Separate Herds, Joint Marketing: Holt, Brown Talk Records, Goals and Service

As David Holt and Kent Brown grew separate Angus businesses just down the road from each other, they found a natural partnership. They could do more together than they could separately. The Tennessee neighbors talk about why they went Angus, how whole herd inventory reporting will strengthen their programs and the breed, and the ways they maximized their marketing by working together. 

HOSTS: Esther Tarpoff, Mark McCully, Miranda Reiman  

GUESTS:  

David Holt, of Holt Farms, Livingston, Tenn., was a dairyman for the first 26 years after high school, but when he got out of milking, he immediately switched to Angus. He and his wife have two boys who are involved in agriculture and help around the farm when needed. 

Kent Brown of Jared Brown & Son near Rickman, Tenn., got his start in the Angus business from the herd his dad started in 1961. After a few decades of other breeds, he came back to Angus in the early ’90s and sells 60 to 70 registered bulls annually. 

This podcast is brought to you by Zoetis Genetics. Visit beefgenetics.com  for more information.  

Don't miss news in the Angus breed. Visit www.AngusJournal.net and subscribe to the AJ Daily e-newsletter and our monthly magazine, the Angus Journal.

Transcript

Miranda Reiman:

Welcome to The Angus Conversation. I'm your host Miranda Reiman with my co-host, Mark McCully, and today we have a special guest co-host.

Mark McCully:

We do. We have Dr. Esther Tarpoff. See, I'm going to call you doctor, even though you say you don't... but you earned it. You put in the work at K State to get that doctorate, so I'm going to use it today. But Esther Tarpoff is our director of performance programs. Thanks for joining us, Esther.

Esther Tarpoff:

I'm happy to be here.

Mark McCully:

So director of performance programs, what on earth do you do?

Esther Tarpoff:

A lot of different things, depends on the day, Mark. No, really though, it'll be over our Angus Herd Improvement Records. So basically, you can think about it, all the data that's coming in, whether it be birth weights, weaning weights, foot scores, hair shed scores, all the phenotypes that are being collected come into that program or into this department. So then it's answering a lot of questions about how do you collect data. We work with the AGI team and also have the EPDs that go out to members, and so it's answering questions about the EPDs as well, both from our members and from commercial cattlemen, so a variety of different hats; also do some member education. So a lot of those commonly asked questions, what are some resources we can get into their hands to help them with those questions to make them feel more comfortable?

Miranda Reiman:

I must say that Esther is a journalist's dream and that not only does she have the academic side and can understand some of these complex things, but also really wears a producer's hat because she grew up a Kansas Angus kid, comes from that background. Also, probably get to hear your parents grumble if you do something that's not easy for them to implement at home. Is that right?

Esther Tarpoff:

Very accurate, that or my brothers, one of the two.

Miranda Reiman:

Well, today we had some guests on that you actually got to meet while you were in the road traveling this summer, is that right?

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah, whenever I was out in Kentucky and Tennessee with Alex, we sat down with these two gentlemen, we had lunch and had some really good conversations for a couple of hours. A couple of interesting guys, and they do a few things that may be unique compared to what some other producers do.

Mark McCully:

Yeah. One of the things, of course, that you, I think, were first drawn into a conversation with them on was around Inventory Reporting and how they could get involved in that and get started, and so they walked through that in the podcast. But also I think really unique is here's a couple of producers that have joined forces. They used the word relevant, and I thought that was... they want to maintain relevance to their commercial customer. They join forces and do some things cooperatively and I think a pretty neat model of what they've got going on, and I think definitely going to be an interesting conversation for our listeners.

Miranda Reiman:

Today on the podcast, I'm very excited. We've got a couple of guests with us that I actually have never met in person. I always say one of my favorite parts of the job is getting to meet new people. So I'm excited that today we have David Holt from Holt Farms, Livingston, Tennessee. I believe just down the road would be Kent Brown of Jared Brown & Son in Rickman, Tennessee. So thanks for coming to the podcast, guys.

David Holt:

Thank you for having us.

Kent Brown:

Thanks for having us.

Miranda Reiman:

All right. Now I hear you guys both say thanks for having us back and I probably didn't help ID which was which. So I guess we'll start, David, if you want to just give us a little bit of background about your operation, just give us the elevator speech.

David Holt:

Okay. I started farming right after high school and I dairyed for 26 years. I got out of a dairy in 2006 and immediately transitioned into beef cattle with my first 15 head of registered cows. We're now running 90 mature cows. We've got 40 replacement heifers coming on. Kent and I both joined forces and have a bull sale every year to market our bulls to our commercial customers. My wife and I have two children, two boys. One of them, Trey, the oldest is a veterinarian and he is into embryo transfer. He has an embryo transfer business. Here on the farm, along with that, we also manage the donor program for him housing donors. Me and another young man by the name of Jared Hart, we take care of that while he's off on the road and doing embryo production for other farms across the Southeast. Our youngest son has an agriculture equipment repair shop here just on the other side of the farm and him and his family are all, we're all involved in the farm If I need them, I make that phone call and they're very gracious.

Mark McCully:

David, was that the plan is you sent one child out to go be a veterinarian and one of them, you need equipment repair, so go out and get trained? Was that the master plan that you set out for them?

David Holt:

No, sir. It wasn't really a master plan, but it's working and everybody, all of my friends joke, "You've got the best of all worlds. You're on top of it. I said, "No, it just happened that way," and thank goodness it did, it really worked.

