← The Championdrive Podcast
The Championdrive Podcast
Episode 3.7 - Nutrition, Innovation & Entrepreneurship with Jed Asmus + A Deep Dive on the Biozyme Product Line with Sam Silvers
00:56:25
This week we caught up with Jed Asmus - while you may know him from the show lamb world, he also has an interesting career past raising sheep. Learn more about what Jed does and some of his hot takes on entreprenuership and client relations. We also visited with Sam Silvers of Biozyme to learn about how to best utilize each of their products - whether you're a show lamb exhibitor, feeder or breeder - there's something to tune in for on this episode!
Loading summary
Transcript84 lines
- [00:02]
A
Now entering the ring, another episode of the Champion Drive podcast presented by Novel Designs.
- [00:11]
B
Hey guys, we're back with another episode of the Champion Drive podcast. This week. I'm really excited. We have Jed Asmus on from Asthma's Club Lambs in California. But the real reason I had him on was because of his involvement in January Innovation, which is his dairy and beef nutrition company. I thought he brought to the table some really interesting perspectives from kind of a business and entrepreneurship side that would be interesting for our listeners. And then of course, we also talked about sheep as well. But we also visited with Sam Silvers. And whether you're a show lamb feeder or exhibitor or a breeder, this episode has something for you because we talked about all of their full product lineup, whether it's a product that we might use such as Appetite Express or Clench or Liquid Boost in the Show Ring, or as a breeder, if we talk about their tubs and their free choice mineral. We went and did a deep dive with Sam on just each product, what it does, how you use it, how often you use it, how much to give, and I think it'll be a really valuable resource. Before we jump into those, Kansas City is here and gone. It was great to catch up with a lot of you there. And bread you sale season is in full swing. There were some sales last week and this weekend and there's some more coming up this week. A couple of those to touch on include the Diamond Sea Livestock and Diamond Seed Genetics. October 27 Harvest Spooktacular bread you sale. Some of the service sires for that include Trace Amigos, Blue Duck, Cartoon Red Kingdom and War Paint. And a couple things to keep in mind, the ones that are bred to the Neff sires are eligible for the heritage, which is the Neff sale that will be coming up in February. And then also Diamond Sea typically does an customer appreciation sale for any of their customers, so so those use their offspring would be eligible for that as well. Once again, that's October 27th on SC. Bugalka Livestock has a sale coming up on October 28th and I always think that sale is interesting because it reminds me of back when bread use sales first started, when online bread you sales first started. Donnie was one of the first ones I think. And for some of us it may be wild to think about a time when bread use sales didn't occupy each and every night, but Donnie was one of the first ones. And I distinctly remember a group of us. I'm not sure where we were, but a group of us you know, tuning in that night and someone checking their phone or getting their computer out to see how the sale was going. And I believe it was a racehorse style ending at that time. So a lot's changed since then. Donnie's sale is on October 28, and the service sires for that include Contagious Trifecta, Never say Never, Navajo and 2.0. So be sure to check that one out on October 28th. Pass bread, you sale season. It's time for some of us to begin thinking about Fallborn sales. And Johnston Club Lambs has announced that their Fallborn open house is going to be December 5th and 6th in New Plymouth, Idaho. Their barn will open on Friday, December 5th, and on Saturday, they're going to have three different sales. A private link bid off a standard online sale and a click to claim online sale. 3pm that day, those sales go into extended bidding. All of those lambs are eligible for the show. And Caleb and his crew have a bunch planned for that weekend, including some sale credit and gear giveaways, food and drinks, including Katrina's famous cookies and some Christmas movies and other Christmas stuff. So, like I said, that's December 5th and 6th in New Plymouth, Idaho for this week. So you suck. We're going to talk about online apparel stores through branded show gear. So. So the online apparel stores have become really popular in the past. We used to have to order a whole bunch of T shirts or a whole bunch of sweatshirts as breeders or businesses to have on hand. And then you get stuck with the sizes you didn't need, or, you know, maybe it wouldn't be the color someone wanted, et cetera. So these online apparel stores started happening and they work out really good because you're able to pick a certain number of items based on which tier you select. And there's no cost to you as long as you meet the store minimum requirement. If you don't meet the requirement, it's not a big deal. We just charge a setup fee for it to take care of our time for assembling everything and putting all the work of the store together and whatnot. But the apparel stores work great and they're always really popular ahead of the holiday season. So if you're wanting to do one before the holidays, now is kind of the time. And the reason we kind of push people to do these in November or end of October. In November, they need to close by Thanksgiving. And it's not that we necessarily need that much time to produce them, it's the fact that we incur some delays on the items coming in from the warehouses and then once we decorate them, we need to ship them back out and allow plenty of time for them to get to customers. Most of those are typically always shipping to residential addresses through UPS, FedEx or USPS. And a lot of that's out of our control. So we've started building in some extra time so people can make sure they get those items well before the holidays. So if you're interested in doing an apparel store, be sure to reach out to any of us at Branded Show Gear. Myself, Bren Bagalka and Aubrey Rye are the three people that kind of put those together for you on the front end side. I think one thing that makes our group unique is we know a lot of you, we know a lot of your brands, we know what might look good and there's a lot of times we'll catch each other saying like, oh, if so and so ever does a store, this would be a really good piece for them that's really on point with their brand. Or this would be a good one for so and so because I think it fits their personality. Or this would be a good one for kids that show. So I think that's some, some advantage we bring to the table in terms of that just knowing the industry and knowing your customer base. And also if you're looking to do a store, you can also give out discount codes to your customers. That's a really good way to say hey, thanks for being a customer. Here's a link to our apparel store. Use this code for $50 off. You can buy whatever you want, but the first $50 are on me. At the end of the store we invoice you for whatever was used on those discount codes. So it's a great way to show appreciation. Not just for breeders. I have a lot of sales reps or co ops or feed mills that do this as well. And so it's a really good way to show your appreciation. Reach out before the holidays or before the year end and just kind of a nice, nice branding piece as well as a way to get your brand out to your supporters. If you're interested in doing an order but not wanting to do an online store, but that's completely fine as well. We don't have very high minimums on a lot of things, so if you're wanting to order jackets for your family or maybe some hoodies for your family or a smaller giveaway order or a bigger giveaway order too, that's fine. Maybe you just don't want go want to go the online apparel store route. We do those sorts of orders via email all the time. They're just as popular as the online stores. But I did want to say something about it on this week's episode because we need to be thinking about getting those orders in before Thanksgiving. Be sure to look up branded show gear on championdrive.com or@brandedshowgear.com and let us know how we can help you with your online apparel store or custom apparel orders as we head into that holiday season. With all of that taken care of, let's go ahead and get right into our first episode with Jed Asmus. Hey guys, I'm here today with Jed Asmus from California. And I'll be honest, Jed and I have already had a pretty good 20 minute conversation before this podcast even started. So I'm really excited for today. Jed is someone you might know from his kids showing or from him raising sheep. But before we get into that aspect of it, Jed, let's talk a little bit about your background and then we'll go into your career. So where did you grow up and how did you get involved in agriculture?
