Latest / Got Any Cows? / 52. Using Data to Breed Better Akaushi w/ Aaron Harris of Mistvale Akaushi

Transcript

52. Using Data to Breed Better Akaushi w/ Aaron Harris of Mistvale Akaushi · Got Any Cows?

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Got Any Cows Podcast.
0:02
SPEAKER_02: If you want to learn all you can about the beef cattle industry, this is the podcast for you.
0:08
SPEAKER_02: My name is Seth Christians.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: My company has sent beef cattle genetics to 45 of the 50 states and 12 countries around the world.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: I've had the chance to learn from some of the best and brightest in the beef cattle industry, and I invite you to join me for those conversations here on the Got Any Cows Podcast.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: I'm here at Mistvale Akeushi with my friend Aaron Harris.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: Appreciate you taking the time to host us today, Aaron, and have us here out to the ranch.
0:39
SPEAKER_02: If you would give us a little bit of background on who you are and where we sit, please.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks a lot for coming out, Lisa.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Our ranch is in Bryan, Texas, which is right next to Texas AM University.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: We run about 14 full ones right now, but we have about 24 hours.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: So that's how we got it.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: So I mean you deal with you deal with the serious AI, I just do artificial SMAs.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Right.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:32
SPEAKER_03: Right.
2:32
SPEAKER_03: Sure, sure.
2:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
2:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: So we came out here.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: And then she definitely enjoys them.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: That's why we don't feed any owls here on the ranch.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Because that would be tough.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: I I remember being a kid, and I remember raising like some hogs for for the family there.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: And I remember, you know, you get pretty attached to the animal, and then one day they weren't there, and we had a freezer full of pork.
3:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what'd you do to my pig?
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, we don't want any of those incidents here around.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: After they've been gone for another year.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to keep it that way.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: So that way I can keep some aggregation cattle around the place.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: You bet, you bet, absolutely.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: So your background prior to Ahyushi, then, you'd been in the dairy industry.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: Walk us through, I guess, yeah, your experiences there or what all what all you did in the dairy industry growing up.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um since I was about five years old, my parents owned a place in Pennsylvania and London today.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: So we ran uh replacement dairy cattle, so we had to have her operation.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: So we had 20 acres.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: My dad bought me a cat from the germ and I guess up the street show.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: Um and I was pretty lucky at that point in time.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Right.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: But we were last place.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: Um I've got a fellow like select banner type type guy, or whatever, I don't even remember what they call it, participation ribbon, maybe.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: I came in last.
4:31
SPEAKER_02: The one time I've ever showed an animal in my career.
4:34
SPEAKER_02: I've judged a bunch of shows, but the one time I've ever showed it, they're like, you can uh you can probably take this one home.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: White ribbon or whatever.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: But that kind of was motivation more than anything else.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: So from that point in time, like I learned about the data, and I learned about what was winning shows, and I we learned about how to feed them with the trying to do that.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: You bet.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: So dairy cow you can feed a lot of dairy.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: But we learned all those tricks.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: We met up with the right people by the time I graduated high school.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: We went from last place to the local pair to grand champion, and we didn't get that local pair where we're gonna do it.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: Good for you.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: Good for you.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: So you didn't stop with the last place.
5:20
SPEAKER_02: I that was my one and done with it.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: No, no, and then if we weren't junior champions more, because we didn't show that many cows.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: But we did win grand junior a couple times.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: And then uh the state and national level shows like we didn't place in the top end of the four year idea.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: Good.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: Good for you, absolutely.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't know how they were playing.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: So like the thank you that we've been putting together.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:19
SPEAKER_02: Right.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: Right.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: So you mentioned you you were showing cattle growing up, and now there is an opportunity to be able to show Akayushi cattle in in your present-day operation and for your kids going forward.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned the Zenkyo.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: What is the Zenkyo?
6:32
SPEAKER_02: And that just operated for the first time last year, if I'm not mistaken.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: So um So ultra-breaking cattle is a pain.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: But I would still suggest that people do it because it helps get them off.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: And if you have a bull that's ultra-broken, you see my place here, so it's a pain to have to look at that cattle trailer and take it over there every time, especially when it's like now we have water.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
7:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
7:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: So that's all the right carcass, like live carcass, like they kill them there, and break it down, and then judge a carcass that way.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Ultrasound and that kind of stuff there too.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Um it's coming up next year.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about going.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: When when is the Zankyo and where is the Zankyo?
8:02
SPEAKER_00: The Zankyo in Japan is in August of next year.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so like I said, that's a five-year event.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: So I don't think they have many Akayushi cattle that go there because Akiushi aren't very big in Japan.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: But um they definitely have, it's definitely something interesting to look at.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: So that's gonna be interesting if uh our Zankyo here in Brenham is a reverse.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Um and we did have a pretty we hadn't we had an equal number of Akiushi cattle to Black Wagu cattle there this year, and I think the black guys definitely want to participate.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we've had a great experience working with them.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: And I that's that's one of the great things I love about the Zenkyo in Brenham is that it brings everyone together.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: And there's not really a lot of division or anything like that.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: It's just, hey, like we want to come out, we're gonna show cattle, we're gonna have a stake.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: This year we're gonna have a state contest, and for people who can't halt or break them, we're gonna have a commercial bull show, which you'll have to sell private treaty.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: We have some terms worked up for how that'll work.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we're gonna have a three pen, uh, three heifer pen show as well.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to sell the heifers, okay.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you want to, we'll allow for that as well.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: So it's evolving, we're getting more stuff.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then another interesting aspect is again the beef is really what's important about our breed.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: And so we've got chefs that come in and do demonstrations, and we're gonna do a dinner this year.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it's gonna be a great time.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: Oh, and I think it's so important to have events like that, like you mentioned, just opportunities for people to come together and share in everything from the beef to seeing how they look on ultrasound to how they look live, and just having a chance to compare these animals and yeah, show off what has worked and what has worked well, and and and have a chance to compare those cattle and and get together and take a look at them across the board, evaluate them in all of those different ways.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's neat that you've been able to take, you know, from your background in in dairy cattle, you know, or coming from that in your childhood, and be able to bring that over and say, hey, now we're talking about showing Japanese cattle, in this case Akayushi.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh Dr.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Cooper and Peyton Wormkey helped me put this together as well.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And they have a lot of experience in the beef show world, which was really critical to getting the people that we needed there.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, so it's definitely a it's definitely a team effort in in that thing.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: And we got um Texas Wagyu Association is a major sponsor of it, and um the Akuishi Association is a sponsor of major sponsor of it too.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so again, it's just a great thing where everyone can come together and do that.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: So and we put it together in two months, two, three months last year, which was pretty fast.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we had about 250 people from the general public come, which I thought was that's wonderful, absolutely.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: We had about 17 head of cattle, yeah.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: So we could improve there a little bit.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: But it's the first year, people didn't really have a lot of time to halt or break, and yeah, there aren't really a lot of other opportunities to show, so it's kind of hard to justify it for one event.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Sure, that's where I've struggled kind of with with that in terms of doing it.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Um but this year we'll also have uh West Texas State Fair, the Akaishi Association has uh sponsored, which is an Abilene.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so entries for that open up July 1st.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and that's gonna be in mid-September.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yep.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then um Cattlemen's Congress, there's a show there as well.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: So and then I believe the National Western has an opportunity, if I'm not mistaken, as far as you can show in that setting.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Um think.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I'm wrong.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: No, I think that I think that that one's gone now.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: That one might be gone.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's it.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Um so kind of the way the shows worked before was you had to be registered with the American Wago Association.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Sure, yes, yeah.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: And so now these shows that are prop cropping up nowadays, like even the one that the Akaishi Association is sponsoring in Abilene for West Texas, we're letting anybody show.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't matter where your cattle are registered, they can be registered in the Akaishi Association, in the Australian Association, or in the American Association.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: We want you to bring them on down.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, you bet, you bet.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: So what regardless of registry, you can show at Zenkyo, at West Texas State Fair, and Cattlemen's Congress, would be a circuit for you.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yeah, yep, yep, yep.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: And it's a great opportunity.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a great opportunity for adults to show off the genetics that they've built.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: And then it like showing's a great thing for the kids as well, yes, in order for them to learn about hard work and medication and the industry in general.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, and the other thing is that F1 is going to show at all these shows as well.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I would highly encourage producers of all stripes to come.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: I was actually kind of surprised.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: We had all full bloods last year.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, interesting at the Zenkyo.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think there's a big gap there because I think there's a lot more F1 cattle out there that could be halter broke or put in a pen and brought down.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's a great way to show off the breed as well.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: You bet, you bet.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: So, going back to your your experience even on the the dairy side of things, where you mentioned first getting involved with shows, between then and now you've gotten involved with Akiushi.