Miranda Reiman:

I was wondering-

David Holt:

I'm proud of them.

Miranda Reiman:

Does that mean you're at the top of the list to get your equipment repaired? Does that mean you're at the bottom of the list?

David Holt:

No, no, we got to schedule this in advance.

Mark McCully:

David, I'm curious, as you made the transition from dairying to registered Angus cattle, talk about that a little bit. What brought you to the breed and how big of a transition? I always say the hardest working people in the world are those that have dairies. My goodness, there's so much work. So talk a little about that transition from dairying to running registered Angus cows.

David Holt:

It's definitely been a transition, and I'll be the first to say that I had a hard time honestly, because you got used to those dairy cows, them big. I like these Angus cows big, but it didn't take long to say that I need to moderate here, and I need to get some more efficient kind of cattle and steered our breeding program more toward that end and heavily maternal in those cattle, and we've still got a little ways to go. I'll be the first to admit that, but I feel like we've made some leaps and bounds.

Mark McCully:

Excellent.

Miranda Reiman:

If you want to give us just the same kind of introduction, Kent, that'd be great just to hear a little bit more about your [inaudible 00:06:55]

Kent Brown:

Okay. Actually, my family started in the registered Angus business in November of 1961. My father, Jared Brown, started it. Both my parents taught school, and he was trying to pay for a farm and teach school and raise two kids, and so he took a Sunday paper route. David and most of the people in Tennessee will know that, Tennesseean, and he ran a Sunday paper route, saved enough money to buy two registered Angus heifers from a local Angus breeder, and that's where it got started. I'm probably the one responsible for us leaving the Angus deal. He was not really a detail-type person, didn't like the paperwork. He sure wouldn't like it today, but we left that, me and my sister showed in another breed. Then after 20 years of encouragement from him, in 1993, we bought two drafts of open heifers in the spring, bred them that fall.

The first calf crop out of that group of heifers came in 1994, and those same cow families are still here today. We've worked with those cow families for 30 years. Every once in a while we'll go out and find a female that fits what we really like, and we'll bring her in to try to add a new cow family. But as David mentioned, we started the genetic excellence bull sale 20 years ago. Myself and another Angus breeder did. A couple of years ago he decided to step away. David came in, I don't know, 10 or 12 years ago as a third partner and been very good to us; not being boastful, just very thankful. This area is small producers, most of them work a job in town. They've got one cow unit, basically, one bull cow unit, and challenging to get those guys to pay a lot of money for a bull. But they do pay good money, and we've been very fortunate.

We try to sell about 60 to 70 bulls per year. One thing when we started the bull sale, and I'll give our veterinarian at that time, Dr. John Donaldson some credit. He encouraged us when we started, he said, "Sell 125 commercial Angus heifers with those bulls." He was very wise because it has worked extremely well. The heifers probably sell better than the bulls do, but those heifers come from our bull customers. A lot of those heifers have five and six generations of our breeding programs in them. We have a lot of guys that run other breeds of bulls that come to our bull sale every year and buy one pen of bred heifers because they know they are maternal, they will raise a calf and they'll work for them, and we've got a lot of repeat buyers.

We've been very fortunate in that. We were part of the Upper Cumberland Angus Association for many years, still are members, consigned to a lot of consignment sales with our females throughout Kentucky and Tennessee, we have consigned to those for years. We generally calve about 90 to 100 cows in the fall. Some of those ET calves are raised by a cooperator herd, a bull customer of mine. He's been a bull customer of mine for 25 years, and he's got really good genetics in his cow herd, by the way. So it works out really well, and he does an outstanding job. He's one of the best forage managers that I know, and those cattle are raised strictly on forage, and he does an outstanding job. We usually get between 20 and 25 of those a year, and we'll calve have about 70 to 90 here. So that's the basics, I guess.

Mark McCully:

Kent or guys, talk a little about your part of the world. You would be, you're east of Nashville, about how far?

David Holt:

We're 100 miles-

Mark McCully:

Miles?

David Holt:

Yes. We're right off of 40, north of 40, right between Nashville and Knoxville in northern part of Middle Tennessee.

Mark McCully:

So talk about that country a little bit for those that haven't been in it. You mentioned a lot of smaller producers probably working off the farm, smaller cow herds. Are you in the Appalachian area yet or how do you consider your... Where's your customers running their cows at?

David Holt:

Mainly here we're classified as the Cumberland Plateau and our cows, along with if you have any numbers in this part of the country on our behalf, we are so spread out. We've got cattle on right now, four different farms. That's just the beast of the burden in this area if you run many cattle. That's one of the reasons why you have these, a lot of small herds of commercial cows average, let's say, across the state is what, Kent? 30, 35, maybe?

Kent Brown:

About 35, used to be between 35 and 37 cows were the state average. We have producers in this county that run two and 300 commercial cows. But it's like David said, this one guy in particular that I've sold a few bulls too, he may be running on 15 farms to run that many cows.

Mark McCully:

Yes, yeah.

Kent Brown:

... and that is a challenge, I assure you.

Mark McCully:

Yep.

Miranda Reiman:

For sure.

David Holt:

But it's just rolling hill country with some flat land that is suitable for drain. In my opinion, there's some of this that they are draining probably needs to be left in good old fescue that's held this country here together for years.

