More Than Raising a Good One: Sawyer, Stevenson, Toledo Talk Customer Interaction and the Perfect Cow

Adam Sawyer, Doug Stevenson and John Toledo have more in common than the title of 2024 National Western Stock Show Angus Pen and Carload Show judge. During this episode you’ll hear what the trio thinks about the best way to create the right animal for the right time, how to get a little bit better every day and how it felt to wear that judge’s pin in Denver.   

HOSTS: Mark McCully and Miranda Reiman

GUESTS: 
Adam Sawyer, A & B Cattle, Bassett, Neb., and his wife Jenessa work alongside Adam’s mom, Becky, to manage the family’s registered seedstock operation. They’re raising the next generation of Angus breeders, as their sons Augustus and Truett grow up in the Nebraska Sandhills.

Doug Stevenson, Basin Angus Ranch, Reed Point, Mont., was active in the National Junior Angus Association and attended Montana State University before graduating from law school and returning to his family's ranch in the Judith Basin. In 2010, Doug and his wife, Sharon, and their three daughters, moved to eastern Montana, where today, along with their growing family, have various roles in Basin Angus.

John Toledo, Tri-T Farms/Toledo Ranches, Vasilia, Calf., got his start in the Angus business through 4-H. On his family’s central California farm and ranch, he grew the herd, married his wife, Kelli (a fellow Angus junior), and they’re now raising their son in the breed.  

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 (00:03):
Welcome to the Angus Conversation. I'm your host Miranda Reiman with my co-host, Mark McCully.

Mark McCully (00:08):
Happy New Year.

Miranda Reiman (00:09):
That's right. We're back.

Mark McCully (00:10):
Was Santa good to you? No coal this year.

Miranda Reiman (00:12):
Yeah. Very good. We've got six little kids and so Christmas is like the most fun in our

Mark McCully (00:18):
House. Magical and chaotic and

Miranda Reiman (00:19):
Exactly. Magic and chaos often go together. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to be back after we recorded so many of these at Angus Convention. It feels like we're a little bit rusty, Mark.

Mark McCully (00:29):
Yes. Yep. Yep. Back in the saddle. That's right. It's been great. And January has taken off busy. We started as a team down, actually before even we spent some of our team spent New Year's Eve down in Oklahoma City at the Cattleman's Congress, and it was a great event, just another great event. We had a great turnout on the show cattle and then some great sales. Just the pace we kind of look at some of those sales, Bases Loaded, and some of the others, they're kind of a little bit pace setters or how the thing and how things are going to go in the spring. And man, it was lots and lots of demand, as I always say, the great diversity in our breed and we see a great marketplace around all these different Angus genetics that our breeders have put together. And so it was a great event. We raised some money for the foundation as well. The Yon family donated a bred heifer that was purchased by Express ranches, and boy, that was a great event as well.

Miranda Reiman (01:25):
Absolutely. You also had an educational event or a day kind of for commercial cattlemen and want to remind people that if they didn't get the chance to take that in Oklahoma, you'll have the ability to watch it on a replay in a webinar. So we'll go ahead and put that link in the show notes here, but if you want to catch

Mark McCully (01:41):
Yeah, it was good. It was about balancing the cow and the consumer. That's kind of a theme that we continue to talk about because we know that's hard for our breeders is to look at making sure that we keep our cows functional and yet paying attention to a lot of the demand drivers around our end product. And so we thought that was a timely topic and we had a really good discussion there that we'll, again, we'll have available out on a webinar that folks maybe that weren't in Oklahoma City could take it in.

Miranda Reiman (02:06):
Absolutely. I think that's kind of, you say a timely topic but also a timeless topic.

Mark McCully (02:11):
It's not the first

Miranda Reiman (02:12):
Time we've talked about

Mark McCully (02:12):
That. Yeah, probably better said, definitely a timeless topic. And Oklahoma City, I guess it goes without saying, it was a tough time too because the Angus breed lost a great man in Jarold Callahan back right before Christmas, and our prayers and thoughts go out to Jennifer and Ryan and their families and the entire Express crew. Jaro,ld was a giant, truly in our breed and in our industry. He leaves a great big hole that I know we're going to be, and in a lot of people's lives it's been pretty amazing to listen to folks talk about the impact that he has had in their lives, maybe even mentored from afar. He was mentoring folks that maybe didn't even know, and I've seen such an outpouring over these last few weeks. So it was, I know a heavy time down at Oklahoma City and yet we also celebrate it as Jarold I know would want us to celebrate and move on, celebrate the impact and what's in front of us and as I know he would want us to be charging on. But thoughts and prayers will continue to Jarold's family and the Express crew.

Miranda Reiman (03:21):
And of course we saw earlier today, we were up on the hill and watching that show and even Jarold's name was coming up in those conversations and the impact that he had.

Mark McCully (03:32):
Yeah, Donnie Robertson and judge as long as well as Chuck Brost was his associate today in the open show. And Donnie, of course working for Express, as he would say. Jarold was his best friend, and I know Chuck was very, very, very close with Jarold as well. So we'll continue to remember him and honor him and we'll move on as I know he would want us to, but it'll be felt for a long time.

Miranda Reiman (03:57):
So I'm bringing up the Hill show and I think everybody hopefully can make that connection. But I didn't mention we are here in Denver right now. Well,

Mark McCully (04:03):
Yeah, yeah, we should. We just kind of jumped right into that. But as the National Western in full swing here, of course, maybe for those that haven't been ever to National Western, we talk about the Hill. It literally is up the hill and that's where the show cattle are at for the open show and the junior show, we had a great set of females and bulls out there out here, and then down in the Yards of course is where the pen and carload show is at, and great traffic out here today. It's been a little chilly, but it doesn't keep the Angus enthusiasts away.