- [07:47]
C
So, yeah, my history is probably not typical for your audience in the past. My dad was in the Navy, so we bounced around a little bit. I spent couple years in Hawaii as a little kid and we came back to California where I was born originally and my parents had a decision to make. We were either going to move to Florida, Okinawa, Japan, or my dad was going to retire and he put in, you know, we were going to stick around California. He was going to retire. And so we landed in a small town called Gustein, which still to this day has about 4,000 people. It really hasn't changed. And I grew up from about fourth grade on in that little town with about 100,000 dairy cows in the close proximity. And so I started gaining an aspiration for just, you know, the local community and how they operated and everything that happened with them. And that's kind of my introduction to agriculture. So I grew up in a small town with lots of cows.
- [08:41]
B
So where did you go once you got done with high school? Where did you go to college? Like what was kind of your education path?
- [08:47]
C
So yeah, so I was lucky enough in high school to have Jamie Farrow, who many of you might know as my high school ag teacher. And he got me in the livestock judging and we were competitive in California, got recruited by John Eiswonger and John Mendez at MJC and spent two years there, judged for them. Jimmy Desnuss out of the Midwest now was on my team and James Backman and so forth, who's still in the pig industry. And from there went to UC Davis, judge for them, also with Dana Van Leeuwen, and then got my undergrad degree in animal science. Decided I wanted to stick around and get a master's degree. And so the plan was to do a two fold master's, one in ruminant nutrition and one in getting an MBA in business management. The MBA program that was focused on ag kind of fell apart. The professor who ran it had cancer and they dissolved the program. But I had the classes and so spent three years there getting my master's and from there went into kind of a twofold job. I did research for a food manufacturing company and then started my consulting business on the side.
- [09:57]
B
Is that consulting business? But you still do now, correct?
- [10:00]
C
Yeah. So we, my portion of the business is called January Innovation and we've grown that. Originally it was just myself, I have two associates and one partner. We feed, between us and the extended group in California, about a quarter million lactating dairy cows every day. And with that, about another quarter million growing animals. So about half a million animals on feed every day we feed. And that's the dairy industry. So it's mainly producing milk right now. It's also a lot of beef. And we get into a variety of conversations about how and what we do there. And then a portion of that also sits on the side I mentioned. I did research for food manufacturers, California. A lot of our, a lot of the stuff we consume as humans that's grown here has byproducts and all those byproducts ended up as cattle feed. And so I've done research for the Morningstar Tomato Company, Anheuser Busch Palm Wonderful California Olive Ranch. And all of those are trying to figure out how to add value to their byproducts to feed cattle better.
- [11:06]
B
On the January innovation side, with the overseeing, like several of the cattle herds that you talked about, are you just overseeing the nutrition or do you take care of overseeing kind of everything in terms of like facilities and whatnot or I guess explain a little bit more on that side of it.
- [11:21]
C
Yeah. So a dairy nutritionist is a, is a unique title because it's not accurate. I mean, we feed cows, we do diets. I design diets for all those animals based upon performance and production and so forth. But we also are heavily involved in the management of those businesses. And so that is how the cattle get housed, how they're organized, how they're handled by the people who do it every day, and then how the business owner manages their money and how they invest their money and what's coming and what to buy and what not to buy. You know, the smallest dairy I work on has 500 cows. That business is probably a $10 million a year business. The largest one I work on has 9,000 head. And you know, that is, you know, just that exponential. So on a monthly basis, and I haven't ran this number in a while, I think I have about a 30 or 40 million dollars monthly feed budget I handle and I control by what I do or don't do, 90% of their output, which is 90% of their revenue. And so we get it a lot into finance, a lot into business structure, you know, planning out three or four years in advance. So doing diets becomes the background for running a big business.
- [12:35]
B
So with that in mind, what does your typical day look like?
- [12:39]
C
That's a great question. My partner has a very standard structure. He's very organized in his, his day and the way he approaches it, minor chaos. I have a calendar and I have some scheduled appointments on there. But this morning I woke up to a text from a client saying, hey, I think this group of cows needs a different diet. Let's, let's talk about this today. And that was at 5:15 this morning. I will have phone calls that just randomly pop up and I'll have a plan that try to get through in the middle of that and see people. But if it's a normal day that doesn't have the chaos that just pops up in my day, it requires me to go out, I visit a dairy, we're gonna pull samples on all the feeds that change over time. We're gonna evaluate the cattle, walk, walk the animals, look at performance in production and adjust as needed. And that's about a three or four hour stop per trip per dairy. And so you may see the owner for two, three hours and that you may see the hour, the owner for five minutes because they've got a bunch of things on their plate. You know, a person we all know, Skipper Carlisle and I were on the phone just an hour ago. We finished up a trial on our dairy that was about a four month long trial. Some great responses, but I had to go and justify that to the owner yesterday afternoon and show him the outcome. And we had about a two minute conversation on the hood of his car that affected his business. And you know, but it's that level of trust and engagement that they know we can get this done that fast. And so that's kind of how my day rolls. It gets, it can go from structured and organized, which is less common to let's see what happens today.
