Thank you to all of you for your interest in our program here, and welcome to our 8th annual Loyning Angus sale. As our “Simply Maternal” motto suggests, we are all about maternal functional efficiency. In our commercial herd, the cow that goes unnoticed the longest is the best cow. She is the cow whom we’ve never had to interfere with in any way. She does her job and never draws negative attention to herself by under producing. In a range cow outfit, the cow that overproduces generally works herself out of a job. So, we’re back to that old cow that has done her job well enough within your environment/management system who as your trailing along one day, you wonder to yourself, “Who is that cow? She is ten years old, and I don’t really remember anything about her.” I’ll tell you who she is. She is your most profitable cow. She is the premise of our entire breeding program. Our primary goal is to raise bulls that go out and produce functionally efficient range cows for our customers. You’ll find the steer calf mates produced will be very acceptable in terms of terminal merit within your system too. The ideal cow in our mind’s eye is feminine headed, long necked with a strong level topline and is wedge shaped in her body composition. She is structurally correct, slopes off slightly from hooks to pins, is strong hocked, and has good feet. She has an excellent udder, and is moderate in her milk production. She is hormonally balanced as evidenced by her sleek and glossy hair coat. She is highly fertile. She has a soft and intelligent eye. This cow is of exceptional maternal disposition. Her whole world revolves around her calf, and she wants and loves to be a mother. She knows how to go out, forage, and scrap for her living if need be. This cow is closely bred for added prepotency to produce consistently and be able to renew herself through her daughters. These unquantifiable traits/qualities seem to get forgotten in the world of bigger is always better and biggest is best. In the race for EPD, carcass, DNA marker superiority, or whatever it may be, maternal traits are generally the first traits to be left in the dust. Contrary to popular belief, you can’t have it all. There are tradeoffs in everything. At Loyning Angus, we bowed out of the race a long time ago. Hell, we were never really in it. We want to focus on making the mother cow better at what she does. She is our factory after all, and we want to optimize her. Instead of single mindedly worrying about the quantity that our factory produces (at all costs), we want to optimize the functional efficiency of our factory and focus on the quality of what she’s producing. Our focus is “Simply Maternal.” We want you, our customer, to be able to produce females that enhance your bottom line through the ability to limit feed and labor expenses. Should you have specific end product goals in mind, you have the flexibility to terminally mate those females and hit those targets. We must remember that terminal traits belong on a plate and not in the replacement pen though. With all that said, we run these cows as real as we can. They range on high desert native grass pastures for 8-10 months of the year depending on what mother nature will allow. We don’t prop them up, and if they are going to fail, we let them. During the two to four-month period they aren’t on range grass, they eat hay. This winter they came out of the hills about the 10th of February. They are currently being fed 24 pounds of hay, a mixture of alfalfa, oat hay, and orchard grass/sainfoin mix, and 2 lbs of cake along with free choice salt and mineral. These cows would be an extremely profitable set of commercial production cows for any range cow outfit on the northern plains. They know how to get it done. We breed our running age cows in multiple sire breeding pastures. This ensures that the herd bulls have to compete in order to mate and propagate themselves. Parentage is then determined on the resulting calves through DNA. During our fall preconditioning work, we choose the bulls that make the cut and our replacement heifers before DNA parentage results are known. This eliminates any preconceived notions on who ought to be the best. None of “He’s out of old such and such he ought to be okay.” They either make it, or they don’t. All of the sires to these bulls breed/bred cows. The same can’t be said about many AI stud sires as they never leave their run, and when they do, it is usually to be canned as the industry has moved on to the next latest, greatest thing. As you look through our pedigrees, you will see that part of the bulls selling are registered and part are commercial purebred bulls. One group of the commercial purebreds stem from females purchased starting in 1993 from Cole Creek Angus. We didn’t keep registration papers up on these cows, but we did keep track of pedigree. They are 100% purebred Angus. The Cole Creek based cows’ sons will have a C following their name in the catalog. The other group stems from a set of cows purchased from my late friend Larry Leonhardt at Shoshone in 2011. The solid foundational base behind these bulls, with our own environmental and selection pressures applied to make “Simply Maternal” Loyning Angus cattle. The Shoshone based cows’ sons will have an SH following their name in the catalog. This set of bulls was weaned off of native grass pasture, mother’s milk, salt, and mineral. At weaning they went on free choice sainfoin hay and two lbs. Power Booster Bull Challenger from CHS. They are now worked up on to 15 lbs. of Power Booster Bull Challenger and are consuming about 20 lbs. of sainfoin hay per day. On average, they have gained 3.15 lbs. per day. The bulls were weighed onto test at weaning 11/04/25 and were weighed again on 3/2/26 for a 118-day test. The gain ratio was figured during that period. We slowly grow these bulls out in order to ensure structural soundness and set them up to succeed in rough breeding pastures. We understand that the breeding season is a marathon not a sprint and marathoners aren’t obese. These bulls are developed to go out and stay strong and productive throughout the entire breeding season and seasons to come. Yes, they will work down some, but the bull that doesn’t generally isn’t doing much. We will not be clipping the bulls as we like to be able to see them in their full hair coat. Their coat is a good indicator of masculinity and hormonal balance. These bulls have been handled almost exclusively horseback for their entire lives and are generally easy to handle and respect a saddle horse. Prior to the 2020 breeding season, we made the decision to concentrate on further enhancing the ability of our cattle at high altitude. I searched and researched for the right outcross to bring in that would not disrupt the “Simply Maternal” direction of our program. All roads led to certain
lines within the Emulation population. We are aware of the reputation for poor dispositions within the Emulation line and have been very careful in screening these genetics we’ve brought in. Initial results look very promising/useful and we look forward to using these genetics to further enhance the Loyning Angus line. We want these cattle to be able to thrive anywhere in the west, high or low. January 1, 2025 marked a big change for me and my family. Brook and I purchased Loyning Ranch from my mom and dad! My mom and dad are still going to stay here on the ranch with us. We get the bigger headaches and bigger bills now! We will continue to run both a purebred and commercial operation with future opportunities to expand the seedstock portion of our operation. Some people might think “man, Ben’s not very smart for wanting to take that on”, but I’m pretty excited. These “Simply Maternal” genetics make this job easy and enjoyable. Mother Nature can be nasty at times but I truly believe our “Simply Maternal” genetics are the right kind to bend with her ebbs and flows. Now the rest of this crazy world, I have no answers for that! Ben Loyning
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