Miranda Reiman (04:36):
We've really had a lot of good conversations with people in the, we always say the hallway conversations, but it's kind of nice when these conversations get to happen when there's cattle in close proximity too

Mark McCully (04:47):
Absolutely. And get to be face to face. And there's again, been lots of great commerce. I want to give to another thank you to the Sadler family at Sadler ranches. They donated a bull that was here in the Colorado Angus, their Foundation female sale, but sold a bull with proceeds going to the Angus Foundation. And so we sure appreciate their generosity and all the bidders on that. And so yeah, it's been great to get everybody together and be able to sit across the table and have some of these conversations. Not that we don't enjoy the conversations over Zoom, and those are, we love the technology. It allows us to do that, but its more fun. It is extra special when we get to sit down in person.

Miranda Reiman (05:28):
And we've got another one of those really fun ones today and we're happy to kick off our season four of this podcast with three great breeders.

Mark McCully (05:36):
Looking forward to another great season.

Miranda Reiman (05:40):
Well, today on the podcast, we've got a very special episode in that we've got three breeders here with us and breeders that have, well, it's an important job in the future, but by the time this podcast runs, they will have already done their job and hopefully really well, we've got the pen and carload judges.

Mark McCully (05:56):
Yeah, we've never done this before. This is pretty cool. And so the pen and carload competition here at the National Western Stock Show, tons of tradition and heritage. And so to judge it, we've got three guys that have great credentials to come and evaluate these, the pens and carloads. And this is a little different. We're doing it before, so we're not trying to align you guys to get you to think the same. It's more of a little bit of a preview of what you're thinking about. And then of course, by the time when this airs, the listeners will know what the results were.

Miranda Reiman (06:30):
So Right. We'll see if it came true, I guess. So right here on the table, we have Adam Sawyer. Adam's from Bassett, Nebraska from A and B Ranch. So thanks for joining us, Adam.

Adam Sawyer (06:40):
Absolutely. Sure. Pleasure to be here, and thank you for asking me to be on.

Miranda Reiman (06:44):
And then Doug Stevenson, who drove down from Montana, he would be up there at Columbus, Montana. Is Columbus still your address? I just said that wrong.

Doug Stevenson (06:51):
It gets really complicated.

Miranda Reiman (06:53):
You were at Columbus when I was there.

Doug Stevenson (06:56):
Yeah, our ranch headquarters is at Reed Point. Little town, not everybody would know. Columbus is a little more recognizable.

Miranda Reiman (07:04):
Okay, excellent. So then we have John Toledo seated here next to Mark from Tri-T Farms, Toledo Ranches at Visalia. Am I saying that right?

John Toledo (07:15):
That's about right. Visalia

Miranda Reiman (07:16):
Visalia, California. So thanks for joining us, John. Thank you.

Mark McCully (07:20):
So Nebraska, Montana and California. So a nice regional mix to the evaluation tomorrow. So maybe Adam, you want to kind of talk maybe just a little bit about your outfit, what you do there in Nebraska?

Adam Sawyer (07:33):
Well, it would've started long before me. My family and I operate own and operate A and B cattle in Bassett, Nebraska. And it would've started with my folks, Arlen and Becky Sawyer. They would've moved to the Sandhills in the late seventies and by the late eighties started their own operation, and we derived 100% of our livelihood from the raising and selling of registered Angus cattle, namely bulls. But yeah.

Miranda Reiman (08:02):
And you've got a couple of kids you're raising there too. We got to meet Augustus, is that...?

Adam Sawyer (08:06):
That's right.

Miranda Reiman (08:07):
Got to meet Augustus today. Yeah,

Adam Sawyer (08:09):
Augustus, this is his first national Western, so he's really taking 'er all in. And my wife, she has a shirt that says I raise kids and bulls, so

Miranda Reiman (08:18):
Perfect. Very good. Alright, and then Doug, you're up there in Montana. I've been to your place. You're on the National Angus Tour or on the Montana Angus Tour. Excuse me. Yes, just recently here. So I've had a very recent memory of the beautiful place you've got up there.

Doug Stevenson (08:34):
Well, thank you. Yeah, we really enjoy the ranch location that we're at now. Our operation, I've been a lifelong Angus breeder. My grandkids now youngsters are the fifth generation of our family with Angus cattle. And that's why we continue to do what we do is because our kids and grandkids want to be involved.

Miranda Reiman (09:02):
Excellent. And a long time name in Montana, family name up there. I've got a lot of history,

Doug Stevenson (09:08):
Long history selling Angus cattle in Montana.

Miranda Reiman (09:12):
Excellent. And John, I would say I probably know you the least. You're not my neighbor to the north and I've not been to your place. So tell us a little bit about,

John Toledo (09:19):
So we're from the Central Valley, California. It's all farming and cattle. So we run a diversified farm and purebred Angus cow-calf operation. History wise, farming wise, it's about four generations with our son, Lane, being the fifth generation actually now. Cow side of things, about three generations actually. My dad and my grandfather had some Hereford cattle back in the day. And then of course the Angus started with myself as actually 4-H, like a lot of these, project. And then my wife Kelli, who's from Montana from Roundup, Montana, their family has some Angus cattle history as well and commercial cattle background. So Kelli and I were both on national junior board at the same time. And so that's kind of the history for us and we're continuing with it obviously because of our son's interest in it. And we have a bull sale first Sunday in September every fall, sell about a hundred bulls and around about 150 purebred cows.

Mark McCully (10:25):
Lane showed a couple heifers today.

John Toledo (10:27):
He showed four heifers today actually, and showed 'em yesterday in the junior show as well.

Mark McCully (10:31):
Yeah, he does a fantastic job out there.

John Toledo (10:34):
Thank you, he does. He takes it real seriously. And

Mark McCully (10:37):
You met Kelli on the board, so you were on the junior board?

