that I have never pulled a calf sired by Buddy. At the Illini Classic Embryo auction, Steve Lorenzen sold 6 eggs maternally related to Buddy (including 3 full sibs). Give Jay a call at 309.778.0811.
We can deliver cattle from coast to coast for approximately $300.
Also, thank you Frank Baliff, Earlysville VA for purchasing Gold Load!
Thank you to all of our friends and customers (who have become friends) for a great year. Remember, if you would like to order beef for the winter, please give us a call. We still have show heifers for sale starting at $1200.
We have 6 quality spring show heifers for sale (not including the one in the video) and 3 nice fall heifers that will show. Give us a call at 309.738.0811-Jay
Pictured is our consignment to the 1st Annual ILPHA Land of Lincoln Internet Sale November 4 (bidding closes at 7). BOF TINA CLUB 910 is an April 13th polled Hereford heifer out of our new bull Purple Cotton Club. Purple Cotton Club is a Reload x CRR D03 Cotton. Both were National Champions. BOF Tina’s dam is Purple Tina-Faye (a grand daughter of Keynote). This is the first heifer we have offered out of Cotton Club and we are very excited about this offering. Visit www.ilpha.com for catalog and sale information.
Division Champion 2009 Illinois State Fair, Class winner 2009 IJHA Preview Show.
The show season is over. BOF Gold Load is the Reserve Champion Polled Hereford Bull at the Illinois State Fair. He is for sale, so give me a call or e-mail for more information. Full sister was a class winner at the 2007 Junior Nationals for Dean Adcock.
I have found a couple of nice recources I would like to share with our customers. Many times, people wonder where different parts of the steer certain cuts come from. I have a link here to a downloadable chart that explains it pretty well. It’s called the Beef made easy retail cuts chart and is provided by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association at the retail beef site.
The other site that I like, is the Beef it’s what’s for dinner site. (I take back some of the bad things I said about the National Cattlemen’s Association earlier today). It has some great recipes and a lot of nutricious information about beef for the consumer.
Finally, I should note the Certified Hereford Beef program. It promotes healthy, safe and great tasting beef without the added “enhancement” of water. That is the breed we beleive is the best, and so do our customers.
Last weekend we attended the Illinois Junior Hereford Association Preview Show in Taylorville. This is a two day show with bred & owned, cow calf, bulls and steers being shown on Saturday and the owned heifers shown on Sunday (Fathers Day). Congratulations to the Polled winners the Collins family, and the horned winners Bauers and Jones (bred by Del Hawk Herefords).
All in all, we had a pretty good weekend. Our fall bull was a class winner (see his picture) and the Harfst heifer Jake bought at the preview show placed 4th (beating a couple of high dollar heifers that had previously beat him in Roseville).
In the produce department, the mums are continuing to grow at a rapid pace. I finished planing the last couple rows of sweet corn yesterday, yes, on June 25th. Hope to have some produce at the farmers market soon.
First, thank you to all our customers at the Trinity Farmers Market! We hope you return to our booth.
Planting crew
John Deere 464a planter
Rows of peppers and tomatoes
As I write this, the rain and wind continues. I dumped out about 1/2 inch this morning and another 1 inch this afternoon. The farmers are never going to get everything planted on time. I talked to a friend of mine that sells seed corn around the Bloomington area. He sold over 10,000 bags of seed corn and as of yesterday, only knows of 32 bags in the ground.
I rushed home from school today because we are anticipating 4 cows calving (due yesterday). One Hereford heifer and 3 black recipts that will have Hereford calves. I had Arika on maternity duty as she is now back from school (University of Iowa). At about 1:00 she called and saw hooves starting to protude from the heifer. I was a little nervous, not just because she was a heifer, but because she is bred to our new bull Cotton Club. CC has had some pretty big calves this spring and that can be rough on a heifer. I had Arika giving me and hourly update, but nothing was happening. I decided I better head straight home after school (instead of stopping for the usual friday afternoon Roundtable). I checked the heifer and still no progress. I determined it was time to take action. Jake and I got the heifer in a confined space and put the halter on. I got the calf puller (which I would rather not use) and hooked up the chains. A little pull and things started happening. Out was a head (with a tounge sticking out) and half a body. Another pull, and the calf was on the ground. It always amazes me when they come out and all of a sudden they are breathing! A live bull calf at a manageable 82 pounds. We bedded down a stall, and put momma and baby in the pen. I hope to have a picture of a vibrant calf on the page in the next day or so.
Last weekend, I was able to use my new John Deere 494a planter. I think it is a 1965 model (so we are the same age). She and I planted about 1 1/2 acre of popcorn while my wife and kids spent Mothers Day planting about 60 tomato plants and another 90 (or so) pepper plants.
Also, I was able to row the first 8 rows of sweet corn this moring. Now I wish I would have planted 16 rows.
Baldie hereford cross born to a black cow (recip) at BOF April 24, 2009.
I realize that Herefords are not the most popular breed of cattle currently (although they are a close second). Thanks to some good marketing by some other associations, most people think other breeds provide a better quality and are generally better.
Personally, we chose Herefords because of their dispositions. They are very docile animals and when you have a small kid showing a 1000 + pound animal at a fair, in an environment they are not familiar with and people who might not be familiar with livestock, this was an obvious choice. We tried other breeds, black, Simmental and Limousin. Once a neighbor gave my daughter a hereford to show about 10 years ago, we were supporters of the breed. They have great attitudes and are terrific mothers. Most importantly, they yield a great tasting carcass.
If my personal testimony has not convinced you, look at these facts. The data was collected by Circle A staff (an Angus breeder) and analyzed by Dan Moser, associate professor of genetics at Kansas State University and Vern Pierce, professor of agricultural economics at University of Missouri.
Here are the highlights:
600 Angus cows were randomly bred to 10 Hereford bulls. The resulting progeny was compared to the offspring from three proven Angus sires.
The Hereford-sired calves were 3 lb. heavier than the Angus calves at birth. But averaging 72 lb., the weight was nearly ideal for commercial operations.
At weaning, the Hereford-sired calves were 11.9 lb. heavier than the Angus-sired calves, despite the Angus sires ranking in the top 20% of their breed for weaning weight EPD.
Heifer calves were bred with the baldies showing a 7% advantage in conception rates over the straight Angus heifers.
75 of the Hereford-sired bred heifers were sold at Circle A’s annual production sale, where they sold for about $110 more than their Angus counterparts.
Part of the steers were placed on feed efficiency test at Circle A’s feedlot. The Hereford-sired calves outgained the Angus by .15 lb. per day.
While both breed groups were similar for fat thickness (Angus = 0.52 vs. Hereford = 0.54), Hereford-sired steers had about 13 more lb. of carcass weight and about 3/4 of an inch more ribeye area.
Pierce set up an economic model to measure the advantages of this data for a typical operation. He says the advantage of using Herefords will be multiplied over the 10-year model.
In the model using Hereford bulls on Angus-based cows will add $514 net over 10 years or about $51 per year per cow.
Economic models also predicted that if replacement females were retained over a period of 10 years, Hereford-sired females would generate a 20% advantage in herd size for the same relative cost versus the straight Angus commercial cows because of increased fertility and longevity.
Pierce says, “The bottom line is if a rancher with Angus-based cows uses Hereford bulls compared to using Angus bulls and gets the same response as we had in this study, he will have improved cash flow, increased herd size and more calves to sell over a 10-year period.”
