Come sit a spell
The first ever Keeney Angus Customer
Appreciation Day will be August 13, 2005.
After 14 years of successful bull sales, we
want to take a day to better say thank you.
We are very excited about the speakers who
will lead the cattle breeding discussions. First
will be Dr. Sally Northcutt, director of genetic
research for the American Angus Association,
and developer of the new cutting-edge $ value
indexes that define production, end-product
merit, and costs in terms all cattlemen can
understand…$$$. Sally is a Kentucky native
with degrees from the University of Kentucky
and Iowa State, and is a former faculty
member at Oklahoma State; we anticipate a
lively discussion of the latest breeding
technology with many producer questions.
Our second speaker will be the linebreeder,
Larry Leonhardt, Shoshone Angus,
Cowley,WY. It has been our great pleasure and
good fortune to know Larry for over 25 years
now. Our pleasure has been derived from his
intensity and perserverance to the constant
goal of making a better Angus cow…more
often. Our good fortune has been derived from
the fact that Shoshone genetics have given us
our most satisfying and profitable cows over
the years. Larry`s topic will be Developing a
New Kind of Purebred.
We`ll be cooking grass-fed hamburgers
produced by Quillin Farms, Paris, KY, with
Keeney Angus genetics . Walking (in the
shade) cattle tours at your leisure will begin
around 11 AM and continue all day; on display
will be linebred parent stock, maternal
production stock, F1 maternal cows produced
by crossbreeding linebred parents, and
maternal stock with terminally sired calves.
The speaking program and discussion will
begin at 1:30 PM and end around 3:30 PM,
with the informal discussion expected to last
much later. Some of the best thinkers in the
industry will be here.
Though we are geared toward the breed
Angus and toward commercial producers, we
invite all purebred breeds and breeders to
participate. The principles to be discussed
apply to any breed or breeder, and we welcome
everyone.
If you are spending the night in Somerset, it
is tourist season, so reserve rooms early.
Contact us if you need help.
Other important Keeney Angus dates to
remember are October 29, 2005 Fall Bull &
Heifer Sale, and March 4, 2006 Spring Bull &
Heifer Sale.
KEENEY ANGUS
5893 Hwy. 80 West • Nancy, Ky. 42544
5 mi. W of Somerset on Hwy. 80
606/636-6500, e-mail: mwkeeney@kih.net
http://www.keeneyangus.net/home.html
Update
We had a 175 cattle people from 18 states attend our first ever Customer Appreciation Day Aug 13; counting those who came by Friday afternoon. Sally Northcutt, director of genetic rsearch for the American Angus Association, was incredible explaining the new dollar {$} indexes with clarity and charisma. Sally spent time one on one with producers after her talk discussing various concerns and applications of performance information and we appreciate so much her research and taking the time to be with us.
Larry Leonhardt, as we have seen so many times before in smaller settings, mesmerized the crowd with his 40 years of cattle breeding experience from which his future directions of linebreeding and systems approach is drawn. Larry Leonhardt is a cattle breeding artist; with an appreciation for the science that quantifies the breeding relationships he aleady knows from experience. The grassfed burgers provided by Quillin Farms and cooked by local cattleman Johnnie Cundiff were not only a health treat, but delicious as well.
Larry and I had a great time visiting KY herds where Shoshone and Keeney Angus genetics are the dominant factors in the development of consistent, profitable maternal cowherds. No where is that more evident than at H&H Cattle Company, Springfield, KY, where fifty Shoshone females and fifty daughters of Encore sons produced by Keeney Angus comprise the most impressive set of females I have witnessed lately. A DVD recording of the cattle and proceedings is in the works and will be available soon at minimum cost.
Obviously to me, the new $EN is the tool to begin maternal selection with. The cattle that will work best in a KY grass environment will be a minimum of +15 $EN; +5 $EN can be tolerated with grain supplemental when the females are young. Daughters of bulls with a $EN below +5 should never be considered as herd replacements anywhere but in an Iowa feedlot.
I am disappointed to read promotions again just this week about cattle that “do it all”; this is usually the domain of the dollar swapping, cattle trading, hobby breeder that is clueless about the application of genetics to commercial profitability. But this time, this promotion was from a breeder that has been more in tune with practical maternal selection. Ambitious promotions, like over-ambitious breeding directions, usually come back to haunt the propagator of overly ambitious claims.
Our fall bull sale will be October 29, we`ll have 35 bulls and 20 yearling heifers to sell. The bulls have been developed on silage; they will be sounder and more athletic than these corn-poned bulls that have spend their life running to creep and self-feeders. Our bulls won`t “ do –it-all”; we can say that assertatively because we know neither does any other breeders bulls. We set ourselves apart by telling what our bulls will do with predictability, and what they won’t, so that commercial breeders can best meet their expressed objectives. Call for a catalog.