- [14:08]
B
Do you see are a lot of these customers ones you've managed long term and had long term or is there a lot of in the businesses are a lot of jumping around or is it more of a long term loyalty type relationship?
- [14:20]
C
It's a very much a relationship. And so it's my client base. If I had to, I can look this up actually. But the average age of them is 15 plus years. I've got some clients that have been very long term. As we add new clients, of course that's younger but we've got a very mature business in the context of we've been with clients a long time now. There are my competitors out there who do turnover clients more often. And that comes down to how strong you can build relationship with who you have. We joke amongst the people who can talk about this that your clients are the ones that are most like you. So yeah, my clients tend to be a lot like me, personality wise. You know, I've got clients that are very demanding and very high speed and ask for a lot and very intense. I've got one I've been working with for about 20 years now. He openly refers to me as a tweaker and he's more, more so one than I am. But the contrast to that is, you know, within this industry there are Dairyman who, you know, the stereotype you would see on a TV show. They're slow paced, easygoing, not very demanding. And that's the balancing act. Your clients are curated to be like you, the ones that stick around. And so once you find that, that relationship status where you know, you have a good rapport and you can communicate and you get the outcomes that everybody wants, you tend to keep your clients for long term. Whereas like my business partner, he has the other personality and he's, he has those clients. Most of his clients are just much easier going and less demanding. They're good dairymen, they just have a different approach to it. And so that's kind of how our industry and at least our client base stays real stable. But you do see turnover in people who can't find that, that level, you know, level playing ground with their clients. And that's where there's some dichotomy in this thing.
- [16:00]
B
Yeah, that makes sense to me. That's for what we do in marketing. Like I always say a lot of times, like if we're not the Right. Fit for you. There's someone out there that is. So, like, a lot of times, if you think about, like, the customers that we probably have the most success with are the ones that have a similar mindset or a tone or, you know, similar to what. What our staff kind of is. And that's the beauty of our staff having multiple people on it, much like you and your business owner, where you kind of have different personalities. So sometimes one person on the team is a better fit than the other person. Or maybe it's a totally different company is a better fit. I've never thought of it that way. That's a really good, good insight. So what got you started? Like, why did you decide to start January? Innovation.
- [16:38]
C
You know, it's those odd moments in life where you're. You're just having a weird conversation with somebody or it's a boring conversation and some pearl comes out of it. And I can remember exactly where I was when this idea came to me. So I was at mjc. It was one of the open houses where we have, you know, the whole ag department on display. And the Modesto Junior College has a very big ag department, and it always has. And so it was a crowded room. And one of the reps, Paul Fernandez, who still has some pigs out here on the west coast, he works with Zoetis. And we were having a conversation, and he goes, you know, have you heard about dairy nutrition? And I hadn't, and it just sparked my curiosity. Now, most your audience won't remember these days, but that's before the Internet. And so you couldn't just go on the Internet and search for what that job looks like. And so I started doing phone calls and digging into it. And it was that. As I dug into it, it was the reality that there was the ability to take really aggressive and unique science things that were on the cutting edge of our understanding of how mammals and cows and bodies work and performance athletes and combine that stuff and try to make money from it. And that's just where my. My passion has been. I hate that word for so many reasons, but the parts I love about this is the ability to take very unique things and do creative things with them.
- [17:54]
B
Very interesting. What about your thoughts on the importance of continuing to learn or grow and transform with the times? I'm sure since you've started, a lot has changed in the industry, and I think that's the same in the sheep industry. But what's your thoughts on the importance of, you know, always kind of continuing to transform?
- [18:10]
C
You have to. I Mean, I'll put it simply and bluntly. I've got two kids and, you know, both are in high school now, and they're, to them, at this point, they think the school is almost over. And I laugh at them. And they know how much and how often I go back and get taught new things. We spend between. I say we are in our business, we require the associates and partners to do a lot of continuing education. You have to keep being challenged. There's so much we don't know about how these things work that when I hear anybody say this is the answer, I know they're lying. They just don't know and we don't know. A client and I were discussing this about two weeks ago. If you've heard of probiotics and prebiotics and those great topics that are out there from ingredients, those products work. But how much do we understand about the way the body uses them and what they really do? Less than 1%. And that reality is so true that there's so much to still be gained and you have to keep learning about it. There's so many more opportunities coming that the old ways, whatever they are, are not wrong, but they're going to get better. And if you're not learning those things first, you're losing.
- [19:18]
B
Yeah, I think a lot of that applies to the sheep industry or to showing and stuff like that. Brings me to my next question. What are the parallels in the dairy industry to what you see in raising sheep and showing sheep?
- [19:33]
C
You know, you touched on it in that question really well. So, I mean, for me, in the dairy industry, we're always trying to find that next nutrient, the next ingredient, that next approach, and how we balance a diet or what we use for ingredients to get that balance right or more right to get more out of the cows. And the. That's what I'm seeing on the sheep side. You know, we talk about, you know, when you and I had a prior conversation about this, and I'll relapse some of it. Right now we talk about nutrition into donor use. And there's so many rules of thumb that people have said you can't do X. And if someone came in here and took the list of all the things you can't do, they looked at what I do. I don't think I do anything like, you know, I do everything we can't do every day. And my point to that is, is there's so many opportunities to do things better and differently. And my way is not perfect. It's just what works for Me. But you have to keep trying new if you want your use to be more productive, more fertile, have more milk, there's opportunities in that. And then when it comes to show lamb nutrition, I mean, the group we work with, I. I'm a nutritionist. I've learned more from them in the last couple years than I thought was possible. And I know they're still trying new things and learning new things. And that's the cool part about this. And so if you're stuck doing what you did two years ago, you're probably going to be third or fourth in class every time you go out. Yeah.
