Sire Selection

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The hosts discuss their experiences and methods for selecting bulls, emphasizing the importance of careful evaluation and the challenges posed by various factors such as EPDs and physical traits. They also touch on family Christmas traditions and activities, highlighting both the joy and challenges of the season. The episode covers a range of personal anecdotes and insights related to both cattle breeding and holiday plans.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Oh God.
Well, you're gonna have to stepup on this episode'cause we, I,
I'm not, well, I just startedrecording.
I started recording.
Oh, sorry.
Welcome to around the shoot.
Take it in to, oh goodness.
We're missing Corbin tonight.
Yeah.
For just a scooch of time.

(00:20):
For Scooch.
Just a little scooch.
Is that, is that Californiathing or?
I don't know.
I heard it somewhere fromsomebody sometime, but I did
when I just yelled out the doorfor everyone to turn it down to
Scooch.
I got, I got heckled by everyperson in this house.
Maybe it's not a word.
It's not a word.

(00:40):
Do you ever think that sometimeswhere you're like, man, Joe just
said something that was a wildall the time.
A hundred percent of the time ofwhat you're talking about,
nobody knows.
Oh, I might do that sometimes.
Listen, um, if you're justjoining us, we're without Corbin
tonight.
Corbin had some Christmas.
Things to attend to, and it'sjust gonna be me and Joe.

(01:01):
And who knows?
Next time, next time it mightnot be Joe.
Maybe it'll just be Corbin nexttime by himself.
He'll just be talking tohimself.
Oh, he wouldn't mind.
He wouldn't mind.
Didn't he last year though?
Was it last year that he wentto, um, Branson, Missouri with

(01:21):
Myah or something too?
I don't know.
I feel like they do, they do agood job at Christmas time.
I, I do not.
Vince, I will tell you, I, Ilove the lights.
I love the Christmas season.
I love all that.
And I do a terrible, oh, welooked at lights tonight.
I was gonna send you, Amy said,what are you filming that for?
I said, what are you a Scrooge?
Yeah.
No kidding.

(01:41):
What's wrong with her?
I said I was gonna send it tothe guys.
Man, I love me some goodChristmas lights.
I'll tell you that right now.
So this is like right downacross from the jabs skin
restaurant.
Yeah.
And it's a, it's a little tinypark area and the, so they were
setting it up one day and wewent down there for lunch and I

(02:03):
wheeled over there and I waslike, what's going on here?
And they said they used to do itevery year and they kind of quit
doing it and they're starting todo it again.
So all the businesses, and Ididn't get all the trees, but
all the businesses in that areago and put up and decorate a
tree in that little park.
It was pretty neat.
Oh sweet.
What's that?
What's that next to it?

(02:24):
Are those all the houses orthose Yeah, those that houses
that them people in the housesare freaking, they deck it all
out.
Do you see that?
That's crazy.
Oh yeah.
That's incredible.
Well, what was the Christmastree you sent me that looked on
point that had to have been yourmom's?
That was mom's real tall,skinny, oh man.
Not as skinny as Corbin's.
I think Corbin's was so skinnythat like a light pole couldn't

(02:48):
even hide behind it.
It was really, excuse me.
I dunno.
I should ask him.
You probably don't know.
It was a fake one.
I would be willing to bet.
Well, we got a real one thisyear, but I wasn't too involved
in it and it's a really prettytree.
Listen, did you check it forsquirrels?
Um, we did not.

(03:10):
Christmas vacation all overagain.
Is that not the most quotablemovie of all time?
I saw a shirt today.
I can't say it on here, but haveyou ever sat down to watch that
movie and not had somebody stepon the lines and repeat'em?
Oh yeah, yeah.

(03:30):
Everybody, I mean, everybodyknows that movie and everybody
thinks it's the greatest movieof all time.
It is a pretty freaking timelessclass.
What is your favorite Christmasor holiday movie?
Oh boy.
Favorite Christmas or holidaymovie?
Um, I, I would say I like thatone pretty well.

(03:54):
I would say I like that onepretty well.
Amy would probably agree withyou.
I love four Christmases.
I don't even know what thatmeans.
Oh my God.
Have you never seen fourChristmases?
No.
Vince Vaughn and ReeseWitherspoon.
It is, wasn't it?
Talking about going to all thefour parents?
Yeah, well, they're alldivorced, so Yeah, they have to

(04:14):
go to four.
Oh gosh.
If you haven't seen it, Joe, youhave got to watch it.
His, his, he goes to his dad'sand his brothers are, uh, like
cage fighters and they just beatthe snot out of him.
It's hilarious.
I need to watch that.
I'm gonna, I'm writing it rightdown right now.
And, and, um, they buy his dad.

(04:36):
His dad is, uh, oh God.
What is the stupid guy's name?
Oh my God.
I just drew a blank.
Okay.
Um.
Robert Duval is his dad, and he,he buys him a, a satellite for
Christmas and they're gonnainstall it.

(04:56):
And he says, no, no, no, they'regonna come install it.
And he says, if you think I'mgonna let a sexual predator into
my house and go through my underpar, it's a liquor robbery fall.
It's so funny because he wasdead serious.
He's like, if you think I'mgonna let a sexual predator in
my house, you got another thingcoming.
So, other than lonesome dove,what is your favorite role that

(05:18):
guy's in?
Uh, probably open range would beone of them.
Um, I'd have to think about it.
Mine would be secondhand lions.
Oh yes.
I forgot he was in that.
I absolutely love that movie.
I haven't seen that movie in awhile, but it was a great movie.
It's a good movie when he iswanting to whoop all those kids.

(05:42):
He's like, you just got outtathe hospital.
Yeah.
As well as the kid now.
Now pick, you better pick thatknife back up.
Oh goodness.
Oh, what have you been up to?
We haven't talked about this onein a while.
We were heavy on the banter onthe last episode and that was
good up.
But what have you been doing?
Breeding cows and Nate.

(06:03):
Is building a hay shed for hishay business.
Um, he's selling square balesand so we kind of finagled the
equipment shed this year forwhat he had, but he's gonna have
different cuttings and gonna dosome straw next year and stuff
like that.
So he's building a shed.
So we're working on haulingdirt, um, borrowed a big

(06:29):
excavator and borrowed a dozerand a dump truck.
And we've been moving dirt for aweek.
Not, not all of it for the pad.
We just started the pad two daysago, but we had to move a bunch
of tops, soil and pre the chipit had to be kind of pre, we

(06:49):
had to spend some time up there,fix the road, going into the pit
for the dump trucks and stuff.
You explained that to me on thephone, maybe for some of our
listeners, dive into that.
What are you even talking about?
Um, it's like out here, nobodywould even know when you say
move the top soil, get to thechurch.
I gotcha.
Well, a lot of people don't havechurch or know what church is.
We just call it church.
It's clay and rock and it justmakes a good sub, you know, a

(07:13):
good base for buildings androads and, and we have it packs
good or whatever.
Oh yeah.
We have a plethora of it.
I mean, we've got only, we'veonly got maybe six inches of
topsoil and then you got a layerof subsoil and then you got this
red clay church and that's whatall the dirt roads are built out
of around here.

(07:33):
And, and so you're saying Nate'sbuilding a barn, are you guys
gonna have somebody come in andbuild the barn?
Yeah.
To get the pad set?
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll get the pad set andthen probably, uh, there's a
couple different companies we'regonna visit with them and see
the best, best price orwhatever.
I mean, they're gonna do thesame thing, so.
Okay.
Do you have to, you guys getenough wind?

(07:55):
You'd have to close the sidesin.
Huh?
Uh, two sides will be closed in.
And we're actually talking aboutpossibly doing some doors on it
too.
But we got it facing the east.
And I'm not saying we never getrain from the east, but it's
very, very rare.
Sure.
So, but if he's wanting to fillit all the way up, we're gonna
have to put some doors on it.

(08:16):
And a square bale business, doesthat mean little square bales?
Yeah.
Or big square bales.
Yeah, little squares.
What is wrong?
Are you getting attacked?
I don't know.
Apparently they didn't listen tome saying, turn it down a
scooch.
Well the dog didn't hear you.
My God.
I don't even think that.
Even pull that out.
It won't even be on there.
Yeah, I don't think it'll be onthere.

(08:37):
Oh my God.
Sorry about that.
No, uh, what is that, Chuck?
I thought you was seeding well,Chuck, was that Chuck?
Was that Chuck?
That is Chuck.
It is Chuck indeed.
And, and just get ready for thepeople to start screaming at
Chuck, which is actually louderthan Chuck himself.
I do that.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, we seated.
Oh God, we seated.
We do the seven and seven.

(08:58):
So we seeded three, three weeksago.
No, two weeks ago.
Going on three weeks, weeks ago.
Two weeks ago.
Actually it was three weeks agotoday.
Yeah.
We already bred everything.
You're done.
Uh, we put in eggs Saturday.
I've got a few straggler cowsand a few straggler heifers.
Yeah, I'm done.

(09:18):
Matter of fact, the last twoyears, or last two seasons last
spring I did it and I did itthis time.
Sunday was our last day forreset heats, and I didn't have
any Sunday morning.
So I went and got the bull andthere was six that didn't show
heat.
So there was two by thatafternoon the he'll, uh, he got

(09:39):
them cleaned up so I didn'twaste a whole heat cycle.
So I think that's working.
It sped those, some of thosecows up, you know?
Yeah, we were talking aboutthat, how some of these later
caver even, you'll put a cedarin'em to jump start a little
bit.
I did, and like me and Blakewere talking about that and
like, I think there was eight,eight lake caver that were not
very far postpartum.

(10:00):
We went ahead and did them twoand I want to think only two of
them, two or three out of theeight didn't show a heat.
Oh, wow.
Even a, even a young commercialwith twins, she cycled.
She cycled a little late.
The bull got her, but I mean,God, she was the very last one
to calve, so it would've spedher up.

(10:24):
If she sticks, it'll speed herup.
60 days.
Wow.
I don't know that she'll stick,but even if she can cycle the
whole point to it is it, it getsall that going quicker.
Right.
Um, even if she breeds off thenext heat, she's still sped up
over 30 days.
Like 40 days.
So what's wrong with that?

(10:45):
Oh, I would agree.
I think that's the only way togo.
So how many different locationswere you breeding at?
One, just right at the house.
We're we're spoiled dude.
Everything funnels to that barnand, um, the heifers are on one
side of the barn.
And we feed them in a littlelot.
So all we gotta do is trap shutthe gate.
When they come in, if we seesome activity and the cows, they

(11:08):
all come up to eat silage andwhatnot, and we just shut the
gate behind them unless there'sactivity way out in the field
and we'll have to go get'em.
But we ride through the cows andcheck them.
The heifers, it's a bigger kindof more pain in the neck, so we
just trap'em and watch'em andthey'll have stickers.
They'll all have stickers, butwe watch'em to see where, who's

(11:28):
where.
You know, some of'em are maybealready outta heat because they
came in after we left the nightbefore, and some of'em might
just be coming in.
So we kind of sit there andwatch'em and try to gauge it
best we can.
I got an interesting one.
This isn't our topic, but here'sone for you.
Do you have any tips and tricksfor people in a synchronization

(11:52):
program?
Not just like, I'm not sayinguse seven or seven or don't, but
do you have a tick or, or, or atip or a trick about like, this
is how we put the patches on, orthis is how we use needles or
whatever.
Um, I tell you, the pa do youuse the ester tech patches?
Oh yeah.
I love'em.
Do you heat'em up?