John Toledo (10:39):
Yeah, actually I knew Kelli's brother before I knew Kelli, her older brother, her older brother Bart. But yeah, we both showed cattle competitively against each other. But yeah, Kelli was on the board, got on the board a year before I got on the board, so we actually were on the board one year together. But that's exactly right. That's

Mark McCully (11:03):
Doug was on the board, chairman of the board.

Doug Stevenson (11:06):
No, I was on the board.

Mark McCully (11:07):
On the board.

Doug Stevenson (11:09):
Nicole

Miranda Reiman (11:09):
It took the next Stevenson to make chairman.

Doug Stevenson (11:12):
Yes, the next generation, just supposed to be a little better

Mark McCully (11:13):
The next generation's better.

Doug Stevenson (11:16):
She did a little better. Yeah, Nicole. Sure.

Miranda Reiman (11:19):
Yeah, it's been fun. She had a good year on that.

Doug Stevenson (11:21):
She enjoyed it and I think it was really good for her to meet a lot of people. So as people hear this podcast, some people know me, but probably more people know Nicole.

Miranda Reiman (11:34):
Very good. And she's back on the operation now?

Doug Stevenson (11:36):
Yes, she is. Back full-time on our ranch.

Miranda Reiman (11:38):
Absolutely. Very good. Were you on the board? Do we have to keep going around?

Adam Sawyer (11:43):
I wasn't.

Miranda Reiman (11:45):
Why weren't you on the board, Adam?

Adam Sawyer (11:47):
It was really bad. My sister was on the board, actually won the national showmanship contest while she was on the same year she got on the board and I went a different path. I went to Texas.

Miranda Reiman (12:00):
Did you rodeo?

Adam Sawyer (12:01):
I rodeoed.

Miranda Reiman (12:03):
That's usually what a different path is.

Adam Sawyer (12:04):
That's where the commercial bull, I met a lot of good bull customers in Texas and New Mexico and just went a different path in life, but truly enjoyed ranch life immensely.

Miranda Reiman (12:15):
Yeah, very good.

Mark McCully (12:16):
It is so cool to hear these stories though about the junior experiences and then I always call our junior programs the on-ramp to our industry. I know that's my personal story and it's so fun to hear all these different connections that get made and friendships, lifelong friendships that start back when kids are at a barn maybe competing against each other, 8, 9, 10 years old. Exactly.

Miranda Reiman (12:38):
But some of us turn out okay if we weren't a junior Adam. So you're in good company. Thank you. So you guys have a big job tomorrow with the Pen and Carload show. Tell us when you got the call that you were asked to judge, what was the first thing you thought?

John Toledo (12:55):
I was excited to get the call. I mean, I enjoy evaluating cattle anyway. I judge a lot of shows over the years, but the pen and carload show is kind of the prestige and the history, especially in Denver. I'm looking forward to it. And it's a different way to evaluate, little different way to see cattle, and ... that we and these guys probably would agree, selling bulls to the commercial cow-calf operators. It's a little different mindset than what it is maybe up on the Hill judging cattle. So it's, I'm really looking forward to it.

Doug Stevenson (13:28):
I'm looking forward to evaluating the cattle. That's something that I really enjoy. If you ask my family and crew, they say that

Miranda Reiman (13:40):
You enjoy it too much.

Doug Stevenson (13:41):
I enjoy it a little too much. There's looking at cattle and sorting cattle that eats me up. I get into that trying to find what I like, what I don't like. So I am really honored to be able to be here and do this. My dad would've judged the pen and carload show about 30 years ago and I remember sitting there watching as he did that thinking, I wonder if I'll ever get to do that. So I was really, really proud when I got that call.

Miranda Reiman (14:15):
Very, that's really cool.

Adam Sawyer (14:17):
And for me it's absolutely an honor. Obviously we talked about, I didn't go through the Junior Angus program and didn't go through a judging team in college.

Miranda Reiman (14:27):
Really? Me neither.

Adam Sawyer (14:30):
We got a lot more in common than you think. But the National Western always meant so much to me growing up and our trips out here with pen bulls and heifers later on, to be asked to come out and judge, this is a big honor for me. It's funny when I got to the hotel and they handed you your packet and it's got your pin in it and it says judge on it, I still remember when I was a little kid and Vance Uden coming into our pen in Denver and had his gold badge that said judge on it and how cool I thought that was. And listening to D-Rob give his, he said he didn't want to take too long, but he took longer than I think he wanted to up on the Hill today, talking about Jarold looking down and pointing out what he did wrong. My father would've judged the pens and carloads in 16 and 17, and I'm sure he's going to be doing the same thing tomorrow evening going,

Miranda Reiman (15:27):
What, do you think you'll hear Arlen's voice just a little bit?

Adam Sawyer (15:30):
What in the world were you thinking?

Miranda Reiman (15:34):
Is that a direct quote you heard often?

Adam Sawyer (15:36):
Yes. Usually in a constructive manner.

Mark McCully (15:43):
Maybe it is really probably less about the judging necessarily. But I want to talk a little bit about just breeding philosophy and kind of the kind of Angus cattle that you guys are breeding in your own outfits. I mean the thing I love about this breed is the diversity we have, the diversity of regions that you're running in, the philosophies, the type of cattle that we have. Maybe John, talk a little bit about the kind of cattle you're breeding out in California.

John Toledo (16:07):
From the bull side of things, we've got, I'd say 90% of the bulls that we sell go to commercial operations. Most of those guys are selling calves off the cow, weaning time, retaining a certain number of heifers for replacements. So the beauty about the Angus breed is, and we've continued to educate a lot of these guys, of the number of tools that are available when they're going out looking for bulls and with the dollar indexes and the EPDs of course and all the performance data and ultrasound and I mean it's overwhelming for a lot of guys, but they've gotten better every year. They get more educated about things, but it really is, I guess the perspective of that. They're tools is always very important. We still get guys, they go in pens and bulls and they look at the bulls and we're going to do tomorrow of course we're going to have some data, but they look at those bulls first and foremost and they've got to be certain kinds of bulls.