- [20:48]
B
The game is constantly changing. I feel like, you know, if you take a season off, it's almost like, whoa, where are we at now? Like, things have changed so much. And even I think it's proof when you see people put up throwback pictures, you know, from sheep that won several years ago to now, like, things have changed so much. The type of sheep that we want is different. So obviously the nutrition has to be different or the genetics have to be different. So I think your outlook on that is, like, spot on with what I agree with as well. Let's talk a little bit about another brand that you own. Let's talk about Grub Pet.
- [21:21]
C
Yeah, so Grub Pet's a partnership between my assistant and I, Kelsey Bowles, who are Bennett now, I should say. A couple years ago, we were looking at all the things that we had done for the dairy industry or in the dairy industry and the things that are happening in the show animal industry, and came to realize that there's a lot of really well researched technologies that exist for livestock and humans that had not been applied to dogs. And, you know, you look at Americans as a whole and you say, okay, you know, half of the families that exist in this country have a dog somewhere. And in a lot of cases, that dog is their kid. It's probably treated better than some of the kids out there, you know, that are out there. The dogs get spoiled. And so we took a stab at creating a product and we have a family of products ready to go as we develop this customer base that basically take technologies to make healthier dogs for the ones that are athletes, you know, higher performing dogs and then dogs that have better lives. You know, it's. There's a great quote that your dog will only be around for a short portion of a short portion of your life, but that is their entirety of their life. And so you try to make it that much better for them. And, you know, Americans do A great job at that. We invest a lot to our pets and we just saw it as an opportunity to explore technologies we already know. And it's amazing how much we've learned. That is just different. You know, that's back to that question about how much do you learn? We jumped into this and we took two years of research, flying parts of the portions of the country, seeing manufacturing plants, and it is stunning to me that dog food and treat manufacturing is so sterile and clean that it rivals most human food manufacturing plants I've been in. And it's just. It's amazing. But yeah, so that's where Grubhead is and that's what it's doing. It's still a very young business and it's growing. It just got into Amazon about two months ago and we're right as we speak getting onto the chewy platform. So it's exciting. It's got a long ways to go, but it's been really fun.
- [23:23]
B
Yeah, it sounds like there's a big future there for that. And many of us know Kelsey Kelsey showed in California growing up and across the country, and also raises sheep now, I believe, under the farm name, aren't they 7Z? Is that right?
- [23:37]
C
7Z. And I'm not sure the exact moment, but I believe they're expecting their second kid today.
- [23:43]
B
Oh, nice.
- [23:44]
C
Yeah.
- [23:45]
B
So, yeah, a lot of us have kind of Kelsey, I remember showing with her at some of the major shows, so she's a great asset. Let's move a little bit into what most of the podcast probably wants to hear about is We've talked for 20 minutes now and we haven't even talked about sheep hardly at all. So let's talk about your sheep operation. How many use do you run? Just kind of give us the down and dirty about that.
- [24:06]
C
Yeah. So right now we're at about 25 blackface ewes and about 30 dorpers. I say right now because as we speak, we're trying to acquire more dorpers. I got about 20 more coming. Our plan is to move towards about 10 to 15 blackface use and probably about 80 dorpers. And really using those as recips, you know, IVF and flushing to get eggs into those girls and try to move our genetic quality forward and quality of the livestock to hit the ground for that much faster.
- [24:36]
B
And that kind of plays right into my next question. This goes right back to what we talked about before we even started recording today. How has your program evolved from when you first started till now? Let's talk a little Bit about how, what we used to do. And then like you said, where you're headed. You know, we talked a lot about IVF before this, so let's talk about the evolvement of it.
- [24:54]
C
Yeah, I mean, you know, seven, eight years ago, we had a buck, we'd turn out and we'd put a cedar in a U and try to cycle her for Addison season breeding. And you hope the ram was fertile. You checked him, but you know, could he cover three or four in a day? And you had, you had hopes that ram was good enough. And we, that's what we were, we were that way seven, eight years ago. And you know, we'd, we'd rotate some rams out and we'd have lambs born at random times a day, random days of the month. It was just kind of chaos. And, you know, as AI has developed over the last decade and really become just the staple, we adopted that. And, you know, anybody who's got little kids in their house knows that outside activities are not a reality. They get priority. We realized real quick that we couldn't have lambs born when it was conducive to that mother getting pregnant. We had to schedule it to where it worked around our lives. And so realizing that we've adopted AI and then about four years ago, I just realized I wasn't happy enough with the progress we were making on the lambs hitting the ground. And so flushing had been done. It wasn't impossible. But I just sat down and crunched the numbers and figured out if I can get to, you know, 7 was the baseline. If I could get to a 7 average of transferable embryos with a reasonable conception rate, my cost would go down and my generation and turnover in terms of genetics and quality would go up. I could get rid of, use faster, have less females around and basically get better genetic progress. And we pushed towards that. I know I mentioned this to you prior, but I. We've averaged nine transferable embryos over the last three years and all the donors, and that's not nine. Every time we've had our zeros in there, we've had our 20s, but we've exceeded our goal of seven really consistently. And then now we just did our first IVF about a month and a half ago. I wanted to see how much we could cheat the system and how hard we could push it and see if it broke. And our goal with this was to get one transferable egg and we put two seven month old ulams into the donor pen that day, managed them through the protocols and Ended up with five and six transferable, freezable grade one embryos that will go in this winter and was really happy with that outcome. It wasn't a perfect shot protocol. I mean, I was, I missed one of the shots by about 12 hours and still had good success. So I think that technology is evolving and it's going to become a new standard for where we're at and I'm going to really push it. We have already have IVFs lined for November and December and a flush program, flush group going on going in right now for the end of this month. And then we've got our early April ones already lined up for next year. So we're going to try to make a lot of embryos and not have a lot of black face use out here.