(12:13):
I freaking heat'em up on thehood of the pickup or on the
dash of the pickup.
Okay, so we're in a barn.
Yep.
We, I've got these little butanetorch pens.
They're about the size of acigar, and we'll peel it off,
run the torch across it.
We, we started out with acigarette lighter, but if the
wind's blowing through there atall, it blows.

(12:35):
You know, you can't use thelighter.
So we got those torches.
We just wave it across it a fewtimes.
Really good.
Make sure you're getting all ofit.
Good.
Stick it on there, man.
You, it's all, it's almostimpossible to pull'em off.
But this time of year, wouldn'tyou say?
If you don't heat'em, it'simpossible to keep'em on.
Oh yeah, absolutely.

(12:55):
It's like absolutely.
They start to get hairy.
Yes.
And there's probably a littledust in their skin or something.
Yes, or Or if it's wet, what doyou do?
If it's raining, what do you do?
If it's raining?
I guess I've never reallyencountered that, Vince, but we
put'em on the hood of thepickup.
We use a gas pickup.
Yeah.
Don't deal with these new dieselpickups.
You'll create a problem, but put'em on the dash and get it.
Just roasting like so.

(13:17):
See, you're the problem withCalifornians, what?
All the exhaust is just sittingthere messing up the ozone.
That's right.
I should use butane.
I should just burn butanebecause it's cleaner.
It's cleaner.
Do you have a solar version?
Do you have a solar way to dothat?
Maybe Elon's.
Maybe Elon's working on that.
He's straight full.

(13:38):
Oh, he's a smudge pot To heathim up.
So if it's raining, we're we'refortunate enough to have a big
barn and we can bring.
God, we could bring 50, 60 pairsor more in there and sort'em,
and they'll all be under roof.
Um, so my point to that is ifit's raining out, then they have

(14:01):
a little time to dry.
Okay.
But when we bring'em up thechute line, if they're wet, uh,
we've just got a, a blower therefrom showing.
We just keep a little blower bythe chute.
Uh, blow it out best we can.
Um, and then I'm sure you couldprobably do it with a rag, but
even, even with a blower, theystill kind of feel a little

(14:25):
damp.
Mm.
But I wonder if a guy could usea huge air compressor.
Oh yeah.
You could do that.
Any, anything making air, but wejust, we have a blower sitting
there.
Right, right.
It's just easier know the place.
And you got that long hose andyou're not listening to a motor.
Right.
The place I used to feed bullswhen it was ultrasound time.
Yeah.
They had somebody in the back,in the lead up with a huge, uh,

(14:47):
air tank.
I mean, huge cleaning where theywere, were gonna cheer em, kinda
tear out your shop or whatever.
Yeah.
Where they'd cheer'em, they'dblow'em out like that.
Oh, that's a great idea.
It was awesome.
It was a great idea.
Absolutely.
It was.
Yeah.
We, we just use a blower as theycome in the chute.
We didn't have, it's not set up,but like, you can go down the
whole chute line blowing outtail heads.

(15:08):
Right.
Uh, there's a little catwalk onour old wooden alleyway.
How many can you stack up?
Oh, 10.
It's perfect number.
Yeah, it's great.
It's great.
I think we can stack, we canstack nine heifers or eight
cows, and that's my tip or trickis to try to do as much as you

(15:28):
can behind the chute, so, youknow, with, with it, with, is
that a hold?
Is this behind the chute sinceCorbin's gone?
Oh, it is Behind the shoot.
Yes.
Yeah.
I, I, I agree.
I like that better thanalternatives I would think
about, but because a couple justcame to one, I agree.
You know, if you can do a lot ina chute line Yeah.

(15:51):
Because then when you crack thatdoor come breeding time, those
cows think that they're justgonna flow through.
Yeah.
And it's just a lot of times, Idon't know about you, but I
would guess that you may breed abig chunk of cattle and you've
got extra help there, but youmay breed a chunk of cattle by
yourself too.
Yeah.
Because it's late at night orwhatever, and nobody else is
around or, and that's, that'show it gets for me sometimes the

(16:12):
early earliest ones, why it'snot here yet, or the late, late
ones, you know, I don't expecthim to stay and then travel
another two and a half hourshome.
And so by doing as much work aswe can behind the chute, those
cattle flow through so well,another tip is I always try to
use the smallest gauge needleand everybody will always say,
oh yeah, for leak back.

(16:33):
For leak back, no.
Like, especially those donors,I'll use 20 or 20 twos.
You think they dont feel it asbad?
I think they don't feel it asmuch.
Yeah.
I don't think they feel it asmuch.
And especially if you're gonnagive a lot of shots.
Yeah.
Those will get sour to it andnot want to come in and stuff.
And so Definitely use an inchand a half needle.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(16:53):
You know, that's not, that'snever on a protocol.
We're gonna start putting it onsome protocols that we do, you
know?
Do you think, not, not tointerrupt you, but do you think
No, it's fine.
Uh, on the inch and a halfneedle thing.
Okay.
Oh, a, is it long enough on afat, fat cow?
B is it too long on a skinnycow?

(17:15):
Uh, I don't know.
I'm just, I don't know theanswer to that.
I know I'm, there's been acouple of skinny cows I've shot
and I was like, I don't know ifI'm, even, if I'm going through
it.
Well, I mean, you come out theother side.
No, but you know what I'msaying.
You know what I'm saying?
Where did go into.
I mean, it went into her, it'sin her body.

(17:37):
Like I'm just saying, like, isit, that's kinda what I feel on
some of these skinny ones.
I was like, hell, I can get abiopsy here.
I don't have very many of those,but I have had some, no, I And
on the, on the super fat cows,are you even getting through the
dead gum fat layer?
Well, I definitely think on themreally, really fat cows, you
gotta be very, very carefulwhere you put it in their neck

(17:59):
or down low below their, I'mtalking about in the hip, not in
the, not in the neck.
Yeah.
And right there on that flatspot of their hip on a fat, fat
cow.
I think some of them cows havetwo inches of fat easy there.
Yeah.
So I'll say this on donors.
Um, a lot of times I'll, unlessthey are just a raging winch and

(18:20):
it's so uncooperative, I'll doit in the butt cheek, low thigh.
Yeah, the FSH, that was whatour, uh, our vet has prescribed
that our, our repro vet.
Yeah.
He said all donors though.
Actually, he even, he even wantsthe donors that aren't fat all
down there.
He just thinks there's more meatthere for absorption.
All those cows are gonna go intothe grind someday.

(18:42):
It's not gonna be A-A-B-Q-Aissue.
Um, that's, that's what our vetis.
So are, did he say foreverything or for FSH?
Uh, for FSH because I was told,and I don't know how true this
is, I'm not a vet or whatever,I, I believe it was a vet that

(19:02):
had told me to not give lootdown there because there was
somebody, you know, they getcovered in manure, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Certain times of year.
And it took the manure in withthe needle and there was some
sort of reaction.
But the manure and the loot andtheir muscle.
Hmm.
I've never heard any one persontold me that, one vet told me

(19:25):
that, so I just never did it.
I mean, I just didn't know ifyou'd heard that or not.
I haven't, but that's obviouslya concern, especially in the
springtime, if you're gonna bedoing that.
Well right now ours are coveredin crap.
Are they just really washy?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Ours are pretty solid right now.
I mean, they're looser thannormal, um, for this time of

(19:48):
year, but they're eating a lotof dry forage.
There's some green forage aswell, but they're still dry to
mix in and keep'em kind oftight.
But I was thinking of somethingelse when you were saying that.
Oh, how about a slap shot?
You ever use a slap shot?
I have years and years ago.
I don't have one anymore.
I don't have one anymore either.
They make'em, they still make'emthough.
Oh yeah, yeah.

(20:09):
No, it's, it's super, superhandy deal that I had for a
couple years there and I sworeby it.
'cause, uh, a friend of minewent to, he worked for a big
outfit in Montana.
Um.
Purebred outfit.
And he said they did everythingin the lead up, but they do like
20 cows back there.
It was that big.
Oh, wow.
And they just put that slap shotin there and she can move
forward back and it wasn'treally a deal.
Yeah, right.

(20:30):
And you're not chasing it,trying to push the plunger and
you don't bend a needle all thetime.
What do you do about changingneedles on it thing?
Oh, I'll bet you they change'em.
I'll bet you guys like thatwould change'em every five to
eight head or something likethat.
Oh, I'd change every head.
I didn't use to, but I do now.
Yeah.
I think for some scenarios youdefinitely want to change it
every time.

(20:50):
I'll tell you one thing aboutchanging'em every time.
Um, I think you use a sharperneedle and that's probably
better from a, from a animalAbsolutely.
Husbandry standpoint.
Yes.
They don't feel it as much.
I even said on FSH on donors,Vince, I, I will draw up the
syringe and put a fresh one onto put it in the cow.

(21:11):
Huh.
And um.
And I learned that from a friendof mine that was going through
some cancer treatments.
And then he, he was doingsomething, he was living by our
shop and he'd hang out in ourbreak room and stuff, and he was
doing himself shots.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You got a break room in yourshop?
It's not glamorous.
I should do around the, aroundthe shop.
You wanna see around theColorado?

(21:32):
I'll do it on the shop.
Hey.
Hey.
I can, I can compete on thatone.
Uh, it is not fancy norglamorous, but anyways, he would
give himself shots.
Yeah.
And he learned quite quick.
He's like, do not give the sameneedle to, to put it in his body
as he drew it up with.
'cause even that rubber stopperdulled it just a little bit.

(21:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Huh.
So, yeah, so I mean, you gottachoose what's right for you.
I think BQA stuff is like every,every eight to 10 animals or
something.
And some people do that and somepeople don't.
You know, some of that stuff isso unrealistic.
Um, I sat through, the firsttime I ever sat through a BQA
class, they were telling you,um, how wide your chute lines

(22:16):
needed to be, had to be 26inches.
I was like, dude, I'm notgetting a cow down 26 inches.
Oh, I know it's not happening.
I mean, ours are 32 or 34 andlike, we have some get, almost
get stuck.
Wouldn't you say though, thatall those certification programs

(22:36):
or a lot of them, they cater tothe extreme end of who needs to
be hearing them and thoseprobably aren't the people that
need to listen to'em anyways?
Yeah, because.
They're probably starving theircows to death.
Not good animal husbandry ornothing.
Exactly.
So instead of me saying, I meanwhat I said, I know what you

(22:59):
meant.
I know what you meant.
They should be listening, butthey ain't gonna listen.
No.
And so it's a bunch of thingsthat there, there are a bunch of
people out there who are alreadydoing the right things, who are
probably have better practicesthan some of these boiler paper
practices that are out there.
But then of course, you knowthere's a certification program
and someone who needs to run thecertification program and then
all this crap that comes alongwith it.

(23:20):
And I'm, I'm not crapping on BQAor any of it.
I'm just saying that a lot ofthose things, as an example,
could have a little bit morereal world influence.
Exactly.
A hundred percent.
So do you wanna get to ourtopic?
What are you talking about?
The, all these bulls that we seeflooded on social media that are
really not all that good.