12:53
SPEAKER_02: We've talked about Akeushi shows, all these opportunities that are now available to show cattle in the Akiushi world, but you also mentioned data and analytics and what you do professionally in in your work.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: How did you get involved in data coming from a dairy, a dairy background, and now you work in data professionally?
13:10
SPEAKER_02: How did that occur?
13:11
SPEAKER_02: I guess your education and then your career, and then I'd like to lead to kind of how that's impacted Akeushi.
13:16
SPEAKER_02: But back it up, I guess, to your history.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: How did you get involved in data and analytics?
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think that um part of it was not seeing a future in agriculture.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of saw what I'd call the downfall of the dairy industry where it got you got to get extremely big or get out.
13:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yep.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Um and I'd spent so many summers at Penn State with dairy judging and everything else.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: I did this thing called governor school, which was an awesome experience.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: I learned a lot about like scientific research and animal science and stuff there.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, but after that, I think I had enough of state college for the time being.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: So I went and joined the military.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was in the National Guard.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: I had no idea.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for your service.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, so I did that.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Um I took a year off college, and when I came back, I went to a liberal arts college called Moravian College.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: That's where I met my wife our freshman year.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: We've been together ever since.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I studied political science and economics.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: And uh an e-con grad as well.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: And so I got definitely got a lot more rigor from the economics.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: But the political science was kind of what I was studying at that point in time because I had interned with the gov the governor's campaign before I started.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: So when I got back from my basic training and uh job skill training, I got an internship with the governor on his campaign.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Knocking on doors, setting up parades, doing all that kind of stuff.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I had an internship every single year, and then my senior year, he lost re-election.
14:44
SPEAKER_03: Oh no.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: And so you can either call that the the that was probably the best worst thing that ever happened to me.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: So I decided not to go into politics, which was great because I would not do very well in politics at the end of the day.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: Um and so um I ended up working in a battery factory for a little bit.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, putting batteries together.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: And I had applied to go into management like four or five months after I'd been there.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: My buddies' family owned the place.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, but then I randomly I posted my resume online and uh PPL electric found it.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: They hired me as a supply chain analyst.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: I got into programming, I got into more into statistics than what I had done in econ.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, learned all the things economists do wrong.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: Um I never made it that far.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: And make up and then uh I got public I had some papers published when I was an undergrad, and then when I was uh when I was um doing my master's at AM, um and so I got a master's degree in analytics.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Um and so um, yeah, and so that's kind of how I got into data.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: Um and then I when I graduated from so at PPL I was in regulatory operations, which was good because it kind of mixed my political science and analytics together.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: I did load forecasting and worked on the tariff and policy and stuff there.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, but when I graduated, NRG picked me up and they put me in the load forecasting group.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: I got hired in the load forecasting group, and that's when I moved to Texas in 2018.
16:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: So the way the power business works is it's actually a segregated market.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: So you have you have the regulated portion, which is usually just the wires business.
16:28
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: So in Idaho it's not this way.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but in a lot of other states it is.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: So you have the wires business, and then you have um, so there's transmission and distribution.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you have um the generation plants.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes those are bundled together in Texas, they're not.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: So generation plants are deregulated here and in Pennsylvania.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And so then there's a market.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: So then there's an ISO, which is the market operator.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and they are the ones that are responsible for making sure there's no rolling blackouts.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: So ERCOT, PJM, MISO, NISO.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know what yours is called because we don't participate there.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: But um yeah, I gotta say, I I uh I know that we haven't had rolling blackouts, and that's probably about where my knowledge ends.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so so then I moved into um then I got put in the um what we'll call it like the center of AI and machine learning intelligence for excellence.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so we are like a centralized team, and then that's where I've been doing a lot of project work.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Like instance, like I I was using LLMs, which are large language models in 2022, 2021.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Really?
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: And be done in the long time before most would.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: So so we're kind of the tip of the sword for all that kind of stuff.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we so I I'm back at NRG now.
17:47
SPEAKER_02: And so with all of that background that you now have both in cattle and in data, you mentioned a brief hiatus over to legendary and that you still consult for.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: Walk us through a little bit of I guess what you did with legendary and then how you're applying data, even like in the role you and I both sit on the research and improvement committee, um, which I believe you head or chair that that group.
18:06
SPEAKER_02: Um walk us through, yeah, both of both of those experiences, the the legendary experience and then the the research and improvement, and I guess how data impacts data and cattle impact both of those.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: As we discussed earlier, like the accuracy data is kind of sparse, right?
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Sure, right, right, right.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: People have some here, people have some there.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's some data that's maybe not enough quality in order to create EPDs, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's useless.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Sure, right.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: And so with my background at NRG, I try to figure out how we make every piece of data worthwhile.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: And so that's really good in terms of doing this kind of stuff.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Um and um at Legendary, I kind of help Steve dec determine how we were going to gather the data.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: So we put together some contemporary groups with red cattle, black cattle, um, F1s, Foundation Sires.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: He's got some interesting contemporary groups on that, I believe.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, and some other stuff like that.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: And so kind of getting that in place, but then making sure that we're doing the things in order to get there, right?
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Because like you can't just say we're gonna gather data.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Right.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Like you have to have a plan of execution, you have to have a way to get it.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so like we started ultrasound scanning when I was over there um full time.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that now they're working with a big Akashi beef processor in order to get MIJ camera data on the steers and stuff that they're raising as well.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen a lot of that yet, but I know that it's it exists or is going to exist very soon on those contemporary groups that we had planned out two years ago.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: So they should be starting to come through now, which is really exciting.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: Right.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, it does, it takes so much time.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think I think that's probably one of the biggest inhibitors to gathering quality data, is it does, it takes so much time.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: You know, from from the time you plan, like this is what we'd like to do, to then making the matings, to then calving the animals, raising the animals, getting all the way through to harvest, it's a years-long process.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: It requires some real long-term dedication to even gather the data, much less really analyze it.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: It's a three-year process, right?
20:01
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, because there's a mating selection ingestation period even before that, right?
20:06
SPEAKER_00: So even if you're killing them at 20 months, yeah, yep, yep, you're still over 24, 25 months of planning for that whole deal.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that and that's why like I don't do the polled thing, but that's why the polled thing's kind of interesting because if you're not using the polled genetics that are out there, like that's another place I think there's a lot of opportunity for people to kind of build their own niche, is breeding up, breeding up polled animals.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but like I anyone who's doing that, I would suggest that they start gathering data on their F1s and their commercial cows.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: So that way they have that to submit or they have that for their own knowledge either way, before they start putting these polled animals into the purebred program.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: I think you bring up a great point there when you talk about just the importance of gathering data.