Mark McCully:

Yeah.

Miranda Reiman:

For sure.

David Holt:

We have that to fight to some degree.

Miranda Reiman:

I think any area of the country you go to, you see that, don't you? Where people say they should have left that in pasture ground back when or...

David Holt:

Yeah.

Mark McCully:

Guys, how are your customers marketing calves? Do you have graded sales, board sales? Talk about your customer's calves.

Kent Brown:

Well, in this area there are a few video sales. Probably the most predominant one in this area would be in Albany, Kentucky, Blue Grass, they do a lot of video sales. I know a lot of cattle out of this upper Cumberland area go to Albany, and a lot of those guys got that background calves, that's where those calves end up. We don't really have any sale barns real, real close here. There's a sale barn in Crossville and a sale barn in Carthage, and we lost our sale barn in Cookville due to development. So I would say that, and there's a couple of alliance sales in the area that do that. But what we're seeing more and more, a lot of these commercial cattlemen here are transitioning away from the cow-calf operation into the stocker operation, backgrounding and that type deal, and because they think it's just easier. That way they are able to group these calves, commingle them, and sell them in truckload lots. It works well for some of them, and that's basically what's going on.

David Holt:

With that, you'll also have that few breeders that will have those 30 to 40 cows, they'll get together and we're seeing a little bit more of that, and they will put their cash together and sell a load. We're seeing some of that now, and that's developed in the last three years. I think that may grow. There is one other thing, if I could, I need to get out there and tell, but if I don't, my daughter-in-law's going to whip me. On our farm, also in the last three years we've started selling our beef to local customers, and it just seems to be growing. What we're seeing out there in our end of it doing that is those customers that's looking for beef, their main question to us is, "How's this calf raised? Where did it come from? How did it derive to be on your beef side versus this?"

All animals are not created, I guess you could say, to be breeding stock, and that's just the way it falls in this business. We all know that sitting here, and that's how we elect to market for a lot of those calves, make steers out of them that don't make the cut to go through the bull sale, and it's working. It's a challenge at times for sure, but it also, we like hearing the feedback on how well they like that meat versus what they went to the local grocery store. We get comments quite frequent about that, and it makes you feel good. You know to some degree, you're headed in the right direction and for our information to put back into our breeding program.

Miranda Reiman:

So you get a report card both from your bull buyers and from your

David Holt:

Yes.

Miranda Reiman:

... meat customers. Yeah.

David Holt:

Yes.

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Miranda Reiman:

Well, I heard you early on, Kent, say something about how your dad hated records, and it's kind of ironic.

Kent Brown:

He loved Angus cows, but he hated records. I'll be perfectly honest.

Miranda Reiman:

It is ironic because we have Esther to talk a little bit more about both of you guys participating in some additional recordkeeping, so if we talk a little bit about your genetic program and how that came to be. Like I said, it seems like irony, but you guys and Esther have met before. Esther, you've traveled in their area and seen their location, right?

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah, I did. I went with Alex, it would've been this last summer, we sat down there and we had lunch together.

Miranda Reiman:

Excellent. Good. So you guys know each other's program, but you got really introduced because of their interest in the Inventory Reporting program.

Esther Tarpoff:

You're exactly right.

Miranda Reiman:

Okay, so tell me, guys, first off, what interested you in that or was it a little arm twisting, or did you sign up for that willingly?

Mark McCully:

Esther is very persuasive.

Miranda Reiman:

Yeah, that's what-

Mark McCully:

... and you put her with Alex-

Miranda Reiman:

... I'm trying to figure out.

Mark McCully:

I'm not sure, maybe they bullied you into it.

David Holt:

They tag-teamed us.

Miranda Reiman:

Must've been a really good lunch, right?

Esther Tarpoff:

It was great.

Miranda Reiman:

But talk to me a little bit about that program. Maybe first talk to me, before we even start in that program, tell me about the recordkeeping on you guys' operation historically, what you've been doing and how that's changed over time.

David Holt:

Well, for me, I was doing pretty much reporting birth weights, weaning weights, and we still all report like [inaudible 00:19:35] don't have anything to do with it. The carcass data, we'll collect that. But we were already doing it, and I had read everything that you guys post on the website about the Inventory Reporting. I was interested, and then Alex called one day and said they were going to come through and we'd like to sit down. Well, that just prompted me to go ahead, let's do this. The biggest challenge for me was, and I had been lax, very lax in disposing of those cows, they're no longer in the herd. It pushed me, and I barely got in on the deadline, to be honest, but-

Kent Brown:

That's nothing new, folks.

David Holt:

Surely, not for me.

Kent Brown:

That is nothing new.

David Holt:

But he forced me [inaudible 00:20:23]

Miranda Reiman:

I was just thinking of man after my own heart. We work the same way here.

David Holt:

I work better under pressure I guess you could say.

Miranda Reiman:

I feel that.

David Holt:

After getting into it and doing it, it's the best move. Our kids have been on me to get it done, and it is just lax when you come in out of the field and worked all day, that's the last thing I wanted to do is go in there and start disposing the cows on there. I also had to feel, "Well, I won't never be able to look back on that." Well, getting into the conversation with Esther and Alex, that's not true. It's all there. You just look it up. Your recent disposed, I forget exactly what that tab is, you click on it and boom, there they all are. That was my biggest challenge is signing up on the program is getting that cleaned up, and I am very thankful that we went ahead and done that now because it makes it so much easier, so much easier. Thank you.