(23:41):
Bulls.
Did I say that wrong?
Wrong?
I don't even know if I know whata good one is anymore.
You know, what is a good bull?
And I mean, seriously, likeeverybody defines it
differently.
And are they really wrong?
Not if they're writing thechecks and making it good on

(24:01):
their customers and beingtransparent.
Right.
Well, I, okay, so let's justsay, I don't think that's a good
bull, but you think that's agood bull?
Mm-hmm.
And I don't think he's a goodbull just because I particularly
don't like him.
He's got good feet.
He's, you know, whatever,whatever, whatever.
Nothing totally detrimental.

(24:24):
Um, does that make you wrong orme wrong?
Does it matter how many peoplewould look at the bulls that we
use and say, well, those bullsare not very good because their
EPDs suck.
Absolutely.
Does that make them right ordoes that make us right?
Yeah, I guess I've just alwayssaid that as long as you're

(24:44):
truthfully.
Explaining what the cattle areand describing them, the free
market will figure it out.
The problems I have is whenpeople say things about feet one
way or another, and then youfind out that, well, you
actually get behind the scenesand you find out they trim every
one of'em, or they do this orthat, and then they justify it

(25:05):
by the EPD.
They have, or, you know, thosesort of things frustrate me.
Um, but I do think that, youknow, or, or as an example,
let's use an extreme.
Let's just say you have the bestshow animal on the planet
because Oh my gosh.
Show animals.
Yeah.
Shaggy, shaggy sided, shaggylegged, monster legged, you

(25:26):
know, they all say perfectstructure, which means a huge
tailhead and they don't pop ontheir pastors.
That's perfect structure in theshow world that they can't hit
their tracks.
Right, right.
Um, but let's just say that youhave that bull.
You don't need to tell everybodythat those cattle will be prime
yield grade one.
That's right.
That's right.
And if you're raising carcasscattle where you're targeting

(25:49):
retained ownership in primeyield grade ones, you don't need
to tell everyone that those oneswould, you know, win Denver.
Right, right.
So, because they're not the,they're not, they're probably
not going, they're not going to.
But here's the thing, how manypeople realistically I, and I'm
gonna say it's way more so outwest than it is around here,

(26:12):
retain ownership and benefitfrom it?
Oh, not very many, because onceagain, then last Monday, we
hauled a load of cattle off andnobody asked about EPDs.
Nobody asked to see theirregistration papers.

(26:32):
Nobody asked what the dollar Cwas.
They just paid me by the pound.
And they probably sold allright.
They really did a, I had, um.
I had four problem breeders andthey brought 2,600 a pop.
That's pretty dead damn good forcows that won't breed just like
hamburger cows, I guess.

(26:53):
Holy if some, if some, ifsomebody bought those and took
'em home, that's their problem,not mine.
Right, right.
But, but that's the market.
I, I heard rebred cows out herewere gonna be about, it was
gonna take$3,000 to get'emstarted.
Wow.
Which a rebred cow are for mosteveryone in California is a fall

(27:13):
caver.
Um, there are some spring caversand some northern climates, but
generally speaking, they're fallcaver.
And so a lot of times when thesebig pre chicks come from the
Midwest or even up into Montanain the Dakotas, a lot of those
open cattle will come west andguys will turn bulls out with
them, and then they sell thoseas what they call rereads.

(27:34):
And Rereads, were gonna be about3000 to get'em.
So the Rereads, rereads don'tfit your calving, but you get'em
bred by the bull and then sell'em as bread, whatever, for
somebody else to fit theircalving.
Some people, some people usethat as a business model, so
they'll bring'em in, and thosecattle never preg up as good.
There's some risk associatedwith them too, right?

(27:54):
You've obviously got the risk ofdisease or infertility or a lot
of things, right?
So the smart producers are theones who keep their bulls
separate, they test their bulls,or they use old bulls that they
were gonna can anyways, right?
Right.
But with that set of cows,they're isolated, whatever.
We've had customers who havemade cows out of those Bo, or
they made cows out of them too,the ones that breed right up.

(28:15):
And it's like, well, she's ayoung cow that had a hard, hard,
hard first year in Montana andshe probably milked really,
really hard.
And so right, we're gonna breedher.
And then.
They've got some great lifeoutta some of these reboot cows.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, it's been a really goodinvestment.
And then there's been others whotreat'em almost like a stalker
calf.
But the good part about those,they do act a little different.

(28:36):
It's, it's funny to say that,but these dry cows, I don't know
what it is about'em.
When you go to gather bigcountry, they act different.
Um, but they aren't as hard togather or don't travel as much
as a stalker calf would.
And so that has an appeal forsome people too.
And, and sometimes it's notsuitable for stalker cattle.
It's more suitable for cows.
And so put some cows that arerereads and the, the flexibility

(28:58):
about those cows is you can,your death loss isn't as high
and then you can choose to makecows out of them.
You can choose to sell'em, youcan choose to sell'em as pears.
You know, depending on yourfinancial situation, what you're
gonna do and what the projectedmarkets are.
Um, you can go a lot ofdifferent ways on'em.
Now, the downside is a cow eatsa lot, a lot more than we would

(29:20):
think, you know?
Yeah.
Because I, I, I was thinking atone point, you know, man, these
cows, they, you turn'em out andthey get fat so easy.
Maybe a guy should be buyingsome of these thin cows and then
fattening them up out on grassand then reselling'em.
Well, yes, that could work too.
And some people I know do that,but, um, they're pretty
inefficient.
I mean, there's more efficientways to do it if she had a calf

(29:42):
on her side or dog or something.
Right.
So I don't know how we got onthat.
Um, but, uh, how do we even talkabout, I don't, I don't know.
You, you, you chased a rabbitdown a hole.
So anyway, choosing the rightbull.
So, you know, it really justdepends on what you're, you're

(30:03):
going for and what your marketyou're trying to hit is.
Because, you know, if.
If you want to do the numbersthing, go for it.
And you need to use the rightbulls that are gonna help you
sell animals.
And that's the whole thing, youknow, whether we believe in

(30:26):
these EPDs or not, they may notbe the first thing that we look
at, but I definitely look at'embecause my customers will look
at'em.
And whether that number in thatbox is factual or not, they,

(30:48):
they're gonna read it.
I mean, okay, let's, let's takethis.
I had this conversation with afriend of mine the other day,
the milk EPD.
Well, that's probably one of themost, I would think, one of the
most inaccurate, immeasurableEPDs.
But if that thing says it's an11.

(31:09):
And I think I need a 25 or a 30.
I'm sure not gonna use an 11.
I'm not gonna use an 11 on onethat's already a 15.
Even if that thing might makemore milk, it's still that
number in that box.
And if I make some bulls andguys are here to buy bulls, and

(31:32):
they look at that number in thatbox and they have a minimum
number that they try to go byand that thing is way off,
they're not gonna buy that bull.
No.
And cattle's the only one wherewe seem to get really twisted on
that, Vince, because if youthought about it like your calf
crop, your bull crop is yourcorn crop or your burning crop,

(31:54):
right?
Right.
That's what they are.
Would you use.
A variety of beans that yourco-op said, you know what, we
ain't interested in making thembeans.
Right.
Right.
Why would you do that?
You be like, well, I'm prettyconvicted.
This is the kind of beans I'mgonna have.
Right.
And they'd be like, that's fine,but you better figure out how to

(32:14):
sell them because Right, right.
Gonna buy'em.
Well, and the thing about it wasthis particular bull we were
talking about, the pedigree saysshe should milk just fine.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, you, you boom, boom,boom, boom, boom.
All these are milkers.
But for some reason, genomicssaid she wasn't gonna milk.
They killed that bull foreverybody.
Right.
Now, fast forward six years downthe road, four, four or five

(32:39):
years down the road and there'sa lot of wet daughters, maybe.
Maybe you can convince somepeople to buy'em.
You know by the bulls that arelower in milk and you could say,
look, here's all the daughtersoutta these bulls.
They're milking just fine outtathis particular sire.
Well, let me use my bean exampleagain.

(32:59):
What if you had your beansalesman come and he said, uh, I
don't know these numbers Vince,but I'm gonna use easy meth.
This bean is gonna produce 10bushels per acre.
This bean is gonna produce two.
And your buddy called and waslike, that two is bs.
Vince, I know it's gonna be aneight or a 10 in R.
Correct.
It's gonna be just as good.

(33:21):
You are going to tell him.
Well that's, that's fine.
Once you prove that out, right.
If it's unproven, I can't takethat risk.
Correct.
Correct.
And I think that's where we needto bring these EPDs into context
a little bit more.
We've talked about that a lotwith people and they think we're
anti EPD.
Well.
You know, I, I look at'em as atool.

(33:42):
Absolutely.
Now, when we start talking aboutpractical reality and what our
environment can hold, and thenthe ones that are proven and the
ones that aren't to perform tothose levels.
Yeah.
I mean, I think they all needcontext, right?
Just like you would if you werecalling about the beans.
Now, if that said, you know,that that seed salesman also
said, well, you know, this, thistwo bushel bean, you just plant

(34:05):
it and leave it alone.
Vince go on vacation to PanamaCity Beach, but that 10 bushel
bean, now, uh, in two weeks I'mgonna have you put on this
fertilizer and in four weeks I'mgonna have you put on this
fertilizer, and then in sixweeks you need to come back with
some fungicide.
Right.
And you ain't ever gonna go toPanama City Beach.
Right.
Then you can weigh that, andthat's kind of where we're at
with the, the germ plasm ofAngus cattle, I believe, or in

(34:26):
beef cattle in general.
Is we've gotten into a realm ofcattle that requires so much
management to achieve a lot ofthose genetic predictors.
Um, it can be problematic forpeople if they don't know the
reality.
Those numbers were vetted in.
But you, you called anddiscussed milk with me when you
were doing your SI selectionand, and I think we're pretty

(34:47):
much dead on.
I mean, I don't like seeing thebig outliers.
I really don't on either side.
Right, right.
I like seeing the middle of theroad, you know, but you, you
said who's right.
You know, I, I don't know.
I kind of, I feel right now theclimate of the beef business and

(35:08):
it's not just Angus cattle.
Um, let me back up and say 10,15 years ago, you could have
found bulls that we could havesold range bulls out of that
could compete at Denver inspots.
Yeah.
Um, you could find some bullsthat had some really needle

(35:32):
moving EPDs for carcass traitsthat still had kind of a neat
look to'em.
Um, you could find some bullsthat you knew would make amazing
easing daughters who still hadsome growth that was in line
with what was kind of averagefor the breed or around it.

(35:53):
And now it just seems likeeverybody's taking their horse
and run a different direction.
Is that, is that what you feelor no?
Yeah, kind.
I think I do On the show thing.
The show thing has gotten soextreme that if you're gonna
compete nationally, you gottaknow that those heifers that
you're buying or raising orwhatever, are never gonna go

(36:16):
beat cows.
They're so extremely.
Made for that look that theytook all the maternal, the, the
milking abilities, the themothering ability.
You can flush'em and put'em inrecepts and the recip can raise
them.
But that doesn't mean that thatmade a good cow.

(36:39):
It just means that she won you apurple banner in her show ring.
Um, I do see more bulls thathave that check the boxes of the
numbers.
Guys that have a better look to'em, not all of them, but I do

(37:02):
think there's several more nowthan what we had.
But then I think that, and thenI see.
Blah, blah, blah.
Pop up on Facebook and think,yeah, he might be a 2.4 on
marbling, but he looks like ahotdog with legs.

