Latest / The Source – The Jorgensen Land & Cattle Podcast / Episode 19: The Evolution of Bull Leasing & SmartBulls with Andy Tegethoff

Transcript

Episode 19: The Evolution of Bull Leasing & SmartBulls with Andy Tegethoff · The Source – The Jorgensen Land & Cattle Podcast

• speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Over a hundred years of experience lie in ideal South Dakota. The team at Jorgensen Land and Cattle is going to take the time to offer insight into that experience along with many other industry experts. If you're ready to learn and grow, this is The Source. Well good morning folks. Welcome back to The Source. as per usual, your host Jamie Wolf here. fun episode today. We'll jump in here in just a minute. JLC Crew is fresh back from California. They had a really successful sale at Ranch Choice Stockyards there in Aromas, California. really happy with how that went. And now shifting focus to the sale at Jordan Cattle Auction, San Saba, Texas on October 29th, and getting geared up for November 13th at Arcadia Livestock. Arcadia's been a longstanding sale. always excited to go back to Florida with the with a good set of smart bulls. so today wanted to jump in and visit with a guy that you guys have met before. we had a short conversation with him about a year ago on here. begin to welcome one of the longest standing employees at Jorgensen Landing Cattle today, Mr. Andy Tagatoff. Andy, welcome to the show. speaker-1: Thanks a lot, Jamie. Glad to be here. speaker-0: You bet, you bet. So Andy, you've been at Jorgenson Lana Keattle for fifteen years. speaker-1: Yes sir. speaker-0: Wha what is your title today? speaker-1: VP of sales I guess. yeah, that would be my title. speaker-0: Yeah, so Andy, let's let's go back. we said you've been here fifteen years. that would make it two thousand eleven that you started at Jorgens Atlanta Cattle. For the record I was a junior in high school at that point. speaker-1: Yeah, no, I was I was the RAP old age of twenty nine. I'm forty four now, so I've spent most of my adult years here at JLC. it's been great. Started out in winter selling cars, so I kinda kind of was classically trained how to sell stuff, by The one and only Darryl Kaiser here in town whipped my butt into shape in a in a lot of different ways, but it it got me to be where I am today. speaker-0: Yeah, and so so you grew up in Platt, correct? speaker-1: Yep, yep. born and raised in Platte, South Dakota, which is about a little less than an hour east of here across the river. grew up in town, played all kinds of sports. I guess I was a town kid you could say by definition. but I did a lot outside of of town. My dad ran the sale barn in Platte for about ten or eleven years and so I was always there, you know breaking stuff in the back. my nickname there as a kid was Handy Andy and it wasn't because I was handy. if you ever drive by Platt, take a look at the sale barn and there's a nice little crinkle in the side of the building still there from when I was how I had to be fourteen years old. I parked my 1979 International Scout right there by the building and walked inside and out the window I could see it rolling into the building and Forgot to put it in park. so yeah, that that's still there. So that it's one of the reasons I was handy handy at the sail barn. But yeah, and then my my grandparents lived east of Plata little ways, in the New Holland area. had a little farm there and so I would go out and help them farm and didn't really have cattle when I was growing up. they did when I was you know, before I was born when my dad was growing up there. But so my my dad got to throw a lot of square bales and I did not get to do that as quite as often as he did. I I did it enough to know that I never wanted to do it again. And yeah, so I would help, you know, Ray K or Winro or plant beans and corn stuff like that. and then help my dad at the sale barn or you know. help my dad at the sale bar. Frustrate his employees more than anything. but yeah, then moved to went to college at in Mitchell, Dakota Wesleyan. met my wife. she was going to USD at the time. She was up for a party. We met at a party and and followed her to winter. And started selling cars then in winter. got my first job out of college there. and like I said, got trained how to how to sell. And Cody called me up. I was at Harry Kay. I started out at Frontier Motors, went to Harry Kay, was there for about a year, then Cody called me, said, Hey do you wanna come work for us? And I said, Heck yeah, I wanna come work for you. And so been here ever since, loving every minute of it. speaker-0: Yeah. And you went to Dakota Wesland, played football, correct? speaker-1: I played football for two weeks. I was on a football scholarship there, freshman year, two weeks into practice. I it was at our our fall scrimmage. I They threw me in at defensive end because they wanted to see if I could play defensive end. Never played defensive end before in my life. First play of the scrimmage that I went in was coming around a big old 300 pound senior offensive lineman and he he chop blocked me and my legs and broke my leg, dislocated my ankle, and that was the end of my football career. So yeah, I played football for two weeks. speaker-0: Yeah, that can happen. That can happen. did you graduate from Dakota Westland? speaker-1: Yes sir. Got a a four year degree in business, minor communications. yeah. speaker-0: Yep. You bet. You bet. So when you came to Jorgensen Lanic cattle fifteen years ago, things looked significantly different than they do today. speaker-1: I I think significantly is is light, putting it very lightly. Yeah. speaker-0: Biggest understatement of the day. talk to me a little bit about what your what your first role was there at here at JLC and the evolution as you've moved into what you do today and then we'll go back and we'll talk more about about how things have changed at JL C but for you with with where you started to where you are today. speaker-1: Yeah, so I started out here as the the inventory manager basically. we we still had the old farmhouse at that time. And so it was it was a farmhouse with they they had converted it into a an office space and a lunchroom and a kitchen. And so I had an a small, small office right next to Cody's office, right next to Greg's office. And so I was then classically trained just by listening to those two guys all the time, nonstop, every day, talking to customers, you know, solving problems, selling bowls, how to deal with people, on the cattle end of things. And and yeah, so I was a s the inventory