Welcome Wishing all cattle enthusiasts a happy and healthy spring. As we look at the last year, as usual it has been very eventful in the cattle industry. You can look at the cattle market graphs and compare them to the Rocky Mountains and just hope you landed on the upside of that hike when selling your cattle. A lot of obvious points of interest we are seeing: • We are down 10% Cows since 2021 What does that all mean? Well, I don’t really know, there are a lot of ways to look at this. Yes, numbers are down so you would think prices will continue to rise. However, when you look deeper into the story there are so many other factors like the hanging weight of beef now compared to 20 years ago. I bring up these points because there is one common denominator that remains the same. That is, we are all trying to raise better cattle on fewer inputs that weigh more at weaning time! That concept hasn’t changed so my best advice is to pay attention to the markets, but keep cultivating your normal beef management practices. As a producer keep using your own eye and pick what cattle you think fit your program the best! The EPD’s are still a great guideline, but they are not a policy, sometimes I feel like we get a little too caught up in the data. You look at a bull for structure, longevity, consistency, balance, easy fleshing ability, and my favorite heavy muscle! When people ask me “how would you select a bull?” I pay some attention to the numbers when selecting a herd sire. I look at my guidelines mentioned above then I ask myself, does this bull represent what I want my calves to look like? If this answer is yes that is what I am going for every time. At SRA we have made some changes. Less is more, we have eliminated our online sale and offered all our bulls other than a handful for backups on this sale. We continue to offer great heifers from the heart of our herd. This year we have over 50 heifers on sale and 60% of them are AI calves or ET calves. The remainder of the heifers are the top cut of our natural sired heifers. We continue to offer some good cows and heifers that fall out of our calving interval but may fall right into yours. We know this is the best offering we have ever had. Although our geography isn’t the largest when it comes to cow numbers, we know our top bulls can run with anyone. • We are up 100% in Retail beef prices since 2003 • We have 87.2 million cattle and calves, the lowest before that was 82.08 million in 1951. As we move into 2024 breeding, we are changing some concepts and just buying semen on the 3-4 Bulls that we think are the best in the industry and using our own herd bulls for natural service. So, as we go forward expect the same number of bulls with only 3-4 sire groups. Lastly, the question that always comes up is where do you think the Red Angus breed is at? My opinion stands from last year. We have bred so much birth weight focus into the breed we are behind in the feed yards and I see it annually. So, I encourage everyone to select a bull for growth because the chances are the cow you are breeding it to already has a low BW influence especially if it’s red! We will always continue to offer heifer bulls after all that’s where it all starts. When not breeding heifers please consider growth for the benefit of your bank account and the Red Angus breed. We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to put interest into our offering. We truly think any purchases from our lineup will improve your herd! Regards , Austin
Consignors Schweitzer Red Angus Austin J Schweitzer 402-641-8275 schweitzerredangus@gmail.com KAW Red Angus Jay Wolverton Selling Lots: 54-58 & 114-116
Thank you to our Partners and Sponsors Craig Lundstrom – Partnership Herd at Cedar Bluffs Ranch Jeff Borgmann Family – SRA backgrounding and Embryo Partners Russ, Nick, Brandon and Breanna Kovar – Embryo Partnership Cooperator Wehrs Feed Yard – Bull and heifer development Seward Animal Hospital – Animal Health Kyle Vanderpol – Midwest PMS Nutritionist KAW Red Angus – Seward NE Brad and Vicki Tucker/ Tucker Cattle Company- Sale Host and SRA Heifer Development
MARCH 22, 2024 // 3
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online