(37:22):
He's terrible.
I would never use that bull.
And I think there's so much ofthat going on that it's really
hard to, I wouldn't say, I tellyou, I'm not trying to throw the
bull studs under the, under thebus or not, but the good bulls

(37:43):
are not in bull studs.
The majority of the good bullsare in people's pastures and you
need to contact them.
I, I think they've lost focus.
I think they're more focused onthe marbling and the dollar C
and the ribeye and all thatnonsense.
I, I, I truly think that you,yeah, you might find one here

(38:06):
and one there, but I rememberyears ago, I mean, gen X had a
lot of good bulls, more so, ohman.
More so than most studs.
And I'm not trying to throw themunder the bus or any of'em under
the bus, but they changed theirfocus, uh, because they probably

(38:26):
wanted to compete with all theseguys that doing beef on dairy or
whatever it might be.
But they, you know, I flippedthrough those catalogs and
there's not a whole lot thatgets me charged up.
Do you think they can't affordthe ones they wanna buy too?
Oh lord.
They're paying way quadrupletimes what they should for some

(38:48):
of these high number bulls.
Yeah, I guess you're right.
I guess you're right.
But I do see a lot of qualitybulls.
You know, it seems like they'llget partnered up on some, but
there's a lot of expensive bullsselling to private people now
too.
Yeah.
A 80, 50, 80$5,000 bull todaythey just went to a ranch.

(39:10):
Oh, wow.
And I mean, and because a bullbrings two 50 or 400 or
whatever, that doesn't make hima great bull either.
Sure.
That's the thing.
Sure.
Um, how many of those have weseen that are just little bitty
PUDs that don't, they don't getout and do nothing, or their
feet suck or whatever it might,50 other things that they don't

(39:31):
do.
Right.
And then somebody's trying tosell you on it, telling you,
this is the gr next greatestthing.
I mean, it it, you gotta go see'em.
Yeah.
You gotta go see'em.
I would see.
And you need to see theirmothers if possible, if they're
not dead.

(39:52):
So how do you go about, what'sthe first step for you in Cyrus
selection?
I call Joe Fisher dear.
Thank you.
'cause I don't get enough phonecalls.
I honestly depend, you know, Ilook around and I talk to people
that I trust, and when I say Italk to people I trust, it gets,

(40:19):
it gets the ball rolling, getsmy mind moving.
Um, God, I mean, me, you and Italked about 20 different bulls
this, this fall, and I don'tthink we used any of them.
I don't think I used any ofthem.
Um, but that was due diligence.
It's due diligence, running it.

(40:39):
Hey, you gotta find somebody inyour circle to run these things
by, Hey, what did you thinkabout this?
Yeah, I saw him, I liked him alittle bit.
Hang on, let me call these guys.
These guys will know they've gotcalves by'em, blah, blah, blah.
50 other things, right?
And you know, you went on a bigtrip and you said, Hey, I'm
going to where this bull andthis bull are, I'll let you know

(41:01):
what I think.
And you know, you got there andyou're like, yeah, they're not
gonna work.
So, okay.
Then I punt back.
I keep going down the list likethat.
It might not be you, it might beWilson, it might be Jason, it
might be 20 other people that Icall that made a trip somewhere,

(41:22):
saw'em, saw daughters.
Hey, the bull was just okay, butman, his daughters were freaking
smoking.
Yep.
Um, or sons or whatever it mightbe.
Or, you know, you, you pick upthe phone and you call some of
these guys that you can trust,like, uh, Brent Thiel that I
truly, or Bud Copel, that Ithink will tell you the truth.

(41:46):
And maybe I shouldn't be namingtheir names.
Amy can beep'em out.
But you know, I've had, uh,conversations with both of them
and they've told me the good,the bad, and the ugly about the
bulls, and then I made my owndecision.
Um, I think you gotta do more ofthat.
And, and that's another problem.
How do you know who, whichpeople to trust?

(42:07):
I think you have to buildrelationships with folks.
Yeah, I would agree.
And you gotta, you gotta go lookat cattle with people too.
I mean, I feel so much better.
So much better giving you anysort of advice this year, Vince,
than I have in the past becauseyou trusted me through this
legion thing.
And you used them and you said,these cattle did this and this

(42:32):
and this.
Right.
And I'm very pleased.
And so now I can say, okay, ifhe liked this, which I thought
he would, right now we see'emsimilar.
Right.
You know, uh, I think that'swhat we have to do.
And I wanna back up to yourcomment about the studs.
How many bulls did I tell youabout in the studs that I also
really, really liked?
There were some But you'd used apaternal brother to him.

(42:57):
Yeah.
Or you would already bend downthat road with something else,
right.
Or whatever.
And so, so a lot of these kindof eliminate themselves on if
you can use them or if youcan't, based upon what you've
had.
And the two bulls I think aboutin very, very spec specificity.
Specific.
Right.
Okay.
Specific.
It doesn't fit, but that's fine.

(43:18):
Um, the bulls that I think aboutspecifically.
That I went to see, those weresome pictures that were floated
out on social media that grabbedmy attention.
I went, whoa.
Right, right.
Whoa.
And so I just bought the planeticket and went Okay.
Were they a cell phone picturethat somebody did a good job
taking or were they professionalpictures?

(43:41):
Those were both professionalpictures.
Yeah.
Yep.
And you got, you gotta go lookat professional pictures you
can't trust most.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And even some of these videos, aguy, a gal's gotta be very, very
careful with some of thesevideos.
But the real little gems werebeing on tour at some of these
ranches where the bullseye sawthe cool photos were, and I was

(44:05):
like, well, what the heck isthat?
And they told me, well, he's athis.
And I went, well, I kind of likethose.
Right.
And I'll never forget it in mytour at, at SAV.
That particular year, um, that Iwent, I went to look at two very
specific sis the very firstspring I went.
And, um, and it was based off ofadvertisement and buzz out here

(44:27):
that people were talking aboutthese really, really popular
bulls.
And I came home and usedresource and international, they
were not on anybody's radar,right?
Anywhere out here.
And those would've been two ofthe larger impacting bulls that
we'd used at that time, right?
And so there's a lot of fruit.
And then when you step foot onthose guys' places too, or those

(44:49):
gals, you know, they now have abetter idea what you are looking
for, right?
So if they're smart, they'llsay, oh, you like these?
Well, let me bring you over hereand show you these.
And you go, well, I didn't knowanything about that.
Right?
And then you might, they mightbe showing you bull A and you
see bull B across the pasture,and you're like, well, what

(45:10):
about that?
Right.
You know, definitely.
Well, we didn't know if he wouldfit.
Well, let's go look at him.
You know?
And I would say most of the timewhen I find ones that I really,
really, really love, we'vealready used a brother to him or
a son, right.
A, a, a brother usually.
Or a son of a daughter orsomething.
I mean, but I would definitelysay that going out and seeing

(45:34):
cattle is always your bestfriend.
And it's why we're in thisbusiness anyways.
Um, I to, to bring that firststep a little bit more full
circle.
I would just say, when peopleask me, well, how do you find
these bulls?
The first step is exactly whatyou said, Vince.
I mean, it could come at me froma whole bunch of different.

(45:57):
Directions.
It could be a Facebook ad, itcould be a print advertisement
ad.
It could be that, um, goodness,uh, anymore, it's social media
grabs my attention a lot, butit's my friends also saying,
man, we found this or that.
And then I look into it and thenI look a little deeper and I
look a little deeper and thenusually find something else.
Or what about if you send apicture or I send you a picture

(46:20):
or vice versa, that's just acool cow.
And you're like, what is thisthing?
And it's something that maybeyou never thought of or maybe
you looked at, but you weren'ttotally sure.
And then that sparks aconversation.
Oh, really?
I thought about that bull.
What did you think about'em?
Did the, did the cows do whatthey were supposed to do?
Were the bulls easy to sell?

(46:41):
Did the bulls make good bulls?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah.
You know that that happens a lottoo.
Well, and when we resurrectthese bulls from the past, how
many times have you said, I'mnot saying he, he, you say I I'm
not saying that he was not theright bull, he just wasn't the

(47:01):
right bull for us at that time.
Yeah.
And so you go back and you lookand you go, wow, now I can use
this bull.
That was a blast from the past.
Right.
'cause now I'm ready for him.
Right.
And I've even seen that on bullsthat I own.
Um, how do you handle bulls?
You own, would you say thatbulls you own were 25% of what

(47:23):
you used or 50 or this year?
Um, yeah, this year, God,probably, probably 70, 70% maybe
between blue blood Legion andhigh country and pandemic
probably 70 and the 30%.

(47:45):
Many.
Maybe.
Maybe 60, 40, somewhere inthere.
67.
Okay.
Let's say, let's say it was 6040.
Yeah.
Of that 40 what percent wereproven bulls?
Hmm.
Um, probably, maybe 15% usedthree outside bulls.

(48:07):
One was somewhat proven.
Two were kind of new.
I would say we're about thesame.
Two, were kind of new.
And even when you say kind ofnew, there's calves out there?
Well, one.
No.
One?
Yes.
Okay.
You used one completely unprovenbull.
I use one completely newunprovable.
There's gonna be calves sellingin a sale.

(48:28):
Yeah.
But I liked the bull.
I talked to the guy that ownedit.
I trust him.
He really liked him, and Ithought I'd take a chance on
him.
He's a little something a littledifferent.
How many units did you use onthat bull?
2015.
Okay.
So I, I had the exact samescenario, but I did flush a

(48:50):
couple cows to him.
So that's gonna make a lot more.
So this, this is like a clone ofour operation.
So when I was, uh, when I was onmy tour, went to one ranch and
fell in love with a bull, Imean, fell in love with him.
And I actually said to theowner, I said, boy, I wish he
was just a touch bigger and atouch longer.

(49:13):
And he said, if you think youwanted this bull, but a touch
bigger and a touch longer, youneed to use his brother that
sold last year.
And so, um, I trusted that and Ibred a, I bought 20 units of
semen, flushed two cows, and thebalance of the semen went into
cows.
So I think that that was, that'swhat I did.

(49:35):
That was my one untrue side.
I think I have two left.
I have two left outta 20.
Are any of those in the back ofa Colorado?
No, no.
Did, let's, let's get off topicfor just one second.
Okay.
What, what was it that didn'tthat got the hangout in the back
of the Colorado?
Between the half and thequarter?
I'm telling you, the quarter'sgone.

(49:57):
It was green.
That's because even the Coloradoknew they sucked.
Even the Colorado knew theysucked it, it got'em outta
there.
Or, or even a wind machine, carwash could not kill a half cc.
Small.
Exactly.
How about that?
I was shocked when I opened thatup.
'cause it, what's funny is Iwasn't, I wasn't even trying to

(50:20):
be terribly funny.
I was just kinda like, oh yeah,we'll do the, around the
Colorado get thrown out forpeople.
And I pulled out my phone, Iwent, oh my gosh, that's like
the fourth take of that videobecause there's a freaking straw
back there.
And look, it's a half cc straw.
It's because quarters sucks andthey always will.
Well, and it's been there twoweeks and it still might get a

(50:40):
cow pregnant and I'm not surethat quarter 60 at any luck.
Oh God.
Anyway, back to, um, the bulls.
It, it really, you gotta trustpeople in your circle.
Yep.
You know, we've said that foryears.
Small circle, you can't, youcan't have 50 people in your
circle.