Esther Tarpoff:

You are very welcome.

Mark McCully:

Esther, we hear that I think for folks wanting to get into it at the beginning, one, again, cleaning up their inventories and then two, that other concern of, "I don't want to delete her because I want to go back to that record." I guess maybe expand on that just a little bit for those listening that maybe have both of those same reservations.

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah, that's a really good point, and that's a lot of the feedback that we heard prior to having Inventory Reporting in 2020. More people would probably be familiar with the term MaternalPlus, which was around, it's been around for about a decade. But we added on the Inventory Reporting, a level one of the program to help with that biggest step of disposing of those cows that are no longer in the herd. You both would've used that wizard that's inside a login that'll automatically default. If a cow hasn't had a calf in the last two years, she's automatically going to go over here in inactive for you. You'll have your active list and then from there, you can move cows back and forth based on, "Well, actually she's still here, I just missed getting a calf reported or maybe she's a donor," or whatever the case may be.

So that wizard, and you guys can both talk about this a little bit more, the whole purpose behind that was to help get over that hurdle of, "Boy, this is a bear to get over if I haven't canceled cows in 15 years." The second part of that, though, would be the next commonly most asked question is, "How do I get to those produce or dam reports if I'm writing footnotes in a sale catalog?" Or, "I want to go back and look at that cow, how do I see those if I cancel her?" So knowing that inside a login, there's a canceled animals list, you can actually see those. You can also actually still see them from the app, the Angus mobile app by clicking previously owned dams. So once members know that, that seems to help a little bit to know the data's not gone, it's just maybe in a little bit different place.

Miranda Reiman:

I get that angst. I hate deleting anything. You could see my desk right now, that's why there's stacks of things. I hate throwing things away and I hate deleting things. You just never know when you might need it. So you guys both did use that wizard function then and that helped with-

David Holt:

Yep. Yes.

Mark McCully:

Kent, was your involvement similar in terms of the reservations or taking those first steps?

Kent Brown:

I didn't have that many reservations. I guess it was more procrastination because actually, I sat in on a seminar or whatever at the Angus Convention the first year that this came about, it's been years ago, sat beside of our auctioneer, our bull sale auctioneer actually in the meeting. He leaned over to me and he said, "You are in the right place." I put it off. I was pretty good about cleaning up cow herd inventory. It was not that big a deal to me. The main thing, and Esther knows this, is I'd sold a group of cows back in the spring, and I transferred the wrong cow. So I had to get that sorted out.

If I had not done this, I wouldn't have caught it until later on, the next year, probably. But it was not that difficult. Unlike my father, I don't mind doing recordkeeping. I don't really enjoy it, but I don't mind it that bad. I can see the benefits of it, and we've always reported birth weights, weaning weights, yearling weights, ultrasound scan data and all of that. We're looking at maybe doing more, maybe doing some foot scores and that type stuff in the future. So it was not really that big a deal to me.

Mark McCully:

What's your system for recordkeeping? I know it's a discussion we get into a lot with breeders, and it usually starts with, "I got more data to collect. Labor's tight and I don't have time to do that." What's your system? Is it pen and paper? Have you moved to any electronic forms or good old Big Chief tablet and a No. 2 pencil?

Kent Brown:

Well, I'm old school.

Mark McCully:

Okay.

Kent Brown:

I like a hard copy of everything, and that's what I do is... well, I would prefer two hard copies, yes-

Mark McCully:

Backup to the backup.

Kent Brown:

... but one will suffice in a bind. But what I do is when I'm calving, which I'm about finished with that now this year, but I have just like a stenographer's pad. I just make me a grid on it, and I put the expected calving date and the sire and the dam. Then when the calf is born and I process it, I come back to the side-by-side and put all that information in there. Then about every three or four days I'll carry that to my office, and I've got another hard copy backup piece of paper, and it stays in the desk drawer. Then when I get through, it is reported online to the Angus Association and it's all stored there.

David Holt:

We're pretty much the same system. We'll have it all printed out and I'm carrying like three, four sheets I guess now with the cow's expected due dates and it's computer generated. Thank goodness my daughter-in-law and our kids handle that end, and "Here it is, dad. It's what you've asked for." They can do it a lot quicker than I can, but it's all pretty well-kept up there. Then we come home at night and I update it every night.

Miranda Reiman:

So were they involved at all in this process when you enrolled in Inventory Reporting or that was all you and...

David Holt:

Well, it was my call to make. With the conversation when we started talking about it, they didn't understand it and I said, "Well, the best thing for me to tell you to do is go on the website. It'll explain it in depth a lot better than I can to you." After talking about it, they were all just fine with it. "Yeah, go for it. We've been trying to get you to do this for 10 years or what."

Mark McCully:

I guess what do you guys see as the biggest benefits? Do you think your customers will care? Does this have marketing value to you? Is it about the quality of the data, the reports you get? What are some of the benefits that you find?

David Holt:

I personally am looking forward to what it brings down the road. Once we are in this for a full year, I feel like it's going to really help us in our mating our cows to certain bulls type female out there that we are really looking for and the longevity. We all know that that cow that breed back every year and she stays in the herd, those are the ones that really make the money. We've got to pay close attention to that, guys. That is my goal for this program to help us obtain that goal at the end.