manager when I first started here, inventory and you know, feed sheets and stuff like that, handled all that. And and then kind of got into as I started in October and said we really weren't doing anything other than smart bulls. And and the smart bowls wasn't nearly as what it is today. Greg was he was just pretty much selling down into Florida at that time, a little bit into Louisiana. And so I would help with him taking orders in Florida, sending them up here, and then I would put on the books, mark down which bowls got sold, when and where, and then send out invoices and stuff like that. And then in the in the springtime. Then I I was you know handled all the the paperwork and inventory for the for the leasing side of things. Greg was in charge of everything at that time. And so he was driving down the road with with a 50-page XL spreadsheet with all the customers and all the bull orders on there. So driving down the road hauling bulls with one eye, with one hand on the wheel and and one hand on his on his center console with a highlighter and a and a marker, marking stuff off, calling in, you know, when he's got this guy lying. that I ever I I didn't I I just got you know the paperwork and the bulls lined up to go. Greg handled everything. But the day before he tells me, yeah, the n tomorrow we're gonna be delivering, or it might have been two days prior, but he said tomorrow, or let's just say it was Thursday. Thursday we're gonna be delivering so-and-so's bowls. so make sure they're ready. And I didn't know what that meant as far as what Greg wanted it to mean. And so that morning when he was supposed to get back up to the shoot and load out, none of the bulls were ready to go. And and I thought he meant get the bull sorted up in the morning and then we'll we'll he can go whenever he wants to go. And he came into the office and chewed my butt up and down. Why aren't these bulls ready to go? I'm like, Greg, you told me you were leaving today. And he's like, well, I want the bulls ready to go at seven o'clock in the morning. I don't want to have to sit around and wait for And I was as green as green could be, and I didn't know that that meant we had to get everything ready to go the day before, get the bulls sorted up the day before. And so yeah, I I learned really quickly that Greg would like to be on the road by seven, seven thirty at the latest with his bulls loaded up, ready to go. And that never happened again unless there was a a complete giant miscommunication. speaker-0: Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And so you're you're in the inventory manager role, which ironically is where we all apparently start at at George Atlanta Cattle. so how many years was that kind of the main the main thing before you started rolling into to really a sales role? speaker-1: Yeah, I couldn't tell you exactly how many years it was. Let's I've been here fifteen years. Let's say I I did that probably for the first five years, just solely that. and then also on top of that I would help out in the feed yard very, very limited basis. If they were short a few guys or if they needed help on the weekends, I would I would help, you know, feed. you know, they probably could have nicknamed me Handy Andy, just from that experience as well. I I broke my fair share of of aprons and and flat tires and stuff. But yeah, I'd say probably just solely in that five years and then as Greg got more and more out of the leasing business, I kinda just grabbed it on my own and just kinda thought, hey, I I know how to sell. phone's ringing. Greg's down in Florida or or something like that. I can I can take this order. I can put it in the in the computer and handle it on my own. And so I did that more and more and then as Greg got more and more out of the business, I I I picked it up more and more and and it just snowballed into now Greg is pretty much done and it's kinda now my my ball yarn to to have to deal with And so but we've got a great team here. Brian is our main dispatch man and Hannah is now our inventory manager and we have Smither on the sales team, Matt Smither. And so it it's grown into it's grown into what used to be just Greg and I and then Co Cody was Cody was in it before I got here even. And then when I got here then he he concentrated more on the bull sale and and growing growing our name and growing JLC. And so I kinda just kind just, you know, handled handled all that then after that. but but yeah it was just me and Greg basically for about five years. And then and then as Greg stepped out of it more and more, you know, got closer to retirement, which he's he's still not fully retired. He still sells a heck of a lot of bulls down in Florida. But but but we all handle the the the leasing business up here solely between us four people. And yeah, it's it's it's a heck of a deal. speaker-0: Yes, sir. Yeah. So when you started in two thousand eleven, how many when when inventory was maxed out, bulls were all in the yard, how many head would have been standing at Jorgens Atlanta Cattle? speaker-1: you know, we we were KFO'd at four thousand head. You know, we didn't have the the big yard that we have now. I would say at the peak when I first started, I wanna say it was probably thirty five hundred bulls, maybe tops. may I'd I'd have to look back and see, but it I'd I wanna guess it was around there. probably Prob I would guess probably at the max two thousand yearlings and and at the max fifteen hundred smart bulls or older bulls. and yeah, I would say thirty five hundred. I don't think we ever got to full capacity on that KFO deal. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, and so as as business has obviously grown and you've played a major major part in that, when you first started leasing started taking over the the sales role and and leasing bulls out, do you remember how many bulls you'd have leased that that first year? speaker-1: The first year it was probably gonna be close to three thousand, maybe a little bit more, and I'm I remember I remember really g giving Greg and everybody a high five when we hit that three thousand bull mark. You know, it was it was pretty cool. Pretty cool. Yep. speaker-0: And and now as it's as it's changed and grown, how many will you lease out this year? speaker-1: We'll we'll lease out well last year we leased out about forty five, forty six hundred bulls and we'll probably not not by any dip in d in demand, we'll lease out about the same. we had a a dip in inventory and so we'll lease about lease out about the same amount of bulls this year. speaker-0: So so