20:47
SPEAKER_02: Because, like you've mentioned, I mean, even with all the ability you have to analyze data and/or these these large language models and all of what you know artificial intelligence can do at this point, there's so many opportunities as far as ways to analyze data, but the data has to exist first.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: And so, I mean, I I think, you know, I mean, two takeaways I would say from from from you and your experiences, but you know, one, the show side of stuff, that there's an opportunity to engage there, but then I'd all, you know, and I and I'd encourage people to engage in things like the Zenkyo.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: But then also when we talk about data collection, that there has to be some, you have to start somewhere.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: And I think quite often, this this is one thing that I see as far as just an attitude at large, people say, well, it's somebody else's responsibility to gather this data or to put together these EPDs or to give me a set of selection criteria, right?
21:34
SPEAKER_02: And I think it it is all of our responsibility to be gathering the data, to be figuring out, okay, what is working and what's not.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: Because if there's not at least a base level data set, what are we going to run analytics on?
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And I'll say that's one of the most frustrating not just on analytics, but in general, that's one of the most frustrating things that I think I've run into in my experience in the industry is just like, hey, like I I I need this or I need that, or they could be doing this.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, well.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: If someone else is a big thing, they can do it, but you need to do it too.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Like you can't just demand like and and I think that people sometimes get it a little twisted on like whose data the data is.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: Right.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Like when I kill my cattle, that's my data.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: If I decide not to give it to the members or to the population or to anybody, that's my own decision.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Or if my data is not clean enough to put out there, then I probably shouldn't be putting it out there anyway.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: And so like that NRG, we have the opposite problem.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: We have so much data in so many different places that no one that like they well, they hire a guy like me in order to figure out how we're going to organize all this stuff and use it.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Whereas like, and there are some ranches, there are some large operations out there that like that's the case where if we got some more of that information that it would definitely help.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Legendary is probably one of them.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: But sure.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: But that's where as a research committee and as a board, like we can organize in order to get that stuff together.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: But we have to have a good system to do it first.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: So we can talk about EPDs then my adverse my my adversary to some of them, right?
23:09
SPEAKER_00: So like accuracy is extremely important.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Not just accuracy, but like what's behind the data.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Right.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: So like if you if you like you can use whatever data you want to build, like I can I can build you a model that I can say is X percent accurate on whatever data you give me.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: I trust me, I can I can do all kinds of voodoo in order to make it work.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Now does that mean that it's correct?
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: And so just because I say I can build a model with all this information where I say that, hey, like so and so does it this way, that doesn't mean anything.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: And so that that's something else that I think we need to keep in mind when we're looking at this stuff is that like it is gonna take a lot of work, it's gonna take a lot of people working together.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: Because like let's just say that two of the largest ranches had all this let's let's say that all that let's say that it was a perfect world, right?
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all of it existed, everything was there, it was all good.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Yep, that doesn't matter because you still need to be able to build the models to cross ranches into my operation or your operation, right?
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Or somebody with five heads operation, right?
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Right, and that's not something that's gonna happen if just one or two ranches turn in their data.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, and I think you know, a lot of it, you know, and and I've had so many conversations with so many different people that'll bring in varying perspectives.
24:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's the purpose of this podcast is to have the opportunity to share all these perspectives and experiences.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: But a common theme across all these different discussions is the importance of taking personal responsibility, whether that is for showing your cattle, whether that is for gathering your data, we talk about for developing a market, we talk about for, you know, establishing culling criteria or a breeding program, being willing and able to say, hey, look, it's not someone else's job to provide me with a set of EPDs.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: It's not someone else's job to provide me with a perfect market or with per, you know, with whatever else it may be.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: Or with the carcass data, right?
24:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean I mean it's not someone else's job.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, and and that's why we've leaned into the beef program here, right?
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and why I think everybody who's in the accuracy business needs to be in the meat business first.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: And that's another thing when I went to Legendary, like that was one thing that we set out to establish is that, like, hey, like, we got a lot of cattle here.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're not all worth fifty thousand dollars.
25:19
SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right, exactly.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: And yes, since they're not all worth fifty thousand dollars, yeah, something has to happen to them.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, something that makes them profitable, right?
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, correct.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: And the answer to that is the beef business because you're not only getting profit off of the beef that you sell, you're getting the intelligence from the data, you're getting the experience of raising those cattle, yep, and then you're also setting your price floor.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Like I think that's what people I think that's where people make the biggest mistake.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: If I sell four thousand dollar bulls off my place, then guess what my price is?
25:50
SPEAKER_03: Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:51
SPEAKER_03: $4,000.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Like I should never expect to get any more than that.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Because everyone's gonna be able to come in and that's what they're gonna say the bulls are worth, right?
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: But when I use that carcass, if I can sell it in Houston for$7,500, which is about wholesale.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yep.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Right, then okay, so I would have had to develop that bull with feed anyway.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, right, right.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: I had to feed the steer.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: So at the end of the day, the difference in cost of raising that bull to 24 months or raising that steer to 24 months is very pennies on the dollar.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Right, yes, yep.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: And so if I can sell that steer for 7,500 bucks or I sell that bull for 5,500 bucks, guess which is the better deal.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: Right, yeah, yeah.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: No, absolutely.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: But and I think you make a great point there.
26:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when it comes to to selling the meat, the beauty of Akaushi, I mean, even going back to the the front edge of our discussion, you're talking about wanting to get into Wagyu.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: You didn't want to necessarily get into the the black Wagyu, you know, as far as just like, well, they maybe didn't suit your taste.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: That's the same for me, they didn't suit my taste.
26:52
SPEAKER_02: The Akaushi do, they're good cattle, but they're excellent carcasses.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: You know, and so the the beauty of this breed is that even if they don't work out as as breeding animals, or if they they aren't the$50,000 feature or the donor or the stud, they make an awesome quality carcass.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: And so, like you said, if you can have that as your base and we can go ahead and harvest cattle and say, look, we're just gonna eliminate these, it's not a case of saying, oh, well, you know, like we well, we get we gave up or we we lost out here.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: Saying no, like go ahead.
27:20
SPEAKER_02: If you're not sure it needs to be a bull, like really genuinely positive it needs to be a bull, like you said, you're way better off to have it be a steer.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: You truthfully are.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: I so nowadays I won't keep any bull that's not a bull in my program.
27:33
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, any bull that I won't put on my that I won't turn out on my full blood cows in that other pasture is not a bull at our place.
27:41
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
27:41
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's an excellent approach.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: It needs to happen more often because I think what one of the things that I've seen, and I'm sure that you've seen as well in these last couple of years, quite often people get excited, like, well, it's a full blood Akeishi calf, you know, or or it's an embryo transfer calf, or or it's an AI sired calf, or it's got a neat pedigree, whatever else it may be.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: It should be good.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, just because it's a full blood doesn't mean it's a bull.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: Just because it's an embryo transfer calf doesn't mean it's a bull.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: Just because it's an AI sired calf doesn't mean it's a bull.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: You know, it it has got to be one, like you said, that you're more than willing to turn out on your own cows, or it's better off to be castrated.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: And again, it's not anyone else's responsibility to build that market for you to say, well, you know, the the market is good because of X, Y, and Z, or the market is bad because of X, Y, and Z.
28:24
SPEAKER_02: No, like let's take personal responsibility, each of us individually on our own ranches, and say, hey, if it doesn't have to be a bull, it shouldn't.
28:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've taken the nuts off of so many embryo transfer, full blood, foundation sired, yada, yada, all the bells, all the whistles.
