10/1/07: Our customers make money with cattle purchased from us.
You also can profit by purchasing at our next production sale, November 1, 2008. The following two examples prove this conclusion.
- Kent Dollar of Dollar’s Diamond D purchased Yankee Nancy as a bred heifer for $5,000 in 2006. Kent then sold her first calf, a polled heifer, for $19,000 in 2007. Kent made almost 4 times his investment in less than a year and she still has years of money making production left.
- Yankee Nina was purchased in 2005 by Greg Kemp of Indian Creek Cattle Company for $20,000 as a young, open heifer. Greg sold her first polled heifer calf for $28,000 in 2007. Nina has years of production remaining.
Increase your profits by attending and purchasing at our next production sale to be held at YCR on November 1, 2008. Almost the entire sale offering will consist of the best Polled Fullblood Fleckvieh genetics available in the world.
It was a very productive spring. Mother nature was very kind, providing more than adequate rain for the storage of water in our lake for the irrigation of the upper ranch. There was also sufficient snow in the mountains to provide water to irrigate the lower ranch with water transported to us by the irrigation districts. Our part of the world is very dry during the growing season. Nothing will grow if you don’t have access to irrigation water.
The calf crop was disappointing, only because we had 80% bulls this year. It took longer this winter to get all of the calves on the ground so, to get our calving period back to a 70 day spread, and to reduce our cow herd because we had exceeded the capacity of the ranch to be self sufficient, we culled a number of the older cows and those that were late calving. Anything that wasn’t “good enough” was cause to be loaded on the truck going to town. Focusing on our younger females also gives an opportunity to utilize the advancements we have made in our breeding program.
The most notable calves this year were sired by Nitro and Enterprise. Nitro’s calves all came unassisted, even from first calf heifers. They are predominately solid colored with mostly a small star or blaze on the head. One is solid colored overall. A number are polled. The Enterprise calves were a little larger and we assisted three from first calf heifers. They are likewise solid colored on the body and consistently have at least goggles on the head. The calves from both appear to have the potential for good performance and the weaning weights are within our projections.
We continue to focus our efforts on breeding only Full Fleckvieh Fullblood cattle. We believe that maintaining our focus on one breed enables us to do a much better job than if we divided our time with developing another breed. We are putting all of our eggs in one basket and watching them hatch and grow.
11/1/06: WORLD CLASS GENETICS FOR A REAL WORLD PRICE
The 10/28/06 sale held here was very successful for the purchasers. Good deals abounded. The genetics purchased at this sale will make money for the purchasers and assist each in advancing their own programs.
Genetics sold into three countries: Australia, three provinces in Canada, and 16 states in the United States. The high selling lot was a flush purchased by Anchor D Ranch, Alberta, Canada. The high selling bred heifer was purchased by Bar-5, Ontario, Canada. The high selling open heifer was purchased by Little Creek Fleckvieh, Mississippi.
The average price paid was US$2,465.00. The goal of YCR to sell polled Fleckvieh genetics at a real world price was achieved.
Plan on attending our next sale on November 1, 2008.
9/6/06: Click Here for the October 27-28, 2006 Sale Catalog.
8/28/06: The first cutting of hay is in the barn and we are part way through the second cutting. It was much easier this time through with the use of our new John Deere 4995 Windrower with a 994 rotary platform. It is a luxury to operate, especially when compared to our old, many times rebuilt, swather.
So far this summer, we have had record hot weather. The weather was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for a couple of weeks in July and August continued with much of the same. It hasn’t rained here since the first of June.
Our youngest daughter, Tara, her husband David and children now live on the ranch. They previously lived in Alaska where David has his law practice. The traveling for his lawyer work makes this a convenient location for him. Our oldest daughter, Laresa, husband Bill, and their children have lived here for about 3 years. Bill manages a transportation service. Our lives changed considerably with the addition of two families, 5 grandchildren, 8 horses, 4 dogs and 5 cats.
The calves born this year are turning out to be exceptional. For a preview, please go to the Our Programs section of this website and look at a few of the new polled calves, as well as at the individual cow pages for K&H Dutchess 28L and Yankee Barbara.