Kent Brown:

I would say the thing that I hope it helps me do is to make a better cow because the people I listen to the most are my commercial bull customers. You can learn a bunch from those guys if you will listen to them. Their big thing is longevity, maternal function, good udders, good feet, longevity. I hear that more than anything. "I don't need this cow dropping out and she's six years old." Well, if I'm in this program, and I may put in the Bull Sale Catalog that this cow stayed in the herd until she was 15 years old.

If that cow is enrolled in MaternalPlus, I think that gives what I say a little more validity, and it's try to make a better cow. It's all about the cow to me. When Esther and Alex and David and I met, Alex was sitting across the table from me. I said, "You know how I am, it's about the cow. We have a bull sale, it's about the cow." I'm hoping that we get back to where the cow is top priority for all of us, really. I think that she brought us to the dance, and I think we need to dance with her.

Miranda Reiman:

Esther, that's really the overarching goal if you look at it from a bigger picture view too, not on an individual breeder to breeder, but as the breed as a whole as well, right?

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah, no, you're exactly right. Making sure that essentially every cow that's around she's getting accounted for. Did she have a calf, and if she didn't, what happened? Then the other really big piece of that is, if she left the herd, making sure those disposal codes come in so we know what happened.

Mark McCully:

As you guys know, that's the data that's been able to go into the research to ultimately deliver a functional longevity research EPD that's coming out this fall, which again, all is what we've all been striving for is to better characterize those genetics that'll stay in the herd longer for your commercial customers. Again, it's about the cow. I wrote that down as a quote I think there, Kent, I think. To me, the commitment you guys have made to collect that data and turn it in allows us to put that tool back in your hands to continue to hopefully, make improvements there.

Miranda Reiman:

You've got a direct line to Esther right here. Is there anything you want to tell her to make the program better or the education any better? If you're real hard on her, we can edit this out, but-

Mark McCully:

Thanks a lot, Miranda.

David Holt:

She's blushing.

Esther Tarpoff:

No, suggestions. It's perfect as it is. I appreciate that.

Kent Brown:

Well, I'm sure we'll have suggestions as we travel down the road. If it's criticism, it'll be constructed. It will not be just slamming somebody.

Esther Tarpoff:

Oh, absolutely.

Kent Brown:

You've got to tweak everything along the way no matter what it is.

Esther Tarpoff:

Yep.

Mark McCully:

Well, and the program has changed since we first rolled it out. We continue, I know, Esther, you and Devin and others have put a lot of... listened to those enroll and trying to find where those pain points are and points of frustration and eliminate them as best we can. When it's the folks that say, "I don't like keeping records," well, that one's a little hard for us to get over. But as long as there's a commitment to what you guys are doing, it makes the program work.

Miranda Reiman:

Sometimes you don't have to like it to do it either. I really don't like to work out, but... So you guys talked a little bit ago, you were mentioning your sale and talked just a little bit about that in your part of the world, you guys working together and how'd that come about? How'd you guys-

Mark McCully:

How'd that come about? You guys are like childhood friends that came together to sell bulls, or how did this all come-

Kent Brown:

Well, the way the sale started, it started with another partner, and it grew. David came in 12 years ago, and we were feeding the bulls, basically. Well, they were being managed basically the same way, but they were fed at three different locations. Then that original partner, he stepped away last year or year before last, so it ended up just being me and David. It started basically on my behalf since I was there at the beginning. Actually, we were probably talking about this 25 years ago, and it'll be 20 years this coming January. Basically, it was out of necessity. Finally, one day I made the decision, "We're either going to have to do this or never talk about it again." That's the way I put it to a couple of guys. I said, "We've kicked this can down the road, let's do this or let's just stop talking about it," and so we did it.

There was not a Angus bull sale to my knowledge in Middle Tennessee at that time, and it was a unique concept. We took in four or five bulls from this small breeder, four or five bulls from this small breeder in the beginning to try to get our numbers growing. A lot of those breeders have exited the breed or retired or whatever, and basically, now there's four of us that do this. We had a lot of encouragement. We had a lot of giggles when we started, but we had quite a bit of encouragement from some very smart people. We were very lucky when we started. We hired the right people when we started, and I think that was the key. We were smart enough to listen to them, and it's worked well for this area, and I think it's been good for the area as well, but it's been good to us.

Mark McCully:

Do you align on the bulls you're going to use and the genetics or do you allow... you guys work independently in that regard and market collaboratively, or how does that fit together?

David Holt:

We work independently on our breeding decisions for the most part. Yes, Kent and I will breed or use some of the same bulls, but I'll ... and use something different. You can look at that a couple of different ways, I guess. But as long as I'm trying something that I think that'll work on my farm and my herd, it also gives those other guys a mind that, "Hey, this bull, he really does this." You get a few more sire groups to look at and compare so you can hopefully make better breeding decisions down the road, if that makes any sense.

Kent Brown:

We have the discussion about this time every year, "Which bulls are you looking at to bring in new? Which ones that you use the last couple of years are you going to use?" In general, we call them 10 straw bulls. They may be proven bulls, they may be young bulls. Maybe David will try 20 straws on two different bulls that I don't. 'Cause we're so small in the big scheme of things, we have to lean on each other, "All right, this worked at Kent's, this didn't work at Kent's. This worked at David's, it didn't work at David's." So I've seen some matings he's done that, and I thought, "Well, that worked," and I try it and it worked. So as small as we are, between us, we've got probably 175 to 200 cows, recips and all. So we can't do a lot of gambling on, especially a young bull.

