Welcome to our 2026 Sale hosted at our Farm!
Each year I sit down to write this letter with a surplus of thoughts, but struggle to find the words to express myself. So here goes. 2025 was a year of change for Raatz Farms. We just wrapped up two major building projects at the end of 2025. First of all, we remodeled our feedlot, and expanded our feedlot operation by Pipestone. The facelift will allow us to more efficiently care for our feeder cattle and handle the waste alongside our slat barn. Second, we added a heated shop at our home place by Jasper. With the addition of the shop, we decided to move the sale home. The facility and staff at Mitchell Livestock have been terrific to work with the past few years, but felt it was time to bring the sale home. Each bull has been genomically tested along with tested for coat color and horn/polled genes. Ultrasound measurements have been taken as well. In the footnotes, you will see we mention performance and EPDs a lot but ultimately we view these tools as a guide not a god, meaning they are important but so are traits like foot quality, docility and udders in the females. The bulls have been developed the same way as in the past. We try to feed these bulls enough to express their genetic potential without compromising their longevity. I have said it before, we could make these bulls much bigger by sale time by pushing them
harder but we don’t want to affect their longevity. We will have a few more females this year than in the past. New this year, we plan to offer some pairs. We have built our herd numbers up to a point we have decided to sell some young and middle
aged cows with calves at side as a sale feature. Don’t think these are culls. These have been productive cows in our herd and the younger cows have huge revenue producing potential. Most have AI calves at side. We will also have some March calving first calf heifers. As always the cattle business is about relationships. If you are selling your feeder cattle or looking for breeding cattle, please reach out to us. We would love to help. Stop by or give us a call. Thank you for your interest in our program. We love the cattle business and the people in it. We truly strive to raise the type of cattle that will make our customers more profitable now and for years to come. Hope to see you on sale day! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .CRAIG RAATZ
This will be an all video sale. No animals will go through the ring.
Cattlemen, we invite you to our Open House on Saturday, February 21st at our farm near Jasper MN. Cattle viewing will be from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
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