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HUB STORIES

Springer Simmentals

2/4/2017

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"Here, have a burger."

Jeff Springer and I had never met face to face, but minutes in to our first meeting, he was offering me a meal. The burgers were fresh off the grill he and his crew had hauled all the way from Cresco, Iowa to Denver, Colorado for the National Western Stock Show. He pointed out the homemade potato salad, cooler with drinks, and condiments then insisted my husband and I take his chairs and sit down in his tent in the stockyards to eat.

We had just finished his sale catalog before leaving for Denver, and I had noticed the fatherly pride in the tone of his sale letter when he wrote about his young crew. I could tell he valued the young men and women from his local area who helped him around the ranch in the day-to-day operations and especially before shows and sales. He had brought them with him to Denver to help him prep for the Simmental Show, and as we ate they worked around the pens clipping cattle, grilling burgers, and prepping the show pen banners. They easily laughed and joked together, and I could see that this was more than just a part-time job for all of them. There was a sense of family, of mentorship, and of community.

We discussed the changing cattle industry and the use of social media in marketing. He let me ask a million questions about his herd and operation, and he patiently answered them all. He loves his cattle, and he loves his people, both his crew and his customers. And now he was including us at Livestock HUB in the circle.
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The Springer Simmental Sale of Value Based Genetics takes place today at 1:00 p.m. in Decorah, Iowa at the Decorah Sales Commission. I guarantee that the moment you walk in, you'll feel welcomed. If you have questions, he'll answer them. If you ask, he'll even show you photos of his adorable grandchildren. And when it comes to his cattle, he's all business. The research, time and money he puts into managing and building the strong genetics present in his herd are representative of the dedication and commitment he puts forth in all areas of his life.

Good luck at the sale today, Springer Simmentals!
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To Those Who Don't Get Snow Days

1/25/2017

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I know you're out there. School is cancelled. Roads are impassible. It's a snow day, and if you're in the livestock business, that means something totally different for you this time of year than the traditional use of the phrase.

Snow day. According to Urban Dictionary, one of the most popular public definitions of the term is "An unexpected break. An unexpected escape from it all. A day to relax, not a day to catch up on work".

Let's just take a moment to wipe the tears of laughter from our eyes, shall we? If you own livestock, then that right there is definitely NOT your definition of a snow day.

On a snow day, you get up early. Actually, it's possible you've been up several times during the night. You had to check the waterers to make sure they didn't freeze over. Maybe you never even went to bed because you have several animals who are due to give birth at any moment. You've been watching them closely and made sure those with close due dates were safe in warm pens before the snow began. If you know anything, you know that snowfall and labor go hand in hand. There is always, ALWAYS, at least one momma that decides the middle of a blizzard is the best time ever to have her baby, and she's and are likely to throw a calf with in the middle of a snow bank if you're not watching her like a hawk.

You get the usual morning chores done, but you can't go in and put your feet up yet. You have a load of feed coming in two hours, which means you have to hustle to throw the blade on the tractor and push snow so the semis can get in your driveway. It will take much longer than two hours to really do justice to pushing back the eight inches you got last night. So for now you'll have to start by creating a path for the trucks, then later you'll have to come back out and finish the rest.

By mid afternoon you're back in the barns checking on those snow day babies. Everyone is tucked in tight and warm, so you head back inside to do some book work and tax prep. Tax season seems to come earlier and earlier every year. Your eyes burn as you focus on the numbers - you're feeling that two a.m. herd check now. As you pour yourself another cup of coffee - black - you look out the window and realize the wind has picked up. You know what that means. You shrug back into your coveralls and boots and head out to start plowing again.

Twenty minutes later, you smile from your perch in the cab of the tractor as you watch your kids pile out the front door, arrayed in a multicolored rainbow of scarves, hats, mittens and snowpants. You toot the horn at them, and they all wave, then you see them whoop and holler as they catch sight of the "snow mountain" you've been making them. In two seconds, they're making their way to the top, and you know they'll be sliding and rolling down it until their cheeks are red and their mittens are caked with snow.

When the tractor is stashed safely back in the shed, you head over to check on the new babies again. You feel a sense of pride as you watch a newborn walk on wobbly legs over to nurse. The barn door bangs open and a cold wind blows in as the kids, lobbing one last snowball missile, barge in to oooh and aaaah and the new additions. You glance out the window and realize the light is fading already. Time for supper. With a kid under each arm, you charge for the house, where you know there's a plateful of something warm and good waiting for you.

No, maybe your snow days don't look like the textbook definition. Maybe they're better.
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The National Western Stock Show and Doing the New Thing

1/20/2017

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I've been working in the livestock promotions industry for over 16 years, so it is with no small sense of shame that I make this confession:  until ten days ago, I had never been to the National Western Stock Show.