28:39
SPEAKER_02: And that's because I believe the same as you do, they don't all need to be bulls, you know, and and even if you sell them as feeders, you know, like for uh for us individually within my program, we don't necessarily take everything right through to kill.
28:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, but we'll sell them as feeders to people who do.
28:55
SPEAKER_02: Um, but we'll sell them as steers, you know, and and we continue to take the nuts off more and more and more of them because it's it's hard, you know.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it definitely makes my stomach churn a little every time I do it to say, like, ah, you know, this, but he's got a great sire, it's got a great dam.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: I put a lot of money into making this embryo transfer calf.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: But if I'm not positive this thing needs to be a stud, if it's not something that I'd say, I would collect semen on this thing.
29:18
SPEAKER_02: We're taking the nuts off.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, you've seen, but I mean, even on the embryo transfer pedigree thing, like it doesn't mean much.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: Like that, like that's another thing, right?
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Like you're out in my pasture and we saw 9787Y times Joe.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: I got a bunch of them.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wonderful cross.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: They've turned out really well.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're all but then the reason why they're wonderful is because they're so uniform, right?
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Like they're all they've all got that thickness, they've all got that build.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Yep, they're all great animals.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: But I have that one that I mean, it might be the recipe, so maybe she'll catch up.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: But as of right now, she's an outlier in the wrong direction.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure, yes.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Right.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: And so she's built really well, yeah, but she just doesn't have the growth or the maturity, early early maturity.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: So that's something that we breed for in our program too, is that we breed for the early maturity because we're looking right now, we're harvesting between 22 and 28 months, but we're looking to get that to be between 18 and 22 months.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: Yes, rather soon.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think that we will do that with this next next batch with how we started creep feeding calves and stuff.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think the creep feed is really critical to getting that early harvest.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: For anyone that's not familiar, if you would just give us a brief definition of creep feed, what creep feed is, what you're doing.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: So creep feed is uh feed that you give um your calves in the pasture.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: So you have a feeder and it has like a fence around it with slots for the calves to be able to get through, and then um they're able to go in there and eat feed while they're owing their mama.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: Right.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: So the cows can't get to it, but the calves can, and it's usually gonna be a concentrate feed of some kind.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Right.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, right.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I get a great one from Circle P.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Um Nick spoke at our field day yesterday.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: He's our feed guy, he taught us a lot about feeding beef cattle for showing.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: So here's a question for you, real quick, and I apologize.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm jumping a little bit here.
31:01
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned your field day, though.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: Sounds like it was really well attended.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: That would have been yesterday here at Mist Vale.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: Walk us through, I guess, what that was and how your experience was and oh, yeah, what all happened yesterday.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: I missed it.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: I'm here a day late recording with you after the field day.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the so the field day was great.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, it was a lot of work for anybody who's thinking about doing one.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's definitely not a simple task by any stretch of the imagination.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we've punted by a year out of out of fear of that.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: I I don't dare do it until my wife is like alive to do it and she's about to have a baby.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so we put in a lot of hours the last week, two weeks.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh my buddy from Pennsylvania came down with his kid to help me put the place together, which was really great.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: It's great to have friends like that.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh yeah, but we got the place together, we got a barn put up, um and we had Travis Jones brought his lot.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: I had my lot down here, and then a bowl Holly Holy War, which we sell semen on.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was also displayed in the in the pens down there.
32:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we just had people come in.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, we had it from 10 to 2, so people could come get Wagyu Tallow Donuts um in the morning and mimosas, and so people just came through.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: We talked through the cattle and kind of talked about the operation, and then at noon we had full-blood Akaushi um burgers and chips, potato chips, awesome tallow potato chips.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, those are wonderful.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: You just shared a couple with me just a moment ago, yeah.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, they came out really good.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we had a presentation about our program, kind of like what we're doing here.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then um Nick, who's my feed guy, he talked to people about feeding cattle.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it's just a great opportunity for people to come learn, see the cattle.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: There's not really a lot of opportunities to go see these cattle in person nowadays.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: That's the other great thing about shows, is that I've I've made a lot of contacts with commercial cattlemen that I probably would have never made if I wouldn't have taken them to um the Dixie National or to um or to Cattlemen's congress.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so there is so there's that aspect to those kind of things too, whether it be the field day or whether it be a show where you actually get to show people that hey, like when they hear Wagyu, they think of something that looks like a longhorn.
33:13
SPEAKER_03: Right, right, right, yeah.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: And when you see that Yang bull, you don't think he looks like a longhorn.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: Well, really impressive bull, you know.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I ought to tip my hat to you there.
33:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that that Joe over 97, is it 97, 87 wise is the number on that dam.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: So Tamma Maria over Big Al over Himawari, beautiful bull, you know, thick, style.
33:31
SPEAKER_02: And like you mentioned, in the consistency between him and his brother, you know, you've got his brother out breeding cows, and you've got Joe Yang right here in the in the pen off to the side, and both just impressive bowls, you know, strong top, deep sided, lots of width of base.
33:42
SPEAKER_02: That they're good bowls, you know, and and and that's that's fun to see that we say, hey, you can have a bowl that looks like this that produces a carcass as valuable as what we're talking about as far as a high value carcass.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes people get high-value carcass a little twisted.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, so to me, a 40% DMP carcass is not high value.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: It's a liability in some instances because my my customers know what the difference between a full blood carcass and a half-blood carcass is.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Like they'll they'll definitely be able to taste the difference in the meat.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, but they start to get a little iffy when it starts to get up over about 35% DMP.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Now they don't want anything under 20 either.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: But it's there's kind of a sweet spot there that I think that breeders kind of are looking for kind of the meat.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: I call it meat porn.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we cut that, but but yeah.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: Kind of uh that's a quality term for us.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: It is, it's just it's trying to say, like, well, look, look at just how much fat or marbling we can stick in it.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: No, and and and and you can you can go wait, and again, it's about when you breed extremes, you get into trouble, right?
34:47
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: And so that that's and I and I I will tell you that to me, I've seen that a lot.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of the growth problems we have in the breed are attributed to people breeding what they think.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that it is what marble is the best, right?
34:59
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's attributed to what they think marble is the best.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: And then stacking that and stacking it and then feeding them for 38, 30 to 38 months, and then just continuing the process and then saying, wow, look at this awesome steak that I have.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, look at that.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: And then the question is, yeah, pretty much.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then it's like, hey, like how, like, how like what is your market for that?
35:21
SPEAKER_03: Right, right, yeah.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: How many of those can you sell a year?
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, like I don't doubt that you can sell three or four or five carcasses like that a year.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but could you sell 20?
35:28
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: Could you sell 40?
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, could you actually build a viable program off of selling this?
35:34
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, if you can sell them for 15,000 carcass, absolutely.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: That's your market.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna belittle that or say that it's not a strategy because it definitely is.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: People do it, it's a good thing to do, but it's just not what fits our program.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: And I can assure you that people say, Well, you don't have maybe they'll say, Well, hey, you don't have um the luxury customers.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, I work at NRG Energy.
35:56
unknown: Right.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: A Fortune 50 company now, I think.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Like, trust me, the luxury customers work there and they're and they're my customers.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: So I so I know what they want.
36:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yep, yep.
36:09
SPEAKER_02: Well, and this is I I'm glad you mentioned this point because it's interesting when I talk to breeders, you know, I mean, as far as like, okay, what are some maybe some breeding targets or some goals or things they want to do?
36:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I have people telling me I'm talking, oh, we just want to make a marble, want to make them, which is great.
36:22
SPEAKER_02: I get it.
36:22
SPEAKER_02: Like, we don't want to lose sight of what brought us to the dance.