(17:08):
And so we're trying to breed cattle and with the same philosophy, phenotype is so important. Longevity obviously is so important. Breed back doability, sustainability, however you want to term it. And then keeping that replacement female in mind. And it seems like if the breeding decisions that we make don't always work the way we think they may, but you always hope they do. And the bulls that come out of those things, if you can make those good replacement females, that's the greatest byproduct of those breeding decisions is those good bulls that come out of those decisions as well. So that's kind of our philosophy. Of course cattle got to have certain types of data, certain kinds of numbers behind them, but they got to be the right kind, phenotypically, obviously, feet and legs and all those good things that we talk about every day. But

Mark McCully (17:59):
That where would be your commercial customer base? Talk about the kind of country they run in.

John Toledo (18:05):
So hill country, we've got hill country on either side of us. California's got some cattle that'll run anywhere from 900 to 5,000, 6,000 feet. A lot of government range above that. So guys will push those cattle up in the summer and bring 'em down in the fall. Most of our guys in our area, are fall calving operations, so we'll sell spring bulls, that'll be 18 month old bulls, basically long year bulls. So those guys that are ready to turn out bulls for fall calving season, they'll turn out generally 1st of December, you get north in the state, we get more spring calving guys like ourselves on the purebred side. But that's kind of the general elevations in the kind of country. A lot of rugged country, we'll sell bulls in Nevada, Oregon, Arizona out of state as well. You get in some bigger country in those states obviously. But so just longevity, they got to cover country and good feet and wants get out and do the job and make females that'll do the same

Miranda Reiman (19:12):
Something you guys would probably all have in common there.

John Toledo (19:14):
These guys would have the same thing in common

Doug Stevenson (19:16):
As John talks about the kind of areas that he sells bulls into, that's the same kind of country that we sell into. We have some customers that are really high elevation and big country and lots of up and down and a big share of our bull customers are large operations and half of our customers would be multi-generational customers of ours that have been 20 plus years, 30 plus years, getting bulls from our operation. You go and visit those cow herds and they keep coming back and buying what they're buying because structure, longevity, functional traits of the cows is our emphasis. And there is such a huge diversity in our breed. And I criticize myself. I keep finding that when I advertise and when I talk to people, I talk about the data, I talk about the carcass traits we're breeding for. I talk about the feedlot data that our customers are having because I just skip over the pack. That function, the structure of the cows, the function, the longevity of the cows, soundness of the cows, ability to travel, fertility of the bulls.

Miranda Reiman (20:50):
That's a given, that's a given.

Doug Stevenson (20:50):
That's a given. And those customers of ours that are long-term customers, they look at the data, they study the information, they're the ones that are selling the steers and collecting that data that's feeding back to us. They just take it for a given that if I'm telling him this is a bull they need, he's going to be sound, the mother's going to be good. They know that everything's right. And so we do, there's a huge diversion that I see in the breed and social media makes it worse these days. And there's the people that phenotype and longevity is what matters. And there's the people, oh, we got to breed for the carcass results and feedlot results. Well no really, if you breed for all of it is probably the best thing you can do all of those things, it just takes more concerted effort on every part of it. But our long-term customers, they just take it for granted because that's our real focus is building that cow herd.

Miranda Reiman (21:54):
So you're one of those numbers guys, is that what I heard?

Doug Stevenson (21:57):
I'm one of those guys.

Miranda Reiman (21:58):
Just checking.

Adam Sawyer (22:00):
I'd have to agree with Doug. You use all the information available to you, but at the line I use a lot of times is, it's 2024. We have cattle that can do it all, cows that can go out and make great females and stay moderate framed enough to react to their environment but still have something that everybody can sell. And we come from a little different part of the world. I would say the lion majority of our customers would sell their calves through a livestock auction market through sale barns. Few would sell over the video and obviously we'd have where we'd live out, we'd have some that feed and either retain ownership or sell 'em live. So all the carcass traits are very applicable and important to them as well. But a lot of our customers would sell 'em through a livestock auction market and being as close as we are to Iowa, you get a lot of them guys. There's some

Mark McCully (22:57):
Pretty good,

Adam Sawyer (22:58):
Yeah, and you'll see people, they'll drive out, literally drive out there with their truck and sit there and buy 'em a load or two of cattle to take home. So those people get the opportunity to look the end point right in the eye. And so having those cattle that are pounds heavy is super important in our part of the world and it's getting more so all the time it seems like.

Mark McCully (23:22):
So as you guys work with your commercial customers, how do you get that feedback and know maybe you're hitting the mark for what they need on the maternal side, on the terminal side, how things are going with their cow herd goals that they have. How do you get that feedback from your bull customers?

Adam Sawyer (23:42):
My father always told us to have the mindset that, don't try to educate them, let them educate you. And I would say, and I know all three of us in here, but we always try to dictate what direction we're moving towards and what we're trying to hit based on what our commercial customers are telling us and what they need. And I think the feedback is pretty direct. It seems like most times they'll let you know if they're needing to make changes or what they're needing to hit, but doing what they're asking for I think is important.

