Striving for Improvement

In many ways, raising cattle is a series of trial and error.  The key is to find the right combination of cattle for your specific environment.  We are currently on our third iteration of bull/cow breed combinations and feel very good about the results.  In the photo you see one half of our first attempt.  We put purebred Angus bulls on commercial Brangus cows.  The resulting calf crop was described to me by someone who should know as "the front end of the front end."  This pair of bulls was raised by the Bradley 3 Ranch north of Childress, Texas.  They were of great disposition, highly fertile and threw growthy, muscular calves from the Brangus mother cows.  It was definitely a winning combination -- except for one thing.  Brangus cows have wings.

We really could not have asked for better calves, but any time we had to work the cows it was a challenge.  A few of them were just plain crazy.  They were dangerous when confined in the corrals to work.  One of them bent a 2-inch steel pipe with her head simply because she decided to charge it at full speed.  They were also very large and therefore, high energy cost to run.

We had an opportunity come along, totally out of the blue, to sell that piece of land along with all of the livestock.  We took the deal because the individual who approached us wanted it more than we did.  We were out of the Brangus cow business and when we rolled into another piece of land we stocked it with registered Angus cows.  We were so impressed with the bulls that we had purchased, we went back to the Bradley 3 and were able to obtain a nice set of heifers from them.

Because we liked the calves from the Angus/Brangus combination so well, we decided to go with Brangus bulls on the Angus heifers.  We have a good and very knowledgeable friend who helped us to locate some "low birth weight" Brangus bulls and were able to purchase them at an excellent price.  They did their job and we had no calving problems.  The resulting calves were above average, but not in the category that I would call "first class."

As those young cows became "experienced" we switched over to Charolais bulls.  I love the calves we got from them.  They were a little bigger at birth and then took off like a patch of Pigweed after a rain.  The bull/steer calves are heavy muscled and look like weight lifters walking around while the heifer calves are distinctly feminine and yet still larger framed.

Because the Angus cows are more moderate in size than the Brangus we had previously owned, we are able to slightly increase stocking rates.  They are gentle, low maintenance and excellent mothers.  I attribute that to the Bradley 3 genetics.  Despite everyone in this area telling us Angus cows can't handle the heat, they seem to do quite well.  They will shade up during the worst heat, but all have maintained good flesh through the summers and seem to thrive even during dry conditions when the forage is of poorer quality -- much better than our neighbors cattle with Brahman influence.

My point isn't to talk about our cattle so much as it is to say that in business of any kind you sometimes need to go through a number of major changes to find the right combination that works.  It can sometimes be expensive in the short run, but in the long run it pays in Spades.  It may be replacing an inefficient production line, or changing organizational structure.  It could be as simple as changing vacation or, sick leave policy.  The key is to continually be looking for ways to improve -- continuous process improvement.

It applies to our personal lives as well....

Here's one of this year's steer calves.