(51:01):
You're gonna get so confused.
It's ridiculous.
Mm-hmm.
Um, so you gotta trust thepeople in your circle and you
gotta do your due diligence.
And I'm not saying that I alwaysdo my due diligence like I think
I should.
Um, but I, sometimes Inecessarily don't.
But if those 15 units that Iused, I get 60% conception.

(51:28):
So I get 10 calves.
What is that gonna be?
Detrimental.
You know, the funny part, if itdidn't work out.
I would guess that you probablyused them on a smattering of
cows too, right?
You didn't use themconsistently?
No, I did use them on some of mybetter cows.
Oh, did you?

(51:49):
Okay.
Or, or what?
I think'cause some of'em wereheifers.
You know how that goes.
Sure.
You don't know.
You think they're your betterheifers.
Yeah.
And I use them on some d so Iused mine.
I used mine on some good cows.
Really good cows.
Yeah.
But I did use them on a coupledifferent kinds of cows.
Um, just'cause I wanted to seehow he worked and if I wanna use
him again next year is kind ofmy thought.

(52:11):
But if he works on numerousdifferent kinds of cows and it's
a little easier to use them.
Right, right, right.
And you, you used one young sireof your own, right?
No.
I'm gonna turn two out.
Two young sis out on, well, oneone What about 42?
44?
Oh no.

(52:31):
I used, um.
The 7,100 and Blaze on, I usedthe 7,100 and Blaze on instead
of 42.
44.
Oh, you did?
On commercials.
I just wanna see what thosecalves look like.
Yeah, they should be cool.
They should be cool.
I, I was gonna say on that lineuntil I just knocked my
headphones off, so it's gonnasound like I stepped on you

(52:53):
probably some of our young sisthat sold in the sale.
Yeah.
If they're from my own program,I don't use'em like I use a
young sire.
And I guess the reason is isbecause I know what the mother
is, I know what the grandmotheris, I know what the
great-grandmother is and I knowhow they're probably gonna line
up.
Now.
I don't hit'em as hard, um, on aparticular cow as I would've

(53:17):
proven sire.
Right.
Torque or an envy.
I know how to use those.
Those are easy for me in ourprogram to use, but I also don't
handle them with the same levelof care as this experimental
bull that I had with just 20units from outside that I don't
know how he's gonna like.
Right.
Well, I was torn to use thosetwo bulls because both the bulls

(53:39):
got hurt.
I had to get, I had to ship bothof them.
I had a small amount of semen,and I'm thinking, is this gonna
really turn somebody off becausethey're not gonna be able to see
the bull.
I didn't get a picture of them.
Right.
You know, it is just gonna be.
Some weird thing.

(53:59):
So I thought, you know, I'd put'em on some commercials.
If they're freaking smoke shows,I won't care.
I'll use'em on some good stuffthen.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I mean, I had to bring mycommercials or something anyway,
so.
Absolutely.
Well, and I'll tell you anotherone that we didn't touch on.
I mean, I'll, if I feel like Ineed something on a sort on an

(54:21):
epd mm-hmm.
I'll look for it.
I will.
Yeah.
So what do you do, do you do Ido phenotype first, pedigree
second, EPDs third.
Mm.
I would have a hard time using abull that I didn't like looking
at.
So yes, I would say that'saccurate.

(54:42):
And, and honestly, the, thephenotype and the, and the
pedigree almost go hand in hand.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I used some bulls in the pastfour years though, Vince, that I
didn't like some spots in theirpedigree that I turned my nose
at just a little.
But I said, okay, I have thisset of cattle that I really need
to watch scrotal, EPD on.

(55:04):
Mm-hmm.
Because actually we've seen alot of 30 twos and 30 threes,
and I feel more comfortable at30 fours, fives, and sixes.
And so how are we gonna move theneedle on that?
Well, let's look for a highlyproven si line that has some
scrotal.
EPD um, had another set ofcattle that needed some milk,
not milk, EPD, but they neededsome genuine milk.

(55:26):
And this we, that's where webrought in those sons of 44 0 4.
Um, we used two, three differentsons of 44 0 4.
Two different sons, I think of44 0 4.
Uh, consequently both ended upbeing out of foundation
daughters and we liked thosefoundation daughters.
So that's how we kind of, youknow, and, and then this year

(55:47):
following it up, we didn't feellike we need to use a 44 0 4
again,'cause we were gonna usethose sons, but we did find a
different sire line back on topof a different foundation
daughter, um, to bring into ourherd.
And I felt good about that too.
Um, so yeah, I would say thephenotype has to be something

(56:07):
that lines up with, with, Ican't see any major red flags.
Right.
You know, and that was anotherone that I told some friends,
you know,'cause they said, boy,you'll, you'll see that bull in
person and not like its feet.
And then you'll use somethingthat you haven't seen in person.
Yeah.
And how do you rectify that?
And I said, well, I hate to saythis, but you can't unsee what

(56:29):
you saw.
Right.
And so does that mean I turn ablind eye source towards some
bulls?
No.
Um, I have some cell phonephotos of those said bulls that
I did not see in person.
And, and I suppose those folkscould be lying to me just the
same as they could lie to youand say we didn't trim their
feet.
And you're looking at'em theretoo.

(56:49):
But if I, if I look at one and Isee a foot, I don't like, that's
a pretty hard conversation tohave in three or four years When
one of your customers says, thisbull has a bad foot, and you're
like, oh yeah, by the way, uh,his dad was that way when I saw
him before I used him.
And those guys, they choke you.
They choke you, so you broughtup cell phone, uh, pictures and

(57:12):
videos.
So there was a bull that soldrecently for a pile of money,
and he took a great picture, hetook a great video, but somebody
was at the sale and took a cellphone video and it was
absolutely terrible.
So, which do you trust?

(57:33):
You know, you know as well as Ido cell phone videos, they don't
hide anything, but they alsodon't always show the animal in
the best light.
How many pictures have you seenof a cell phone?
Just a picture where somebodywill take it three quarter head
on and it'll make'em look likethey have a big old huge donkey
head, a weird front end and nomuscle.

(57:55):
But then if you flip around withyour cell phone, you can make'em
look huge belied and big oldbutt and cool neck, the same
animal.
So I think you're definitelyonto something there.
I sent you a picture the otherday, uh, you and Corbin, a
picture the other day of thissmoking heifer standing by a hay
ring.
I took the picture, I looked atthe phone to see if I got the

(58:17):
picture.
I looked back up and she hadmoved and she looked terrible.
Absolutely.
But that's the thing is you canget a bad.
Picture video of a good animal.
So that's what I was getting atwith this bull that sold.
He took a good picture, okay,that could be doctored.
He took a good video.

(58:40):
The odds of it being doctoredare slimmer.
I don't know that you can doctorhim, but he was also in better
light.
He was also in a betterbackground.
He was also in a better, youknow, a field of grass or
whatever it was.
And the picture, the, the cellphone video was at terrible

(59:01):
angles in a, in a small pen.
He was stopping wrong.
Um, I do think some of the flawsare actual flaws because once I
saw him in the cell phone,video, went back to the other
video and watched, and you cansee it a little bit, it just
wasn't as bad, right.

(59:22):
Um.
So that, that's what I'm saying,like you could even pass up on a
really good animal that goesboth ways.
It does.
You know, you could pass up on areally good animal because
somebody took a crappy littlecell phone video for you.
Or you could be getting ready tobuy an animal for a lot of money

(59:45):
and somebody sent you a a cellphone video and that could be
the honest animal, and theycould have saved you a ton of
money because you changed yourmind.
Absolutely, absolutely.
More information is good.
Yeah, it's always good.
It's always good, but you know,you can't.
I don't know.
One of my good friends used tosay, uh, everybody still would

(01:00:06):
say it, I suppose.
He said, don't treat breedingcattle as religion.
That's when you can get introuble.
You know, they're just datapoints.
They're all data points.
We don't need to expectperfection anywhere.
But you look for, you know, somepeople it's structure, some
people it's muscle.
Some people it's a cool forthem.
Yeah.
Some people it's, it's feet.
When you, you hope that thosepictures glean some sort of

(01:00:30):
information that expose your bigred flags, the ones that are red
flags in your operation.
Right.
And for me it's mostly,honestly, it's the mother more
than anything, Vince.
Right.
And I need to know the motherand the story behind the mother
and all that before IC Now wewant to have a complete outcross

(01:00:50):
line, um, that brings somethingcomp completely unique.
I still want to know somethingabout that.
Right, right.
Um, because.
You're bringing her influence inon 100% of the calves.
Okay.
There was a bull not too longago that has, God, I think he
was in the top selling, topsemen sales thing, top

(01:01:13):
registrations.
Um, his mother died at a youngage.
Mm-hmm.
Is that a big red flag?
If it's the one I'm thinking of,it's probably why I didn't use
any of that influence.
Um, because there are somecattle that I felt like should

(01:01:33):
have lived a lot longer thanthey have that are floating
around in this breed.
Um, well, I'm just saying forthe fact that it, it was some
stupid thing.
It wasn't, it was like anaccident.
Mm-hmm.
Not, not they just went outthere.
I mean, you can't control anaccident.
No.
And I'd like to think that I canhandle the truth.

(01:01:53):
Right, right, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, but I'm saying, does thatmake you, I mean, they didn't
even have a picture of her.
It would depend on who it is forme.
Right.
It would depend on who it is andall the things surrounding it.
And you know, did she, was it afreak deal?
Right?
'cause it was a line of cattlethat would fit the same mold
that you're saying mm-hmm.

(01:02:14):
That you start digging andyou're like, well, this daughter
disappeared and at a young ageYeah.
And this son disappeared at ayoung age.
And you're like, man, is theresomething to that line of
cattle, um, where they aren'tlasting?
Right.
My mind automatically goes toheart issues.
Honestly, that's what goes to,and and that's why I've been
really focusing on heart healthtype stuff.

(01:02:36):
Mm-hmm.
Which is so hard to figure outbecause the smart people will
tell you, you know, it's notjust a pap thing, but pap is an
indicator.
So, um, yeah, but don't youthink that could, it's just like
us.
I'm obese.
I I have a greater risk of heartissues than you do just because
I'm obese.

(01:02:56):
Yeah, maybe because of my diet,you know, these cows, you're
shoveling'em corn or whateverall day long.
DDGs, I mean, that can't be goodfor their heart.
Probably not.
Versus your cattle are out onbig open range.
They're getting way moreexercise than mine and they're
eating grass.
Yep.

(01:03:16):
Yeah, that's a good point.
Hey, I wanna bring it back tothe topic though.
Okay.
You just thought of another one.
What?
Yeah.
Are there any bulls that youdidn't own that you were so
excited to use?
This year?
This year?
Yeah.
Um, yeah, kinda, yeah.

(01:03:41):
Yeah.
I was pretty excited to use, um,a couple bulls, but one, um.
When I went, I don't know howmany people were there, but if
you went to ZWT sale, younoticed, um, if you looked
through'em and you noticed theRiversides man, those things

(01:04:05):
were sweet and they're veryconsistent.
And he would be a full brotherto downpour, but he's a heifer
version.
A heifer bull version.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
Um, but man, they were just,they were big bodied.
They were, they carried thatdepth all the way through their
flank.
Um, big, nice hip in them.

