Express Ranches’ Premier Bull Sale will be held on October 7, 2024, at the ranch in Yukon, Oklahoma. Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays caught up with Kevin Hafner, the Vice President for Operations for the ranch to talk about the upcoming sale and the 225 elite Angus and Hereford bulls being offered.
Express Ranches is an active participant in every phase of the beef production process and has fed as many as 50,000 head of cattle per year and owns an interest in the 30,000 head capacity Xcel Feedyard near Watonga, Oklahoma. The addition of the historic UU Bar Ranch located just outside of Cimarron, New Mexico, added over 164,000 acres of high-altitude rangeland to Express Ranches. A production unit of commercial cows and calves plus 4,000 to 5,000 yearlings have allowed the testing of Express genetics under these semi-arid conditions that are not unlike that experienced by many of its commercial customers.
“We have a nice selection this year, including a couple of new up-and-coming sire lines that we are excited about,” Hafner said. “More than half of the offering will qualify for use on a heifer, which is important now with the rebuilding phase that we are dealing with. They still carry a lot of high-growth and will work on cows after you’ve used them on a set of heifers.”
Hefner tries to get to know the producers buying bulls to get a feel for what his herd base is and what his goals are. “That’s one of the things that I’m proud that we are able to do, is get those customers and have long-standing relationships. We have a vested interest in their product as they do ours,” Hafter admitted. “We find out what they want, then tailor to their needs with the type and kind and try to do the best job we can to match those cattle up with our customers.”
Hafner admitted that sorting through all of the expected progeny differences (EPDs) information is daunting, but they work through the numbers daily to exemplify the things that are important to their customers.
“You narrow it down,” he said. “A guy that is merchandising those calves as yearlings will think maximum growth is important, but we can’t forget the maternal side of the equation to because they will be getting some replacement heifers out of that crop. We try to get that bull that jumps through a lot of hoops. We try to work through that quandary of numbers to make it easier for them with some baseline numbers that they can work with.”
He said that it has been fun to watch the genetics improve in cow herds over the past 10 to 15 years. “The genomics side of this thing has been phenomenal as far as producing cattle that will grow and gain efficiently, to be able to predict calving ease, and carcass quality. Carcass weights have continued to rise, and we attribute that to genetics.”
He emphasized the importance of requiring fewer cattle to feed more people in today’s world. “We try to watch both sides of the business and be cognizant of where it is headed,” he commented. “But we can’t forget that mother cow. That is the basis for these commercial guys that these cows breed easily, calve easy, and produce calves that grow pounds.”
More information about the sale and the sale catalog can be found at expressranches.com.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