as things have grown, evolved, changed at Jorgensen Landing Cattle, what what are some of the the things that You know, the the leasebull program has obviously done nothing but grow demand has has continued to rise there. what are some of the things you you attribute to the success of that program? You know, obviously you're you're playing a big part in that and and talking to folks. what are some of the some of the things there that have really helped grow and drive that well speaker-1: It it's an interesting business because, you know, it it takes a lot of of talking to somebody who has done nothing but own bulls. in the past, you know, the the old the the generation ahead of mine, that's all they knew. And and and their fathers' generations, that's all they knew. And so I think as as my my generation now's coming up and your generation's coming up and they're they're getting more involved in in the decision making process, they see they see the value of not having to to horse around with these bulls nine months out of the year. And and it it it it just took a while for that I for that sea change in in thought. to to really embrace you know the idea of not owning a bull, you're still getting a a top notch, you know, a top-notch genetically based bull. he's not like some You know, random thing that we bought at a sale barn somewhere. You know, these are these are bulls built to be lease bulls. They're not bulls didn't make a sale somewhere and we just held them back and and so and leased them. the these it it took a it took a while, I think, and now finally my generation and your generation are coming up into their family operation, being been given the reins and and are seeing the value in that. And then but we we lease to a lot of a lot of older guys too. You know, there's there's a lot to say for that. I think a lot of the older guys that have been leasing a long time, they see the value in in the in the you know, they don't have to go out, you know, and find a pen and and feed them all the time. it's less of a headache for them, I think, and it and it's more of a a financial benefit across the board for for everybody involved. And I think just people as time went on more and more people realized that. speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: And it it's funny, it it's funny when you look at the the herd sizes now too, is that you know the herd size you know we've all been told is the smallest it's been since nineteen seventy, whatever. but our market share has grown. I mean we're leasing more and more bulls with less and less cows being owned by people. And so there's there's a lot more people, I mean exponentially, that that see the value in leasing bulls. speaker-0: Yeah, and let's let's let's dive into that a little bit, Andy. let's talk about what a lease bull is. You know, as far as what what that animal is. You mentioned, you know, kind of the stigma that's out there a lot of times on what a lease bull is. It's just something that somebody went around and packed packaged together the bottom end out of a bunch of sales and they're gonna gonna just pedal them out. And that's not at all what you get at Jorgens Atlanta Cattle. So let's talk about what What a lease bull is, where he comes from, a little bit of the the folks you work with that are that are providing those cattle. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. So we have our own, you know, registered parents dot cow herd of about eleven hundred would you say cows. speaker-0: up to fifteen hundred now. speaker-1: And and so they provide us with the genetic base of everything that we do here, right? and and so we have we get about you know six hundred or so bull calves a year out of those. Well it's probably more than that now. But then we whittle that down to the top two hundred registered yearling bulls every year, and then we have our our top cut Angus registered yearling bull sale in April, every third Monday in April. And so we also have how many is it now? 18 speaker-0: Yeah, I would say that's where we're gonna land at this year probably. Right in there. speaker-1: Something that. And so those genetic partners have been hand selected by us and and then that you know they gotta come to us or or we you know sometimes go to them to say, hey, you know, we like what you're doing. What would you be interested in in working with us on this deal? But we've got a lot of those guys that have been here, you know, twenty, thirty, forty years that that have been buying our bulls out of our bull cell every year. that we've been buying back the bull cabs. But let me go back to the bull sale then. So then those those cooperators, those genetic partners that we have, they come to our bull sale every year. They buy our top end, you know, our top end yearling bulls. and a lot of the times they lease them, you know, or they'll or they'll just buy and then keep But they'll take back to their their own cow herd and then and then they'll breed their cows to our bulls and their cows are also very heavily in influenced by Jorgensen genetics. They've been keeping you know replacement heifers back for years and years. And so they will buy our top-end bulls, breed their cows to our bulls, and then at this time of the year, and and a few we got a few fall herd guys also that we buy bulls from. But so starting in July, we'll be getting the fall calves in. And then right now we are rocking and rolling on getting these weaned bull calves in from our genetic partners. And those those bulls are our DNA tested through AgBoost and Zoetis through our ideal beef evaluation. And so they get DNA tested so we know everything about them genetically speaking. We know their sire if he's gets sire matched, we know the the dam if he gets dam matched. and then we when then we have a full suite of EPDs also on those bowls. So we've got, you know you you've talked about it here a ton, but you know the carcass trait data, the the weaning weight, yearling weight, all that fun stuff. We've got all them EPDs in our system. It's not just some, you know, commercial bowl that we don't know anything about. and we we hope that he works out for you. We are very confident in these bowls and so people lease them out as a yearling bowl then so then you know they'll get put into our system once they come here as a wean bull calf. We'll feed them up until the spring. we'll weed out the bad ones, we'll we'll which isn't a lot. We'll keep the good ones, we'll get them semen tested as a yearling bull. If they gotta go to if they go to Texas, they yeah, they gotta get trick tested