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- [00:06]
A
Hi, welcome to BCI Cattle Chat. I'm Brad White. Happy to have you with us. Happy to have our crew here in the studio. Morning, Todd.
- [00:11]
B
Good morning, Bob.
- [00:13]
C
Good morning, guys.
- [00:14]
A
Dustin, good morning. Phillip.
- [00:17]
D
Hello, everybody.
- [00:18]
E
Jason, good morning.
- [00:20]
A
And we've got Christian.
- [00:21]
F
Morning.
- [00:22]
A
Morning, Christian. So we're happy to have Christian and Jason here today because we're gonna be able to talk about bull sales. How do we select a bull? What do we do? We'll talk a little bit. These guys are in charge of our K state bull sales, so they're going to tell us a little bit about what we do here on the back end and we're going to talk about what you would do on the front end to think about buying bulls. We're also going to talk about new technologies. What are some of the new technologies in the cattle industry? What are some of the things that you might want to apply on your farm today or maybe wait till that technology gets a little bit better or more improved. Before we get into those topics, I want to remind you, if you have a listener question for us, you can send us an email at bciksu edu or you can reach out to us on social media, on Facebook or X and ask a question there. We're always happy to get those. Before we get into our topic today, obviously, guys, we're going to be talking about auctions. And I want you think about auctions you've been to in the past. Does anybody have a favorite auction memory? Something that was fun or exciting or. Or a time that you got something and you felt like you had a good deal or maybe not so good deal?
- [01:29]
D
Well, I don't know about. I wasn't actually buying, but when I was a kid, when we took cattle or whatever to the auction, we got to go and eat the sale bar and cafe. And so you get, you got to go and you got this huge pork tenderloin, you know, and thing. And so that was. Yeah, that was like the memory I remember of going to the auction was you got to go to the cafe and eat lunch.
- [01:52]
A
And I. And I think. And my kids have done that too, when we've taken stuff off and dropped it off. And no, I don't think any dad refuses when you get the big cheeseburger at the sale barn and they're like, can we have pie too? And I got to eat something to be polite.
- [02:07]
B
I guess my favorite auction memory actually was when I got to be an auctioneer at a family reunion auction. We have. I have a big family. Of course we've talked about this before, but we had all of my aunts and uncles and cousins brought all this stuff to the family reunion. Then I was the auctioneer, and I got to auction it off, and it was just a blast.
- [02:26]
A
Awesome. When that comes up again, I have some stuff that I will send with you.
- [02:32]
G
I'm gonna actually probably have to echo what Phillip said.
- [02:36]
A
Take me close.
- [02:36]
E
It's all about the pie.
- [02:37]
G
No, exactly. You get to eat pie.
- [02:39]
C
Basically, one of mine is you go to a farm auction or something. And again, I was a little kid and wasn't experienced in the ways of auctions. And, you know, there's something I want at this auction, but they put it in a box with a bunch of just junk. And the auctioneer, you know, knows what he's doing. So I end up buying this whole box of junk just to get the one thing I wanted. Then you take it home, and dad's like, what'd you buy all this stuff for?
- [03:06]
A
Guess I wanted this one piece in here.
- [03:08]
C
One piece, dad, you can have the rest of it.
- [03:09]
A
I've got this one, Jason.
- [03:12]
E
Yeah. One of the best memories I have, guys, is I was either 10 or 11 with my uncle at a spring progress sale. And the heifer comes in that we were looking at buying, that I had some interest in. She comes in the ring. I'm sitting there right next to my uncle, and they start her off, and I don't remember exactly where they started her off at. This red purebred Gilby heifer and a little kid sitting there. I went ahead and bid on her, right? I went ahead and bid on her. My uncle looks at me, don't do that again. Sure enough, we bothered. So. Yeah, yeah, Turned into a good one.
- [03:44]
A
On your bid?
- [03:45]
E
Yeah, on my bid.
- [03:46]
F
Yeah.
- [03:47]
E
Kid sitting right there. First one to bid to open it up at. And then everybody else is just, oh, better hold off. You know, feel it from this kid. But I'll never forget that. He looks at me, don't do that again. Sure enough, we got her. So I'll never forget that one.
- [04:01]
F
Christian, I would have to say, you know, just as a kid growing up, I'd go to the sale barn pretty much every week with my grandpa and, you know, just kind of sit there and learn and listen to the old timers and hear all their stories and just kind of try to suck all that knowledge up. And, you know, sitting there as a kid, kind of like Jason said, just trying not to move, just get, you know, the auctioneer's attention and thinking that, oh, if you move or scratch your nose, you were going to get that bid.