Doug Stevenson (24:18):
A lot of our long-term key customers, they don't just come to our place on sale day. They come and visit us throughout the year. They're not just, and they're scattered out over all the western US, but they make a trip to visit us a couple times a year and we go through bulls, we go through cows, we talk about facilities and how we're managing range and feed and we talk about how they're doing that at their place. We have a few of us that from our operation that go out and help customers. AI heifers when they're synchronizing heifers in the spring, so it's not a one time a year contact. Those guys, we spend a lot of time with them. We know their herd, they know our cows really well, but they rely on us. We've done some things where we've helped them find places to feed cattle on retained ownership. We help find some buyers for some of their calves. We've done some programs where we set up a heifer development program that got a half dozen of our really good customers involved. And at times then I'll end up owning some of those open heifers, the ones that don't breed up out of that deal. And we collect that carcass data. But those customers we work with closely want us to have that data. They want us to help interpret it, they want advice and guidance and we work together on that.

John Toledo (25:58):
Our feedback is pretty direct from our customers. We've had the philosophy that it's not just bull sale time, you deal with these folks. It's year round, so it's a lot of phone calls and then obviously deliver the bulls, try to travel to their places, get cutout sheets on cattle that they're marketing through video. We start, when the AngusSource program first came out, we actually had one of our customers, longtime customer continues to be that sold the first set of calves on the AngusSource calves on the Western video market. And that was kind of neat. And now we'll get a lot of that data back on how those cattle grade and things like that. But it's an open communication. It seems like it's just year round. I mean they'll pick up the phone and call and like Adam said, and Doug, these guys, as they've developed their programs and their cow herds, things continue to evolve and change and they'll let us know what kind of changes they're wanting to make. And we got to have that feedback. We've got to know if those cattle are working.

Mark McCully (27:06):
Well. I think that's always a common theme I hear across successful programs is a reminder that marketing is, you said it not just day in fact, sale day is sale day, right? And it's a really important day. But the marketing and the building of your brand, the building of that customer base guiding your program based off, that's a year-round thing and you guys work at it, I know really, really hard and compliments to you. I think it obviously speaks to the success of each of your programs and I think it's just something at times in this it is, it's fairly simple to think about. Well of course you have that kind of connection, but I think how hard you have to truly work at it and everybody's busy and be really, really intentional about it. I think it's one of those habits of highly successful breeders I think that I've talked about that

Miranda Reiman (27:51):
You guys, are you writing a book Mark?

Doug Stevenson (27:54):
It's easy for somebody to think that they can sit at home and raise the really good one and somebody should come buy it. But that rarely works, and you're rarely going to raise the right good one if you're not getting feedback from those customers. And it is all the way through the system. The cows have to work right in the cow herd. The steers have got to go and perform to be successful. That's all going to have to happen and you've got to keep responding to what needs to change to keep those people coming back.

Miranda Reiman (28:33):
And it's not just about the cattle, it's that relationship.

Doug Stevenson (28:36):
Exactly. Right. Yeah. That is something that's I think really unique about the business. We've got customers that would actually now be third generation that are, people are good friends and we enjoy when one of them calls and says, Hey, we're bringing part of the family up to visit you and spend a day or two going through cows and bulls. It's like, oh great. It's easy to put off everything else that needs done because that's what we enjoy is that time with those customers.

Adam Sawyer (29:19):
Absolutely. It's easy for thought about that as I was going around the table, all those people that you have the pleasure doing business with, it's easy for 'em to become good friends and an extended part of your family. And I think Jarold hit on this when you guys did the podcast with him that really selling commercial bulls has really, there's a lot of service that's become involved with it and I think the services you provide, just like what Doug hit on and standing behind them, it's probably as important as the quality of the cattle anymore, to be honest with you.

Miranda Reiman (30:01):
There's a lot of good cattle out there.

Mark McCully (30:04):
And to your point of some of the things are almost assumed, free trucking. That used to be kind of a nice perk that every once in a while somebody would, I joke it was like air conditioning and colored TV at the hotel that would draw you in.

Doug Stevenson (30:18):
I think my family probably gets part of the blame for the free trucking clear back.

Mark McCully (30:22):
A lot of people are cussing you then.

Doug Stevenson (30:25):
Yes, yes. I wish, you look at it now. Oh, if my dad and granddad hadn't have thought that was a good idea in the sixties, it would be a lot simpler, especially when we, we have good customers across the country and

Miranda Reiman (30:43):
Which is a blessing.

Doug Stevenson (30:43):
Oh, it'd be nice to have a local market that everything was within a couple hour drive of home. It's not that way. We scatter 'em all over this country.

Adam Sawyer (30:54):
But that's the funnest part of it too, is you get to pull in their driveway and take 'em. And my wife has the Life 360 app on me now so she knows where I'm at. She got that for bull deliveries because she goes, do you know that on average today delivering bulls? You spent two hours at each stop and

Miranda Reiman (31:15):
She's timing you.

Adam Sawyer (31:16):
Yeah, she really is. Well used to be not have a good cell phone service and not work, don't where you're at. But that's the time here. You get to go see their operation and sit with them one on.

Mark McCully (31:27):
I am sure they're proud.

Adam Sawyer (31:28):
I still won't blame you, Doug, don't worry, for the free trucking. But if you don't enjoy it a little bit, I think there's something wrong with you. I really do. Truly a unique time to go visit with people and see what's going on, that's when you get your feedback. A lot of it

John Toledo (31:44):
Exactly. You see some delivering bulls has been a great thing. I mean you see a lot of variation in operations, what guys are doing differently, different parts of the country. And that's one of the greatest things about it. And getting to spend some time visiting, not just at a sale where everybody's tied up and busy.

Mark McCully (32:05):
I have never met a cattleman that doesn't want to go show you his cows, thart's not proud of his cows. And in the registered business you get a little more traffic through and folks, but a lot of these commercial guys, they may not probably give a ton of traffic through to go, let's go look at cows. So I'm sure when you show up and want to go look at cows with them, I'm sure they're awfully proud to show you.

Doug Stevenson (32:24):
Yeah, those customers enjoy it when you get on their place and let's go look at cows, they enjoy the heck out of that.