(01:04:25):
I, I, I wasn't, I had that sealast year, but I didn't use
them.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but man, when I saw thosedaughters, I was like, yeah, I
gotta, I gotta use'em now.
Are they gonna work on my cows?
I don't know, because I probablyused'em on different type cows.
But if I can get something thatlooks like that, yeah, I'm gonna

(01:04:47):
be pretty excited about it.
But nothing, I, I, you know,nothing that just like, just, I
was just so fired up.
I don't know.
So do you think that's the stateof the Angus business?
Well, I, I'm leading you awaybecause I know what my answers
are.
My answers are that one bullthat I used 20 units of semen
on, I am fired up about that.

(01:05:08):
I think that is fun and excitingand different.
Mm-hmm.
And, and I said, remember bullsthat I didn't own.
So there are a couple that I ownthat I'm super pumped about and
I think are gonna be really fun.
Um, I'll say this, that samebull, not the bull you used, but
the same scenario, 20 units,blah, blah, blah.

(01:05:28):
I'm excited about him too, buthe, he, he's, but he's, he's a
different bull for me.
Yeah.
You know, he's, he's, he's adifferent type bull for me, but
at the same time, you look athim and he's, he's still fits
the mold.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I know, I know what bullyou're talking about and you

(01:05:50):
know what bull I'm talking aboutand they couldn't be any
different like pedigree andstuff.
But it's funny because it'salmost like I would say the
exact same thing.
I would say the exact samething.
I, he's a little different fromus, but he fits the mold.
Yeah.
And I'm super excited.
I'm, but what I was getting atis the core group of outside

(01:06:10):
sirens we used.
I'm not just pumped about'em,I'm not disappointed in'em.
I don't feel like I didn't findthe right bull.
Right.
But I'm just not as excited as Iused, you're not overly giddy
about it.
Yeah.
And I wonder if that is maturingin this business or I wonder if
it's the shines off a little.

(01:06:31):
I think it, you think it's, Ithink, you know, there's been a
lot going on this year with theassociation.
Sure.
I think that.
That kinda gets you in a bit ofa muck.
It kinda gets you downtrodden.
Um, it had me and it took me aminute to get outta that funk,

(01:06:53):
to be honest.
Um, but I'm moving forward.
I've got a young bull, a coupleof young bulls.
Uh, I can't use one, I can't usethe torque sun this, this fall
because he's still, he's noteven a year yet, but I'm gonna
use him in the spring.
I'm fired up about him.

(01:07:13):
There's another bull here thatI'm fired up about that I am
gonna use this fall.
Um, I, I'm excited about that,just to see it, you know, what
they're at.
Also, I had a young bull that Ikept last year, um, and I should

(01:07:35):
see some of his first calveshere pretty quick in, in
probably February.
So, you know, there's somethings to look forward to.
Um, but I'm like, you, likethere's not a lot, you know, I,
I look at these bulls that whatyou were talking about, the
bulls that you own, that youused, and I'm not saying there's

(01:07:59):
not better bulls out there, butyou know, I waded through a lot
of bulls, as did you, and youjust kept coming back to the
ones that you knew, the onesthat you raised or the ones that
you own because you know whatthey're gonna do.

(01:08:20):
And so that's, that's simple,huh?
I was talking to a friend ofmine the other day.
He had bought a flush on a cowand, um, somebody had told him
he should use this bull bull Aand I said, why?
Why?
What are you gonna market?

(01:08:40):
Are you gonna, you're gonna bemarketing a cow that you don't
own and a bull that you don'town when you own a bull that is
probably better than that bull.
Mm-hmm.
Why wouldn't you use your ownbull?
And he said, yeah, you got agood point.

(01:09:03):
I don't know that, that's goodinformation.
I hope it was good.
I hope it was good advice.
But the bully bought's a damngood bull.
So why would you go use somebodyelse's bull if you already got a
good bull?
Have you ever had one of yourown bulls?
Just if you think this questionsisn't fair, Amy can edit it out,

(01:09:27):
I guess.
But just destroy feat or destroyutters.
And the reason I say those twotraits is because I feel like.
Those are the two most importanttraits for me.
Yeah.
And they're the things that haveunited you and I the most, like
back from before we even did anysort of podcasting together
where we became friends is, man,these are some things we're

(01:09:48):
really focused on in ourprogram.
And they were very, verysimilar.
I, I actually will back up and Iwon't make you answer that
question.
I'll just say, I have never useda bull that we've owned or
walked that has just destroyedfeeder utters.
Right.
I've used one, one of the veryfirst ones questionable.

(01:10:09):
Ever, ever bought.
Yep.
And the gorgeous, the daughterswere gorgeous.
The feet could be hit and miss.
Um, and that would've been inlike 2000, that would've been
2005, 2006.
But since then, Vince, if wejust cut their ear tags out and
they made cows, any bull we'veeither owned, so there've been
purchased bulls in there.

(01:10:30):
Mm-hmm.
Or raised ourselves.
We've never had a disaster forthose two traits.
But then we spend all this timewith a seven and seven protocol
and the freaking GRH and thelate nights and all that to use
something we thought would moveus forward to find out that he
set us light years back on.
Exactly most important.

(01:10:53):
Okay, here's a flip.
Flip to that question.
How many times have you used,you went out and you sought out
this bull that was gonna beyour, the next great AI sire
that's gonna sire sis for youand blah, blah, blah, blah.
And the bulls that you turnedout had better calves than that

(01:11:16):
bull.
Maybe not on the sons, but onthe daughters.
Our turnout outsiders alwayswhip'em up.
Why is that?
Do you think it has something todo with the amount of semen that
is actually like, it's just, it,it's making, I know this sounds

(01:11:40):
really stupid, but it's making,there's more DNA in there and
it's making a better thing.
Is that dumb?
It's not dumb, but I don't thinkit's correct.
Okay.
I I think it's more theseturnout sis you scrutinize so
much and I scrutinize so much.

(01:12:02):
We would never, ever, ever turnone out that isn't out of a nice
cow.
At least a nice cow that's stillat our operation.
So I've got a bull that I kickedout already with my resets.
He's out of one of my favoritecows I own.
He is just, he's okay.
He's actually built a lot likethe old time.

(01:12:22):
Bulls.
He's got the reverse wedge.
He's cut up in his flank, deepchested muscled up his best Two
things.
The reason he is here is he'sgot great feet and he's got a
big old set of nuts.
Mm-hmm.
And I don't know what hisdaughters will look like.
I'll, I actually have several,but you know, they're, they'll

(01:12:44):
be bred in the spring.
But see, that's where I think itwould be really interesting for
us to get on a true bosmaevaluator who could explain
actual observation things welland an educate a listener base.
And I think it's so hard to do,but in all the things that I've

(01:13:07):
studied Vince, and I'm, I'm ababy baby.
I wouldn't even say that I'm ababy bonds ma person.
I mean, I know so little aboutit, but I think that's the only.
Way to observe cattle, to reallyfind out if there's a
correlation to the daughters.
Those guys seem, did you justfreeze up?

(01:13:28):
No, you just not move.
I'm listening.
Okay.
No, it just looked like youdidn't move and I was like, man,
I don't know if he just had astroke.
I was listening to what you weresaying, but Vince, I do think
that the herds I've seen who usebondsman techniques, they can
pick'em, they can pick bull thatmake good daughters, and I'm

(01:13:52):
not, I'm not saying this is,this is or isn't one.
I'm saying if you came and youtoured my bullpens, I, I think
most folks would say that'sjust, that's just a bull.
Like he's hard doing kinda.
And, uh, I like these over hereway better.

(01:14:13):
I'd look at how long his tailis.
And I would look at what hisepididymus looked like.
His what?
His epididymus.
Look it up.
Look it up.
I'm pretty sure you alreadycommented on this bull's tail.
So was it long?
I think it was, yeah.
Yeah.
It's long.
It probably was.
He probably was.
He probably had curly hair onhis neck.

(01:14:34):
He does those.
So he has those indicators.
Yes.
But when you, you, you'relooking at him, he's not the one
that you're gonna say, that's agood son of a buck.
I wanna see calves outta him.
Now.
The calves might be better thanthose others.
Who knows?
I'm just saying the two biggestthings for me with him, feet and

(01:14:58):
nuts.
Yep.
And I, I have a buddy who'sreally, really good about it,
who raises a lot of goats andsheep.
Mm-hmm.
And all he wants to look at arethe nuts, really.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I would say that, um, uh.
I don't wanna mischaracterizehis program, but there's a very,
very well respected gentleman inCentral Montana, which he is an

(01:15:21):
absolute fanatic of testicleshape, testicle development, um,
scrotal, you know, like how, howmuch hair is on the scrotum, if
it's fuzzy, if it's not, youknow, those are all things that
are endocrine indicators.
And if you get the endocrinepiece right, like the balance
between testosterone andestrogen and, and that

(01:15:42):
development, I, I think thatthat is a piece that we're
missing and that is a piecewhere social media has really,
really screwed us up becausewe're demanding these soft made,
super thick, cool frontedthings.
Yes.
And I don't know that a 14 monthold bull needs to be super just

(01:16:05):
razor fronted, right?
He better have a little bit ofCREs.
He better not be cowhead, youknow, he might have some forearm
and shoulder and that's okay.
And he may not have that big,big bunchy muscle on the top of
his hip, and he might cut up alittle in his flank because he's
got testosterone that's makinghim do that and not a TMR wagon,

(01:16:26):
you know?
So, I don't know.
I, I think, um, there are somepeople, Vince, that are, are the
true OGs at evaluating thatstuff.
I'm not one, but I try to learnfrom'em.
So what about this, you broughtup testicles a minute ago.
My vet has argued, you know,okay, you get a bull that's

(01:16:50):
maybe 33, 34.
But his argument is they're notconsidering how long they are,
they're just considering how biga round they are.
Some bulls have a short fat nutand some have a longer, sorry
testicle.
Some have a longer, longer, Amy,I'm, I'm, some have a longer one

(01:17:18):
that may not be quite as bigaround, and I had a vet argue
that they should take that intoconsideration.
Does that vet have experience inthe dairy industry?
Seriously?
I don't know.
No, I don't think so.
Maybe.
I don't know, because I've heardthat out of the dairy end.
He's just an old vet.
He was just an older, old schooltype guy.
You know, I've, I've, uh, heardthat from dairy people before

(01:17:40):
that we get too focused onscrotal circumference and not
shape.
If you want to know a dealkiller for me, if I'm looking
for a bull, if he's just got onenut.
Nope.
Oh, not as much as two that arecompletely different.
Shaped Twist.
Oh.
Or twisted.
You get that one that looks likea ball versus the one that has
the kind of half moon, you know?