David Holt:

We pay attention to what the other one's doing that each of us do, and it works. It's some challenges when it comes down to feeding these bulls in two different groups. He's by my farm, we're like six miles apart. He's by the farm quite often, and I go by his lot. We're just looking at condition wise, make sure we're even key there and on the phone with each other throughout the feeding program and management of these bulls that, "Hey, how much are you averaging putting in these bulls?" So we're pretty close. Everything feed wise is the same on these bulls except for one thing, and that's the hay that goes into them. We try to get that first Saturday in January, every year when we take those to the sale facility, we want them to look really uniform.

Kent Brown:

David mentioned something, in his comments that Mark had asked, and I was talking about the bull sale started out of necessity. One of the main reasons we started the bull sale is because we heard all these commercial guys complaining about buying these fat bulls, that they would not last, that they would melt, that they would go to pot, and that has always been our goal. We don't have 1400 pound adjusted yearling weights. Our average adjusted gearing weight will be between 1150 and 1200 pounds. The bulls are ready to go to work. They can turn them out. They don't have to worry about them melting like a snowball. That's one of the biggest complaints that I heard before we started this bull sale, the bulls that we're buying are way too fat. So we have made a conscious effort to try to develop these bulls to be more like athletes, not like me, but more like an athlete than a lot of these other bulls.

That way, they'll last a long time. I've got a spreadsheet of buyers and attendees for our bull sale, and it's very obvious looking at that spreadsheet when these guys come back and buy bulls, these bulls are averaging lasting five to seven breeding seasons. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it is, it's there. They buy, and then you can tell when they're getting ready to buy another bull because a year or two before they buy that bull, they come to the bull sale and you never hear from them after the first bull was bought. So these bulls have some longevity in them, and that's one thing we've heard from our commercial customers that we need longevity.

Miranda Reiman:

Well, that's one thing that's remained steady all along. What are some things that's maybe changed either in your breeding program as it relates to the sale or that have changed in marketing, I guess, of that sale?

Kent Brown:

I can address this.

David Holt:

Well, go ahead. I'm thinking.

Kent Brown:

There's been a lot changed.

David Holt:

A lot.

Kent Brown:

When we started to sell, it was a pretty basic catalog, no pictures, no pedigrees. Basically, it was a tri-fold Excel spreadsheet is all it was, and it was all print advertising in that time. We've transitioned from that to a full-blown catalog with pictures, videos. We use DVAuction. Every bull has a video. Every bull is clipped, some of them clipped twice. We went from actually bringing the bulls in a sale ring to selling the bulls on video. That was out of necessity as well, because it got to the point we'd hold it the local university and it got to the point that we could not...

It takes 14 people to run that barn is what it takes. We could not find 14 people that had enough cow savvy to bring them in and out of the ring and put them back in their pens. So we had to do something, and sale day labor was eating our lunch. So to cut expenses, we went to DVAuction, a lot more online presence, a lot more. We got a website with Angus Media and a lot of traffic is directed there through our print advertising where they can request a catalog. It has changed drastically since we started. It's been a learning experience.

Mark McCully:

What did you do to help your customers with that transition? I know we hear a lot of folks that talk about the move to video and not pulling the bulls through the ring anymore. Some of it, COVID took that... made us make that jump in some cases. Was there a weaning process with your customers or-

David Holt:

Oh, sure.

Mark McCully:

... were you able to move them there pretty quickly?

David Holt:

Yeah, sure. It was a learning experience made up for all of us in some aspect or another. But both of us had went to sales where they had already done this, and we talked and we watched and observed and tried to do it the best that we knew how at the time. We did get a little flack, but not as much as I was expecting, to be honest, from our customers, not selling, them going through the ring. But the grand thing about our facility there that we host the sale at is the bulls are there, they're just out back in 10 x 10 pens that they can still go look at it. But yet they get that movement of that bull in pretty much his natural habitat out there on the ground. We're walking them back and forth. I think that outweighed the deal of not just bringing it through in the overall scheme of things for the buyer. How do you feel, Kent?

Kent Brown:

One thing that drove that decision was those commercial heifers that we were selling. We were trying to bring those heavy-bred commercial heifers in that sale ring, and the sale ring was not designed to sell cattle in, it was designed to lead a horse. So the doors were too narrow. We were trying to bring... we sell first calf heifer pairs, trying to bring those young calves through that. That was one of the main driving factors is trying to get five heavy-bred heifers in there that's going to calve the first week in February. That was a big concern as well. So a lot of it's been done out of necessity, but I think our customers accepted it very well. They accepted it much better than I expected them to. But we talked to them about it for about a year before we did it to make sure there was nobody really concerned about it.

But it's worked well for us, and we always encourage the bull buyers, come to the farms, look at the bulls before the sale. What I've seen change since we started til today is we have more traffic in the bull lots the three weeks before the sale than we ever did in the beginning, because they are actually coming and looking at the bull, and nothing pleases me more. They see that animal in his natural environment, they can see his feet, they can see him walk, they can see his temperament. They can see it all right there, and it's worked well. Then a lot of those people that do come to the lots, they never show up at the sale. They're on DVAuctions, and they may buy three bulls.

