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Summitcrest Update 2008 - Michael Croad

I have had the chance to go to a couple of local feed lots. One of which had 95,000 head of steers on it.

Everything was automated and to mix the feed all you had to do was keep the bins full of silage, ground corn and hay, it was then automatically put through a mixing plant where minerals etc were added and then into holding silos.

The trucks pull under these silos and are loaded and then given a print out of what pens to feed and how much. It was run like a factory and even in the cattle processing a computer would tell them what had to be given and how much and then they were automatically drafted into 11 different lines on a conveyor drafting system.

There were up to 30 cowboys on horses riding the pens twice daily for sick animals and then a mobile hospital as they called it would come round and treat them. The other one was a 8500 head feed lot that brought all local black steers from clients. I spent a day at Zutaverns Cattle Company which was a ranch that has brought Summitcrest genetics for over 30 years and calve over 1750 cows.

It was good to be able to see Summitcrest genetics in a commercial situation and how they were performing. The Nebraska Bull sale went well; selling 186 bulls with a top price of $80,000 for a high IMF scanned bull and the average was $3,700.

A lot of bulls were sold over the internet through a video being shown of the bull as it was auctioned live. The day after the bull sale I moved on from Broken Bow Nebraska to the ranch at Fremont Iowa.

This ranch is approximately 2500 acres and calving 450 cows. The soils here are a lot heavier with a high water table, therefore there isn’t the irrigation around here compared to Nebraska and it is muddy, you even need four wheel drive to get to the ranch on the metal roads.

We had the bull sale here last week putting up 90 bulls and selling 65 at an average price of $2900. This sale is a little different as the bulls are pre priced and you put your name down and if there is more than one name against a bull there is an auction but no bulls are brought through the ring.

May 2008: I have spent seven days up in Montana delivering bulls and visiting studs. We spent most of the time traveling but saw a lot of countryside, 3500 miles in seven days and one day we drove for 24 hours.

We shared the driving so it wasn’t that bad. Once we got back to Iowa we started breeding the heifers and a week later we started on the cows so that kept us busy for most of the day. I also have been delivering bulls around Missouri and Illinois.

There are a lot of big factories in Iowa and I got the chance to visit and tour two John Deere factories one where they make all the round balers and the little square baler and the other was where they make all there 7000, 8000, and 9000 series tractors, which was interesting seeing them being put together from scratch and the robots and technology that is used. I headed for Ohio 700 miles and 14 hours later I found the ranch in Summitville Ohio.

It is well into their spring here and they are starting to plant oats and within a week they will be planting corn. They have about 3000 acres with 500 cows. It is different to the other states as there are a lot more trees here and it is more rolling country.

They have been breeding for 5 weeks so are a fair way through and just the late calvers to breed now.

All breeding is done through AI for the first two cycles and then they are turned out with a bull.