(01:18:01):
Correct shape.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Little curve to, that's a real,real red flag for me.
I also don't like ones that thescrotum really cups up and
separates the testicles likeseparate.
I don't, I don't think thatthat's correct either.
Okay.
Don't I know what you're gonnasay.
I know you're so immature.
I'm not.
This is ridiculous.
You're doing hand motions andeverything, so what the hell am

(01:18:24):
I supposed to do?
I have a good book.
I, I don't wanna send you'causea bull customer of mine sent me
is called Herd Bull Fertility,and it talks about a lot of
those things.
It's super, super interesting.
Yeah.
It talks about Hereford bullsand the rings on their horns and
how that hair is at the base ofthe horns.
And you could look at periods ofinfertility in that animal and

(01:18:45):
stuff like that.
So yeah.
What you got?
I'm, I'm, this is a seriousquestion about the rings.
Do I check the Angus for once?
No.
No.
Do you mean rings on the outsideor like.
Uh, like a tree when they cutit.
I know that sounds stupid, butyou know, they have to bob some
of their horns off sometimes.
'cause it turns in their head.
No, this talked about lookinglike where the horn actually

(01:19:07):
attaches to the head and howthere's rings there.
Kind of, kind of, but not thesame as a tree.
You know, it's like a foot of acow.
Yeah.
How many feet have you seen thatare just shiny?
Shiny and they look hard Andthen you see another set that
kind of look flaky and gray andthey got like different I got
you.
I think that those are generallyperiods of inconsistent

(01:19:28):
environmental conditions.
I've always heard that it wasfeed conditions.
Yeah, they, they have those, youcan see lines on their feet.
Yeah.
On a And that, I was always toldthat that was a feed thing.
Yeah, absolutely.
I, there's an article that cameacross my social media about
blue tongue and deer and how youcould tell it by looking at

(01:19:52):
their hooves because theirhooves will blow out wherever
they had a fever or whatever.
Really?
So they were looking at thesedeer.
Yeah.
And they said these ones hadsevere blue tongue and then got
over it or whatever.
But, um, okay.
We gotta get back to bullselection here.
Um, is it ever, is it ever goodenough to use a bull?

(01:20:15):
Just'cause a friend said, youknow what, these cattle are
good.
Depends on the friend.
I agree.
Yeah.
That's gonna be boring.
Depends on the friend.
Well, I mean, I got friends thatI love and trust and would call
'em in a heartbeat if I neededhelp.

(01:20:36):
Maybe wouldn't trust them ifthey said, you gotta use this
bull.
It's ownership stake thing.
Huh?
I, I don't know that they evenowned the bull.
Yeah, sure.
You know, oh, I went and saw thebull and I trust what they saw.
I went and saw the bull.
I think I'm going all in.
Maybe I didn't feel the same waywith, maybe it was a pedigree

(01:20:59):
thing.
Maybe it was a little somethingthat I saw.
Maybe it was, it had nothing todo with, I think they're lying
to me because that's not what itis.
But, um, it, I think it also hasto do with, you know, you know a
guy for a while and he seesthings the same and you know,

(01:21:23):
those things go a long way too.
So where do you think people gothe most wrong in bull
selection?
That's more like a 30,000 footview, I think.
One, they just doing it on paperalone.
Okay.
I think another one, they'relistening to a sale manager.
I think another one they'velistened to a friend that

(01:21:47):
probably shouldn't be givingadvice.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, that heard it from anotherguy that heard it from another
guy that heard it from anotherguy that this bull's fantastic.
Um, I think a lot of thathappens.
I remember that bull that wewere talking about this spring
that everybody was talkingabout, and I don't know if, I

(01:22:07):
think it was you, and we heardabout this bull like three
times, and I was like, wait aminute, wait a minute, wait a
minute.
Well, where did this person hearit about?
And we traced it back.
It all traced back to one guyhad saw the bull and Mikey, and
you're like, but he had told,but he told 25 people.
Yeah.
So you thought you had 25different experiences.
Yeah.
And all these 20 fiber lock Boyout here.
This is the bull.

(01:22:27):
This is bull.
This is the bull.
You know what I think it is?
I think that one of the biggestproblems people have with Cyrus
selection is they don'tthoroughly think through the
negatives that could come alongwith it.
They always, it's human natureto see the upside.
Yeah.
And be so excited that we canmove.

(01:22:48):
You know what I could do?
I could take this cow that'snegative marbling, use a 2.2 on
her, she's a negative 0.2, I'mgonna get a one on marbling and
I don't have any ones.
Right.
Fire and nice.
Well that's kick ass.
But guess what?
What if the cattle are no good?
Right.
And you never even get to thepoint of seeing that marbling
cage.
Right.

(01:23:10):
And it's.
Go ahead.
No, no, it's okay.
I was just, I was just thinkingthat if we thought through the
role of what AI should do,right?
AI should bring you something,something novel to your program
that you can't get by turningout a cleanup sire.

(01:23:32):
Well, and also why go pay50,000, 200,000 for this sire
when you can buy a straw semen?
Well, that's like the oppositeside of exactly what we're
saying, but I would agree withyou.
Right.
But, and that's, yeah, it's justthe tools, right?
It's the tools we have.
Well, I had a call from a youngman who's got maybe 10, 15 cows,

(01:23:53):
I don't know, and telling meabout a herd that he said, you
know, he was concerned about notbeing able to afford.
And I know he's a listener and,um, I won't say his name because
he'll be embarrassed.
But it was a good point, andit's timely for this podcast,
some of these high, high endsales.
And, and there's a lot of'emnow.
Um, one of which I'm not.

(01:24:17):
You better have either a lot ofcattle to breed that bull to, or
you better have a good marketingplan if you're gonna dive into
him.
I would agree.
Because what happens is when youown him, now you own him.
When you could have just boughta cane of semen at 40, even 50
bucks a straw, you're all in 500bucks.

(01:24:37):
And you might have seven oreight calves that you might not
like and you can castrate'em andyou can move on.
But if you go pay 40, 50,000 forthat sire and you don't like
that first crop of calves, areyou gonna have the metal to do
the right thing and get rid ofhim?
Well, there's the thing.
You can go to these places and Iknow what you're talking about.

(01:24:59):
I know where you're talkingabout shopping.
If you go there and you spend15,000.
You're buying the bottom of the,the very bottom of the list.
Yeah.
That would not be a lot ofplaces.
Yeah.
You're not spending 15,000 onthe top bull.

(01:25:21):
You're spending 15,000 on thevery bottom bull.
Right.
And, and for some of ourlisteners, you had to sell three
bulls to get that 15 to buy.
Right.
You, you sold three of yours fortheir worst.
And I'm not, I'm not dogging outthe guy that's selling'em, he
can't control It's a publicauction.

(01:25:41):
Absolutely.
But just what you said would youdon't spend the 15 k go
somewhere and maybe spend eightor 10 on a good bull or 15 on a
really, really good bull out ofa program and, and buy five,
spend 500 bucks and buy the topbull at that sale that you were

(01:26:05):
gonna spend.
15 K on the bottom bowl.
And I got another one for you.
I don't know if it fits in SIselection.
These bulls sell'em for two,three, 400,000 all the time.
25, 30,$40.
A straw is cheap.
Mm-hmm.
That is cheap Geneticimprovement.
So don't buy the worst bull is15,000 in that sale.

(01:26:28):
That doesn't fit you right.
Find the one you love and go buya can of semen on.
Right.
And he may not even the one youlove may not even be the most
high seller because we, westarted out with the, the top
seller mon monetarily may notmean he's the best bull.
That just means two people thathad a lot of money really liked
him.
Um, he could be the middle ofthe road bull in that sale, but

(01:26:52):
you loved him.
Have you noticed that there,it's hard to find secrets in
this business now.
Like, there are tons of peoplethat have a similar way of
evaluating cattle, a similar setof criteria, all looking for
similar things, and there is alot of competition for quality

(01:27:15):
bulls now.
Yeah.
I thought you meant, are youlaughing at me?
I thought you laughing at myhair again?
I, no, I was thinking like whenyou said it's hard to keep
secrets, the first thing thatcame to my mind was Kat Williams
when he went on that show onClub Shehe and he just aired all
the dirty laundry.
When he say 2025 is gonna be theyear of a reckoning or

(01:27:36):
something.
Yeah.
But yeah, you're right.
You're right.
Um, it's like when I find one,when I find one in one of these
bigger sales, and I don't, Idon't fancy myself to be some
bull guru.
I just know what I like.
Well, that's what you got.
That's what this whole thingjust came first.
Full circle back, breed what youlike, breed what you know your

(01:27:59):
customers like.
But I will tell you it's prettycrowded in that space.
There's either, I've eithersurrounded myself by a lot of
people who like what I like, orthere's a lot of people looking
for very similar things rightnow.
You know, I was listening to JoeRogan today while I was on the
bulldozer and he had, uh, jellyroll on, you know, jelly Roll

(01:28:20):
lost like 400 pounds.
Did he have him on like recent?
'cause he, he, yeah, today.
He was the last one today.
Oh, did he talk about likecanceling his concerts in
Australia and all that?
Like he had a mental breakdown?
I didn't, I didn't get that farinto it'cause I got talking
about hunting.
Oh, I'm gonna listen tomorrow.
Then we got a long trip tomorrowand it's not that I have a

(01:28:41):
problem with hunting, but itjust kept going on and on and on
and on and on.
Um, but what he was saying was,sur he surrounds himself now
with people that eat right andpeople that.
Uh, want to be healthy.
Yeah.
And it's easier, it's easier forhim.
So he said, you know, when I wasmessing around on my wife, I was

(01:29:04):
hanging out with guys that weremessing around on his wi on
their wives.
When I was doing drugs, I washanging out with guys that doing
drugs when I was, you know,doing this and doing that.
So it goes back to what you werejust saying about it seems
crowded, but you probably have alot of people in your life that
think very similar to you.

(01:29:26):
So is that a good thing or a badthing that it seems crowded?
Well, I'll tell you where it'scrowded is the people I surround
myself, if I had to sum up onecore value they have is they are
relentless about making surethat their customer is
satisfied.
Well, I mean, really thinkthat's not a bad thing, is it?

(01:29:47):
You think about you, you thinkabout Corbin, I think about
someone like Eve's.
Um, you know, and the list couldgo on and on, but all of these
people are so self-consciousabout harming their customer.
They're absolutely relentlessabout, I wanna make sure that I,
I produce something they like,and I wanna make something that
make sure it's something thatthey value.

(01:30:08):
And I wanna make sure it'ssomething that, you know, five
years from now didn't hurt'em.
Right.
Well, and that, and that's hard,that, that's hard to stay that
way when something goessideways.
Yeah.
You know, you're, you don't wantto choke that down.
You don't wanna listen to thatguy.
Say, you know what, this bullcrapped out on me or this.

(01:30:30):
Well, and Vince Oh, are we introuble?
What?
Yeah, we're recording.
Hey bud.
Take book.
This is good radio, but it, it'shard baby.
Huh?
Go on.
Amy said we've been recordinglong enough.

(01:30:52):
She doesn't wanna edit thismuch.
No, but it, it, it is hard whenyou get that bad feedback.
You don't want to keep callingmore people and checking on'em.
You know?
But you gotta do it.
If you ask the animal breedinggurus of today, yeah.
They would say that you have touse outliers to achieve genetic

(01:31:13):
improvement.
You have to use outliers.
So that means you're gonna havesome bad, that's gonna come with
the good why a lot of it.
And you need to cull through it.
That's what I'm saying.
I think we need to keep thependulum from swinging too far.
The outliers get it swinging wayout.
Yeah.
Both directions.
If you want big change, you'vegotta use a big pendulum swing.

