1-5-22 ICE Update
Hello All:
Happy New Year and may God’s grace, peace, provision, kindness, safety and glory shine brightly in your lives and in those of your family in 2022. Trials, challenges and concerns abound but may our faith always triumph over fear.
In this update I want to address a few comments we’ve recently received about our program and provide an NFL quarterback/herd bull analogy. I am EXCEEDINGLY thankful for your feedback! My assumption is if one person has a question or addresses a concern about our program there are others who have the same questions/concerns, at least that’s the way it worked in the mathematics classroom. I taught high school math for 10 years, 2 at Lincoln Christian and 8 in Superior. One of my many standard sayings was that there are no stupid questions just stupid people…it has turned out more true than I ever imagined!
One question/concern that has recently popped up involves the issue of ICE sounding like PCC. The bottom line is that this is probably an accurate assertion. We spent 13 years with PCC and agree with their philosophies. I would argue that PCC has done THE most masterful job of marketing their bulls of anyone in the seedstock industry. When our bulls sold through PCC sales, some were leadoff bulls for the particular breed, many were retained semen interest bulls, and our sale averages were FAR higher than they are now (even though the bulls we produce now are better). I was VERY pleased with how our bulls were marketed; I think that is something to emulate. We are aiming to distinguish ourselves from other seedstock producers with our genetics and our development program, both of which I believe are unique in the seedstock business. Advertising is not marketing. We advertise to get the name out, we market to persuade people to give us a try. We market through updates and conferences, and we only advertise in the SGF (but that might change). Overwhelmingly, most of our customers are or were PCC customers. As I’ve observed, people started buying from us because we are a much cheaper option than PCC. Initially, multiple PCC CPs purchased bred heifers from us to use to produce bulls for PCC. However, as our return customer sales demonstrate, people are figuring out the quality of our seedstock, are raising our sale averages as they do so, and still know they are getting tremendous value comparatively. The compliments are coming in. I probably should share those sometime.
A second question stems from what I assume is a misunderstanding of what I’ve aimed to communicate. Though we catalog every bull that survives our development protocol, MANY bulls don’t make it to the sale for one culling reason or another. I’d say when we started on our own over 50% of the bulls that were calved on our place did not make it to the sale. I’d say now it is between 30% and 50% don’t make it. We cull for all sorts of reasons and at multiple times during the year. The point I was trying to make is that we don’t hold back any bull (or bred heifer) for ourselves without first going through the sale. Though this protocol may change, I don’t expect it to. EVERYONE has a chance to buy any bull or heifer we produce for seedstock. ICE will be a competitive bidder on animals we want to bring back into the operation, but we don’t get them all. If someone wants an animal more than we do, it sells, no funny business. We have outbid every customer on any bulls we’ve wanted to bring back but have only purchased about 70% of the heifers we’ve bid on. If you see Ashley bidding, she is most likely bidding on behalf of ICE (unless she is buying for her own herd or for a SUS bidder). Again, no funny business. We aim to be as transparent about what we do as possible. Most seedstock producers hold back bulls they don’t want the public to have access to and never sell their bred heifers. We have customers who are out-bidding us on bred heifers who then develop the bull calves they get from those heifers into herd sires for their program. This is one reason most programs won’t make their females available. I don’t begrudge customers developing bull calves from our heifers. We do it, makes sense to me!
The next…Peyton Manning. I’m guessing that most of you have heard of Peyton Manning. If not, a quick Google would inform you that he is one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history. His father, Archie, played quarterback in the NFL as well. Though it is rare for a father/son duo to play in the NFL, Archie got to experience it with two of his sons. While Peyton currently ranks 3rd on the all-time NFL passing yards list, his brother Eli ranks 9th. WHAT does this have to do with our cattle?!? The point I’m trying to make is like begets like. Now, just because a man plays QB in the NFL most certainly doesn’t mean his son will, obviously so many variables. However, in our business we look for the “best” bulls to produce sons that will produce excellent offspring themselves. The “best” bulls are in semen catalogs and are used by seedstock and commercial producers alike to produce more LIKE. At ICE we have been producing and collecting sons from some of the best grass genetics bulls in history. Archie retired some time ago. Peyton has been retired for a while. Every “best” bull eventually dies and the race is on to produce another son as good as or better than him. Now, how many of you have heard of Cooper Manning? He is another son of Archie…and wasn’t a great quarterback, or even good for that matter (but he does have a son, Arch, who has coaches licking their lips). Referring back to the points I’ve made in our last two updates, development is as important as genetics (nurture vs. nature) in the seedstock business. You don’t want to be paying for a Peyton and get a Cooper. Just because a bull is out of a “best” sire doesn’t mean he’s herd bull material. He MUST be put through a test. Our development protocol is more distinguishing than any I’m aware of. Bad bulls don’t make it through.
In light of the above I would like to direct you to our semen page. We have OUTSTANDING grass/momma cow genetics for sale: Composites, Herefords and Red/Black Angus. I would be eager to discuss volume discounts.
Grace to you all.
Lanny Greenhalgh | Steward
[email protected] | (402) 984-6375
www.icecattle.com