Not familiar with the National Western Stock Show? Neither was I when I first began working for the executive directors of the Iowa Angus Association in 2000. Dave and Annette Sweeney of Alden, IA had a lifetime of cattle experience, but they needed someone who knew layout and design to help them create and publish the association's newspaper and directory. I didn't know anything about cattle, but I did know layout and design. What started out as a newlywed college student's part-time job turned into not only a career and the establishment of two graphic design businesses, but a lifelong friendship and partnership.

Do the new thing.

After two years, our family had grown by a boy and a girl. I loved the work I did for the Sweeneys, and I loved my children, but I couldn't keep trying to combine the two by bringing my children to work (Anybody ever tried that? It's a super good time. I'm being sarcastic. Two kids + a billion computer cords and cables = disaster). It was time for a change. Annette and I talked about me working at home. It was a risk on her part, but we decided to give it a try. Immediately I was able to accomplish far more from home than I had going in to the office.

Do the new thing.

Several years after we founded Practical Promotions, a graphic design business that contracted with an auction service and cattle producers to create sale catalogs for cattle sales, change was again in the air. Annette Sweeney ran for and won a seat in the Iowa House of Representatives. It was a complete joy to work side by side with her on her campaign and watch her shine in a role that truly only she could have fulfilled at that time. When the time came and she handed over Practical Promotions to my sole management, I was nervous, but I was ready. If she could step out, so could I.

Do the new thing.

Things keep changing, and I keep doing the new thing. If I'm being honest, I'd have to say it's kind of opposite my natural bent. I like consistency, safety, and sameness - yet I often find myself saying, "Yes!" when a new challenge arises. It doesn't make sense, I know. I added web design and social media management to my list of services, and this summer I went into partnership with Dave Sweeney as Livestock HUB. It's because of Livestock HUB that I ended up at the National Western Stock Show for the first time - the first time, but certainly not the last.
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I loved it. I loved the people, I loved the cattle, I loved the exhibits and the food and the smell of the sawdust. I watched an Australian horse trainer explain how he trained horses to do specific tasks for film and TV. I walked the yards and admired all the beautiful banners promoting farms and ranches all over the U.S. (It's a graphic designer's occupational hazard - getting sidetracked by great design work). I saw the artistry of the teams of groomers who worked long, hard hours preparing the cattle for the shows and sales. I met ranchers from South Dakota and Missouri and Wisconsin and Iowa who were eating and sleeping with their cattle for days on end - and loving every minute of it. I ate grilled burgers and potato salad with cattle breeders and brisket and cornbread and beans in the exhibit hall. I had my boots shined for the first time.

I could go on about rides back to the hotel with Mike Sorensen of Livestock Plus and his family, my poor husband's suffering through an awful cold, Jeanne Conover's ever ready stash of peanut M&Ms and popcorn and friendly chats with cattlemen over breakfast buffets. I could tell you about waking up and seeing the mountains behind the skyscrapers of downtown Denver, visiting the Yard Bar and hearing stories of days remembered, and hearing the swoosh thunk of the bid cards coming in through the pneumatic tube in the sale office.

But I won't. Because you need to see, hear, taste, smell and feel it all for yourself. If you've never been to the National Western Stock Show, go next year. It's time.

Do the new thing.
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Yes, it was as good as it looks.
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Angus Acres Complete Dispersion to be Featured at 2016 Midwest Connection Angus Sale

11/15/2016

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Blaine Shoemaker stands in front of the barn he helped build as a youth. This structure is being restored.
    Blaine Shoemaker grew up on a large row crop and cattle operation where the Angus Acres headquarters stands today. Blaine and his brother Dwight were under the constant supervision and tutelage of their father Clarence and Uncle Everett who was the primary cattle operations manager over the fed cattle, swine and 200 Angus cow herd. The Shoemaker boys were avid 4-H exhibitors, and Blaine claimed class winning banners locally as well as at Chicago, Denver, Fort Worth and Houston Livestock Exhibitions. Shoemaker Farms consumed most, if not all of its grain production through livestock at one time yet yielded to an expansion of grain operations in the mid 70’s and dispersed the cow herd.
    Blaine’s livestock interest led to an education in animal science at the University of Illinois where he competed on the winning 1960 livestock judging team. He later received his master’s degree in meat technology and marketing under the supervision of his mentor Dr. Burdette Breidenstein. Blaine’s studies revolved around cutability studies to predict the retail product yield based on quality grade for the USDA. His studies were eventually utilized to develop the USDA Yield Grades 1-5 that are used today.
    After completing his thesis, Blaine followed Dr. Breidenstein to Wilson Foods where he soon headed the processed beef division in the Oklahoma City office. Later, he joined Sizzler Steak Houses in charge of purchasing beef for their 600 plus restaurants, continuing to operate from his Oklahoma home.
    Angus Acres was born in 1996 when Blaine and Dwight came back together with a breeding philosophy spawned by years in the beef industry and the knowledge of how quality and yield grade can influence profitability. The female selections combined visual appeal with EPD values generally in the top 25% with a primary focus on carcass traits. The program used only AI sires and propagated the best cows through embryo transplant.
    Every member of the Shoemaker family is highly educated, including his wife Tony, who has a business degree from the University of Iowa and their daughters, and two eldest granddaughters. Daughter Gwen and her husband Allen Niemann live in Oklahoma City and have two college aged daughters. Another daughter, Amy and her husband Jim Martin have two daughters in the third  and sixth grades.
    On December 18th, Blaine and Dwight will hang up their sorting sticks and pitch forks and are planning a more relaxed lifestyle focused on family and friends.
    “I’ve been blessed to have worked with good people and good cattle,” said Shoemaker. “And I believe that great opportunities exist for the next generation of cattlemen.”
      The Angus Acres herd will be dispersed in its entirety at the Midwest Connection Angus Sale held December 18, 2016 at 1 p.m. at the Bloomfield Livestock Auction in Bloomfield, Iowa.
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M & M Patterson Farms American Blues and County Line Blues