- [27:37]
B
Yeah, I think that's interesting. You and I talked about, you know, having sheep that are maybe off age has some benefits. You know, it's hard to move those but in terms of putting them back in as females or, you know, that gives you a way to be able to keep those and reproduce more of them. And then we also talk too with kids. That show seems like the show season is all year round now anymore. And you know, with the way the genetics are, some of them can loop around a little bit longer and you might be a little bit more mature than some or you might be a little bit more immature, but that's also still something that you can kind of use as a benefit as everything's evolved as well. What do you think the biggest challenge is currently with raising show limbs?
- [28:14]
C
I mean, the hardest thing for me is figuring out which bucks to use. And that's, that's my biggest challenge. I mean, getting sheep are. I tell our 4H families to buy from us their first time. Sheep have a goal in life and that's to die in the most obscure and random way possible. And so that makes sheep hard as it comes, but finding the rams that work and work consistently and there's a lot of good ones out there. Pick your, your families or genetics, but there's always new ones, right. And I actually stole this from Jordan. Amber G. It was a very astute comment. You know, I asked him a year ago, what'd you breed to? And he said, I went back to for my falls to 2 bucks that were real consistent cattle people do this. They've been using bulls that are 20 years old. And he used chief and unicorn. And his logic was, I know they work and that's, you know, so, so finding the rams that work, work for your flock, you don't want the offspring. The quality you want is I think, the biggest challenge because there's so many options out there and that's good and bad.
- [29:11]
B
Yeah, I think that's definitely a challenge a lot of us face. And kind of. It seems like the question before every breed date comes up is what are you going to breed to? Is this the right call? And I agree. Sometimes you go back and you go to the bucks that have worked instead of using the new ones. And I think that is challenging. It's a, you know, it's a big decision. It affects a lot. Let's talk a little bit more about. So you raise sheep, but now your kids also show sheep. And as they've gotten more, more into showing, how has that affected some of your breeding decisions or the ways you do things?
- [29:41]
C
Yeah, so my son and daughter have both showed. My son still does. My daughter just as a county fair now, she's kind of grown out of it. And our focus since they got committed to showing has changed from we're going to produce for the California market, which was fall lambs, and that's where the majority of the money was at, to and sell those things and get them into other people's hands to the best three, four, whatever that number is, are going to stay here and we're going to show those things. And as we've done that very logically, it came out that, well, the competitive families don't come to your place anymore to buy them. And so that's just real. And so what we've done as they've gotten more competitive is what we said. We keep the best ones for ourselves. And then we have families, friends, people, people we've worked with for years, or new ones that we're helping at their fair that we're not competing with. And we're trying to curate our customer base. And so with that, we're making sheep out of out of season for the typical California market because we're playing to our customers hands. And with that, we've changed how we, how we sell them. I think last year we didn't have a single lamb and a sale. Nothing good or bad about sales. I just realized that we can do more with our customers and make it easier for us to migrate those animals directly to the customer. And once my kids are done showing, sales might be back on the forecast because then we can go out and demand the higher prices for those ones that were, that should have been in somebody else's hands at that point. So we've really changed our whole strategy of marketing simply because the customers have said, we know we can't compete against you with your own sheet.
- [31:16]
B
I get that I face. I feel like that's a challenge I face here, too, now that Braden's older and showing. And, you know, I don't know if there's a right or a wrong answer, but you definitely have to kind of decide how you're going to, you know, move forward with things when your kids are showing. What do you think your favorite barn memory with your kids is?
- [31:33]
C
You know, I think there's, there's. There's, you know, one for each kid that stands out. And one of them was this year and one was a couple years ago. My daughter has always been a self competitive person. She wants to be better for herself every day, and she didn't. She never really aspired to, you know, being. Beating other kids in class, that was never her thing, with one exception. She loves beating on her brother and going into the ring and watching her beat him numerous times when he was doing everything he could to try to beat her and just seeing a smile on her face, that one really stands out for me, for her. And then this year, we had a great year with a lamb. We raised my son, showed him the revival and won on Saturday. And just that night and that atmosphere that that show puts together, it's a great memory I'll always have of him in that ring. And that outcome really, really stands out for me.
- [32:23]
B
What is your favorite show to go to with your kids?
- [32:27]
C
You know, it's still. It is a revival. I mean, it's. I want to put other shows that are doing that are doing a good job and getting better, but Jimmy Hutchinson and his group just do such a fantastic job on making that show enjoyable, regardless of your level of competition. I remember the first year they had it, we were one of the early sponsors and didn't really know what he was doing, and my kids weren't competitive at that point. We went down there and he made every kid that came out of that class feel like they took something home. And they did. In a lot of cases. They had a great time, they enjoyed it. He had an Easter egg hunt one year when it fell on Easter for the kids. And then since then, as my kids evolved and that shows evolved, that's only gotten better. And it puts a real icon, an example for other shows to try to achieve. And it's a standout here. And I know Jimmy's working on having some clones of that show out in the Midwest and If he does, I think you guys are going to see out there what we see out here. And it just, it's a fun show. I mean, even if you don't have a great day, it's a fun show to be at.
- [33:29]
B
I think he definitely does a great job. That's the show that Braden always says, well, can we go show at it? And I have to point out to Braden, do you know how far away that is at a time when we don't have very many animals on feed? So I think it's definitely, you know, for those kids, that's one that they all are excited about. I believe last year was it at Phoenix, you took one of the driverless cars.
- [33:52]
C
Oh, yeah. So it was like two years ago. Waymo. Yeah. If any of you guys have seen a Waymo, it's basically a driverless car. And I was there on a business trip and we met a vendor and they wanted to go to dinner and the vendor had ordered it. And it pulls up in front of us. You hop in and there's cameras on the outside of this car in every which direction and it drives. We took a 20 minute drive in this car down the road and it stopped for people crossing the road. It was a better driver than most people and it was just a wild ride. And that was two years ago. And I know my son and I were in San Francisco about two months ago for a concert and they're everywhere, they're just on the road and we took scooters and we're bouncing around town. We had some time to kill and they, they maneuvered around us. It's, it's wild where that's at. And I don't know if they're out in the Midwest yet, but I know like Austin, Texas has the Tesla version of them and I haven't been in those ones yet. We do have a Tesla with the self driving. It's pretty good, so it's a lot of fun. And my daughter, who just turned 16, I joke with her that we're going to buy her a used Tesla because the first couple of years that car is going to be a better driver than she is. And I feel safer with her behind the wheel if it's driving.