(01:31:38):
Uh.
But that's, we don't change thething.
Why do we, why do we need bigchange?
Make incremental changes.
I would agree with that.
I think that's a good way towrap up.
A lot of this is like figure outwhere your herd is and what it
is that you're really trying tochange.
That's what cyber selectionshould be about.
Is there something you want totry to change or is there
something you want to intensify?

(01:32:00):
And if, and I think there's beenso much et used Vince so much
IVF that a lot of people havedozens and dozens or or 50 or a
hunt or daughters of the samecow or same cow lines and their
cows are probably prettyconsistent and they're pretty
happy.
So maybe we just need to bringin more genes like that rather
than trying to change thosecattle.

(01:32:21):
Well that's what I was gonnasay.
Maybe if your whole herd needs achange, you might be better off
to buy some eggs and put eggs inthose cows.
Yeah.
Because if they all need achange in a different direction,
how you fix that?
Yeah, I think you've, you, theonly way I know to fix it is you

(01:32:42):
pick four smoking good bullsthat do a lot of things right?
And you breed all of them tothis bull one year, and you take
all that offspring and you bring'em to the next bull the next
year, take all those offspring,breed'em to the next bull.
And by the third, fourth year,they all look like peas in a
pod.
They should.
Well, and and that model that Isaid I stole from an old dairy

(01:33:03):
guy when I told you I had allthese foundation daughters and
all of our listeners don't justgo flock to finding foundation
daughters and sons of'em.
I mean, I like mine, they'rebabies, but I like'em.
But if, but if you, if it fitsyou, that's lovely, but Right.
I'm not saying it's right, butwhat that dairyman told me is he
goes, the bull was, uh, HARBHigh Plains.
Do you remember that bull?

(01:33:24):
I think, so it was High Plainsand there was Che and there was
some of those bulls in the, Ithink they were mid nineties,
but that gentleman liked HighPlains and what he did for his
herd at that time.
So he went and found all thesesons of High Plains daughters
and he just kept using'em andusing'em and using'em, and he
was really pleased with how thatwent.

(01:33:44):
Is HARB still in business?
I don't know.
I think it was, that was JasonHarrison, right?
I don't know who it was.
I think they sold, uh, most oftheir bulls at Midland we're,
we're probably putting out badinformation.
I'll, I'll tell you what I hadto say after we get off the
recording.
So anyway, I think there's a lotof different ways to skin this

(01:34:08):
cat on this selection.
Right?
But the first one is, is yougotta be real with where you're
at and you gotta be real withwhere you want to go.
Well, that's true because youjust said.
If you think your herd needs awhole overhaul, right?
Yeah.
Say you say, you know what?
I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna justuse all these for sips.
I'm gonna go out and buy a gooddonor that can move me forward

(01:34:32):
and I'm gonna put eggs in all ofthem.
What if you, that's a greatidea, but if you don't change
and you're still picking thewrong bull, you're gonna, those
calves are gonna mirror what youalready got, are they not?
Yeah, absolutely.
To an extent.
Yep.
And, and I think, I think thatyou do whatever you want.

(01:34:55):
Um, a hundred percent do exactlywhatever you want, but there is
a big difference between havinga breeding program and raising
cattle.
Yeah, I know a lot people thatjust raise cattle and there's a
lot of people who, the cattle isthe crop.
It's a cash crop.
And if, if dollar maternal workstoday, that's fine.
And if it's dollar C tomorrow,that's fine.
If it's dollar F and they justkeep retooling, retooling,

(01:35:16):
retooling.
And I'm not saying that's wrong,but just don't tell me you have
a program.
Um, because I wanna buy frompeople that have longstanding
programs that have tried toestablish a direction with some
level of repeatability.
Something we didn't warn peopleabout was the, the bull of the
month, the flavor of the month.

(01:35:37):
You gotta be careful with thosebulls.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
No, and, and you better knowwhat it is that, you know, maybe
those people that are superexcited about the flavor this
month have used them on a set ofcows that you don't have.
Right.
And so it really, really workedfor them.
But you don't have thoseopportunities'cause you don't
have those cows.
Right.
I mean, the other one is, um,honestly, conception rate.

(01:35:59):
I mean, there's a lot of bullsthat.
Can bring you a whole pile ofpotential, but you find out why
didn't they fertilize as many ofthe eggs, or they aren't as good
an IVF, or, uh, boy, I got 35%on that sire and I got 85 on
this other sire.
Right?
Um, how many unicorns you wannabreed?
So, I don't know.
I feel like we probably beataround that bush enough and

(01:36:22):
hopefully we found something onsire selection.
Um, but it's always best, alwaysbest to see'em yourself, right?
Nobody will see'em like you do.
I agree.
I agree.
Yeah.
Um, so this episode will comeout, be the last episode before
Christmas.
Okay.

(01:36:42):
So, uh, Christmas plans realquick, dude.
Going, your dad's, you're goingto your mom.
I mean, your, uh, Abby's.
Family, what are you doing?
So get this, I got a group textfrom my dad's.
Yeah.
And this morning on the grouptext, they sell a little bit of
freezer beef, you know?
Yeah.
Cousin called and he wanted fourprime ribs.

(01:37:02):
Dang.
My sister's like, we got fourprime ribs.
They sold'em like, Hey, are wehaving like foster farm Turkey?
Chris is like, am I gonna haveto bring my own prime rib?
Hey, what's the deal?
Hey, hey Google.
Shady brook farms.
And the first thing that pops upis a Turkey farm in
Pennsylvania.
So you could get a Turkey, youcould get a shady brook Turkey.

(01:37:22):
I do not want any form of bird.
I ate the only bird I eat coupledays or a couple weeks ago,
Thanksgiving.
Um, I'm so excited, man.
I, I talk about my kids so muchon this podcast and um, that's
probably what's kept the threeof us together more than
anything is our love for ourfamilies.

(01:37:43):
But, uh, we get to go pick upBen this next week.
I was just fixing to say, isn'the coming home?
Man, I'm so excited to have himhome.
I'm just so excited.
I, it would be like if Nate leftyou for a while and you know,
you absolutely love it.
It'd be the same with Sophiatoo.
Just different.

(01:38:03):
Right?
Right.
Um, when you have those kids andthey each have their role and
then they've been missing for awhile, it's kind of, it's a hole
and we don't catch up.
'cause nobody fix.
Nobody fills that hole.
Right.
So I miss our child.
I miss my friend.
Um, but we miss the work he doesfor us too.

(01:38:24):
Right.
In a big way.
So he's coming back.
Um, he'll be here.
I won't say it because theseterrorists are on the other side
of the door, but, um, theirChristmas gift is pretty
exciting.
Like, I was so exciting.
I was gonna ask, what about the,are you in a different room?
Because the stack of Milwaukeestuff's gone.

(01:38:47):
Did you move it?
Oh no, this is, I twisted.
Oh no, she did move it.
Yeah.
I don't know where she put it.
It, but I've got a snap ontoolbox.
Do you see how far up I am?
Yeah, it is, because there's abig old snap on toolbox.
Did he win that too?
Or did he just buy that?
No, he bought that.
He bought that.
But no, there's crap everywherein this room.

(01:39:08):
'cause he was home last week andjust napalmed everything.
There's bills everywhere.
There's checks everywhere.
It's, it's a mess.
But, um, can you write me acheck?
He probably could.
I, I couldn't.
Things are tough vr uh, butanyways, um, I'm excited for the
holidays.
Absolutely.
We're gonna take some time off.

(01:39:29):
Um, we're gonna do some funthings.
We're gonna spend time withfamily and we're gonna spend
time in our church.
Sweet.
How about you guys?
We have a big project underway.
Yep.
Gonna put eggs in Saturday.
Hopefully the big project willbe done or almost done.
And we got a freeze brand, onemore group of heifers and we

(01:39:50):
gotta finish cleaning up thecombine.
And we should be able to do thatif we have the weather for it
relatively quickly.
And then we get to coast for awhile and through the holidays,
hopefully maybe be a little morelax on how much stuff's going
on.
Do you have any uniquetraditions?

(01:40:12):
Um, nah, not really.
The, the, I don't know that it'sa tradition, but we always host
Amy's family here, her mom andher nieces and nephews and all
that.
That's fun.
It's really fun.
And this, did your mom ever say.
I hope you understand what aincredibly waste of resources

(01:40:36):
this was.
No, no, no.
But um, we have a big time.
Everybody's cutting up it'slight.
Um, anytime we ever went to momand dad's, it was, it was just
different, you know, dad used toget mad at everybody'cause we
all got loud and when we're allenjoying each other, but, and
this will be the first Christmaswithout dad, so it's gonna be a

(01:40:58):
little different, you know, and,um, but hopefully we'll have a
big time and, and appreciatebeing around each other and, you
know, have a good time.
Have you ever gone Christmas,Caroline?
No.
I wanna think maybe, and I wouldhave to ask Amy.

(01:41:22):
When we were dating, I thinkmaybe, I don't know why I think
this, but I think when we weredating we might have, I went one
time.
Did you?
In college.
I, I, I was trying to figure itout because I was at a
convention and one of my collegeroommates parents was at this
convention last week and they, Isaid, are you guys doing
anything for Christmas?

(01:41:42):
They go, well, you know, we gocaroling all the time.
And I said, did I go carolingwith you guys one year or did I
go, caroling?
Did your son bring thattradition down when we were at
college?
I know it sounds California, andit sounds lame, but I'm gonna
tell you what, I've never seenso much joy you could put on
people's faces, right?
Than walking around goingcaroling.

(01:42:03):
That's what I'm saying.
And it's so fun.
You like packing a minivan, allthese people, and you know,
everybody's having a drink hereand there and having a big time,
and then you stop in yourChristmas caroling.
It was so much fun.
Well, I mean, who's gonna be madabout that?
Really?
Because either they're gonna belaughing or they're gonna think
it's awesome or very, I mean,maybe somebody's having a

(01:42:27):
terrible day and you brightentheir day.
Or maybe somebody's having aterrible day and they're just
like, leave me f alone.
Could you imagine though, ifyou, if you knocked on, if
somebody knocked on your doorand you opened up and Corbin was
wearing a Santa Claus hat andAir Force ones singing Jingle
Bells or Silent Knight Matching,matching Air Force one.
Yes, yes, yes.

(01:42:50):
It would be perfect.
All man.
Are we ready to wrap up?
'cause I'm gonna, yeah, we lookto all the listeners.
Merry Christmas.
Have a safe Christmas.
Merry Christmas and a MerryChristmas, and we think we're
gonna try to record one beforeChristmas, so it'll be on the
books for after Christmas wheneverybody's traveling.
Yeah.
I hope everyone has a great andsafe Christmas and thank you for

(01:43:13):
hanging with us for, has it beena few year, almost a year?
Almost a year.
Almost a year.
I never would've, we have newpeople all the time, you know?
Yeah.
It's, it's like all these newpeople that are reaching out to
us that have found us for thefirst time that don't even know
we have our own deal yet andRight.
It's always so fun and I'm justthankful for you guys and you

(01:43:34):
know, they've become likefamily.
There's a couple listeners thatwe've mentioned before on here,
it's like anything comes up onsocial media.
These guys are like, they areteam around the shoe now and
don't think that goes unnoticed.
Thank you guys.
Right.
And Merry Christmas to you andyour families.
That's right.
All right.
Take it away, tumor.

(01:44:00):
We will see you next time aroundthe shoot.