10/5/2016

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Owners
Mark and Marsha Patterson, Gilman, IA
(M&M Patterson Farms American Blues)
Owners
Jacob Patterson and Kristen Beltz, Gilman, IA
(County Line Blues)
Breed
American Blue Cattle

About the Operations
M&M Patterson Farms American Blues and County Line Blues are American Blue cattle operations in Gilman, Iowa that feature two generations of cattle breeders.

M&M Patterson Farms American Blues

A Generational Love of Cattle
The Patterson's love of cattle began with Mark's father and Jacob's grandfather, Frank Patterson. Mark followed closely in the farming and livestock raising footsteps of his father. Growing up on the farm found Mark eagerly helping out with chores and following closely behind his dad.

"I used to go into the machine shed and rub grease and dirt on my jeans so I'd would look like my dad," commented Mark. It was Frank who encouraged Mark to develop a small herd with the 4-H heifers he showed at the county fair. Mark Patterson began farming in 1980 after graduating from Ellsworth Community College.  He married his wife, Marsha, in 1983. Having grown up on a farm herself, Marsha had no problem jumping in and working together with Mark caring for their small herd and farming the family's acres. Eventually they added two children to their family:  Jacob, who farms and raises his own cattle herd alongside Mark and Marsha with his fiancee Kristen Beltz and daughter Amaya, and Erin, a high school junior active in 4-H showing cattle, swine, and meat goats.

But how does an Iowa farm family with a small crossbred cattle herd become interested in the American Blue Breed? The American Blue breed is relatively new to the United States in comparison to many other breeds, but it's gaining popularity, a fact that did not escape the Patterson's notice.

"After watching a TV program about the American Blue Cattle,  we really became interested in adding this breed to our cattle herd." said Marsha. "We started researching the breed and finding breeders in the state of Iowa. They are very impressive looking and caught our attention right away." The Pattersons purchased their first American Blue bull in 2007 and immediately began breeding him to their crossbred cows. They were very impressed with the calves that resulted from the match.

"We loved the extra muscling and the docile nature of the calves," said Marsha. "Each year we kept the best heifers as replacements and the steers were raised to sell to our meat customers." Within a few years almost all of their female carried a percentage of American Blue in them.

Last fall, the Pattersons decided to incorporate even more American Blue genetics into their herd with the purchase of one fullblood cow and three fullblood heifers. They also purchased a high percentage heifer from a breeder in Kansas. The Pattersons' favorite time of year is calving season, and this year will be no exception.

"Our favorite part of working with the cattle is in the spring of the year when the babies start hitting the ground," stated Mark. He shares that the arrival of each calf is met with much anticipation. "I love seeing if the breeding match ups of bull to cow produce the exceptional traits we're looking for in our calves." 

"We are very anxious to see the babies that these new bloodlines will produce," Marsha commented. The Pattersons have done their homework and are passionate about their herd. "Our beef customers today are looking for a healthier product, and that is what we strive to give them. Blue beef is lower in fat and cholesterol than chicken breast and higher in protein than regular beef or chicken. These calves have a higher feed efficiency and yield a greater percentage of carcass weight in retail product. Our calves routinely dress out at 70-74%."

The Pattersons recently began exhibiting cattle at the National American Blue Show in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is the premier American Blue show in the U.S., and but it offers a unique challenge to families like the Patterons - it takes place right in the middle of fall harvest.