- [35:03]
B
I'm not a very good driver, so this would probably be something my family would get behind also. But I remember you telling me about the driverless car at one of the shows and it's proof that you're probably a little bit more open to progression and change than I am, because I think I would have been apprehensive to get in it. The last question I'm going to throw at you wasn't on the question list, but I think you'll have a good answer for this one. So no pressure. What sort of advice would you give to anyone who's wanting to start their own business?
- [35:29]
C
Kind of a couple answers to this question. 1. Do it. Do the research first. Figure out what you're going to do. Do it. Because if you don't do it, you've already failed. It's the old cliche. If you miss all the shots you don't take and if you look at the research, it's scary. Like 90% of businesses fail, but most people who just go get a job at some point get fired or the job goes, or the business goes broke. You work for it. Things happen because that's somebody else's business they started. And so that's going to happen in our lives no matter what. But if you, if you try it and you fail, you're going to learn a lot. And if you succeed, you're going to learn a lot. Either way, the risk is well worth it. There's so many opportunities out there that, I mean, you know, I'm getting. It's amazing how old you are when you stop and think about how old you are. You know, I am that Gen X guy who grew up without the Internet, watched it dawn, watched the Internet boom, and now I'm watching the AI boom. And it's going to change how much we do. And these young kids are so much better at evolving into this atmosphere that if they don't go out and create a business, the jobs that I've had don't exist anymore. And the jobs they're going to have, I don't even know what they are. So, yeah, it's worth the risk. You got a lot to learn, whatever that field is. But understand, you can do it.
- [36:41]
B
Well, thanks for joining me today. Like I said, I was really excited to get you on. I thought that a lot of people probably knew you from the sheep deal, but probably didn't know what else you had going on. This should come as no surprise. As someone who works with a job that requires constant Internet, Jed was the person that we bonded over the fact that he had a starlink because I needed Internet access. So he's always very cutting edge. And I really appreciate you coming on with us today. Jed, thanks a bunch.
- [37:07]
C
It was fun. Steve, thank you. I really appreciate it, too.
- [37:11]
B
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that segment with Jed. I thought, like I said I thought he had a lot to bring to the table in terms of just a different outcome outlook. And I think it's always interesting. Not all of us raise sheep full time or work in the sheep industry full time. So I thought it was interesting to see what he also does outside of the sheep world. So thanks to Jed for joining us. Let's get right into our next episode with Biozyme. Like I said earlier in the podcast, whether you're an exhibitor or a feeder or a breeder, you're going to want to hear this episode with Sam about all the different products Biozyme has to offer. I'm here this morning with Sam Silvers with Biozyme. I'm sure a lot of you guys have seen the Biozyme content that's on ChampionDrive.com throughout the year. They always have a really strong presence with us. And I thought today would be a really good chance to catch up with Sam, learn a little bit about him and go over all of their different products. I think one thing that's unique about Biozyme is they have products that are catered for breeders, such as minerals and tubs, and then they also have products that a lot of our show families or fan or kids that show are utilizing as well. So I thought it'd be a good chance to go over everything. Thanks for joining us, Sam. Sam, tell us a little bit about your background kind of in the sheep industry and how you got started with Biozyme.
- [38:26]
A
Yeah, so I was born and raised in Salado, Texas, which is just kind of north of Austin area. Started showing sheep when I was nine. When I graduated, went to South Plains College, was on the livestock judging team there was, and then transferred to tech and got my undergrad at Tech and eventually my master's degree at Texas A and M Kingsville. And throughout that time, just always involved with the sheep industry. And now here we are, my wife and my daughter Staton and my son Shepard. We live in Junction, Texas, and we raise a set of show sheep as well. And I don't know, I was it was at Biozyme as an ASM probably 6 years ago. Started as an ASM, left there and went to work for Multi Men USA for a while selling cattle products. And then as of about two years ago, I've been back with Biozyme in a different role. I'm the director of National Specialty Livestock. So basically I cover all the small ruminants and then well as a show livestock. So quick, fast, in a hurry, that's me In a nutshell, yeah.
- [39:40]
B
I think your background definitely makes you a great resource for a lot of these products because like you said, you're not just a breeder, you also have kids that show help other families that show. Let's go right into the products that, you know, we use in the show ring scenario. A lot of us are getting ready for Louisville or the Arizona National Denver run. You guys in the south are getting loaded up for the Texas majors and whatnot. Let's first talk about Appetite Plus. When do we utilize it and what does it do?
- [40:08]
A
So the best time to use Appetite plus is really anytime. I mean, the name kind of says itself, right? I think anytime you have something knocked off feed or maybe they're going through a stressful event, maybe they got sick, maybe you had to give an antibiotic and that gut's going to be under some stress. That's a good time to give Appetite plus as well as when you load to go to the show. And the entire time you're at the show, I would say morning and evening. That's a really good gut health product to help them internally.
- [40:42]
B
How much do you suggest giving like on just say, you know, like this time of year, I think most of us have pretty big sheep. You know, we're not looking at babies for the most part, but like, for like if you're headed to Louisville, you noticed your sheep was off feed. How much do you suggest giving and how often?
- [40:58]
A
I would say 15 to 20 cc's of that tube and I would, I would do that morning and evening. I don't, I don't think it needs to be done like every hour or anything like that, but definitely in the morning and then in the evening as well.
- [41:12]
B
On the flip side, let's talk about a product you guys carry called Clinch. What is that used for and, and what does it do?