Miranda Reiman (32:33):
And you get to see some different country and get out of your own production area.

Doug Stevenson (32:38):
There is a lot that can be learned by that interaction. You figure out different ways. There's times when we'll be on a visit at their place or one of those customers at our place and we might spend more time talking about how we're going to try to feed cows over the winter and what new equipment we're thinking about and range practices. We might spend as much time that as looking at cows, we'll be driving around looking at the cows, talking about all of the other stuff that's involved with the business.

Miranda Reiman (33:16):
And if you get some miles on the road, you can listen to podcasts.

Doug Stevenson (33:20):
That's right. That's right.

Miranda Reiman (33:21):
Great. That was a hint, Doug.

Adam Sawyer (33:23):
Great opportunity.

Doug Stevenson (33:24):
Yeah, that's right. Great opportunity.

Adam Sawyer (33:27):
I still remember two years ago going to a gentleman's place and he hadn't bought, we'd kept in touch with him, but he hadn't bought anything from us for exactly 10 years. And I said, well how old did that bull, that last one you ever get from us live to be? He goes, you want to go look at him?

Miranda Reiman (33:44):
He's still out there.

Adam Sawyer (33:45):
And I said, sure. And so it's kind of cool what you get to see and people you get to interact with and what you learn.

Mark McCully (33:55):
So one of the things we talk a lot about is the diversity that's in the Angus breed tomorrow and I suspect tomorrow you'll see some of that, right? You're going to see some different programs with some different, maybe different breeding objectives and different in breeding some different type of cattle. Maybe just speak to the diversity that you see in the breed today, and do you see that growing? Do you see, just your view of the Angus breed from a diversity of genetics?

Doug Stevenson (34:24):
Well, I will jump in and say that what I like out there will have a definite type. When people come and see our cow herd today that saw it 10 years ago and saw it 20 years ago, the basic look of the cow is very, very much the same and very distinctive. And those cows are built to be sound and functional and travel. And when I go and look at our customers', those cattle look just like what we raised. So what I'll be looking for is definitely it will stand out a pattern that suits me for function and structure.

John Toledo (35:14):
That's a great answer. I mean that's a good answer. I mean that's kind of the same thing I'd be doing really. I mean you got an ideal kind of female cow in mind, ideal bulls in mind, and when it comes to phenotype and structure and feet and legs.

Adam Sawyer (35:32):
I have to be the chicken here, I have to feed off what you guys said, but I don't think it could have been said any better because you build what you want and try to select genetics to implement that, exhibit that and yeah, just try to make 'em the way that you want them and the way that it fits your part of the world and what your customer base is looking for.

Miranda Reiman (35:57):
So describe what, I mean, you've all said you'll be looking for your ideal, but what is your ideal, if you could describe it?

Adam Sawyer (36:03):
Do you want us to paint a picture of her?

Miranda Reiman (36:05):
Yeah, I mean if you can do that now there's AI that you could have it just create the picture. If you could describe her well enough

Adam Sawyer (36:13):
That sounds like technology that the board will stew over for a while.

(36:20):
For me, like I said, we want cattle that are pounds heavy and so that functional, easy keeping female that's good-uddered, good footed, gets around country well, is able to take a 15 mile drive to get to summer grass but still have enough gas in the tank to give you something that when you run in front of an auction market is going to be pounds heavy and weigh good is important. And in our part of the world, honestly, people talk about cow size and what's ideal and what's not in our part of the world. I would say really she probably weighs 1400 pounds, 14 and a quarter. If you're really being honest with yourself, much smaller than that, probably isn't able to give you enough production, much bigger than that. She's probably not efficient enough, I would say.

John Toledo (37:15):
Yeah, I'd agree. I'd agree wholeheartedly with what Adam said. We talk about cow size, we talk about moderate and moderation in terms of frame size and cows and you run, and I think these guys would probably agree with me. I think our cows are always heavier than we think they are. And we got a fairly middle of the road, moderate frame size cut type of female that we run and most of our guys in our country do that. Those cows weigh 14, 1500, but they got the sustainability, flesh and ability to breed back. They're efficient kind of females. I mean that's great because they're going to put calves on the ground, they're going to be heavy enough at weaning time. And like Adam said, they've got to weigh these cattle, we've got to have the performance in them, costs continue to go up. I don't care if it's fuel in your truck or tires or feed or whatever it is, our costs are all getting higher and that's a given. And so we've got to get more out of them but not sacrifice efficiency at the same time. That costs you a lot.

Miranda Reiman (38:22):
You've had a long time to think about your ideal.

Doug Stevenson (38:27):
Well, our ideal would be fairly evident. You would've saw on the Montana Angus tour this year, you would've saw our old Payweight bull that now is just about to turn 13 years old. We were there the day he came home. Yep, yep, yep. You were there. The tour was there right after I had brought him home from the bull stud. And he's not our ideal bull, but our mark in the breed I think has been that when we produced him, he was something that was needed at the time and you go back a couple of generations in his pedigree and 20 years before that, there was a bull that we raised that was very much the same kind and very much needed at the time. And that's been, I think then you go back a couple more generations in the pedigree, another 20 years. And then there's another bull that was widely impactful in our herd that's again, the same pattern, the same type, moderate deep-bodied, easy fleshing and very functional.

(39:50):
And I think what has been my program, our family's program, it has been at the right time, we've came along with that bull that added that function and fleshing ability and depth of the body and they are going to weigh more than we think the ideal should be. That just happens. But in today's market, the most profitable steer, if they stay feed efficient and they work on the rail, they're going to be 1650 or 1700 pounds coming out of the feedlot. And you don't make that out of 1200 pound cow, the productive cows, we might breed for 1300 pound cows, but we're going to have 1400 pound cows when we're done because the 1400 pound ones were the ones that were productive and did everything and stayed in the herd and raised a big calf.

