Lee Leachman is the CEO of Leachman Cattle, based just North of Cheyenne, Wyoming, but with land in Colorado as well. Leachman Cattle markets over 2,000 bulls annually and is currently one of the five largest seedstock breeders in the US. Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays had the chance to interview Mr. Leachman, and they covered many topics, including how technology is improving the cattle industry, yesterday. Today, they discussed Leachman’s vision for a more efficient cowherd.
Leachman feels blessed to be a third-generation seedstock producer currently raising Black and Red Angus, Charolais, and Stabilizer Composites. The operation is a member of the URUS Group, which encompasses Alta Genetics, GENEX, and Trans Ova. He strives every day to improve the quality of the cattle he raises and the beef they produce.
Leachman uses machines that can predict which animals will generate a more heavily muscled carcass while the animal is still on the hoof. “That’s important to me as a bull raiser, because I can’t cut up my bulls, because if I do, it’s really hard to use them!” Leachman said with a laugh. “I envision that we’ll have an EPD that will be pretty accurate, that will predict the saleable meat yield from a carcass. So, if you make a 900-pound carcass, and this one has five percent more, you can sell, that is worth quite a bit.”
Such a development would create greater efficiency by building better cattle at a lower cost, increasing profitability for the cattleman.
Looking ahead, Leachman predicts more coordinated supply chains; specifically, a retailer like Walmart would go to a ranch and contract a direct supply chain. “I think that is going to increase, because the retailer wants a very consistent product and to be able to tell the story of that product. You want it to meet demands close to 100 percent of the time.”
He admitted that the commodity system is really good, but lacks the precise consistency that high-end supply chains demand.
Comparing beef’s quality with pork, Leachman said, “Beef is a great product because you put that marbling in there and it gives you a flavor that’s unbelievable – the closest thing to it is bacon. Bacon is pretty good, but after that, the rest of the pork and swine products are lean, and you have to put a good sauce on them and cook them very carefully. Beef is the other way; we can throw it on the grill, and as long as we don’t overcook it, if it is highly marbled, it is a great product.”
He is proud of the progress made in producing consistent marbling in beef, but believes that it was done at the detriment of efficiency in red meat yield and looks forward to finding a balance between the two.
If anyone can do it, Leachman Cattle can. The company has already created the $ranch index to predict a bull’s daughter’s profitability, assuming calves are sold at weaning, the $feedlot index, which predicts a bull’s offspring’s profitability in the feedlot and on the rail, and the $profit index, which predicts the profit from conception to harvest. Leachman and his team are now working towards a predictor of added yield grade on a beef carcass.
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 for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