- [04:25]
A
So I can, I can remember that too, of that feeling of if you do too much, you're going to get the bids. Right. But apparently Jason wasn't worried about that.
- [04:35]
E
No, I apparently I wanted her, but yeah, it was funny. I'll never forget it.
- [04:39]
B
Yeah.
- [04:40]
A
Awesome. Well appreciate you guys sharing that. And I wanted to on this topic, and we've talked about this a little bit before, but I want to take a little bit different approach today. So if I am in the market to purchase a bull, I want to think about some of the things that would be considerations for purchasing that bull. Because there's so much information available today. We've got a sale catalog, you've got other information. I can go look up stuff online. I get his number, I can look up his registry, all of his history. How do I filter that information down to make it usable? Bob, I'll start with you.
- [05:16]
C
Well, I'm going to start with somebody else is going to talk about EPDs and the genetic potential for those bulls offspring. But you got to start with the bull and is he fertile? Are his feet and legs sound? Is he able to do the job of getting cows bred? So to me you really should start with is he able to do his job which is to get cows bread?
- [05:38]
A
Yeah, I think that's the first thing he's got to be able to do. And a lot of times there's an assessment before the sale, most sales that he's passed that bse. Dustin, from your perspective.
- [05:48]
G
Yeah, I was gonna say I would assume that you've already done all that. And so I guess I'm gonna probably come in and say okay, here's my budget. And then from there what characteristics are going to fit my particular environment operation? That's what I'll probably try to target,
- [06:02]
A
which I think is an important aspect of it. Especially if you're going to an auction, you don't know exactly what those bulls are going to sell for. Now, Christian, I didn't introduce you. Well, so you're a manager, purebred unit here at K State.
- [06:16]
F
Yes.
- [06:16]
A
Tell us, tell us a little bit about your background and then I want to get your perspective on what you're looking for.
- [06:22]
F
So grew up on a commercial cow calf operation. Mostly had, you know, bring us type cat growing up kind of more in southern Texas where a little bit ear kind of helps and we'd put some Charolais bulls back on those cows and whatnot. But anyways, came to K State to get my undergrad. And then I worked for the purebred barn as an undergrad, and that was kind of my first exposure to, you know, seed stock type cattle and those different type operations. I mean, it's a lot of the same concepts and principles as any commercial cow calf operation, but just with a few more details. So after that, I went to go work for Cody Ryan from Cody Cattle Company. And so that's where I kind of got, you know, expound on what I learned at the purebred barn as an undergrad. Got to learn a lot from Shane work. He was the previous manager here at the barn. Big Hereford guy. So that's kind of why our Herefords are what they are today, in large part thanks to him. So, you know, mainly when I'm looking at a bull and, you know, trying to select and especially, you know, for me, trying to make breeding decisions and everything that comes along with getting ready for a sale, I think the big, you know, obviously EPDs are a really good tool, but they're not the whole picture, not the whole story to where, you know, for me, I really like to go back and look at the dam, the Grand Dam, make sure those are good sound cows that, you know, are proven and they have maybe other offspring that have produced herd sires before or making sure that they're breeding up every year. Make sure they've got good bags, good feet, good structure, good soundness, just kind of all those things. And then also to going and looking at, you know, if that sire has already had a couple of calf crops on the ground, making sure that those are good calves, he has good progeny, proven progeny. As to where, you know, maybe some other bulls are a little bit newer that are a little unproven. The same thing goes for sire groups too, because not every bull at the sale is going to be, you know, a unique sire. So just trying to make sure that you're going and kind of doing your homework. You know, a lot of those sale catalogs will include pictures of the dams to go along with, you know, especially if there's a big ET program there that you go back and you look at those dams and make sure that they kind of have a good, proven track record.
- [08:44]
A
Yeah, excellent. And I think that's an important topic as we think about the EPDs is trying to predict how this bull is going to perform, but also looking back at his lineage, provide some other information and finding out how his, his dams have been in the herd.
- [08:58]
D
Well, I think, Jason, you can jump in here and correct me if I'm wrong, but you'll have accuracies published in a lot of those catalogs along with the EPDs. Right. And so some of those things you're talking about Christian, like that he's got some progeny on the ground already, or he's part of a proven line that those type of things are going to help improve that accuracy. So when, when you're buying a bull, don't just look at the EPD number, look at the accuracy that goes along with it. The higher that accuracy, the more sure we are that that EPD is really what he's going to pass on to his progeny.