even as a 14-month-old virgin bull. Makes no sense to me, but I understand the rules are rules. so they'll get semen tested, sometimes trick tested. They'll go all over all over the Midwest and like I said to Texas or wherever that that we can lease bulls to. And then so they'll go out 60 to 90 days, they will come back to us. we'll get him in our feed lot, we'll get reconditioned, semen tested, trick tested, the whole nine yards. they'll go through a culling process where where we look at feet. We look at you know, if if he's broke down, if he's limping or something, we'll get him treated if we think he can make a bowl, or if he can come out of it. if he flunks a semen test twice, then after that, after he comes back, then we will we will cut bait with that bowl and say, See ya later. And then and then we'll lease that bowl out again. Not that bowl, but a a good bull. We'll lease out the two year olds then in the in the same manner, spring and summertime. They'll come back to us in the fall, and and late summer, and then we will get them bulls as a a 30 month old bull then put into our smart bowl program where we where we sell these bowls like hot cakes down into the south, into Texas, Louisiana, California. Like you mentioned, we just had a bowl sale in California, sold awesomely. and then Yeah, I said Texas, Louisiana, Florida, California. We have a bull sale in Nevada and then a and one in Colorado to end the year, the the Smart Bull season in April. but that's basically the rundown of of our leasing program from you know nuts to bolts, tail to mouth. that that's what it is. speaker-0: Yeah, and so, you know, you mentioned it, but really the the hot commodity, those two year olds that's speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: that's a really popular popular option for folks. Talk about you know, back to to where Greg started and and leasing those yearlin bulls and then initially trying to sell then and how it rolled into into putting that second lease on them and how we manage those bulls through the winter to to really provide a an animal that is pretty superior to go breed cows anywhere in the world. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. So when we first started leasing bulls, it was basically we'd lease them out once as a yearling and then and then try to market them as a two year old bull. And it the the bulls weren't quite able to hold up, especially in the south as a as a common two year old, two year old bull. And so we thought let's get one more lease out of them, get more age on them, and then and then sell them. And so so the idea behind selling them as a three year old bull then is that we're selling these bulls. They're they're mature, they got a full set of teeth. Their rumen is fully developed so they can go down into Louisiana or Florida and eat all that washy grass that they want to eat to sustain themselves and not tip over dead bloat or get sick or anything like that. Their feet are good and solid. We've got the the as a 30-month-old bull, they're they're they've basically gone through the hardest part of their of their growing process. And so, and then also you know, a culling process as well, where if if he didn't if the bull didn't make it as a smart bull, he wouldn't have made it as as a as a two-year-old bull if we'd have sold. And so that's what's great about the smart bulls is that they've already been culled down to a to a what's left is a is a just a rock solid bowl that's gonna work for you. speaker-0: Yeah, but those those guys that like to lease those two year olds, you know, i in our country, they're they're looking at a at a two that's that's been through a breeding season and passed another breeding soundness exam. they've got a they've got a young bull, younger bull that can still go. You know, those some of those guys really challenge those two year old bulls in speaker-1: yeah. speaker-0: that part of the world and man, that's a that's a really popular lease bull product is that Is that two year old? speaker-1: Well, it it's our it's our most popular product by far. I mean I and then it's it's it's unfortunate that that we run out so early too because you know, as as the as the product of our leasing program, we lease them out as a yearling. Let's just say next year we'll have let's just say twenty five hundred yearlings to lease out. Well through through the through the culling process and and the breakdowns throughout the leasing season we end up, let's just say with about twenty two hundred then of of the two year old bulls. And but Everybody wants them two-year-old bulls because they can they can cover more cows, they can last a little bit longer. you know, the everybody says that those earling bulls they fall in love and and they all gang up on one cow or they follow one cow around until they kind of you know figure things out, takes them a little bit longer. But then two-year-old bulls, man, you you throw them out with the cows and they just they know what they're doing, they go right to work. you know, that's that's what people say. I don't know if that's if that's actually what happens, but but yeah, so the two-year-olds they can. cover more cows, they can last a little bit longer and and they get the job done a lot quicker too. So the the this the the two-year-old bull is by far our most popular product, our most in demand product and unfortunately it's probably we need to have a lot more of them. but that's not how it how it works. speaker-0: Yeah, and and so when you started fifteen years ago, Andy, w bulk of the states you were leasing bulls into speaker-1: Yeah, we were I mean it was it was it was this I would say we didn't do much in North Dakota, you know, obviously a ton in South Dakota and Nebraska, a little bit in Wyoming, some of Montana, not a lot into Iowa, not much into Minnesota, and we still don't have a lot in Minnesota. I think that's just a a a product of of not a lot of cows in in Minnesota. speaker-0: Number of cows, yeah. speaker-1: Right, right. But but then since then we we've grown to Colorado and Texas and Kansas and Oklahoma and Missouri. where else have we leased bulls to? We've we've leased bulls Oregon, not a lot, but we have. Utah, we we do some fall leasing in California. So yeah, it they've gone, they've we we've spread out quite a ways. And it's a challenge because it's tough when a guy calls in Let's just say from from Missouri and he needs two bulls, well you you gotta get them guys to understand that, hey, we'll we'll lease you these two bulls, but you're gonna have to meet us, you know, in in