36:25
SPEAKER_02: And we've been talking about like the carcass quality of these cattle and having a high quality carcass.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: I don't want, we don't want them to be devoid of marbling by any means.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: But more marbling perpetually being the target, I think it's really easy to, you know, people say, well, clearly, if if marbling is good, then more marbling is better in perpetuity.
36:44
SPEAKER_02: You know, it is kind of the natural line of thought.
36:47
SPEAKER_02: And and like you mentioned, past a certain point, there is a threshold there.
36:50
SPEAKER_02: Honestly, the only complaint I have ever had on Akiushi beef ever, I mean, because it's a wonderful product.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: It's what my family eats, it's what I share with friends and family, clients, you know, like it is a superior product.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: Like it's I'm hooked, I'm really one.
37:02
SPEAKER_02: Like it's Akiushi beef or Akiushi beef for me.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: The only complaint I've ever had is that it is too heavily marbled.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: You know, that it's a little too fatty or a little too greasy.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: And so I guess the point I'm making there is that I agree with you that it's like, hey, we need to make sure that we don't, we don't want to remove the marbling.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: It's not what I'm saying by any means, but that the whole goal, the whole purpose, like we want as high quality and eating experience as possible, but max eating experience is not necessarily directly correlated with maximum marbling, is what would I say.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: And I know some people will say that, like, well, then you should raise F1s, but but the F1 product is a different product from the full blood product.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yep.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: In terms of melting point, in terms of tenderness, in terms of just general taste, in terms of consistency for sure, depending on which parent they trend towards.
37:48
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: So so I that that's why I see a lot of value in kind of making sure that our that our full blood and purebred um animals finish in a reasonable time frame in a reasonable time frame.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: You bet.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: Right?
38:03
SPEAKER_00: And so and so even if some of them don't have a lot of growth, like I'd say Red Emperor is probably one of those bulls that doesn't have a ton of growth.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but he does have early marbling.
38:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think that my holy war bull is probably gonna be roughly the same way, calving a sire.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: But I'll tell you what, he was a really, really mature calf.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: And he was a really, really mature yearling for what he was.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: So sure.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: So I so so that's something that we're looking for is like, hey, like, not just what's the biggest animal or what's the framiest animal or what's the most marbled animal after X period of time, but like how quickly do you get there?
38:37
SPEAKER_00: And how and you can kind of tell that from looking at from looking at these cattle as well, I believe.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's important.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: You define something that's important to you and to your program.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: We're talking about early maturity here.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's so important that each program does put a little bit of their own spin on this is this is something that's important to us, right?
38:56
SPEAKER_02: Or this is something we're gonna pursue.
38:57
SPEAKER_02: And that's what moves the breed forward at large, is saying, hey, you're gonna bring forward something that is earlier maturing than breed average, and there's gonna be people that need that, right?
39:06
SPEAKER_02: And can incorporate that in their programs.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: And I'd encourage everybody individually to say, hey, within our program, here's a trait we're gonna add, here's something we want to focus on.
39:14
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not saying the single trait select, you know, I'm in agreements with you.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: We need we need to make sure there's balance in all of these different targets.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: But I think it's important and and a positive thing that everyone puts a little bit of their own individual spin on their program.
39:25
SPEAKER_02: Because if all your program is, is exactly the same as somebody else's program, like, well, I'm a knockoff version of this one, or I'm just like the Japanese, or I'm just like this competing program, or whatever.
39:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, then frankly, why would anyone come to you as a genetics supplier if you're just like someone else?
39:42
SPEAKER_02: You should be a little different.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: I think that's good and positive to lean into that.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: And that's why our base is is uh not just heart brand or not just legendary.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: Like the base of my herd is a combination of both of those two.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Yep, and then we've kind of taken bulls that we think complement both of those animals or cross those animals.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: Like we're we're building animals that are crosses of them right now.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: Like my my Z cow, she she has a calf on her right now that's kind of I'd say a legendary, she's a legendary breeding of the double Z in Hiromitsu.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: And then her the calf that's on her is a rhubarb out of a cow I purchased from Heartbrand.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: So that's and he's a beautiful calf, he's growing really quick.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: So I I think that I think that there's not people need to kind of define their own path.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: At TWA had someone kind of ask me for advice and my on like what sires to choose.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: And so I won't give people advice on what sires to choose for the most time.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: You you and I talk, well, I will give one piece of advice.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: If you flush on the hero, Joe, or rhubarb and you don't get a good one, it's not a donor card.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: That's definitely that's definitely one piece of sire advice that I would give.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: But um, outside of that, like the main thing people need to do is just gather the data and figure out what's good, figure out what they actually have, yeah, and then move forward from there.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: Like there's no shame in having something that like is a little bit more difficult to define what the pedigree is, maybe.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: But is something that you know works, right, right.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: And I think we saw that last night at the state contest with uh Andrew Pryor's summit bowl, right?
41:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: I knew what he was because I've done a lot of analysis into the carcass data set.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: Correct, correct.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: But I think a lot of other people will realize what he is now because of the results.
41:29
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: Well, and I think you make a very valid point there.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: Because I think it's it's easy for all of us, I think it's natural to say, hey, if I look at a pedigree, if I see names I recognize that, you know, that that's a positive.
41:41
SPEAKER_02: So, well, this is kind of a brand name pedigree or like a foundation bread pedigree.
41:45
SPEAKER_02: Whereas sometimes, yeah, if you look at a pedigree and it's like, well, I don't really necessarily know all these names, by definition in our heads, sometimes we want to say, well, that would mean that this animal's inferior in the sense of it doesn't have maybe the brand name recognition.
41:57
SPEAKER_02: But a bowl-like summit, you know, of Andrews up there at uh 16 Peaks.
42:02
SPEAKER_02: Now I guess will have that brand name recognition in the sense of he won the the first, he's grand champion of this first carcass contest.
42:09
SPEAKER_02: Um but that that he came from a pedigree that if someone was to just glance at it, looks fairly generic.
42:15
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
42:16
SPEAKER_02: If you if you're looking at what the pedigree is, but he's identified, hey, this is a superior individual, and that's what we need to move the breed forward.
42:23
SPEAKER_02: If all we do is we all now, there's a place for the foundation animals, don't get me wrong.
42:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've got them present in my herd, you've got them present in yours.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: There's only so many of them, right?
42:32
SPEAKER_02: And there's and it's important to have those foundation animals present from a genetic breadth standpoint.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: So that's how you build the outcrosses and how you build performance, right?
42:41
SPEAKER_00: So like that's like that's where Legendaries program has a ton of value.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure, it leaves adding that outcross.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: And why I've been very fortunate to work there is that we get the ability to build new things.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's the true value of the of the foundation genetics.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: And that's the key point, exactly, like you mentioned, is building the new things.
42:58
SPEAKER_02: Because if all we ever did was breed foundation on foundation on foundation on foundation, and we never ever ever identified a summit or another bowl like under that to move forward with, frankly, we're just circling the toilet bowl of average because we keep breeding the exact same handful of animals.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: And the data I've looked at will show you what you'll get if you keep doing that.
43:16
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
43:16
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what that is?
43:18
SPEAKER_00: The average of what came off the boat in the 90s.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: And the 90s, right?
43:22
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: And so there are a lot of great programs out there that have moved past that point.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that at some point in time, and I've noticed this in my own program, yeah, right, I have to find a bull like Summit or something like that because it's like, well, what am I gonna breed to?
43:36
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: So now I'm so far ahead that it's like, okay, but now do I go back?
43:43
SPEAKER_00: Right.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: Like, where do I go?
43:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, like there's a bunch of decisions to make there that aren't necessarily easy to make because of kind of where some of the breed is.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: Well, and I mean Summit is a great example, right?