- [41:20]
A
Yeah, so Clinch is a relatively new product for us. We started that, I don't know, four or five years ago, probably in the, the basis behind that was to combat scours and, and a problem, particularly when you're at a show, it can be used anytime you want. But you know, when we're at a show, especially those shows that, that have strict testing protocols, if you have one scour out on you, there's really nothing you can give. You can't give spectomycin, things like that. So we wanted an all natural solution that would, that would help combat the scours. And that's where Clinch came about. It's been a great product. It's been very Popular. A lot of people are using it. And I try to tell everyone, you know, at least keep two or three tubes in your showbox because it can be a lifesaver for you.
- [42:11]
B
Absolutely. I know we always have it in ours and whether it's when we're going to spring sales or going to shows, anything like that, it works and it works pretty quick. Is there, did we talk about, is there a recommended amount to give on that?
- [42:23]
A
There is a recommended amount. I'm typically one of those guys. If a little is good, a lot's better. So what I try to tell everybody is if you've got one scouring out with you, I usually start with like half a tube, give them half a tube, give them some good dry grass hay and then wait three or four hours and see where you're at. And if in three or four hours they, they're still scouring out on you, then give the other half of that tube. But I think it's, it's really important to offer some good grass A in there. Not alfalfa, but just some good coastal or something like that. Maybe a Tifton 85, just a good grass A to help bind some of that stuff up. Typically that initial dose will take care of your problem.
- [43:05]
B
Okay, great. Let's talk next about Liquid Boost. When do you use that and what is it used for?
- [43:11]
A
Yeah, Liquid Boost is one of my favorite products. You know, I was using Liquid Boost before I ever even went to work for Biozyme. And even when I was in transition to a different company, I was still using Liquid Boost. We recently, we recently put medicators in, in our, in our show barn and I, I run it in my medicators through new lambs that are coming in. So it has so many uses and I could talk about it for hours. But you know, the basis behind it is, is typically during any times of stress, right. Weaning, hauling at the show, stress from an antibiotics, stress from, you know, a sickness. That's when it's, it's good to give baby lambs that you're prepping for a sale, things of that nature. We always reach for Liquid Boost just anytime we think anything may be going wrong or there's a stressful event or we're going to give them Liquid boost. And you know, it has AMA firm in there which is a really good prebiotic, sort of precision prebiotic. But then it also got a bunch of other stuff in there, B12 and biotin and zinc just it's kind of an all in one that works really well.
- [44:28]
B
So for those of us that don't have medicators, do you recommend mixing it with water and putting it in the water buckets? Do you recommend drenching it? Because I feel like we have medicators because we also have pigs, so we're set up for it. But I feel like a lot of sheep people maybe don't. So I. I guess. How should I guess, maybe talk about how you dose it through the medicator. And then also if you don't have a medicator, the best way to. To utilize it.
- [44:50]
A
Yeah. So it's ready to go in the Bottle at a 1 to 128 ratio if you have a medicator. So all you got to do is just hook a jug up to your medicator and it's ready to go. If you don't have a medicator, which we didn't. We didn't have one up until this year. We just kind of did the math on the back of the bottle and then we would just pour it in their jugs and everybody's water jugs are different sizes, but it'll tell you on the back of there and you can just kind of read it and do the math and doesn't hurt when you get those lambs in for, I would say the first month of getting new projects in. Great. To add in their water just to give them that boost and keep them healthy and get them going.
- [45:31]
B
Perfect. Okay, let's talk next about climate control. What does that product do and how does it work?
- [45:38]
A
So climate control is a lot like appetite, like the appetite gel or Appetite Plus. But what it has in it is what we call our, our heat pack. And some of the ingredients behind that are what help control and regulate internal body temperature. And it's a really great product for maybe people that are showing, say in the summer, maybe they have their state fairs or in the summer like Iowa State Fair or something like that, or jackpot season when it's just hotter than all get. And we need those animals to drink more clear fluids. We need to kind of regulate their internal body temperature, help cool them down. That's a product that, that's great for the summer months.
- [46:24]
B
How much of that do you give and how often?
- [46:28]
A
10 to 15 cc's at a time, depending. And I would say no more than three times in a day.
- [46:35]
B
Okay.
- [46:36]
A
So probably morning, noon and, and dinner or lunch or whatever. Morning, noon and supper. I don't know. I get those mixed up.
- [46:45]
B
I think it depends on where you're from. We're dinner from. We're from the north, so I guess in the south it's supper, huh?
- [46:50]
C
Supper. Yeah.
- [46:51]
A
There you go.
- [46:52]
B
Perfect. Okay, so that kind of covers the, the products that we'd need in our showbox or in our show barn. Let's talk about the products that Biozyme has for breeders. Let's talk about the concept aid sheep. There's three products, right? Concept aid sheep concept aid, heat and dura from one, correct?
- [47:10]
A
Yeah, that, that's the. Now that's the sheep related product. Now we have a, we have a totally different line for goats as well. We have goat specific loose mineral, goat specific tub. Because we know and we recognize in our business we recognize that they're two totally different species and they have different needs and requirements.
- [47:29]
B
Absolutely. Let's talk about the sheep versions. What's the difference of the three and when should each be utilized?
- [47:36]
A
Yeah, so I typically use the loose mineral, what we call the concept aid loose mineral year round 24 7, 365. We keep it out free choice. And that is a good organic mineral that has some, has some Zen Pro properties in it as well that everybody likes. Has AMA firm in it which again has our prebiotic. I think that kind of sets us apart is that we have that prebiotic in there to help with gut health. But it does some other things too. You know, there's a lot of research out there that we have that AMA firm helps with fiber digestibility, things of that nature. So you're really getting a lot more out of that mineral than you realize. It's, it's not just the, the basic minerals. You get some adage there, you're getting more out of your feed, you're getting more out of your forage, say if they're out on, on pasture or something like that. So loose mineral I keep out 24 7. And then if we move into the tubs, the tub is an all in one. So that's, that's the hard part for me is the tub has 16 all natural protein, has ama firm in it. It has our full mineral pack in it. It has the concept a mineral pack in it. So I think if you're in that transition of if you like tubs and tubs is what you need, then you can feed tubs solely and you probably don't have to put loose mineral out. Where I utilize tubs is pre lambing. You know, if I think I'm going to get some, some ketosis issues or something like that and they need some energy, then I'll put Our tub out if I've got use out on pasture and maybe the forage is playing out like right now this time of year all the grass is starting to kind of die. We still have our recips turned out they're on the concept aid tubs, they're getting 16% protein, they're getting a full mineral pack and that's kind of how I utilize the tubs.