in Kansas or something like that. And and you you know, you just gotta get them guys to realize that, hey, we can't deliver two bulls to Missouri, y you know, you know, and that's it. You know, we're gonna have we got these 15 bulls going to Kansas. And we'll put your two bulls on the back, can you meet us in Kansas? And a lot of the guys are understanding of that and they will they will work with us. And so that, you know, communication is a big part of of getting people to to lease bulls that are far ways away. getting them to just realize, hey, we you know we can't deliver one or two or three bulls to to Missouri or or you know, southern Oklahoma or even Texas. we do a lot of leasing in Texas and so everybody needs to work together. you we find meeting points for people to meet at, like sale. Barns or just big ranches. and and and for the most part people are very accommodating on on helping us out because if we had to drive all over the world for for one bull here, two bulls there, our our costs would skyrocket as far as trucking goes. Everybody knows the price of diesel nowadays. And and we would it wouldn't be feasible for us to keep leasing them at the price that we're leasing them, and so you know, for with people helping us out on that end of things, it helps us keep our costs down. speaker-0: So so if you were gonna talk to somebody that that's never leased a bull before, what what's the number one thing you want them to know about about leasing bulls today and and why it is such a great option for a lot of people? speaker-1: Well, you know, every everybody says, you know, after they after they are a new customer and they lease pulls from us, They s you know, they say one of the happiest times of the year is seeing them bulls get loaded up and and out of their hair. You know, they don't gotta put up with them for for the nine months out of the year that they're not working for you. You you get for sixty to ninety days and you cut bait with Nine months you don't have to deal with broken fences, you don't have to deal with bulls fighting, you know, breaking themselves, semen testing, trick testing, vaccinating, whatever whatever somebody does with when they own a bull, you do Not have to do that with these bulls. They show up pasture and pasture ready, ready to get to work. That we drop them off sometimes. If we can, we'll drop them right off in the guy's pasture with the cows and shut the gate and shake hands and see you later. See you in you know 60 to 90 days. you know it it's it's a financial benefit as well. They say for every every bull you lease, you save up the amount of money that you could run an extra one and a half cows. and so you can grow your cow herd by by the amount of money you save up front, it's a a complete tax write-off. it you know it's as far as you know the government looks at it as like owning a bowl or it it's a tax write off just like if you were to own your own bull. And so pe people see the benefit all across the board. There in my mind there's there's no reason unless unless you are one of them guys that just has to own a bowl. Because that's what you like to do, and I'm I can't say anything wrong with that if that's what you like to do, but but if there's there's no reason to not lease a bowl. speaker-0: Yeah, and you've you've done a great job of of growing that market and it it does nothing but continue to grow. Let's talk a little bit about smart bulls and you mentioned all the goodness of earlier, and how much that has grown from from when Greg was catching a foothold in Florida, and just a a set of bulls in Florida and some into Louisiana and then where it's at today with with how much that market has grown and expanded for for that older bull that really fits those really, really extreme environments. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. And without Greg's success in Florida, We couldn't be where we are today. I can't say that enough. You know, if if if he would have failed or if these bulls would have failed in Florida, they wouldn't have worked out, people didn't like him or whatever, or or people just didn't like Greg. You know, we we couldn't we couldn't be where we are today. so he he really he really just, you know, got this whole ball rolling with with A the leasing and then B figuring out how to market these bulls and how what to do with them after we're done with them on a lease. because we we Honestly, the lease the leasing bowls and the smart bowls are so enmeshed we could not do one without the other. If we didn't have smart bowls, we couldn't lease bowls. And if we didn't have and if we didn't have lease bowls, we couldn't do smart bowls. and so it it's just hand in hand, we couldn't do one without the other both ways. but yeah, so Greg started out in Florida selling these smart bowls. when I was here in the beginning, I I think we were maybe at a thousand. Maybe 900, you know, something like that. and that was great. We were high-fiving, you know. the the market also was a lot different back then, too. We'd sell these, you know, we'd lease them out for a thousand or fifteen hundred, and then and then we'd we'd ship them off to Florida and we'd sell them for twenty five hundred. And I remember when we were up to three thousand bucks on smart bowls for the first time, we're like, Three thousand bucks are people gonna spend that much money on these bulls? You know, it was just unfathomable to think that we could get three grand for these bulls. So yeah, I mean, you know, demand is there, market's there. so we we started off by selling about nine hundred to a thousand in Florida, and then and then things in in the in the Louisiana market started to pick up because everybody talks to each other down in the south. you got guys talking to guys, you know, superior reps that know each other very well down there. And so they see that our bulls Florida are working, they want to get those bulls into Louisiana. And then and then all of a sudden, boom, the the guys in Texas that know the guys in Louisiana, they hear that we're getting bulls. they're getting bulls us. And so they call us up and say, hey, we'd like to get some of your smart bulls down here too. So then the Texas market grows. I remember, I remember, gosh, it it was right around when when Larry Grant started. and David Thomas, and and our main focus at that time for For growing the smart bull market was Texas. We had Texas just circled on a big old bullseye and said we need to sell bulls in Texas, because we really weren't. And and right now, I think I want to say last year we sold at