Percentage of Bulls Kept

Welcome to the Cattleman’s Corner. I’m Brian Hale, sitting in for the late Howard Hale, as we continue his legacy of speaking with cattlemen and women from around the globe. Gelbvieh and Balancer cattle are well known throughout the beef industry for their maternal strengths and superior growth.

With attributes such as more pounds of calf weaned, added fertility, greater cow herd longevity, and heavier carcass weights, just to name a few, Gelbvieh and Balancer offer genetics that work for the commercial cattle business. Visit Gelbvieh.org. Now here’s another special treat from the golden archives of the late Howard Hale. Here’s an interview with Galen Fink.

With us on the program, Galen Fink, Fink Beef Genetics. Galen, what percent of the bull calves that come through your program every year wind up as bulls in a sale or private treaty? Fairly high, and we probably should cut a few more, just like everybody. I mean, I think that’s always a problem with purebred doosers.

We’ll probably all keep too many, but I’m going to say probably 85% of our bulls end up. We do a lot of embryo transplant and using high-proven genetics for the most part, and so we do have a fairly high percentage of our bulls that are very saleable. How long have you been doing the embryo transfers? We were some of the very first.

We started in a major way in 1988. We didn’t have any land or any money to be able to grow. That looked like maybe one of the options.

Actually, we were first in the United States to start using other people’s cows. That was Galen Fink of Fink Beef Genetics with the late Howard Hale. The Cattleman’s Corner is brought to you by the American Gelby Association.

That’s going to do it for today’s Cattleman’s Corner. There’s more on the web at cattlemanscorner.com, including these old interviews and more. Thanks again for listening, and may God bless.

I’m Brian Hale.