Breeder of the Year Mr. Frank Brand
A little history on our herd goes somewhat like this. We purchased our farm in 1974 and have focused on providing good looking, high valued cattle. I was a chemistry teacher at Lincoln High and somehow we had to pay for the farm. We started milking cows and also had a commercial beef herd. We continued
milking cows until 1987. We purchased our first Angus cows in 1980. Along the way, we raised
chickens, ducks, sheep, pigs and even a few Texas Long Horns. After selling the milk cows in the fall of 1987 we expanded our Angus operation. We grew the herd to about 200 cows. Our first donor was purchased from Woodland Farms in Illinois. She was Barda 244, and she was purchased in 2004. She had stood third in her class at Denver. After we bought her, the ultrasound data came back, and she was the number one BR Midland-sired calf in the nation. She went on to produce many embryos. She went on to produce the high-selling flush and embryos at the 2006 Foundation
Female Sale in Denver. Not only did she have extreme carcass numbers, but a superb docility score as well. She left many excellent females behind her, and also bulls. Interestingly enough, our top female in our herd currently is Brand Barda 4089, who has off the charts epd’s and phenomenal phenotype with a $C of over 423. (Simon, our grandson, will be showing a maternal sister in the P&G show in Louisville this summer). In 2008, we started entering bulls in the Midland test station and had the number one marbling bull out there, which went to Colorado. A Couple years later, we had the number two Bull overall from a donor from the Edwards Ranch in Montana.
Also in 2008, we bought another donor from the Baldridge brothers in Nebraska. Baldridge Blackbird S944 who had a major impact on our herd. In 2012 we started marketing all of our fat cattle through a natural program in California, Niman Ranch. This has turned out to be a good program for us as we currently are marketing cattle that run 70% Prime and 100% CAB through this program.
We started our Annual Brand Angus Bull and Female Sale in 2004. We started selling private treaty and then moved to an auction format at
Jana and Jeff’s farm. The next generation is also starting to build on Brand Angus. Simon loves showing Angus cattle and loves all things farming. He continues to learn, work and build his show cattle numbers.
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