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This year we've got 33 fall calvers for sale, 20 of which are bred heifers. All of these are born, bred, and raised on our Southern Missouri KY-31 Fescue ranch, *except where noted, and bred to full blood South Poll Bulls. The sales list can be accessed on our sales page. We're focused on grass conversion efficiency, raising heat adapted cattle that thrive on KY-31 fescue and that can be productive on pasture without requiring energy supplements. Here is a video of them in the corals after being sorted, run through the shoot, and sleeve preg-checked.
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In the Spring of 2023 I was given the opportunity to speak at the Central Missouri Forage & Beef Conference in Vienna, MO. The title assigned to me was "Grazing more with Less". I talked about using a "Moneyball" approach to a Southern Missouri grass ranch cow-calf operation. Moneyball is a movie based on the 2003 nonfiction book, "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game", by Michael Lewis. The book is an account of the Oakland Athletics baseball team's 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beane's attempts to assemble a competitive team. In the film, Beane (Brad Pitt) and assistant general manager Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), faced with the franchise's limited budget for players, build a team of undervalued talent by taking a sophisticated sabermetric approach to scouting and analyzing players. Here is a video of the presentation: Here's a short video featuring some excerpts from Burke Teichert's lecture at the Northern Plains Grassland Symposium in 2018 at Menoken Farm, where he lists some ways for profitable ranching, with many topics including the detrimental effects of being too focused on weaning weights, and the benefits of adapted cattle. If you'd like to follow up on some of Burke Teichert's quotes from this video, you can watch his original lecture below.
I’ll guarantee that the bulls and the environment will select better heifers than you will. Why are we putting this South Poll bull back in with our two year old heifers immediately after they begin calving? So we can rank the cows in their peer group for fertility.
Jim Elizondo covers some EXTREMELY important topics in his video (posted below) about avoiding 3 common mistakes in bull selection. He covers EPD's, visual appraisal, and "environment" from which the bull comes. What are the chances those progeny will be productive on grass...  Nutritionally and climatically adapted, Full Blood South Poll bull #341. Ruminate on this: If you're selecting bulls with a goal of retaining progeny that can be productive on GRASS, what will be the effect of choosing a bull that requires unrestricted access to high energy feed in order for him to express his genetic potential? What are the chances those progeny will be productive on grass without also having unrestricted access to high energy feed? You can either breed for it, or feed for it. We have been benefiting from Jim's expertise since he and Johann Zietsmann visited our ranch in 2013. We wean our April-May born South Poll calves in December-January. It varies dependent on body condition of the cattle, weather, and available forage. We use fence-line weaning, when feasible, to reduce separation anxiety for both the calves and the cows. Although at times we
 South Poll bull Johann Zietsman Identified as an example of Hormonal Balance. Alan Newport recently wrote an article for FarmProgress.com Beef Producer that features a picture of one of our home raised South Poll Bulls. Alan's article describes some of Johann Zietsman's thoughts on hormonal balance in cattle breeding. Zietsman continually stresses the importance of choosing a genotype founded on hormonal balance and inherent body condition... As an ardent follower of Johann's, I've learned that he continually stresses the importance of choosing a genotype founded on hormonal balance and inherent body condition, as the necessary attributes resulting in the most efficient grass conversion at the least cost, in order to make progress toward a goal of ecologically and economically sustainable profit on grass in cow/calf cattle ranching.
A cover crop is typically defined as plants that are used to cover the soil rather than for the purpose of being harvested. Cover crops manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in an agroecosystem.  Frescoln Ranch Premium South Poll Wild Carrot crop Soil Health Academy's Dr. Allen Williams interviews Diana Rodgers You are what you eat. In this Soil Health Academy interview, Diana Rodgers, Registered Dietitian, author, and host of the Sustainable Dish podcast, explains why nutrient-dense food, grown regeneratively, is the key to a healthy diet. |
AuthorJoe Frescoln. Livestock grazier in Southern Missouri. Archives
August 2023
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