- [09:29]
E
Yeah, absolutely, Philip. And, you know, that's where you kind of think back to several years ago when we were just primarily working with our basic EPVs that we had. And, you know, whatever we had for that bull, based on his pedigree and other, you know, other half siblings that he might have registered, is going to influence what that accuracy number looked like. And it was, I remember a lot of times it was 0.0503, something like that. And so now, as our genomic tests have improved over the course of time and we've tied that into our evaluation metrics and into these EPDs, you know, we're able to increase that accuracy so much more. And so that really, that has a lot of value for folks to be able to be able to make those decisions with much more confidence than what previously we've been able to do so with where we are now. But absolutely, we have a lot of information out there for folks to be able to really kind of work through and decipher through as they're making decisions. And I think sometimes, you know, I think sometimes we can maybe have information overload for some of our customers and some of our producers in some situations. And so we want to make sure that, that folks are able to have the information that they need and use it in the right way to make a good decision when they're making a. Making a selection decision.
- [10:40]
A
So, and I, and I think on your accuracy, one of the ways that I make the most sense out of accuracy is a lot of the breeds you go online, the there's a table and it'll say, if I'm looking at the accuracy for birth weight and it's 0.3, that means the birth weight is going to range from X to Y. So I can look at that and say, okay, his birth weight's right in this range, and if it's 0.01, it's going to be a bigger range. If it's 0.7, it's going to be a much smaller range. So that helps me understand what are the implications of that accuracy.
- [11:10]
B
Todd, I really. I'm going to confess something here. I've never gone out and bought a bull myself. On the flip side of that, I have evaluated a lot of bulls prior to sell, and I have been on a lot of different operations. And I have the utmost sympathy for people who breed and develop bulls. That is a tough job. But I've noticed over the years that I spent as a veterinarian evaluating yearling sell bulls that not everybody does it the same way. And a couple things that I would look for if I ever were to go out and buy a bull is, number one, how are these bulls developed? There is a tendency for people to go to a bull sale and to bid for the most money on the fattest, soggiest bull that walks through the ring and looks the best. And I understand why that is. But that creates an incentive for bull breeders to get their bulls as fat and as soggy at sale time as they possibly can because they want to bring in the most money. Those bulls invariably will go out to pasture to breed cows and they will fall to pieces. And they will hardly get anybody bred that first year, at least, assuming they snap out of it eventually, which they may or may not. So make sure that when you're buying a bull, you're looking at how those bulls are developed. And look for bulls that are developed to be tough. Look for bulls that are developed to go out and work. Don't necessarily look for bulls that are the nicest looking bulls. Look for bulls that are able to go out and do the job. And there are bull breeders out there who really pay attention to that. They do a good job of developing bulls at the right pace with the right nutrition to have those bulls ready to go to work. And lastly, I can't really add too much to what Bob said about making sure they have a breeding soundness evaluation. Recognize that not all breeding sounds evaluations are done the same. Some people may choose to cut corners on their bsc. You should ask specifically if this bull's BSC was done according to the standards set forth by the Society for Theriogenology. And those standards dictate that that bull semen be evaluated at 1000x magnification under oil immersion or with phase contrast. And a lot of producers and veterinarians sometimes gloss over that and skip that part of the bse. If it's not done that way. There are problems that can be missed in that bull's fertility. And so if I were buying a bull, I would ask specifically, was this bull's BSE done according to Society for Theriogenology guidelines? And if they don't know, or if the answer is no, then I'm a little bit less trusting of that BSE document.
- [13:36]
A
Yeah. And I think it's important because you guys are Both emphasizing his EPDs, his genetic potential, how he looks. Unless he can breed cows, mission not accomplished.
- [13:46]
E
Right.
- [13:46]
A
And I want to go back to Jason, and you said information overload, which is, I think, how a lot of us feel when you get a bull catalog or you get. And it's the time of year. I've had several in my mailbox recently. Right. And there's lots of pictures, different levels of information. How do you handle that? Because the K State bull sale is coming up. How do you handle that from the K State perspective on our bull sale? And I'll ask both you and Christian.
