…and as a team—a group that works toward a common goal—we will win!
Just as with sports teams, in the cattle business there are several team members and all are important to your success.
The most important team member is you the OWNER—the man or woman in charge—the decision maker or coach if you prefer. You put together your team—identify and recruit the players (the cows and bulls that make up the herd), puts together the finances, land base and other resources needed plus make the decisions on herd health, nutrition, marketing, etc., all supported by advisors or assistant coaches. A plan is developed, goals are set and a marketing plan is put in place. Some plans are simple with minimum goals and marketing effort while others are more aggressive with the goal of doing the best with what you have—maybe winning it all by building a reputation as one of the best in the business.
No matter what your situation, the potential of your cow herd is limited by its genetic potential.
Because it all starts with genetics, the second most important team member is: YOUR GENETICS PROVIDER!
No matter how good the rest of your team is, success is limited by the genetic potential or talent level of your cows and bulls. How good are your cattle? What is their potential? What do you need to improve?
Two genetic traits, fertility and calving ease are fundamental to everything else we do in the cattle business.
After you get a live calf, other genetics like milk, growth and carcass value add to the potential profit of your cowherd and can be managed with the help of other team members to achieve success and profits.
That’s why Flying H Genetics works so hard to identify, reproduce and market only superior genetics to build a genetics foundation with the potential for your team to maximize efficiency and profits and produce a product consumers will pay a premium for time after time.
The cattle industry has many new tools to help us identify and select for superior genetics in many traits. With the help of performance data and DNA analysis we can rank the genetic power of every animal, bull or female, within and across breeds. But so many numbers are confusing, so Flying H Genetics developed our 5 Star Indexing System to help you easily identify animals that excel genetically for disposition, growth, muscle, carcass and maternal traits. To cover all the bases, we also guarantee calving ease on every bull we sell with many guaranteed for first calf heifers.
There are some traits that are economically relevant that we don’t have good genetics values for. Forageability, structural soundness, disease resistance and other functional traits are examples and must be observed and culled for to eliminate these undesirable traits.
This is where the Flying H Genetics 17 Quality Standards come into play. We evaluate traits like teat and udder quality, feet, leg and structural soundness, ability to make a living without a feed bucket both on cornstalks and fescue grass and other necessary functional and longevity traits to make sure we are offering the best genetics in every trait possible. That means we can offer a completely Superior Genetic package.
ONE VERY IMPORTANT THING THAT FLYING H GENETICS DOES NOT OFFER IS—FAT!!
Most seedstock producers add some extra fat to make their bulls look thicker and weigh more, making them “better” than they really are. This extra fat only benefits the bull seller because none of that extra weight and thickness will be passed to the calves and actually helps hide the faults of the animal, kind of like painting over rust on a used pickup. It may look better, but it does not change what is underneath. We consider that deceptive advertising.
Once you have the genetics right, both measured and observed, you need to make the most of them! That’s where the rest of the team comes into action.
Veterinary, nutritionist, marketing assistance, banker and family are all part of your team of players that help make the cattle business fun and profitable. Use their expertise to complement your experience and knowledge to make the most of what you have. And then make it even better by improving something—genetics, feed, health, management, grass, every year. If you’re not getting better, you’re losing ground.
Flying H Genetics uses many resources to continually improve our genetics and our operation. We also help our customers select the right genetics for their needs. We know our genetics, you know your needs—together we make a great team. Give us a call anytime. We love to talk cattle!