least 700, 700 smart bulls into Texas. And so and that that was that was more than a third of our smart bull business in Texas. So then Texas starts hearing about it, they get all the bulls, or they get a lot of bulls. And then and then we got a bull sale in in Brush, Colorado a couple of years ago. It's working really well. And then and then we got a bull sale line up in California. It we've done it twice now. it's working really well and so I think I think part of the reason why why it's grown so much is that the the bulls speak for themselves. I mean if if the bulls weren't working, people wouldn't be calling us. And and people just hear about working and they give us a call and or we call them. You know, I've I've made a couple of cold calls to to some to some folks to say, hey, can we have a bull sale at your place? Nevada also, should mention Nevada. having a bull sale there for the second year coming up in March. but yeah, I I I just think the the bulls the bulls sell themselves and we just gotta be able to to you know work with the customers and and not and and have people you know like us as much as they like the bulls and and I I think it's really working well. speaker-0: Yeah, and you know I people definitely starting to see the value on those smart bulls as far as as a pricing them standpoint. that was that was fair very obvious in California the other day of you know, people understanding the the value of that older bull. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. So I I did speak with a couple of people in California about that and they were thinking, well these these older bulls should You know, conceivably 'cause they were wondering what I thought the sale was gonna do before the sale. And I was like, I have no idea. We've never had a smart bowl sale and a yearling bowl sale at the same time. So when the dust settles at the end of this thing, I'm gonna I'm gonna know just as much as you do. And and and they said a few of them said, Well, do you think that the yearling bowl should sell more than the smart bowls? Because you should be able to get one more year out of that yearling bowl than you than you do the smart bowl. And I said, Well I mean theoretically, yes. Yes, but these smart bulls have been through the culling process. We've whittled it down from year one to year two to now year three. And we this is a proven bull. He he's gonna last you, hopefully, just as long or longer than that yearling bull that we don't quite know much about yet. And so I think that opened a lot of people's eyes, guys' minds to thinking, well, maybe there is something to these buying these older bulls that that that has a lot of value. speaker-0: Right, and you've really absorbed you've really taken a lot of risk out of it when you buy that that comin' three, you know, that smart bull. Shoot if they've been through the first the first two breeding seasons and not gotten crippled, not broke a tool, feet haven't fell apart, they've stayed in shape and they've made it to that point, boy at that point, You guys out there that own your bulls, you know once they get to that point they should be around for a minute. speaker-1: That that's the that's the hardest part. Like I said, getting them through them first two years is the hardest part of that bull's growing season. And when they get to that thirty month old bull, y I I have no problem at all telling you that bull should last you as long as as a a yearling bull that we don't know much about yet. speaker-0: Yeah. So let's let's talk a little bit more about, you know, change over the last fifteen years and you talked about Greg and his spreadsheets and his highlighter with one eye driving down the road. We can all imagine that. And we know how Greg drives. So There might be a reason why speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Thank God there was n no disasters. speaker-1: I do remember one time he took out a mailbox with the with the s with the d with the duels on a finger. That's neither here nor there. speaker-0: It happens. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: So the evolution on the technology side as far as how you conduct business today. how nice has that been from an inventory management standpoint, through the sales process and getting cattle in the right places? speaker-1: Well tech technology based how we do everything nowadays is it's a little bit different. When when I started in 2011, things were becoming more and more computerized. We did have a a computerized CRM. what was it called? Act, I think. We had act and then we had cow sense for our inventory and that Not to speak illacal sense, but back at that time it wasn't what we needed. It it was it was more geared towards a smaller guy and it and it just didn't work for what we needed it to do. And then we also had a a separate accounting software as well that again you couldn't email out of it, you couldn't do anything out of it other than just print an invoice and throw it in an envelope. And so we muckled through that for a long time, and then when Nick came on board after he graduated college and and became in charge. over here became the CFO or CEO. Well he was the CFO and the CEO. But he he realized that what we had currently wasn't what we needed. And so we got a new a new CRM and then he all and then he built our inventory system as it is today and and it's always evolving too because we'll always come up with something that that we think we could do better or different or a new idea completely and Nick will be like you know be ready He'll go to his computer if he's got a second or an hour, which he doesn't have a lot of, and he'll get on the line get on the computer and and he'll he'll make the change and it'll it'll be streamlined. Where if we had that problem with, you know, a third party CRM or a third party inventory, we couldn't change it because it was j this is what you got, you know, they wouldn't go in and change something just for us. And so we can we can manipulate it however we want, however we need it, and it has made a world of difference on on everything. I mean as far as keeping track of bulls, keeping track of the cows and and you know what they need to be AI'd to, AI sires. It is so handy to to I've been down there a a couple of times. I don't like to get in the way down there too much, but when they're AIing cows, Hannah, she's down there, she's got the computer pulled up and you can see a a cow with what it's supposed to be AI'd to, you know, color coded. It's crazy what what Nick has made that program be able to do. And And and so