Miranda Reiman:

Do you miss having them at the sale? Have you seen there be a little bit of a transition in crowd size in some of that, or it's-

Kent Brown:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. There was a time that we could not fit them in the facility. The caterer, we asked her to prepare for 300 people, and she would run out of food before the sale started. So we went to 350, she was running real close. But now, the last two or three years ever since COVID, I guess, COVID gets blamed for everything, but I'm not saying it's the reason, but ever since COVID, it seems like what they're doing is either they're going to the commercial heifer consignor's farm and looking at those heifers and they're sitting at home on Saturday.

It's like this one young lady that bought several heifers from us. Her and her husband have small children, they both work jobs. They're trying to run a farm. She said, "We can come look at the heifers on Friday night. He can farm all day. I can sit in the house on Saturday with the kids and click." Then they'll show up after dark on Saturday to load their heifers and go home, so marketing has changed. It is two different worlds now than 20 years ago. That's the best way I can say it.

Mark McCully:

Do you think it'll come back, is what I guess I'll say? 'Cause I'll be honest, I talk to breeders and I think we probably all have maybe some mixed feelings about it. We love the efficiency. We love taking care of the customer and providing them the most convenient buying opportunity possible. Yet, I think we all enjoy getting together as we always come back and say this is a people business, right?

Kent Brown:

Yeah.

Mark McCully:

So is this the new normal that you guys see for the foreseeable future?

David Holt:

I definitely think so. I really do. I watch sales online myself, but I still... yet, I miss going. Speaking to past customers of mine that I see there or whoever, I really miss that. But as we all get busier, I guess, we've got five grandkids. They're getting involved in stuff, and it gets harder and harder, and I get that. I understand it, but it's like Kent said, we really appreciate the people that take the time to come before the sale. I am so glad that we do have that option that they can sit in the comfort of their own home and click that button too. I think it's good.

Kent Brown:

I think it's probably here to stay, especially on the registered female sales side of it. I do because what I've seen transition on the female part of it is 20 years ago, you'd get these calls and get orders for fall-bred cows, "I need less than six years old. I want 10 of them." They didn't ask about pedigree, they didn't ask... Now you get calls, "I'm interested in these two lots. Those people are not going to drive 250 miles to bid on two cows as busy as people are. I think the female thing is for sure. I think the commercial guys, they will always... they're like me. They're more feely, touchy, old school, the hard copy, they're more of that type. But now as the younger generation comes on, it may change.

Miranda Reiman:

So what do you guys see as some of the biggest challenges and opportunities in the Angus breed looking ahead? What are you looking forward to in the future?

Kent Brown:

Well, I can start, do a little plug here. What we're looking forward to the two of us and one of our neighbors, what we're looking forward to next year is we're going to step out and do our own female production sale. First time we've ever done it. I've consigned to consignment sales my whole life in different breeds. David has for 12 years. This young man, Luke Mason, Mason Farms up here in Livingston. He's about three miles from David, we're going to host a sale on his farm April 19th.

David Holt:

Real nice setting.

Kent Brown:

Real nice setting, a beautiful area of the county. We're going to sell about 60 registered females, and there should be something there for everybody. If you're a maternal guy, there'll be maternal cattle. If you're a performance guy, there'll be performance cattle. Luke Mason and his farm is highly toward the carcass end of things, so there will be something for everybody. I guess that's what we're looking forward to. We have talked about this for several years, and we're going to jump out and try this, and that's something we're looking forward to.

I think the challenges for us small breeders like me is in the future are just stay relevant, just stay relevant. I don't have the big numbers or a lot of land. I operate on a lot of leased ground, and I don't have the resources to do a lot of things the bigger guys do, but there are some things that I can do that they don't have the time to do. We try to make customer service one of our main things. If we've got a problem with a bull, we go look, we go look. It may take us a couple of weeks to get there, but we go look and we try to fix it.

David Holt:

Year in, year out is that relationship that you build with them after the sale. We are looking forward to this new venture for us. Like Kent said, we've all consigned cattle to the consignment sales, and there's nothing wrong with that, but we just felt like it's going to help us narrow down at our female marketing side is one time a year versus where it's been for us is like three different sales throughout a year. In the grand scheme of things, we hope that it's less time-consuming. We do it once, and it's behind us, then let's go and look at, "Well, right here, we're going for this next time and build."

Kent Brown:

We hope by the time that we get the MaternalPlus seal on our pedigrees that it will pay off on sale day. I know it'll pay off at home, and I know it'll pay off for our book customers, those of them that do retain females. But that's basically what we're looking for, looking forward to.

Mark McCully:

Guys, real quick, one of the most common conversations I get into with breeders, and you maybe touched on it a little earlier, Kent, around it's about the cow and making sure we don't forget the cow. Yet, I also hear you talking about you're doing ultrasound measurements and paying attention to carcass merit. So how do you guys balance that? It's this, if you will, balancing the cow and the end product merit, the carcass side of things. How do you guys philosophically approach that from your breeding side of things? I guess what do you think is best for your commercial customers?

Kent Brown:

Well, the balancing act, I depend a lot on pedigree. When I select AI sires, I look at the cow side first. I don't go two or three generations deep, I go deep is what I do. As far as balancing the carcass and the maternal, I think that's not that big a deal really anymore. With all the different types of cattle that we have within the breed, there's so much diversity within this breed, there's no reason for a commercial cowman to buy anything but an Angus bull. We've got whatever they need, it's here.