"At first, I was against taking these cattle to a show that was during harvest," admits Marsha. "But it was so much fun watching the cattle that we have raised do so well at the national show." That doesn't mean that making it work is easy. Because the show is during harvest season, the family has to split up to get everything accomplished. This means Mark stays home to continue the harvest while Marsha, Erin, Jacob and Kristen take the cattle to the show. But somehow, they make it work.

"Family is so important to us, and I am so proud of the way we all work together to get this done," said Marsha. Although they could not all be in the same place at the same time, the family found creative ways to stay in touch during the show.

"I was receiving updates and pictures from the show via text message while I was in the combine," said Mark. He admits he could hardly contain his enthusiasm upon hearing that daughter Erin had won the showmanship class. And the wins just kept coming. His favorite heifer won her class and went on to win Reserve Grand Champion High Percentage Female. His steer was named Reserve Grand Champion Market Steer.

Erin, 17, enjoys showing their cattle at the Poweshiek County Fair and spent quite a bit of time in the winner's circle this year, bringing home Champion American Blue Heifer, Grand Champion Carcass Beef, and Reserve Champion Production Market Beef honors.

"I am now hooked," Marsha readily admits. "Last year I was there to keep things organized and running smoothly for the kids, but this year I am looking forward to showing one of the heifers myself." The Pattersons plan to show in Tulsa this fall as well. Undoubtedly, social media will again play a role in keeping the family connected.

Sources:  http://www.belgianblue.org/history.html, http://www.americanbluecattle.org/history.php

County Line Blues

The Next Generation
Mark and Marsha's son, Jacob Patterson of County Line Blues, began building his American Blue herd in the summer of 2014 when he purchased two full-blood American Blue bottle calves. 

Jacob, like his father before him, has been around livestock his whole life and personally takes care of his cattle every day, working hard to be sure they are safe and healthy. Managing the herd is a family affair. Jacob and his fiancé, Kristen, chore together every morning.  Although Kristen did not come from a farming background, she loves living on the farm and helping care for the livestock with him. 

"My parents have been a crucial source of support and knowledge for getting the business off the ground and offering their assistance in any way they can," acknowledges Jacob. And in watching how things were progressing with their American Blues, he made the decision to invest in the breed himself.

"What I like about American Blues is that they are docile in temperament and have a shorter gestation period," Jacob said. He was also drawn to their ability to produce lean meat. "They have significantly leaner meat while still rivaling the flavor and tenderness of fattier meat, and they have a very high hanging carcass yield."

Not only that, he said, but the breed is impressive to look at. "They are a visually stunning breed because of their unique muscling.  They naturally have more muscle fibers, but they are thinner fibers, providing a lean, tender meat."

"The main goal of our operation is developing high-quality breeding stock," explains Jacob. He, along with his fiancee Kristen Beltz and her daughter Amaya, strives to breed for high-quality, low birth-weight bulls and heifers to reduce unnecessary stress on the calves and mothers." Patterson stated that one of their main priorities is treating their animals with respect in a nurturing environment.  From the day they are born, each animal is treated like valuable members of the Patterson family. family. "We strategize as much as possible to ensure each heifer or cow is bred to a bull that will not give her a bigger calf than her body can handle."

Every day on the farm is different, and Patterson enjoys each stage of the herd's development. "The days leading up to the birth of a calf are always so exciting and suspenseful!" he said.  "It's also fun to learn the different personalities each cow, calf, or bull have.  The docile nature of our animals allows us to have a close relationship with them which is a very rewarding feeling."

"We breed to produce bulls that any cattle operation can purchase and bring into their bloodlines to create better quality market steers," he said. "We would like to see our breed utilized more in the meat industry.  The Blues are a cost effective way to naturally lower fat content, higher yield percentages, and a flavorful addition to the other breeds already popular on the market.

One can tell that this isn't just about market value, however. You can sense the pride and amusement as Patterson shares stories of happenings around the farm. One of his favorite stories involves the day their young bull, Buford, escaped from the pasture he'd recently been moved to. Jacob, who hauls loads for the trucking branch of M&M Farms, was away on a transport. When Kristen went out to do chores, she discovered a large hole in the wire fence - and no bull in the pasture. Shortly after Marsha came out to help look for him, the neighbor called wondering if they were missing a bull.  They found Buford in the neighbor’s backyard using a pine tree as a scratching post.  Marsha put a makeshift halter on him and led him out of the yard.  He went willingly back to his home.  Needless to say, the pasture received a new electric fencer that day.

Patterson states that their biggest cheerleaders have been the families, the American Blue Cattle Association, and each other. 

"There isn’t a single one of them that wouldn’t drop what they’re doing to help you, whether it is lending a hand, giving advice, or just a little input," he said.  "We are surrounded by people who want us to succeed."
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    Christa Nichols

    Christa has been a graphic designer in the livestock industry for over 16 years. She loves telling the stories of the men and women in the livestock industry and their operations.

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