- [49:34]
B
Do you see a time when people shouldn't use them? Like where it could be where too much is a good is a bad thing.
- [49:39]
A
I think if you're feeding a, a, you know like a TMR and you have a full on ration, good hay, mineral and tubs and maybe those user getting over conditioned or getting a little too fat, then probably we need to back off the tubs. Right. I think there is too much of a good thing. That's typically how I look at it. But there's, you know, everybody has a different scenario. I've talked to some breeders that just feed hay in tubs and they get along fine with that, you know. But I think if you're feeding a really good mixed ration, you have a really good hay out, free choice and a really good mineral that's probably sufficient. Where you can get in in trouble there is. If that ration doesn't have enough energy and we're getting close to lambing and you start having some, you know, ketosis issues, then you probably definitely need to put the tub out.
- [50:32]
B
Absolutely. What's the rule of thumb on how many tubs to have out for how many use?
- [50:38]
A
I typically, I typically do like 1 to 12.
- [50:42]
B
And then let's talk a little bit back on the free choice mineral. Let's say we have some listeners that maybe haven't utilized your mineral or mineral in general. What are they going to see, you know, consumption wise? Is it going to be, you know, high to begin with and then back down? Are they going to, you know, is there anything in there that kind of limits consumption?
- [50:59]
A
Yeah. So we don't really have a limiter in there per se. In any mineral, salt is the limiter. And that's what I would caution listeners to look at is when they're reading a mineral tag is look at the percentage of salt in there and we look at some of those mineral tags and they're pushing, you know, 25, 30, 40% salt. So you're paying a lot of money just for salt. Inevitably I would typically see with ours they're gonna. When you, and I think when you transition from any mineral and you put something new out there, they're going to hit it really hard for a while. They're going to go over that recommended amount, which is like an ounce a day to an ounce to an ounce and a half. But then typically they're, they're gonna, they're gonna back off. When their bodies get to what they need and they're, they've consumed what they need, they'll back off and level off. That's what we see in our mineral. But we try to bring as good a quality product to the market as anybody, from the ingredients we buy to the way we mix it. You know, we were awarded the feed facility of the year in the U.S. if you ever saw the inside of our plant or facility, you would understand the quality of product that we're putting out.
- [52:13]
B
Awesome. So for those of us listening that want to order, how do we get more information or how do we go about obtaining your products?
- [52:21]
A
Yeah, so each area we're going to have an ASM, but I would go to our website, just biozyme incorporated.com and you can easily find all that information that you need. We now have our Durfirm Conceptate goat and the Durafirm conceptate sheep in 12 pound bags. So maybe if you have a smaller flock or I think it's highly important to leave free choice mineral out for your show animals as well, you can order those 12 pound bags directly off our website and they'll ship them right to your door. That's been a, a game changer for us being able to, to get that into areas that maybe we don't have the greatest distribution. Anybody can order those. You know, a kid with one or two animals that maybe a 50 pound sack would last them a long time, they can order a 12 pound bag and put it out. Free choice be great. Maybe if you have 5 or 10 ewes, great option for you.
- [53:20]
B
That is a good point. I hadn't, you know, we hadn't talked about that, but that's something that I think is really key in show lambs as well. Do you want to talk a little bit about how those kids should maybe be feeding that? Because I feel like sometimes that's a step that gets missed a bunch. I see that, you know, you sell some of those sheep and you go check on them and you know they just are, you can just tell like their hide or their skin or their wool is kind of lacking, kind of. Do you want to talk a little bit about how they can use the free choice mineral in their show land? Projects.
- [53:47]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So and that's what we call, you know, they're not, they don't look thrifty. Right. You go and you look at them and I would say he just doesn't look thrifty or she doesn't look thrifty. A little dull, dingy, stuff like that. I equivalate a lot of that to, you know, just an all around good mineral in their diet. Now most show feeds have a mineral pack in them, but if we're restricting diets or doing anything like that, maybe they're not eating as good. I don't think they're consuming as much. So we've always been a, a proponent of putting out a free choice mineral in the pen. We just put a feeder in there, put it in there and let them have at it. I think it helps with daily. This is going to sound odd, but I think it also helps with daily boredom as well. They can go over there and, you know, lick on that thing or eat some, some mineral as they see fit. But they're also getting other things like zinc and biotin. They're getting that amber firm in their diet to help their gut, you know, I think it helps. Definitely helps also with some, some kidney stones and stuff like that. Water belly, whatever you want to call it. It's just a good, all good around product to leave out free choice to help with issues that may arise.
- [55:07]
B
Absolutely. Well, thanks for joining us today. As Sam mentioned, you can get on the Biozyme website and check out where you can order from and learn more about their products. They also have a banner ad on ChampionDrive.com throughout the year that you can click through to get to their website. Thanks for joining us and hopefully we'll see you at Louisville. Sam's a great resource for all of this stuff and like I said, he has a background in both raising sheep and having his kids show sheep. So be sure to look him up with any questions you may have about Biozyme and their products. Thanks again.
- [55:36]
A
Thanks, Steven.
- [55:39]
B
Well, that wraps up this episode of the Champion Drive podcast. We'll be back in a couple weeks with our next one. We'll be talking about the of the Year contest. Those nominations are going to be opening up soon on ChampionDrive.com so be thinking about who you want to nominate for the show Lamb of the Year, the Female of the Year, the Rookie of the Year, and the man of the year, which is the Sire of the year. Those will be opening up mid November. We'll have a full schedule post on Champion Drive here soon.
- [56:16]
C
Sam.