The Cattle We Offer For Sale

Since 1964, when dad bought those first two registered heifers, we have sought out and bred our cows to only low birth weight bulls. Back then, our only market was to breed heifers, so that was the only criteria. We have been A.I.ing our cows since the early seventies. We stopped using A.I. for several years in the eighties because there were no easy calving bulls available anywhere. It was all about long legs and big bodies. Then along came EPDs. We finally had a tool that identified superior cattle. All of the sudden some of the most popular herds in the country came in at the bottom of the nation for weaning and yearling weights. That’s when we saw our weights increase for the first time. Within a few years we increased our weaning weights by over a hundred pounds and our yearling weights over two hundred.

Today, we see an emphasis across the country in post weaning epds while most of our customers still sell their calves right off the cows and keep their cows for fifteen years or more before replacing them. That means we are concentrating on maternal and efficiency traits in our herd, to pass those traits to our customers through our bulls and heifers. These are our top trait choices: calving ease and weights, maternal calving ease, very moderate milk production, neutral or negative mature size, high RADG and DMI, and superior carcass traits. We’ll pass on the selecting for big weaning and yearling numbers and high milk production. Those all lead to less efficiency in the cow when they are in a limited environment like the Arizona ranges.