43:55
SPEAKER_02: And and a neat bull, and so appreciate Andrew and his work there at 16 Peaks and the heart brands.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: Work in the breeding behind that bowl and your work, you know, in analyzing some of that data and things like that.
44:05
SPEAKER_02: But I think each of us individually can and should find and identify animals that are moving the needle within our own herds for our own set of selection criteria.
44:13
SPEAKER_02: And I think there's an opportunity there.
44:15
SPEAKER_02: Like you mentioned, I mean, go ahead and take these cattle through to kill.
44:18
SPEAKER_02: I would tell people, hey, plan on the animals you produce being harvested.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: They're all going to be harvested at some point.
44:24
SPEAKER_02: Someone somewhere is going to harvest every animal they're ever.
44:27
SPEAKER_02: Like at some point, it's going to be beef.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: So go ahead and I mean plan on them being beef.
44:31
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, the very best few need to carry forward and make them a donor or make them a stud or have them just be a cow within the herd, whatever that may be.
44:38
SPEAKER_02: But plan on taking them right through end-to-end and analyze them for what matters to you.
44:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, like in our program, you know, docility, fertility, calving ease, growth, marbling, longevity, those are in priority order, basically just walking across the lifespan of an animal, right?
44:54
SPEAKER_02: And every program, I'm not telling people that's how others should define their program.
44:58
SPEAKER_02: I'm saying this is how I define mine and these evaluation points.
45:02
SPEAKER_02: But those evaluation points at every one of them, I'm saying, okay, here's another bull that's losing his message.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: But you should find the best female that's at the head of that class, right, in order to move forward.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: You're finding the best female multiplier.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: And if you can, I would say not take her backwards.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: Now there are some breeding strategies where that is necessary, right?
45:21
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: So like there's some points in time where you get so far out and maybe you've stacked so much stuff that's kind of further along bred on top of itself that if you take it back, so I know Dr.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: Cooper's done this with like Hikari and his Gino Cow.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: Sure, yep.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, like those are beautiful calves if you've ever seen them.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's because it's kind of that that out cross.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: And so and so that that's that's something that you like there's there's more complex strategies to it, but to my point, like you have to know what you're doing and you have to know what you have before you can start to do that.
45:54
SPEAKER_02: Right.
45:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, and and I think it it should be said, even someone that has one animal or well, one animal's hard because I guess is really hard to compare one to one.
46:02
SPEAKER_02: But we'll even say, you know, two or five or ten or whatever it may be.
46:05
SPEAKER_02: Compare within your group.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: Who's the who you know, the best animals should be ones you're looking at at breeding forward.
46:11
SPEAKER_02: The worst animals should be eaten.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: Whether I mean, whether you eat them, whether you sell them as a feeder steer, you know, I mean, whatever that may be.
46:17
SPEAKER_02: Well, the worst thing you can do is sell them to somebody else.
46:19
SPEAKER_02: Right.
46:19
SPEAKER_02: And I say they should they should go into a feeder program, right?
46:22
SPEAKER_02: They should go out as steers, you know, and that and that's and I mean, we're every time we measure anything, we're removing another set of testicles somewhere.
46:30
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
46:30
SPEAKER_02: Like if they're born too heavy, not them.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: If they wean too light, not them.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: If they don't scan, not them.
46:36
SPEAKER_02: If they're they've got an attitude issue, not them.
46:38
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
46:38
SPEAKER_02: So so on and so on.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: And I'm saying not them as in cast, it's not only applicable to males.
46:43
SPEAKER_02: That's just the most directly applicable.
46:44
SPEAKER_02: That one act directly takes them from this was a breeding animal before, and this uh this gender assignment searcher is.
46:50
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
46:51
SPEAKER_02: Make it a mill that way, yeah.
46:53
SPEAKER_02: No longer a breeding animal, you know.
46:55
SPEAKER_02: And so I think there's an opportunity there to say, hey, let's make these beef, not breeding stocks.
47:00
SPEAKER_02: So you mentioned a couple of different, you know, unique products that that you're making within your program and that you're looking at for beef.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: What are some of the unique things you've done to market beef rather than saying, well, they've all got to be breeding stocks?
47:12
SPEAKER_02: Like, no, like you're making what you're talking about a really high color rate and some pretty unique product offerings.
47:17
SPEAKER_02: Walk us through those things.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um, so one thing I have learned in the beef program is that you can sell a lot of it without doing a lot of work if you want to.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: Like you, it's easy to sell three to five steers, yeah in my opinion.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: All you gotta do is go to work, yep, give somebody some hamburger, yep, and they'll order.
47:32
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, they order an eighth or a quarter from you, but my experience they usually ask you for your ribeyes, which can be a problem in and of itself.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: But if you put but that's where you have to think about pricing and how you do that, because like we don't give away ribeyes.
47:46
SPEAKER_03: Right.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: Like we like we make sure we price them at about$75,$80 a pound.
47:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: And so if people really want them, they can have them.
47:53
SPEAKER_00: Because that that kind of brings our if if we were able to sell everything like that, that kind of brings our total carcass value out to about$17,000.
48:01
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we don't sell everything that way, right?
48:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, but um, but yeah, so our program is just kind of relationship-based like that.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: After we get a little bit bigger, we'll probably go to the farmer's market and do it that way.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we will not ship beef.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, shipping beef is a pain.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, and if we don't have to do it, we're not going to do it.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: Um so that's been our stance on that.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: We did do a little bit of it over Christmas.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we didn't have any train wrecks, but it gave me enough heartache that I don't want to do it again.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: Right.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
48:32
SPEAKER_00: And so we sell steaks like that and burger like everyone else does, but we started getting into some of the tallow stuff.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: So I'll pull up some of those things.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:39
SPEAKER_02: Right now I've got in front of me, I've got Mist Vale Akuchi, beef tallow.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: Ingredients, rendered beef fat.
48:45
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
48:46
SPEAKER_02: One ingredient in there.
48:47
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: And it's full blood.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: So all of our all of our steers in our program are full blood steers currently.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: We'd probably do some purebreds, but we probably wouldn't go below that because um of the product that our customers expect.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: Sure, sure.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep.
49:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, and I I appreciate you mentioning that because that's like I mean, to the point we were talking earlier, I said there's a lot of times people think, well, because it is a purebred or a full blood, by definition, that makes it a breeding animal.
49:12
SPEAKER_02: Like, no, but by definition, it makes it excellent quality callow or excellent beef, excellent whatever else.
49:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, and yeah, the best few you breed, but the bulk of them, yeah, they should be a consumable, is what they should be.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: And then uh here we have a candle.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: So I don't have my labels on them yet.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but I'll give this to you to take back as well.
49:29
SPEAKER_02: And it is, it's a really pleasant smell.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's a really, really nice candle.
49:32
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned it was a watermelon that you went for a little bit.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we went for a watermelon smell on that.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: We had some orange and some lavender ones as well.
49:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
49:38
SPEAKER_02: And it's fun and it's unique to say, hey, not only are you selling steaks or or roasts or burger or whatever else, you're selling candles, you're selling tallow.
49:48
SPEAKER_02: You're you're able to use the tallow to make those potato chips, you know, that we tried some, which were wonderful, you know.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna bring those up next.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, perfect.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: Let's grab those.
49:56
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna park with these right here so I can eat them the rest of the time, you know.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, they are.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: They're they're a wonderful product.
50:01
SPEAKER_02: And it's fun, it's fun to say, okay, now everything in cattle, not everybody can know or appreciate, but food, everyone's gotta eat, you know, and it is it's fun to be able to take and share a unique product, even if it's somebody that's never seen or been around or known a thing about cows in their life.
