Hello All:

HARVEST COMPLETE:  We’ve recently wrapped up the 2022 harvest season and now it is on to caring for the cattle on stalks and manure hauling and spreading. We started spreading manure from a nearby 50,000 head feedlot in 2008. My Dad started no-tilling in the 1980’s, and we have continued that practice on 100% of our acres. We have added cover crops and the manure in recent years. For us, it’s more about the forage than the cattle, and it’s more about the soil than the forage. All of these components, along with God’s additional gifts of rainfall and good growing conditions, combine to provide for our family year after year, for the Greenhalgh family for over 100 years. We are here to steward the land/soil for a short time, I expect to leave it in much better condition for whoever stewards it next.

PREG. CHECKING: We plan to preg. check on November 23rd. Every open cow or heifer will be culled from the program. Every late bred cow or heifer (anything bred to calve after June) will be sold in our March 11, 2022 sale. We will also cull any poorly conditioned older cows, any with disposition problems, and for any other reason we see fit. We have, do, and will continue to cull hard in our program because we don’t let our problems become your problems.

After preg. check day we will send most of the bred cows with their calves and the bred heifers back to stalks where we plan to keep them until April. We will wean the calves from any cull cows and the first and second calvers. The cull cows will be weighed up at a sale barn, and the cows that are first and second calvers will go back to stalks with the other pairs. The open heifers will go into our grass or grain finished beef programs. The bred heifers will go to some stalks close to home and will stay there until the March sale. We believe that running the majority of our cows through the winter with calves at their side, on only cornstalks with no protein supplementation, is a VERY tough test that most of our cows pass year after year. We wean the calves from the first and second calvers because they are still growing themselves; it is the only “break” our females get in their lives. What would happen to your spring calving herd if you ran your calves on your cows all through the winter on only cornstalks with no hay, tubs, cake, etc.? If you want cattle with the genetics to do so, and have been proven to do so, please give us a look.

2022 SALE: As referenced, we plan to have our annual bull and bred heifer sale on Saturday, March 11, 2022. We will be offering up to 60 heifers bred to calve in May/June and 70 two-year old bulls. We offer EVERY seedstock animal we produce for sale. Now, in full disclosure, we bid on and usually, but not always, buy the herd sires and females we want to keep in the program. Sometimes we have customers outbid us. We are not running up the bids, we are simply willing to let someone who wants the animal more than us have it. It is common for a customer to outbid us when they are wanting a specific dam bred to a specific sire for a potential herd bull or replacement heifer. When you have a 50% chance of getting a bull calf sired by your sire of choice, you can bid a little higher than usual. It is not common for a seedstock producer to offer any bulls or females they want to keep in the program for sale. We aim for everyone to have a chance at every animal; it’s the most fair way I can envision doing it.

Happy Thanksgiving! In Christ, and in spite of some of our circumstances, we have MUCH to be thankful for. Grace to you all.