Miranda Reiman (40:41):
They kind of selected themselves.

Doug Stevenson (40:42):
They select themselves.

Mark McCully (40:46):
This cow size debate's one we've been having in our industry for a long time. I think maybe as we, and I think it's one of those discussions when we talk about our selection indexes and how do we account for cost and put cost against mature cow size and things like that. But ultimately it comes down and I talk to guys based on even some things of how are they running their operation? Are they on lease ground? I mean some of those things when you really start doing the calculation, but I've yet to find very many situations where that really, that 11, 1150 pound cow is the most profitable. They're probably out there. There's probably in some of those really, really tough environments, I think probably those super low input kind of genetics. But it's funny, the more discussions I have, this discussion right here of it's still pounds pays and those big good doing cows, they bring in big heavy calves, they breed back and they make money.

Doug Stevenson (41:45):
There are places for all of those kind of cows. Absolutely those 1100 pound cows. There's definitely environments that's what has to be. But we've got to keep in mind that the cow herd, there's a lot of the other species we compete against that can be more efficient than we are. The advantage that we have is the cow herd that utilizes forage that isn't good for anything else. Our cows run on the ground that isn't good enough to be farm ground. That's what our customers are. If it was better ground, it would be put to a better use than raising cows. So you've got to make cows that make the best use of that ground.

Mark McCully (42:30):
I guess maybe before we start to wrap up, as you think about tomorrow and maybe just the Angus breed as a whole, what are you most excited about in the Angus breed as you look on the horizon in the future of the breed? And you guys all have a perspective of one that's, you've been in the breed for a while and what gets you most excited about where the breed is today or where you think we'll be in 10 years?

John Toledo (42:52):
I think the same thing that excites me 10, 20 years ago excites me now about it, but there's just so much more available to us as breeders, a purebred cattle to make those genetic changes that we were trying to make the cattle better. And I said, we've got good cow herds, but there's always room for improvement. So what excites me is the vast array of tools that we have to focus in on certain things and continue to make the cows better, but kind of fine tune things. I mean, there's more available to us as breeders now than there were before as tools. And that's the thing that excites me a lot. I mean, mating cows and trying to figure out what bulls we need to put on certain cows to make better females on the other end and better bulls for our customers. That's the bottom line and it's a great time right now. There's just no doubt about it.

Doug Stevenson (43:55):
Wow. It's hard to follow that answer. That was really good.

John Toledo (43:59):
I mean it is. It's just gotten better and better for us as breeders to do things that we're trying to do and that don't always work. But man, I tell you, we can fine tune a lot of things nowadays that we couldn't before.

Doug Stevenson (44:15):
There is so much data we can collect and we're starting to find ways to use that. And being from Montana, there isn't a lot of people that would look at hair shed EPD, and I looked at that when it was first out and I thought, why would we care? And it's not going to be something that matters here. And then I thought about it and I studied it and I scored all of our females a few years ago. Then I studied all that data and then I realized why it was important because it made a difference in several different things. We were looking at. There appears to be a tie between fertility and fleshing ability and the hair shed and the congestive heart failure deal to some extent as well seems to tie together in certain lines of cattle. So we took that. That was several days in the spring of the year that, boy, I had something else to do, but that's a new piece of data that we're going to learn something from. So I decided we'd take the time to do it, and I just kind of looked forward to new ways we can figure out things to make the cattle better.

Miranda Reiman (45:39):
And as you mentioned across, you've got customers across the country, it might matter somewhere else that you're sending cattle to.

Doug Stevenson (45:45):
I thought it wouldn't matter to us. But then I looked at it and I realized in the chase of everything else we've done, I let that be something that I wasn't concerned with and I thought about it long and hard and 30 years ago in the spring of the year when I was sorting up cows to go to pasture, I'd be taking notes of ones that, she's shaggy, she's not thriving. And I quit doing that as we chased everything else we were trying to do. And I realized that that got away from us and that ... does tie the thriftiness of the cattle ties together with the early hair shed. So by golly, we need to pay attention to it again. And the best way to get back on track was to go ahead and score everything.

Mark McCully (46:39):
It's a great point. I think we've talked about hair shed a lot about, well, the advantages to those in the fescue belt, and that's an obvious one, but even think about a heat stress event in a Nebraska feedyard in August, and we hate to ever see those, but those cattle or may that are pretty shaggy and I mean they're going to not come through that maybe as well as those cattle that slick off. So I mean there's some things on all these traits that I think we're going to continue to learn. And just in terms of, again, if it's tied to I think fleshing ability or ability to deal with heat stress and feedyards, and not to mention just thrive in the fescue belt.

Miranda Reiman (47:22):
We'll get Kelli working on some correlations there. We didn't give you a chance to talk about the future, Adam.

Adam Sawyer (47:30):
I couldn't agree with John and Doug more. I mean, one thing about it, the staff that we have at the Association and the talent that we have down there has given us a real good tool belt to make these cattle as good as we can. But the thing that's really hard to not be excited about is that those that are involved in production agriculture, those that are raising cows and calves, I think we're embarking on a time that I think is going to last a little longer than it ever has of them. People getting rewarded and getting a real good share of this business. And because they're getting to be in shorter demand every day, I'm sure as all of you see in our part of the world, we see more dispersions all the time and just the age gap and everything. I think it's really going to reward those people who stay in it, not just on the commercial end, but even in the registered business too. It's something that's hard to not be excited about looking out there.

Miranda Reiman (48:28):
It's enough work to do without being rewarded for it. So it feels good when you hit that balance, for sure. Alright, Mark, I don't want to end this conversation, but I think we're going to have to.

Mark McCully (48:40):
I think so.