50:17
SPEAKER_02: You can take something like this, this, you know, w or Akiushi Wagyu beef tallow, make a really fun potato chip out of it.
50:24
SPEAKER_02: Anyone can appreciate that.
50:25
SPEAKER_02: Like I think that's pretty fun.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: I know they're mine, but I do think they're the best potato chip I've probably ever had.
50:29
SPEAKER_00: They're pretty dang good.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: They're pretty dang good.
50:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:32
SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep.
50:33
SPEAKER_02: Oh, those are fantastic.
50:34
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
50:35
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
50:36
SPEAKER_02: Looking at the tallow, the sky's the limit on what you can do with that.
50:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, you've got the tallow just as a raw product that you could use for cooking.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: Or I mean, I've heard of people using it for everything from I mean, sunscreens and balms and lotions and soaps, and we've got a candle there, we've got potato chips there.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: You talked about making donuts in in the tallow.
50:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's just really a broad series of opportunities within those products.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: And I've seen people do things like pet foods, you know what I mean, or even take things like like the organs or things like that that wouldn't normally be consumed by an American audience, but they're making pet food.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: I've heard about um like bodybuilders do like the um muscle man burger, which is like the organs and the hamburger mixed together.
51:18
SPEAKER_02: Right, right, yeah.
51:19
SPEAKER_02: And there's such a series of opportunities there, and that's where I think people people should say, hey, by default, these are beef.
51:26
SPEAKER_02: The best few will carry forward with and breed with, but it doesn't take very many animals to turn into a whole pile of animals really quickly.
51:32
SPEAKER_02: They don't all need to be breeders.
51:34
SPEAKER_02: You know, like let's let's take, I mean, whether you're evaluating them at a show, whether you're evaluating them in a data set, whether we're just building our own little data set and what we we analyze, figure out the very best few they can carry forward and be your donors, your studs, your cow herd, whatever else.
51:48
SPEAKER_02: Everybody else plan to eat them or sell to somebody who will.
51:51
SPEAKER_02: You know, like that's all animals need eaten at some point.
51:54
SPEAKER_02: I I think that's that's one of the biggest differentiators people need to understand is like, hey, these are meant to be eaten, not that they all need to be bred in perpetuity.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I mean, and and to be fair, like we have called pretty hard in the last year or so, but we didn't do that to begin with.
52:09
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know what I mean?
52:10
SPEAKER_00: And that and that's the same position I'm in.
52:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm learning as I go.
52:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so and so that's where that's where like um like the other thing, like I know that I know it hurts to like change your plan or like your business, but yeah, at a certain point in time you have to figure out what works and what doesn't.
52:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you have to be resilient enough to adapt to that.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that that's a thing that people are gonna have to do because if they don't, like you can't make a living selling four thousand dollar bulls.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, yep, yep.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: And it also hurts the industry as a whole when we do that.
52:42
SPEAKER_02: Sure, yep, yep, yep.
52:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh, and I think the more we can go and say, hey, if it's going to be, if it's not gonna be the front edge, if it's not gonna be the best, if it's not gonna trade pretty darn well, we're better off to trade it as a steer than as a bull.
52:54
SPEAKER_02: You know, that that that is the better option, you know, because I and like you said, better on both fronts, better for the seller, because frankly, you can quite often get more money out of the steer, and better for the buyer because you're gonna take the very only the very best few are gonna breed.
53:07
SPEAKER_02: Everything else is just it can make a great beef product, even if it isn't gonna make a great breeding bowl.
53:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, even if you're selling your calves, if you find a program that has an MIJ camera to sell them into, um, it's more valuable to you to sell those calves, even if it's just for a little bit of a premium.
53:23
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
53:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, because then you're breaking even and you're not having to feed that animal for that period of time.
53:30
SPEAKER_00: And it's not on your place.
53:31
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: That's the other part of that too.
53:33
SPEAKER_02: Oh, for sure.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: And you know, and that's one thing I look at today, you know, and even you know, you mentioned premiums and things like that in today's cattle market, we're at all-time highs.
53:41
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like commodity cattle have never in the history of the world been worth more than they are today.
53:46
SPEAKER_02: So even if you just sell them at commodity values, even if there's not a premium above that, you're still selling cattle for more than anyone has ever sold cattle for ever.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
53:56
SPEAKER_00: That's we should we should talk about another one of my favorite market topics now, which is uh which is um Akauchi is a hedge.
54:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
54:03
SPEAKER_00: So I view Akaushi bulls and and black wagyu bulls to an extent as a hedge to the beef market.
54:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, like right now the premiums aren't there.
54:11
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
54:11
SPEAKER_00: Right?
54:12
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
54:12
SPEAKER_00: And people can argue about why the premiums went away, but I think that there's only one real reason.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: I think if you look back at 20, I think it's 2015, 2011, you'll see the same pattern over and over and over again.
54:22
SPEAKER_00: Right.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: As cattle prices go up, wagyu prices go down.
54:25
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
54:26
SPEAKER_00: And that and that applies to both breeds.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: Because they're phone cyclical.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I can't pay you a premium.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a beef program.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: I can't pay you a premium on five dollars a pound.
54:36
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
54:38
SPEAKER_00: And I definitely can't pay you a 20% premium on$5 a pound.
54:43
SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, yep, yep.
54:44
SPEAKER_00: And because that's just not fair.
54:46
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
54:46
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
54:47
SPEAKER_00: Like, and and when it comes back to like people kind of making demands or kind of wanting things to work a certain way, like that's kind of how I felt about some of the premiums discussions that we've had over the last few years.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: Is that like, yeah, like they said you were gonna get a premium, like whoever you bought your bowl from, like I know there are a few programs out there doing that that didn't end up doing that.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: But like I can't blame them.
55:11
SPEAKER_00: Like, I like you're making you're making five dollars a pound on your calves.
55:15
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
55:15
SPEAKER_00: So how are you demanding a premium on said calves?
55:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
55:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, and and that's that's the that's really a big point, you know, is that like, yeah, so okay, maybe they wean a little lighter.
55:25
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: Right?
55:26
SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, but like this is a hedge that you took.
55:30
SPEAKER_00: Because when the cattle market goes the other way, those premiums are gonna come back.
55:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
55:34
SPEAKER_00: And when those premiums come back, you're gonna be benefiting off the bull.
55:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
55:39
SPEAKER_02: Well, and and I think, you know, to your point, so I mean, honestly, and this is the thing that's crazy.
55:44
SPEAKER_02: Like you said, I mean, five bucks, that that's not a crazy wild pie in the sky number.
55:47
SPEAKER_02: That's like cattle are trading at five bucks all over.
55:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, for weanling calves, all over the place, five bucks a pound.
55:53
SPEAKER_02: It's been a much more normal number to see over the course of the last 10 years, a buck and a half.
55:57
SPEAKER_02: A buck and a half on a five-weight calf was very normal.
56:00
SPEAKER_02: Yep, very normal for the bulk of the last 10 years, uh, short of these last couple.
56:04
SPEAKER_02: And so, I mean, yeah, if somebody says, well, one, the base money is a buck and a half, you're gonna make a buck seventy plus, you know, like and this is the thing that's crazy to me.
56:12
SPEAKER_02: People will get frustrated because they say, well, yeah, I didn't get my 20 cents over.
56:15
SPEAKER_02: And you're saying, okay, so you're telling me when it was a buck fifty, you wanted a buck seventy, and you need to take an a buck seventy happily, but it's at five bucks, and you're mad that it's not five twenty.
56:24
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
56:25
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, I mean, I and I'm and I'm one of these guys, just so we're clear.
56:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm one of the guys who's not paying the premium.