We are getting ready for the World’s First Polled Fleckvieh Fullblood sale. It will be held here on October 27 – 28, 2006. Allan Browarny was here on August 2 and 3 for photos. Polled genetics from 4 different countries are consigned. There have been a lot of inquires.
The catalog will be out after the first of September. If you want a catalog mailed to you, please let us know.
The myriad of details in getting this sale up and running are staggering. My list of things yet to do is over a page long.
The border closure between the USA and Canada has been opened northbound so Canadian breeders will be able to take advantage of the opportunity to purchase genetics bred south of their border. The prognosticators predict that the border southbound will be opened this coming winter.
Please attend this event to view and purchase some great cattle as well as to have a great time. There are a lot of interesting things to do and see in this area as outlined in a link on the first page of our website.
1/31/06
: We start calving on January 1 and hopefully end on the first of March. The bad weather that started in December continued unabated. It has either rained, sleeted or snowed almost constantly since then. We have lost calves where the cow calved too close to the creek and were swept away in the flood waters. The mud isn’t the best for calves either. Looking at it optimistically, we are about half way through. The results make it all worthwhile when you view the calves on the ground. There are in excess of a hundred twenty five calves on the ground now and a large number show lots of promise.
We are in the planning stages for a production sale on to be held here on
October 28, 2006
. To our knowledge, it will be the world’s first sale emphasizing polled full fleckvieh fullblood cattle. We plan on this being an annual event. Polled females will be bred horned and polled; horned females will be bred polled. We plan on consigning a number of solid colored females and perhaps an outstanding bull or two. There should be several polled bulls on offer. It is possible that there will be a number of guest consignors. We anticipate posting the sale catalog on our website no later than the first of September, assuming that I get the photos done in time.
With so many details to take care of in putting on a sale, I’m certain the remainder of the year will be particularly busy for us.
11/10/05
: We have had a successful season, in spite of the bad weather that afflicted us all spring and summer.
Our first two polled full fleckvieh fullblood females to sell were purchased by Greg Kemp of Indian Creek Cattle Company,
Huntsville
,
Alabama
. Greg took home Yankee Nina from the Quest VI and Yankee Fergy, from the FSFF Showcase sale in
Huntsville
,
Alabama
. Thank you Greg. We hope that the progeny from these two fine females will enhance your breeding program.
Our polled breeding program advanced several generations with the 2005 calf crop. While we will continue to use our older polled genetics, we plan on testing four 2005 polled bull calves on approximately 20 to 30 females in the 2006 breeding season. Go to the individual bull pages for Yankee Neutron and Yankee Enterprise to view two of our new additions.
5/1/05: This was going to be our first year as a Fleckvieh breeder to spend time on marketing to be highlighted by a production sale in November 2005. However, mother nature intervened with a drought. The local irrigation districts that provide the water to irrigate our hay fields only have 30% of the normal snow pack and stored water they need to operate for a full season. The lake that provides the irrigation water for the upper ranch is now at only 50% capacity. This means that we won’t have enough water to grow grass in the pastures or to put up enough hay for the winter. Because this will be a very short grass year, the performance of the cattle will suffer. Accordingly, we have rescheduled our production sale to November 11, 2006.
On a better note, who can avoid praising the yearly calf crop in the spring. The most promising calves are sired by Natural. To begin with, Natural produced “THE LITTER” from a mating with Lucy. There are a few that are totally red and some with a star or blaze on the head. To make it even better, some are polled. These will be very growthy animals. Both the sire and the dam are GeneSTAR Marbling * and Tenderness ** and have large rib eyes.
We once again AI’s a number of females to Fritz with a number of polled offspring resulting. Evan produced a number of polled calves from polled dams. Walberg has a number of polled calves from horned females sired by Rusty. Missouri’s first Fleckvieh calf crop is on the ground. There is more color variation in the Missouri calves than I had hoped for, but, for the most part, they are solid colored in the body and at least have double goggles. There are a few that are solid red with just a star or a blaze on the head.