David Holt:

It's there.

Kent Brown:

So I try to balance. I told his son last night, the veterinarian, I said, "I read an article when we got back in it in 1993, that ABS, and I'm not pushing one semen company over another, that he was a professor at Kansas State University. I don't remember his name. This guy wrote an article about how to make genetic improvement." He said, "Don't shoot for the top 1%, shoot for the top 35% in these traits you want to improve," and that's what I do. I try to stay above breed average on everything and try to be between 35 and 50%. Now I've got some cow lines that need more carcass. I've got some cow lines that need more birth moderation. But I always go back to the cow side of the bull's pedigree, and that's my basic breeding philosophy.

Mark McCully:

David, are you much different there?

David Holt:

Not a whole lot. There's one thing that sticks in my mind that Kent said there earlier, it keeps going back to it. Every time these conversations come up, it starts back with that cow. That's what I weigh on myself too, is the cow side. How can I improve her weaknesses? We've all got weaknesses and that cow, some cows have got more than others. I just try to balance that and get that, more desirable traits that one might be weaker on than the other.

Mark McCully:

You mentioned earlier, I think it was Kent that said if you listen to your commercial customers, you'll learn a lot. I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. I guess what are your commercial customers telling you they need today and maybe things that you're breeding for? Obviously, breeding decisions you made this spring are not going to be delivered to your commercial customers for a couple of years here, but what things are you hearing from your commercial customers? What's keeping them in business?

Kent Brown:

There's basically two things that I hear from my commercial bull customers that we as an Angus breed need improve on. Number one would be feet and leg structure, and that goes back to longevity. They tell me that most of the cows of theirs that fall out at a younger age, five to seven years old, that is the number one problem. There doesn't seem to be that many complaints about the fertility of the cattle-

David Holt:

Growth or-

Kent Brown:

Or growth or anything like that. Then the other thing is, is a lot of people have pushed these low, low birth weight bulls on mature cows and that's what I hear. They're coming around, "We need bulls with some gas in them and some power in them to use on these mature cows." Sure, there's a place for low birth weight bulls and that's on heifers. But I hear that is the common theme that I hear more than anything, improving the feet and leg structure and longevity of these replacement cows and then putting more gas in them and having these three to five pound birth weight bulls to go on these commercial cows that's weighing 12, 1400 pounds. They figured out pretty quick, they'll get more weaning weight, and it's nothing against the low birth weight or high CED bulls. There is a place for them, but they've decided that that place is not on a mature commercial cow.

Miranda Reiman:

Again, there's a bull for everybody in every situation.

Kent Brown:

That's true.

David Holt:

Yes, that is very true.

Miranda Reiman:

We appreciate you guys taking the time to visit with us. We always end on a random question of the week. So random question for you real quick, what's the best part about being involved in the Angus business?

David Holt:

For me, it's the data that you all provide to us. Handheld devices, we take them to the field. I've got people coming looking, and I'll be honest, I'm not the best I can... I'm not like this one sitting beside of me. He can tell you every pedigree knee-deep. I don't have that capability, I guess, but it's right at my fingertips, and I really use it a lot. That's the biggest thing that I think the Angus deal does for us out here in the field working every day.

Kent Brown:

Well, I enjoy the cattle and I enjoy the people and I made notes, I'm going to be honest. One of the plugs I wanted to get in here, and he didn't pay me, okay? I'll say up front, but we are very, very fortunate in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee to have Alex Tolbert.

David Holt:

Yes, very fortunate.

Kent Brown:

I just wanted to give him a shout-out. He does a fantastic job. I have seen him operate. He goes to guys with 20 cows, he goes to guys with 500 cows. I've seen him do it here in the upper Cumberland, and he is a great asset for Angus breeders in this three state area and for the American Angus Association, and we appreciate him. You won't find anybody in Tennessee or Ohio that does not brag on Alex Tolbert.

Mark McCully:

Those are well-deserved compliments.

Miranda Reiman:

Yeah, I feel like I maybe padded that question a little bit 'cause we're to Wednesday. It's been a busy season, a rough week, but I didn't really expect you to just give kudos to the staff, but it'll be fun to bring that back, so that's good.

Mark McCully:

Guys, we appreciate it, and I really applaud what you're doing. I think the model, you guys talked about relevance and talked about coming together somewhat out of necessity. But I think what you're doing as you join forces, I think I always come back to 76% of our membership are registering 20 head or less. We're an organization of smaller breeders. I've always said this on the commercial side of things, I see guys that are going together and jointly marketing their feeder cattle, guys that are going together like you are and operating big by joining forces and cooperating. Man, I think that's just a great model. I think what you're doing is really smart, and kudos to you for making it work and appreciate you coming on and sharing a little of what you're up to and where you're going.

Kent Brown:

Well, thank you.

David Holt:

Thank you very much. We appreciate the opportunity. Glad to do it.

Miranda Reiman:

Thanks for listening today. If you found something you liked in that podcast or something to discuss with a neighbor, give it a share. Go like it on Facebook or find Angus Journal on Instagram. I hope to see many of you at Angus Convention next month in Orlando, Florida, either meeting new friends or finding friendly faces in the crowd. Visit angus.org for more information on registration. In the meantime, get your daily dose of all the news in the breed by subscribing to the AJ Daily at angusjournal.net. This has been The Angus Conversation, an Angus Journal podcast.