56:30
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
56:31
SPEAKER_00: Like I was buying full blood calves at a 35% premium.
56:34
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
56:35
SPEAKER_00: At a certain point in time.
56:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't do that anymore.
56:37
SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure, yeah, right, right.
56:38
SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's not it's not feasible for me to do that.
56:41
SPEAKER_00: It's there's no there's no business sense in doing it.
56:43
SPEAKER_00: So so that's that's what I mean.
56:45
SPEAKER_00: No matter like I like no matter what the program is, like you can't expect you can't expect a premium to be paid on on those cattle.
56:52
SPEAKER_02: Well, and it's like you said, it's a hedge because I mean at today's cattle market values, no matter what you sell them, I mean, no matter what you breed, no matter what you sell, they're all worth a pile right now.
57:01
SPEAKER_02: They're all worth a ton.
57:02
SPEAKER_02: It's when the market goes back the other way, which I mean we got a hundred years of data that says it will.
57:06
SPEAKER_02: It definitely will.
57:07
SPEAKER_01: I've been calling it for a while and I've been wrong, but I'm gonna be right one of these times.
57:10
SPEAKER_02: At some point it will go the other way.
57:11
SPEAKER_02: Now, I can't tell you exactly when or exactly how far, but I can tell you we got a hundred years of data that says, I mean, roughly 10 years peak to peak, roughly 10 years trough to trough.
57:20
SPEAKER_02: And it's just a basic supply and demand model.
57:22
SPEAKER_02: There's all sorts of short-term shocks that move that thing up and down throughout, but it is basic supply and demand.
57:27
SPEAKER_02: It takes a long time to adjust supply and demand when it takes nine months to gestate them and another year to year plus to raise them to sexual maturity, and another nine months to gestate that calf takes a long time to adjust supply and cattle.
57:40
SPEAKER_02: So, what I'm getting around to is when it goes down the opposite direction, when we get back in the realm of normal and we're in buck fifty calves, a buck 70, you know, 20 cents over or whatever, maybe 20, 30, 40 cents over are all very normal numbers.
57:52
SPEAKER_02: That can be the difference between profitability and loss in that kind of a setting.
57:57
SPEAKER_02: Yes, you see it is a hedge.
57:59
SPEAKER_02: Because right now, yeah, I mean, everyone's gonna make money.
58:01
SPEAKER_02: Like a monkey could make money in this market, right?
58:03
SPEAKER_02: It's when you go the opposite direction and things are low, and you're like, okay, what do I have that's gonna add a premium or be a value differentiator when I need it, when things are tight, when things are hard.
58:13
SPEAKER_02: And that's where I say, hey, look, you're a lot better off to be positioned with Akiushi genetics present in your herd now, than be like, okay, let's wait for the thing to fall apart and then introduce an Akiushi bowl and wait nine months for them to gestate and another seven for them to win.
58:27
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
58:28
SPEAKER_00: And in your replacement females, when you have an Akeushi bull, you're getting a lot of benefits as well.
58:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
58:33
SPEAKER_00: You've seen my place, it's essentially a swamp right now.
58:37
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's like that for three or four months at a time.
58:39
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
58:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, because we're down here in the river bottom.
58:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's not a lot of shade.
58:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
58:44
SPEAKER_00: It's extremely hot here in central Texas.
58:46
SPEAKER_02: Yep, even the camera was sweating.
58:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the camera was sweating.
58:49
SPEAKER_00: So that's why we call the place Mist Veil, is because you can you have a veil of mist where you can barely see your hand in front of your face at certain points in time because of the humidity and the fog down here.
59:00
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
59:00
SPEAKER_00: And we haven't had any problem with the cattle at all.
59:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's part of what we really love about them is that they're extremely heat tolerant, more so than even Brangus.
59:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yep.
59:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, they're extremely docile if you work with them the right way, as you've seen.
59:13
SPEAKER_02: Handling's important, but yeah, you've got some extremely docile cattle.
59:16
SPEAKER_00: They calve easy.
59:17
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
59:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then at the same point in time, a big one for us is we don't have a problem with foot rot.
59:23
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
59:23
SPEAKER_00: And foot rot is the big issue for sure in an environment like this.
59:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
59:28
SPEAKER_02: And I I think it's an understated value.
59:30
SPEAKER_02: People look at Akayushi and only see the carcass, or only see the beef, or only see the value on the terminal end.
59:36
SPEAKER_02: But absolutely, these cows, I mean, when we talk about functionality, and I say this is I mean, I I've worked with a series of different breeds in beef cattle.
59:43
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, if you want to find teenage cows that have calved every year and stayed in production, it is a challenge in other breeds to find cows that have stayed in production every single year, into their teens, calving on time, raising a quality calf.
59:56
SPEAKER_02: It is very, very common in Akeyushi to find cows get into their teens and continue to breed back and continue to raise a quality calf.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: Feet hold up, udders hold up, and you're feeding a cow that weighs 1,1200 pounds instead of a cow that weighs 1,600, 1,800 pounds.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_02: And the number one cost in any beef operation is feed.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_02: So we're decreasing that cost.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_02: The number two cost, again, I mean, different people could run math or argue this point, but depreciation or replacement cost of your females is number two.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_02: And any asset, I'm no, I'm no data analyst, but any asset that depreciates over you know 12 plus years instead of six or eight on the average cow, or 10 at best, is going to cost you significantly less per year in depreciation on those replacement costs.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_02: And then you're not only that, not only have we reduced feed costs and reduced replacement costs, but we're selling a premium product, especially in a down market, versus just selling a commodity product or something that that isn't a superior product on the rail.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, and the good thing about them living so long is that then you get to decide when you're gonna call them instead of them deciding when they're gonna fall out of the herd.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_00: So I have two females that are 14, 15 years old across the street.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they've calved all the time.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_00: There's no real issues with them.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_00: But are they gonna stick around?
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: I got a lot of younger females that are gonna come up.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_00: And so it might be time to move them down the road because we got a lot of offspring out of them that are great offspring.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_00: But it's just time to move on.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that that's something else that people should really consider when they're thinking about what a donor is or what or what needs to stay in the herd?
1:01:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_02: No, absolutely.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_02: So I guess looking at it in in summary, Aaron, if there was anything that you were gonna say going back a handful of years, you know, to when you first got involved with Akiushi and your experience from then to now, looking at anybody that's maybe just getting involved in Akiushi, is there anything that you would say to that person that might be listening to this podcast?
1:01:44
SPEAKER_02: Any recommendations, tips, or tricks or pitfalls to avoid as we kind of wrap up here?
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: I'd say be open-minded and make sure that you're seeing everything.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_00: Like take the trip to Heartbrand.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_00: Take the trip to Legendary, you bet.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_00: Take the trip to other breeders out there, smaller breeders like myself or like to your operation.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_00: You bet.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_00: And figure out what a good cow looks like in the breed.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_00: Because I think a lot of time people compare the cattle to black wagyu.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_00: And so then they think, oh wow, these look really great.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: But when you compare some of those Akaushi to some of the other Akahushi out there, sure, it's a completely different story.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_00: And so I I think I would encourage people to be open-minded.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing would be to do your own work.
1:02:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_00: Make sure you're gathering the data, make sure you're doing the hard work that goes into being successful.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're not willing to put in the work, then you're not going to be successful.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_02: Well, I appreciate you sharing that.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_02: Appreciate you taking the time to sit down with us and thank you for being willing to host us here.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_02: Even not coming in a day late.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you working with me and being flexible there and look forward to spending some time there at convention.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_00: It'll be a great time.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Got Any Cows Podcast.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_02: Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you get your podcasts.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_02: And visit us anytime at godanycows.com.