Hello All:
March 15, 2025 11 am ICE Headquarters: Catalogs are in the mail. If you received a catalog in the past you should be receiving one momentarily. If you don’t receive one by the middle of February, and want one, please let us know.
Before and After: I LOVE before and after pictures! Someone fixes up a classic, barn find car, I appreciate the work. Someone loses a lot of weight or changes their body composition, I truly respect the time, work and discipline it took to do so. How does this apply in the seedstock business? When is the before? I’ll suggest sale videos and sale day are great times to consider “before”. Now, those times are AFTER development to the point of being seedstock. I assume most cattle, for beef production and for seedstock, have a relatively similar “before”, at least up until weaning (but even this can vary widely). If I’m referring to sale day as “before”, what should cattle look like on that day? I am of the position that 2-year-old bulls and bred heifers should not be sloppy fat but lean. I believe a BCS of 5 would be ideal but considering how they may be managed through the winter a 4 or 6 would be appropriate. Outside of this range, skinny or fat, could be asking for calving or breeding problems. I’ve recently walked through the bulls and they haven’t increased condition since the videos, some have gone backwards. This winter has been open and somewhat mild but the forage they graze does NOT put them on a growing plane for condition. That will come when they hit grass this spring!
Compensatory Gain: There is no hiding it, our “before” is NOT going to look like most. I’m not guessing, I’m certain, that most cattle customers who know nothing about our program or philosophies would either laugh or be disgusted, or both, at what they see in our pens on sale day. Compared to fed animals our cattle look terrible (I think for what they’ve gone through they look amazing). The best, and only, way I know to give you an “after” perspective is to have our herd bulls in a pen so you can see what our 2-year-old bulls will look like in 2 or 3 more years. The herd bulls you see will have been managed EXACTLY like our cows and our seedstock animals, and this management applies to their entire life. If you don’t like what you see in our herd sires please don’t buy our bulls. You will not be satisfied. Now, will our animals look better on June 15 than March 15? Absolutely and definitely YES! You will be seeing our cattle in the poorest condition of the year (every year) because we don’t supplement in the winter and rely on compensatory gain in the spring. Compensatory gain is an INCREDIBLE mechanism in the cattle business. I believe producers tend to underutilize it because we want our cattle fat all year round. Compensatory gain, heterosis, water cycle, nutrient cycle, grazing vs feeding, calving in sync with nature…all free…with proper management. Why do we manage for the harder, more expensive thing?
Tall Heifers: We did not have enough cull animals for our spring beef slaughter appointments so I asked an order buyer to find a dozen or so. We’ve never procured animals for our beef program this way. You know how you anticipate the worst-case scenario and usually it’s nowhere near as bad…but sometimes it’s worse? I bought 8 heavyweight feeder heifers to fatten on grain. They ran off the trailer (not surprising, but ours’ usually walk) and my eyes looked in astonishment…I now owned Kareem Cattle. The frame size on the majority of our herd is 2-4. Every frame score size is 2”. These heifers were a foot taller than our fattening heifers. A foot! My eyes still have a hard time looking at them. I’ve probably seen 8, 9 or 10 framed cattle before…but it’s been long enough to forget what they look like. I can’t fathom how much feed it would take to keep those girls fertile and cycling. I don’t wonder why they were open.
Truth is like poetry…most people hate poetry.
R.C. Sproul: Dr. Sproul was a reformed preacher and theologian who I greatly respected. He died about 8 years ago but during his life he defended the truth of God’s word precisely and eloquently. I recently watched him answer a question regarding Christians who doubt their faith. The doubt I’m referring to is not their doubt in God (which there is plenty of) but their doubt in themselves not being “good enough”. (There is certainly a problem with people who think they are good enough but in fact aren’t, “depart from me I never knew you”, but I’m not referring to them.) I am referring to the genuine, saved, repentant believer who has thoughts that lead them astray. Sproul explained he would ask them three questions to test their faith:
His point being that none of us love Jesus perfectly or as we ought but if we love Him at all that is a test of our faith. Unsaved people don’t (can’t) love Jesus at all. John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws (better translated “drags”) him.” Repent and believe, and keep doing that every day, this is part of taking up our cross daily (Luke 9:23). I’m grateful God doesn’t forgive like I do. I tend to be a 3 strikes and out guy, sometimes only once, before my wrath comes down. He’s a seventy times 7 God, which means He forgives an uncountable number of sins in his children. Though I’m still bad at applying it, there is no doubt in my mind God uses our children to teach us about the patience and forgiveness He has for us. It’s clear I needed 7 children because I have more to learn than most.
Grace to you.