yeah, it it just works wonders for us, keeping track of everything. I can I I could not I could not do this with with Cal Sense, but I could I can now with our system where I can click on a bull's location and it and and I can see where that bull has been every day of his life if if our inventory is correct. And so I can see the bull c went out on lease on June fifteenth. He was out for ninety days, he came back on October fifteenth. and then well it's a little bit longer ninety days. But but yeah, but then I can see okay it went into this pen when it came back. It it went to that pen in a little while. It was semen tested then in March. And so being able to track all of that data and is it you wouldn't think it that it would help a lot, but it it helps a lot when you have a question and you need to track something down. I mean I we do that all the time here. speaker-0: And if you have a if you have a customer call that wants to know what the bulls were that he turned out four years ago, speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. You can speaker-0: pull that information. speaker-1: Yep, I I'd call it going back in time. I can I can click on a guy or I can type in a date and a guy's customer name and and location and I can pull up what bowls that guy had in two thousand and twenty. Well, maybe not that back far, but two thousand twenty one, two thousand twenty two. I can go back and see, okay, you had these bulls, these are their E P Ds. nothing is ever deleted out of the system as far as bull information goes. And so, you know, I I've had guys call me up before where they said, Well, you know, what were these bulls that I had two years ago? They were so good and the calves look so great out of them I want to know what the genetics were or what the you know what the EPDs were and I can pull them up and he can and then I can say okay they were out of these bulls two years ago and he and then he can say well I want those type of bulls again this year you know so I can look up and find what bulls that we can match up to those bulls that he really really liked two years ago. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, and you know, from from just getting kettle delivered and being able to get paperwork lined out and sorting, loading, sure makes a big difference for the guys out out doing it every day. speaker-1: absolutely. it you know, that that crew out there I I'm sure they do a lot of grumbling about us here in the office. but but we could not do what we do without that crew out there and so they put up with a lot of a lot of headaches from us and we are grateful to them for that. But yeah, we we print off sort sheets for based off of what we have the guys picked out for their their bull IDs, what we have their name on. You know, when when a guy makes an order on bowls, and then we we like to get half the money up front, and then when we get that money up front, then we will pick out your bowls according to the criteria that you have given me. So say you want birth weight you know less than 80, you're getting heifer bowls. Let's say you want a birth weight less than 80, a birth weight EPD in the negatives, and a you know a weaning weight EPD that that puts some pumps puts some pounds on. And so when you make your order you make your down payment we get notified when you made your down payment and we will put you at the you know wherever you are in line of of everybody else that has made their payment we'll put you in in in the list. And then we'll pick your bulls according to when you made your payment. And so we put your name on the bulls, let's just say we we start picking bulls out in March. Well you're well pick your bulls out in March and you'll your name will be on that bowl from March until your delivery day in June or July or whenever you need your bulls. And then and then, you know, we'll print off the sort sheets when they the day before or two days before whenever they start sorting up big loads. And we'll we'll give them to Phil and his crew and they will get to work and get sorted up. Okay. speaker-0: Yep. Yeah. And so, you know, just to to play on that a little bit, when you first started, some of the biggest days of bulls going out were probably if you shipped a hundred in a day, that was that was probably quite a day. speaker-1: big day. That was a big day. 90, 90 to 100. You know, we honestly we didn't have the pen space to sort out any more than that. And so or the crew to to to help with that. You know, it was it was a couple of guys out there, two or three tops. And and so you couldn't you just couldn't deal with the numbers that we deal with today. but now a a a big day today is it you know a huge day is 200 bulls going out in a day. And I mean they're they're Trudging through the mud, trudging through the crap all day. You know, they'll get sort sheets, they'll go out at eight o'clock in the morning, and they will literally be out there till five, six. If it's a bad day, seven, eight o'clock at night, you know, and and sorting up bowls. And then we've got we've got with the new facility now that we have, we've got all kinds of pen space over there. We still got all kinds of pen space in the old facility. And we can have two hundred bulls sit overnight and then have, you know, three or four or five trucks show up the next morning and and load out in a in a very fairly amount of time because if we had a hundred bulls that were going out with our old facility, the trucks would have to be backed up and you wouldn't be done loading everybody out till till noon, you know. So it's it's fantastic how we have it set up now. speaker-0: Yeah, and so just the amount of growth and evolution that's taken place is just I imagine for you speaker-1: It's it's crazy, you know. You you you brought up when I first started how many employees we had and we didn't really touch on that. But I wanna say in 2011, I I could name them off if I had the time to name them all off, but eight to ten, you know, full-time full-time guys that were here. and it was a great crew and we got everything done that we needed to get done. And then as we started growing, Man, it w things really took off for us when we built the new office, what I'm in today. In twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, we started moving I wanna say twenty seventeen we moved in here. but then we had the ability to grow, you know, because we couldn't really grow out of the old farmhouse. And so we w what did we say the other day? It was like fifty full-time employees. speaker-0: Yeah, it's fifty or shade over. