Our Ranch & Genetic Program

The ranch is run by a couple of old ladies with a lot of help from neighbors, friends and family! We have been here for over 25 years, raise all our own feed, pasture the cattle close to home and love what we do! Come and take a look!

We enjoy having friends for coffee or cool refreshments on the patio! Please give us a call at 605-835-8420 and stop for a visit!

Our Philosophy

Our Philosophy

Our goal is to raise modern, efficient cattle for our own use and to share genetics with other producers to help them achieve similar goals. We like quiet cattle that calve easy and grow. Research now has shown that quiet cattle grow quicker, more efficient and return more profit.

We emphasize the end product. We look for wide topped, long ribbed cattle with muscle expression. Ribeye and carcass traits are always the end product of our business, or the “business end”!

Maternal qualities help us get the product created and growth gets us there quickly. Measuring these and developing these qualities is a challenge that all producers are working hard to excel at. Check out the EPDs on our cattle and see how we are doing!

Quality Focus

In an effort to bring quality, reliable livestock, we participate in DNA analysis of our bulls and heifers. Bulls are DNA matched to their sires to ensure that you are getting what we say you are getting! DNA analysis also adds to the accuracy of the EPDs of our breeding stock.

DNA testing is through Geneseek as provided by the American Simmental Association (ASA).

Our Genetic Program

Our Genetic Program

Our genetic program is based on raising quality, performance based cattle suitable for today’s modern market, emphasizing maternal quality, disposition, growth and efficiency. We started our herd with a purchase of Angus heifers and used SimAngus bulls to develop our base. Our first SimAngus bull was a ¾ Maximizer son purchased from John Volk & Sons, Battle Creek, NE in 1997.

We emphasized ease of calving and maternal traits early on and built our herd from Simmental sires such as sons of Harts Jesse James and Hart Subzero. We started using AI with heifers over 15 years ago and bred these to top Angus sires. These heifers played a great role in establishing our breeding program. Sires such as New Design 878, Mytty in Focus, Modern Design and Hoover Dam have been great additions to the female lines.

We added great Simmental sires such as Dream On, Sure Bet, Lucky Man and Olie (Ellingson’s Legacy). These sires have a proven history in the Simmental breed, and these cows are easy calving with great disposition and maternal qualities, along with growth and carcass quality.

We have expanded our AI program and now are breeding a majority of our herd using a variety of Simmental and SimAngus bulls. We are looking forward to calves this year from Cowboy Cut, Hooks Yellowstone, Fully Loaded, Wolfpack, Authority and Elevate.

We are committed to utilizing new science to enhance our program. We have been using DNA testing to verify our sires and to enhance our EPDs. DNA testing has permitted us to guarantee sire accuracy to our bull buyers and to have rock solid pedigrees in our cows. We are participating in the American Simmental Association’s Cow Herd DNA Roundup. Our cows will be part of this new venture to test and verify our cow herd. Our heifer replacements and yearling bulls have been routinely tested for the past 4 years.

All records are submitted to the American Simmental Association (ASA) and recorded with Total Herd Enrollment (THE). Weights, measurements and carcass measurements are submitted and included with history of all bulls and heifers. More data = more accuracy in our EPDs!

Hint: If you want to know what breed is having the biggest impact on Angus based cattle, take a look at some of the top Angus breeders today, and many of these have developed Simmental crossed cattle as an additional line-up in their programs! Look at the “Balancers,” and the top and most preferred is the Simmental and Simmental-Angus calves. Check your bull ads and get on board with Simmental!!