Keeping up with agriculture in Kansas

I cannot believe it is already the second term of the Spring semester! I've been keeping very busy with bull sales, feedlot and seedstock visits and classes.

I headed back to Haviland, Kansas to attend the Sandhill Farms annual Bull and Female Sale last weekend. It was great to see the end result, having been there for some of the preparation beforehand. I have a full appreciation for breeders that hold their own sales like this!

This is the sale arena at the Schultz's Sandhill Farms sale. I even got a mention in Kevin Schultz's opening speech!
(Photo supplied by Vera Schultz)

Sitting up watching the sale. Combine a fast-paced auctioneer, some good ring men,  and strong competition and it makes for a good sale! (Photo supplied by Vera Schultz)

 In the beef science class that I am taking this semester, we travel each week to visit different areas of the beef supply chain, as well as have guest speakers come in to present to us about the industry. This term, we have visited the Tiffany Cattle Co feedlot operation, Fink Beef Genetics seedstock operation and Larry Cohar, Vice President of Certified Angus Beef (CAB) spoke to us about marketing beef.

Tiffany Cattle Co. is run by two brothers, Shawn and Shane Tiffany. They run a custom fed feedlot of a maximum capacity of 15, 000 hd. Their story up until where they are know is quite interesting and inspiring. They were K-State graduates and worked in various areas of agriculture before both becoming the owners and managers of their own feedlot. 

This feedlot is quite unique! It is built on an American Army Corp airstrip from WWII. They have made good use of the existing concrete and built pens off the airstrip, leaving wide aprons on the inside of the pens. Consequently, the feedlot is triangular in shape rather than having traditional rows. 

It was a pretty cold day! The pens have a lot of slope because of the snow, wind and rain! 

This is Larry Corah, the Vice President of Certified Angus Beef. I have had the pleasure to meet Larry on a couple of occasions now. His presentation about branding of beef was interesting and the class participated in some marketing activities with him.

Since you have been in college....
the value of cattle in America have increased dramatically.

 Larry really put the value of cattle at the present in to perspective. Most of us get to our fourth year of university and realise that the time has flown by. This showed just how quickly, the value of cattle increased to be at extreme highs this year. There has been an increase in cull cow prices by 129% over the past four years!! There are a lot of producers sending cows to feedlots given their value. Corn is relatively cheap at the moment so there is a fairly inexpensive cost of gain at the moment.

 We had the opportunity to visit a highly regarded family and their ranch last week. Mr and Mrs Gaylen and Lori Fink, go by the name of Fink Beef Genetics, and run an Angus and Charolais seedstock operation. Their story began as a young couple making their way into the beef industry in 1977 with one Angus cow. They leased the land that they required and bought in feed. They now sell breeding cattle nation wide, embryos world wide and sell over 700 bulls a year. Gaylen emphasised how important it is to think outside of the square, have no limitations to your thinking and be different!

This is Gaylen Fink talking to our class at their sale centre. He gave us a brief of his operation, but what was more valuable was getting some great advice from someone who started with something so small! 

This is my beef systems management class! 

 The Flint Hills is a region in Kansas that contains the last of the tallgrass prairie and prime grazing land. Manhattan happens to fall within the borders of this limestone based land. Each spring, the Flint Hills are burned as part of grazing and noxious weed management. It is so far widespread across the state that there is a constant haze. I went and visited a prairie reserve, where some of the burning had taken place. The landscape sure is something to be seen!

One of the many views at the Konza Prairie Biological Station.

The track at the Konza is almost 10km. It was well worth the long stroll! 

While I only have a month left here at K-State, be sure to keep up with my blogs! There's still so much to do. Next up is Dodge City, KS for a beef production tour!