If you'd like to follow up on some of Burke Teichert's quotes from this video, you can watch his original lecture below.

Burk's Lecture is titled "Profitable Ranching, Is it Possible?  Yes, if you learn how!" posted on Menoken Farm's Youtube channel. ​

Burke covers a lot of ground here in short time.  He begins by addressing the importance of goals and a shared vision followed by listing four main areas to manage:
1.  Production
2. Economics/Finance
3. Marketing
4. People

He then expounds on three ways to improve profit:
1.  Increase turnover
2. Decrease overheads
3. Improve gross margin (Total returns minus Direct costs)

Burke then talks about his Five essentials of Ranch Management:
1.  An Integrative and holistic approach
2. Continuous improvement of the key resources – Land, Livestock, People
3. Use of good planning and decision making tools
4. War on costs
5. Emphasis on marketing

What is your answer?

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.

According to renowned cattleman Johann Zietsman, the most fertile animal of this group of first-calf-heifers will be the one that breeds back the fastest after her first calf in relation to her herd mates in a given environment.  A cow that achieves two calves by the age of three (not twins) is designated as "2+3" and is given a fertility ranking.  Cows not achieving 2+3 are not given a ranking and their male offspring are not considered for retention.  The male offspring of the the cows who score highest, ranked by fertility of this peer group, will be considered herd sire prospects, and utilized appropriately to make genetic advancement in the herd.

Burke Teichert, in his article Ten Thoughts on Heifer Development , says "I’ll guarantee that the bulls and the environment will select better heifers than you will.  The main reason is that heifers that breed and calve late cannot live long enough to catch up with those that breed and calve early regardless of genetic superiority in non-fertility traits."

Pictured here is one of the cows from the video above that got bred, and is now with her 2nd calf.  Cow 1804 was born 03/25/18.  She was was the first to calve her 2nd calf (02/11/21) among a group of her peers.  She bred back the first cycle after her first calf with no supplements.  She qualifies as a "2+3" and gets a fertility ranking of #1.  And as long as something else doesn't disqualify her (bad udder, bad temperment, etc.), she will be a cow that we look to in the future for producing potential herd sires from her male offspring.

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 

have done conventional weaning and have seldom needed to doctor calves, we agree with this Drovers article​ in general that “stress is a key contributor to sickness, weight loss, and poor performance.”

Unlike the most conventional cattle operations, as a general rule, we don't feed any concentrates or “supplements” to our cattle that we sell direct off of the farm. So it's grass hay and pasture only for our South Poll cattle, but most articles we've read concerning weaning, discuss the importance of feed bunk and water trough placement for the calves. Some of them may be so stressed they forget to look for food or water for a time, which increases the chances of sickness and weight loss.

​​An issue that we have dealt with in the past is neighbor dogs.  A group of young calves without the safety of their mama's can be susceptible to being run through fences or even attacked and killed by neighboring dogs or other dogs running loose.  Keep this in mind when choosing which pastures to use for your fence-line weaning.

We use a barbed wire fence with hot fence (electric-fence) offsets to keep them separated.  Sometime we use two offsets on the calves side of the fence.  Right now we're custom grazing some Corriente cows bred to our South Poll bulls.  Some of the Corriente calves retain some of their "squirrely" abilities, which is why we chose two hot wire offsets on this occasion.

During stressful times, cattle that are not climatically adapted will have a harder time coping.  They will lower their daily intake which decreases grass conversion efficiency.  Our ranch in Southern Missouri requires cattle that can thrive on fescue in relatively hot and humid summers as well as cold and wet winters.  In his book Man, Cattle, and Veld, Johann Zietsman reveals the importance of adapted animals and some of the climatic factors that adversely effect intake such as heat, cold, solar radiation, humidity, and rain (extended wet periods), and photoperiod (day length).  Johann states "A climatically unadapted animal is like a poorly tuned car engine.  It performs badly and is expensive to run."  One of our goals is to continue to make genetic progress toward climatically adapted cattle in our herd.  Our choice of using South Poll cattle genetics has gone a long way toward achieving that goal.  ​

​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.  

In a past blog post I briefly wrote about the importance of inherent body condition, and mentioned Johann Zietsman's visit to our ranch in the summer of 2013.  During that visit he chose our top bulls and cows based on a visual appraisal.  The bull pictured above (B-80) is the son of one of those cows he chose for us that day.  You can read an entertaining story about a bull that Johann identified that day, as well as a bit about Teddy Gentry by clicking here on Voss Land & Cattle Company's page, and then scrolling down to read "A Tale of Two Cattle Guys".

We bought #391 as a yearling from Ralph Voss in 2012.  He is the sire of B-80.  The dam is an old cow that dad has had for many years, she's still producing calves.  At six years of age B-80 got a severe case of pink eye that impaired his vision.  But for now he's still making a go of it here at Frescoln Ranch.  Below is an example of what is possible from breeding good commercial angus cross cows to good South Poll bulls.

We defer grazing on a percentage of our paddocks in order to mitigate the risk of running short of forage or overgrazing due to lack of rain.  These paddocks get a chance to fully express themselves as you can clearly see from these images.  The cow pictured below is not laying down!

Wild carrot, also known as Queen Anne's Lace, has a large root that is edible for humans if you catch it before it flowers.  Apparently the flower is nutritious as well, although I haven't tried it.

Ideally you can graze it at ultra-high stock density, trampling the sward to build topsoil and organic matter, or graze it rotationally and then mow it after grazing.  This will open the sward for later summer forage and fall cool season regrowth.

In the following short video, Allen Williams discusses some benefits of "weeds" including their primary nutrients, secondary metabolites and their effects on the health of animals and surrounding plants.  The video also features our good friends, Steve and Judy Freeman of Woods Fork Cattle Company in Hartville, MO, of whom renowned cattle manager Burke Teichert once said "Until somebody proves me different, I think Steve and Judy are as good-a-graziers as there are."  They have beautiful pastures and beautiful cattle as you'll see in the video.