Because of the quality offspring, we are continuing to use each of these 4 bulls for pasture breeding in furtherance of our Serial Breeding © program. Neutron is being used for the first time this breeding season.
There is an increasing amount of interest in the Fleckvieh breed in the west. We are proud to be able to contribute to the development of this great breed.
8/4/04: The 2004 calf crop looks to be one of the best ever. Each of the herdsires produced offspring that show lots of promise. I just put some of the calf pictures on the website. We are particularly impressed with some of the calves sired by Natural, Evan and Walberg. The Natural sired calves are a continuation of our Serial Breeding Program because they were produced from dams sired first by Tradition and then by Bandero. These calves show lots of potential for growth and are colored right. A high percentage of them are solid red with only a little white on the head. Walberg produced a number of polled heifers that, like his prior offspring, have lots of depth and capacity. We have a number of polled females sired by him in the herd.
Our pasture breeding season was successfully completed. Each of the herdsires stayed the course and remained in good condition to the end.
Summer is our busiest time of the year. It takes a lot of time and work to keep the fields and pastures irrigated, put up hay, and keep the herds rotated to fresh grass. We just finished converting one 50 acre field from flood irrigation by ditches to a piped system that doesn’t need a pump to deliver the water. We will soon start on a couple of fields that need to be reworked and planted in alfalfa. If we can get to it, there are a couple of dryland fields that we want to plant in oats and peas.
For quite some time, the cow pages on our website have been “under construction.” Even though they will not be completed, we are going live within a few days. It is still a work in progress. You will observe that the pictures of some sires and dams are missing. I have just about exhausted all of my sources and patience, attempting to find pictures that I know exist because I took them. There are also pictures of animals that are in the herd that have never been taken that I need to capture. The EVB charts and pedigrees of the cows have yet to be completed. This website is a high maintenance creature.
We truly appreciate receiving the compliments, comments, suggestions, and edits that viewers of our website have sent and we hope will continue to send.
4/10/04: The month of March was glorious with record breaking temperatures. One day was the warmest since 1911. Almost looks like we could start cutting hay in a couple of weeks. We need to start irrigation very soon.
Our calving season went well. This is the first calf crop sired by Natural at YCR. They show lots of promise with significant length and capacity. A number of them have almost solid colored heads. There were only 2 bulls and 8 females sired by him. This is also the first calf crop sired by Evan. Evan’s calves are distinguishable by depth of body and lots of butts and guts. I’ll get pictures on the website before summer is gone.
For the 2004 breeding season, we are walking Natural, Bandero, Missouri, Walberg, and Evan 440L. We used Fritz extensively for AI breeding.
Our embryo transfer work was very successful with 25 fresh embryos transferred on April 9.
Our cow pages for the website are not yet completed. I am the holdup with lots of pictures remaining to be taken this summer. We’ll go live this fall, completed or not.
Roy Schwake was here the last of March. Roy picked 4 full sisters from the heart of our breeding program to go to Dollar’s Diamond D Quest Sale in Arkansas, in September, 2004. They are all Full Fleckvieh Fullbloods, sired by Bandero from Tradition sired dams. They are all bred to Natural for early 2005 calves. All are the right kind, in addition to being solid red with substantial facial pigmentation. The 2005 calves sired by Natural should be fantastic, should have solid red bodies, and almost solid red heads.
3/11/04: Had I known how much time and effort it would take to develop a website, this project would never have gotten started. But, as it started to come together, with the able assistance of website designer, Jake Akin, jakeakin@mind.net (who knows what he is doing), it became an engaging activity.
As you may have noticed, this site went live before it was completed. We decided to put up what we had at the present, and will add more later.You will also have noticed I am not a good photographer. It also takes a huge amount of time to get the subject organized and then do an acceptable job in capturing the image. We will continue to strive to provide photographs so that this site will be more informative. This is a work in progress.
Thank you for taking the time to look us over. If we can help you with anything, please let us know.
We welcome your suggestions, corrections, and criticisms. Please go to the contact us section, or email us at the address below and share your thoughts.