- [14:11]
E
Yeah, Brad. So first off, I guess you mentioned our K State sale, and so, yeah, that'll be coming up here Friday, March 6th, and so do that. Here on campus is our 49th sale this year. I'm going to let Christian talk a little bit more about the sale here. But, you know, I think, you know, the big thing that I want to see our students, you know, have in mind and be thinking about as they're talking to our prospective customers, talking to folks on sale day, is keeping in mind the fundamentals of what really matters. It's a combination of phenotype and genetic balance. It's a complete package focusing on what matters for the producer and, you know, thinking about the economic traits that really matter to their operation. Do they sell calves about weaning? Do they hold them in a yearling type of a program? Do they participate in a program where they can get premiums back based on the carcass performance on those calves? What's their economic driver, Keeping in mind, cab knees, structural soundness, those types of things. Just paying attention to the most important things I think are really critical there. Just focus on the EPDs that matter. I do think it's important for folks to keep in mind that we've got these selection indexes now. These. These indexes that combine multiple traits together. And so those are valuable to help simplify that genetic process or that selection process. The other thing, too is keep in mind, you know, we have breed averages for EPDs for a reason, and think about where those animals are relative to their breed. Average. And that's our genetic change, our expected genetic change we want to try to transmit to that future progeny. So keeping in mind those things, I think are important as we just think about what's. What's truly important for that specific customer. Christian, what do you think?
- [15:45]
F
So, yeah, just kind of to, you know, elaborate on what you said there. Jason is, I think, you know, as a customer coming to the sale, they really need to kind of sit back and evaluate what their goals and what their intentions are for their herd. You know, whether it be, you know, maybe they're thinking they want to retain a few more heifers and try to get, you know, build back maybe their cow herd a little bit. So do they need more of a bull that's kind of geared towards making quality replacement females, or are they kind of going the opposite and saying, well, I don't care. I just want to try to get the most feeder calves I can, the best quality feeder calves that I can. And, you know, I think that's one of the big things that customers need to kind of do before they even really go to the sale or look at the catalog is make sure, okay, what am I wanting out of this bull? And just kind of thinking, what's going to be the best for their operation.
- [16:36]
A
Yeah. And similar to Dustin's budget for economics, you've got a EPD characteristics budget.
- [16:43]
F
Right.
- [16:43]
A
What do I. What do I want? What range? Which ones are most important? And don't focus on all those. So I appreciate that thought. On thinking about bulls and your bull selection process, I do want to talk a little bit about technology. So we. Earlier this month, Bob, you and I spent a little time at ncba, so the National Cattlemen's huge trade show, lots of different stuff. And I'm going to start with you as far as what you saw, and then I want to ask these guys what they're seeing as technologies.
- [17:09]
C
Yeah, well, some of the new technologies are kind of evolving from technologies that were new a few years ago. And what I saw was several booths that emphasized drones. And the drones were bigger and they're heavier payload, doing bigger things. For instance, big enough to hold liquid tanks for herbicide or insecticide. And so starting to move into the realm of remote application again to get rid of trash trees or even to. To spray insecticides on cattle. So that, you know, because one of the reasons we talk about, you know, when we do pest management, so flies or ticks or those kinds of things, gathering cattle out of big pastures is. Is one of the challenges the Reason it doesn't get done. And so I do think it's going to be interesting to see some of the remote technologies. And so drones is one another one remote technology kind of is the artificial fencing or, you know, where you use collars on cattle to kind of move them around a pasture. What caused me pause is cost. Some of these are pretty pricey at this point, but you're saving labor, you're saving some other things, too. So it is interesting to see how kind of innovators are looking at ways to use some of the new technology in applications to kind of large ranching operations.
- [18:23]
A
Absolutely. Any other new technologies that you guys have seen?
- [18:27]
E
Philip?
- [18:28]
D
I haven't dug into it much, but, you know, there's ear tags that are available that like, monitor rumination and like, eating behavior or foraging behavior, you know. And so one of the most difficult things that we have to try to do on a ranch, we're trying to evaluate, we talked about this a few weeks ago, cow efficiency. And the reason it's so difficult is we can't measure intake of a grazing cow. And so I think from a. From a research perspective, that may transfer at some point into genetic evaluation is using technology like that where we can develop some algorithms that would be able to predict intake of a grazing cow. How much time does she spend out there grazing? How many bites is she taking? You know, some things like that that we could then try to turn that into an estimate of forage intake.
- [19:15]
A
Yeah, and I think you're exactly right, because we don't have. We know there are differences, or I think we know there are differences in efficiency among individual cows. We don't have any way to measure that, transfer that. What does that look like? And then comparing that, what does that mean for their offspring? Some of the heifers that I keep or decide not to keep. Dustin.