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Number fluctuates just a little bit, but speaker-1: Yeah, with all the H2A workers that we have here, which are awesome. and then you know, the the feed crew, you know, because we cause back when I started, we did not have a a dedicated feed crew. It was whoever was was not doing anything or or could spare an a a morning to go out and hop in a feed wagon and and get the bulls fed. That's who was on the feed crew. and also we call them feed sheets. because back in the day, every day we had an Excel program, Excel spreadsheet, where I mean it was great for for at that time, it was awesome. Brian had it all calculated out where you'd put in your pounds and your head count and all this fun stuff, and and then I would print off sheets every day, hand them to guys, you know, hard copies, paper, and there would be there'd be feed sheets floating everywhere in in these tractors, you know, because he'd have five or six pages of of paper in there, new pace pieces. of paper every day and there was just you know paper everywhere in those tractors. but but then we got away from that when Nick got here he built when he when he built the the new inventory system he built it also to be able to calculate the feed sheets like they were on the XL spreadsheet but in a in a a way better way everything's all on an iPad now and you can you can you know you had to do it you had you you couldn't just know what you had to feed in a pen. You had to kind of do it in your head where I've fed this amount and then now it's this amount where now you click on it and it's fed and now you got this much left and you got it you know, so it's a lot more intuitive, a lot a lot easier to deal with. But like I was saying before, we we used to did not have a dedicated feed crew and so it was whoever would go out and feed. Or you know, we didn't used to have a dedicated, you know, soil team or farm crew. And heck they threw me in a rake once or twice, I remember. I don't think they put me in a baler, but they put me in a rake once or twice. And there's probably a reason it was only once or twice. But still, inventory guy, office guy, you know, ivory soap, disc pan hands, in the tractor, running a rake. And then so then now we've grown where we have a dedicated, you know, farm crew, a dedicated feed crew, and a dedicated you know, feedlot crew, and a dedicated cow crew too. So I mean it's it's grown awesomely and we we couldn't we couldn't do what we do without without our crew. It's it's quite amazing. speaker-0: Well yeah, and you just you think about, you know, in early May what what they're getting done in one day, where they're, you know, semen testing, their shipping bulls, they're AI and cows, plus there's probably a chance that they're they're cutting alfalfa silage all all in one day. Yeah. And for that to be getting done is it's a pretty impeccable feat at the speaker-1: It's all gotta get done. It can't you can't just punt on something. Everything has to get done in the allotted time that you have. it's it's funny that you mentioned that in in the Monday morning meeting this morning, Nick said that this week what's going on right now is there's not a lot of of things going on cattle-wise right now. I mean there are some things, you know, bowls are coming back off of lease, we're selling smart bulls. But this time right now is the busiest time for Jorgensaland and cattle. just with with return processing of bulls and then also crop side of things, chopping chopping stuff, moving hay, you know, what they're doing out in the feed yard. I mean it's it is crazy out there right now. speaker-0: Yeah, wean calves rolling in and speaker-1: Wean cabs rolling in, absolutely. We got how many loads coming in today and tomorrow and the next day. It's gonna be nuts. Balling calves everywhere. speaker-0: Everybody knows what that is where there'll be some sleepless nights and some guys really on their toes for the first ten days getting Kevs weaned and rolling and that's always always a trying time at at Jorgens Atlanta Cattle and unfortunately it stretches all through fall. speaker-1: It does, it does. Yep. No, it's it's crazy right now. speaker-0: So I've I've gotten to where I kinda wrapped this thing up, Andy, with with a question and I greatly appreciate you taking time this morning to jump on, talk about, you know, the programs that you're managing and the growth that you've seen. but you you mentioned it when we talked about your history of being a a kid that that had some ties to Ag but not not in it every day to where you are today. So what advice would you give that kid that that isn't in it, but maybe wants to be, of of how he needs to go about getting there? speaker-1: Yeah, my my my biggest advice would be to try new things and to step out of your comfort zone. because I was not that kid when I was growing up. I did not do anything out of my I mean I was I played sports and I, you know, helped at the sale barn, but my dad ran the sale barn and I was good at sports and so that's what I did. but but after I got out of college, you know, I was like I I you know, I gotta try something different. I tried selling cars, learned how to sell cars, and then when Cody called me, I I I in the Beginning of this, I said, Yeah, I'll come to work for you. That's not how it went. It I came out here, I interviewed, and I had to come out here probably two or three more times before I finally made up my mind because I was like, I I haven't dealt with this kind of thing in my life. You know, this is a inventory for Jorgens Landing cattle. What am I thinking? You know, sold cars, you know. I knew what a cow was, I knew what a bull was. You know, but beyond that I didn't know a heck of a lot more than that, I'll be honest. And and so it took me a long time to finally get over that hump of, okay, let's let's do it, let's try something, let's get good at it. my my dad, his advice always to me is if you're gonna do something, do it right. And become if you you know if it's possible become the best at it. And so that that's how I kind of approached this deal when I was 29 years old. I I wanted to try something new and if I was gonna do it, I was gonna do it right and and I worked my butt off to try to be the best that I could. And so that's my advice. get out of your comfort zone, do something new, do something interesting. and if you're gonna do it, do it right. speaker-0: You bet. You bet that's that's a great way to leave it. Thank you for taking time to join us today, Andy, and we will catch everybody next time on the source.