Miranda Reiman (48:40):
Right. So we always end on a random question of the week and you can see he's looking at me. I leave it blank, so it's very random. I want to know a piece of advice that maybe your parents gave you or your dad maybe a lesson that you learned from your parents that you still use today. They teach you anything?

Mark McCully (49:01):
Not only is that random, that's hard.

John Toledo (49:04):
Well, I think one that hits me the hardest as a young kid growing up, I heard it a number of times and I use it today with our son Lane, and he's actually better than I was at the same age and probably a little more grown up actually. But

(49:23):
When you want to learn something, you keep your ears open and your mouth shut. And it's just pretty simple advice and we try to pass that on to him. And there's so much to gain from just our associations with other folks. And you learn every day. There's never a day... He's 13, I'm in my mid fifties and there's not a day that goes by I don't learn something and there's not a day that goes by I probably still don't learn something from my dad and my mom. And that might not always be about our business, farming cattle or whatever it is about life. And there's never a day that goes by, you don't learn something. It's pretty simple, but it's true.

Miranda Reiman (50:17):
It's hard to follow that again, isn't it?

Doug Stevenson (50:19):
Again, that's hard to follow.

John Toledo (50:23):
We never quit learning.

Miranda Reiman (50:24):
Yeah.

Adam Sawyer (50:24):
That's good. When my father and mother had the opportunity and enjoyed the luxuries of being on the American Angus Association board and traveling around and listening to different people, he heard, I had a speaker and I can't remember, I think he was from the Taste of Texas restaurant,

Miranda Reiman (50:40):
Probably Edd Hendee?

Adam Sawyer (50:41):
And the line that's always stuck with me is that dad passed on to us and said quite frequently is that when you wake up in the morning and you look yourself in the mirror, you got to tell yourself you're going to get better today. And that's really stuck with me over the years and that in all the ways you do things, no matter what it is, whether it be your personal life or the way you select and breed Angus cattle, I think that's fairly pertinent.

Miranda Reiman (51:09):
That's good.

Mark McCully (51:11):
I think that that's got to be a trait when you look across, again, my habits of highly effective or highly successful breeders. But that's just, I think bred into cattle that people that want to be in the cattle business, you're always looking to make that next generation being a continual learner both of you guys talk about trying to learn something every day that's again, highly commendable. It's got to be definitely a characteristic that attributed to your success.

Doug Stevenson (51:38):
So my father, what has made the most impact on me is his teaching me how a cow should look, what functional was going to look like and how you had to always keep that in check. And there's parts of it that is really hard to explain to people, and there's parts of it that if you didn't grow up knowing this was what you wanted and that wasn't, it's really hard to really teach some people all of the nuanced parts of it. But just from a young age, my father would tell me this we need to select for, this, we need to select against. And I've passed that on to my kids and they understand it. And some people haven't grown up with that and it's hard for them. But definitely my dad I thought taught me well, and I'm hoping I pass that on to my kids and hopefully then grandkids

Mark McCully (53:02):
Was that much different than it is today?

Doug Stevenson (53:06):
So I was thinking about that. It would've been 50 years ago for getting up before school every day and feeding bulls before I went to school, my reward was I got to pick out a heifer. So all winter long as I was feeding the bulls and feeding the heifers morning and night, I was studying the heifers. And I picked out my first heifer, would've been 50 years ago. And I think back that cow, she was our ideal then. She looks just like what our ideal, there's a lot of difference in performance,

Mark McCully (53:52):
Performance, right? Yep.

Doug Stevenson (53:53):
Phenotype structure is exactly the same.

Mark McCully (53:56):
Yep.

Miranda Reiman (53:58):
More performance in the same package.

Mark McCully (54:00):
Yep. Yep. Yeah, that's great. Well guys, we really have appreciated this time. I mean, I think it is, again, quite a, for you guys, I hope an honor, because I know this selection is one that's taken very, very seriously by the board when they select who's going to come and evaluate this very prestigious show. I know the breeders that put a lot of time and effort to bring their bulls in front of you tomorrow, and I know three guys that they all respect and a great deal. And so it's a treat to have you come in here and for our listeners to kind of get inside the heads and the minds of the three guys that are going to be evaluating the bulls tomorrow here at the National Western. So thank you for doing that. Thank you for giving us your time. And thank you for, I know what's going to be a great job of sorting through the bulls tomorrow. And I hope it's going to be fun too.

Doug Stevenson (54:52):
I am looking forward to it. I think it'll be a lot of fun. Great.

Miranda Reiman (54:56):
I hope you guys are all still friends by the end of it.

John Toledo (55:00):
Oh yeah. I think we'll be, I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a great day. It'll be a lot of fun. And I agree with Doug. There's nothing I'd rather do than to go evaluate. I don't care if it's cows or bulls or steers or whatever. Our vacations really seems, we're either at a show or we're judging or we're judging one. And that's, folks that don't have a good understanding of agriculture or what we're doing, they kind of look at you funny like, why would you want to do that? That sounds like work and it is, but it's a great time though.

Miranda Reiman (55:32):
Excellent.

Adam Sawyer (55:33):
Yeah, it's hard not to get pretty giddy about the opportunity to do this. It's pretty neat.

Doug Stevenson (55:36):
Yeah.

Miranda Reiman (55:38):
Well, thanks a bunch for your time, and good luck tomorrow.

John Toledo (55:41):
Thank you.

Doug Stevenson (55:41):
Thank you.

Adam Sawyer (55:41):
Thank you.

Miranda Reiman (55:43):
And with that, we've kicked off season four. Thanks to all our loyal listeners for making this such a fun project to continue. If you're looking for the most up-to-date coverage on Cattleman's Congress, National Western Stock Show, or any of the important dates and details in the Angus breed, be sure to visit angusjournal.net and subscribe to our AJ Daily. Thanks for listening. This has been the Angus Conversation.