- [19:33]
G
So a couple months back, I was looking at cameras for my house, like, you know, the doorbell camera and the outside cameras. And so I got to thinking, right? And they're fairly cheap. There's all, you know, all kinds of different. Same thing you probably do with. In the barns. Right. And. And then, of course, my mind got thinking, okay, if you could do that, what's the cost? If you could save one cow or one calf, you know, does it pay for itself? How fast does it pay for itself?
- [19:55]
A
I guess, yeah, just to. And there's lots of potential applications that people have talked about with those cameras, either specifically in places of high activity, like in the barn, calving barn, or at the water trough. Or at the feed bunk, just to keep an eye on who's coming up, who's not coming up. Because a lot of times, and I think, Bob, you hit on this, we're looking more for things that save labor than necessarily for things that just make it better. Right. They're not adding labor as these technologies come along. Jason, what have you seen?
- [20:29]
E
You know, one of the things that has been really interesting to me is some of these remote water sensing technologies for uses in tanks and troughs. And, you know, those types of technologies I think can be really, really beneficial. Some of them combine them with cameras where you can just try to get eyes on, on something that's really important, that is really difficult and time consuming for you to go out there and look at on your own. So I think there's definitely uses there and some applications where those can fit. They just got to be in the right manner. The virtual fencing technologies, I think, again, you think about the importance of trying to minimize access to streams and lakes and rivers. And boy, those can be really beneficial there too, if they're used in the right manner. And you can get the right. You can get the right accuracy with those types of programs.
- [21:15]
A
So, yeah, I like the idea of the water and being able to check the water or is it flowing? I mean, simple questions that you'd kind of like to know the answer to. And it doesn't happen very often that it's off, but when it's off, it's
- [21:28]
E
a big deal, keep you out of a train wreck, hurry. Right. You know, those types of things that are valuable. So yeah, for sure.
- [21:33]
A
Christian, have you seen anything?
- [21:35]
F
You know, I've seen a lot of people that kind of started using the camera systems around calving. I think that's really beneficial for, you know, maybe more of the type mom and pop operations where maybe there's only two or three people that kind of around the day to day. And obviously you got night checks, especially if you're cabin heifers or whatever it may be. I think that those cameras can kind of help alleviate a lot of the labor input into what goes around during calving time and doing night checks. You know, a lot of people have started using them. We have them up at the barn that we have here at the headquarters at K State. But we also have a calving class that we do in coordination with the department of animal science. So we get a little lucky. We get to sleep in a little bit more than maybe the average rancher does. But it's a little unique for us being Tied to university. So, yes, we do have the camera systems, but we also have a calving class that comes out and does all of our night checks for us. So if we didn't have that calving class, I would definitely be using the camera systems.
- [22:35]
A
See, there's an idea for an operation in a small town. As you go, we're gonna start a calving class. All you have to do is come out between 10pm and 5am and check the cows.
- [22:46]
B
Todd, you know, I don't know if it's really new tech, but people are finding new and innovative ways to use old tech or to use tech that's maybe been around a little while. Maybe it's not old, old accelerometers, pedometers, those types of tools. I saw one the other day, an ad for, I can't remember what a cow call or something. It was a accelerometer that clamped on the base of a cow's tail. And when she gets, you know, they always say look for the kink in their tail. When they're ready to calve, they kind of keep that tail up. And as far as I can tell, the principle behind this piece of technology is that when their tail goes up, that accelerometer says, oh, tail's up. And it's staying up. She's probably about ready to calve. You know, stuff like that, remote sensors. They've been using accelerometers and pedometers down the dairy industry for a long time. And they have really honed in on how to use that technology to make their operations work a lot more. And I think a lot of that is in the beef industry. We're going to keep finding new ways to use existing tech and new tech, but we're going to find those ways that really work well.
- [23:49]
A
Well. And I think, I think that's the key, what you said is the application. So lots of ideas that are out there and even some of the things that we saw at the conference we went to are they're useful in some situations, but not all. And you want them to be proven. So some of those things that we talked about, I don't know that I'd necessarily be ready to put on my operation today, but in the future you want to continue to watch how they evolve. So I appreciate you guys sharing and thanks for your information on this and bold purchases. If you have a question or comment or topic you'd like us to discuss, you can send us an email at bcisu Edu.