Bob and Judy Prosser own and operate Arizona ranches that have been in the family more than 100 years. Judy’s grandfather, Boss Chilson, had land in Tonto Basin (between Payson and Phoenix) as early as 1913, and in 1924, the family acquired a forest allotment north of Payson, near Happy Jack.
After World War I, they sold some holdings in the Tonto Basin, then had to foreclose on one of those sales. “A neighbor family, the Tremaines, had sold a ranch to the same gentleman. In the foreclosure process, Boss Chilson and Burton Tremaine Sr. met in bankruptcy court. After they both got their ranches back, they struck a deal—with a handshake—to start a partnership,” Bob Prosser told WLJ.
They operated the Tonto Basin ranches for 15 years, driving cattle to the Mogollon Rim for summer pasture near Happy Jack—a 70-mile drive every spring and fall that had to go through the streets of Payson. They sold those ranches in Tonto Basin in 1939 and bought properties north of the Mogollon Rim toward Winslow.
With severe drought, the first years were spent developing water and building fences. They acquired additional Forest Service allotments from homesteaders who couldn’t prove up on their land. By 1945, they had combined those ranches together, created many water developments and placed cattle back on the range. They cleared thousands of acres of juniper, built miles of ditches and canals and expanded three lakes. The partnership continued until 1990.
These ranches had a long history of raising Herefords, and they added registered Herefords in the 1950s. “Judy’s father, Ernest Chilson, did most of the work because his father (Boss Chilson) died when Ernest was only 23. He got a heavy load put on him at a young age,” Prosser said.
[inline_image file=”346882610b5aa53f9d4c1b392996d2ea.jpg” caption=”Bob and Judy Prosser.”]
The partners implemented Savory grazing and crossbreeding. “At that point, Judy and I became involved with the ranch, in 1983,” he said. He and Judy met in 1979 while they were both working for the American International Charolais Association.
“After we came on board, we were involved with the seedstock herd and trying to figure out Savory grazing. It took a lot of fencing and was a learning lesson. I think Gus Hormay said it best earlier in the century: You need to build your water first for cattle distribution, and then your fences. We proved that concept, trying to do this in a very dry environment,” Prosser said.
Crossbreeding
“Our focus also included crossbreeding in the mid-1980s,” he said. Prosser grew up in Colorado and went to college at Colorado State University. One of his professors was Dr. Jim Brinks.
“My father as a young man worked with Brinks, was in the AI business and built the first beef AI bull stud in the West, called International Beef Breeders, in Denver. I had a relationship with those folks, and Tom Lasater (who started the Beefmaster breed with a blend of Brahman, Hereford and Shorthorn) and I felt crossbreeding and heterosis were even more important in a dry environment,” Prosser said.
[inline_image file=”bc5303204b0ca49a2d273bc3c248bb2d.jpg” caption=”Driving cattle on the ranch.”]
“In 1986, the Clay Center (U.S. Meat Animal Research Center) finished research that significantly proved the importance of crossbreeding. They used many of the continental breeds, and after many cycles of study, the Gelbvieh showed extreme advantages on early fertility, breeding to calve at 2 and having a calf every year. Judy and I had been using Angus and Charolais in a crossbreeding program with Herefords but started some experimentation with Gelbvieh, with AI, and were impressed with their fertility. We decided to focus on Angus and Gelbvieh and started raising Balancers—before that term came into use,” Prosser said.
Their breeding program produced and sold a large number of bred females each year and about 100 bulls by private treaty. The Angus-Gelbveih composite fit the harsh environment with good production.
“This blend had at least a 20 percent advantage over a straightbred. Being able to predictably wean a calf and rebreed is a challenge in the Southwest,” Prosser said. “Heterosis is the only way to do it consistently. The Gelbvieh-Angus mix brought the carcass merit of Angus to the female merits of Gelbvieh. You could raise a quality feeder steer and make a profit in the feed yard—with a quality product for the consumer—and at the same time have a good replacement heifer.
[inline_image file=”ab02b48a5d64d033a44dec3a8969c5cd.jpg” caption=”Bob Prosser accepting the 2017 Cattleman of the Year award at the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association.”]
“These cattle did well, in spite of the drought. We weren’t the first to do it; other people were selling crossbred bulls, but we were some of the first to do it in any volume in the Southwest with yearling bulls,” Prosser explained.
“A yearling will cover more territory than a 2-year-old. Yearling bulls could acclimate and cover the country, whereas 2-year-olds keep the water hole company!”
They could be overfed and not as sound by the time they went out to breed cows and may have lost that youthful enthusiasm that comes with being a yearling.
Feed efficiency
In the 1980s, everyone had 900 to 1,000 pound cows, but by the 1990s, everyone was breeding bigger cattle that probably ate more feed. “We want efficient animals but had no way to measure that,” Prosser said.
In 2011, the ranch started feed efficiency testing bulls (utilizing residual feed intake) with a GrowSafe system at Snyder Livestock in western Nevada. “We learned that you cannot tell by looking at cattle whether they are efficient or not, and you cannot change what you do not measure,” Prosser said.
“Through that process, we improved the efficiency of our cattle by 20 percent in a short time. In 2015, we put in a GrowSafe system here at the ranch and began having our bull sale here.”
While testing bulls in Nevada, one of their bull customers from south Texas—a Beefmaster breeder, James McAllen—sent 35 bulls to be feed-efficiency tested. They were sired by Balancer bulls and out of Beefmaster and Beefmaster-Red Angus cross cows.
“Their data was outside the accepted standard deviation. In other words, those bulls appeared to be so efficient that it couldn’t be possible. So, they retested those bulls and put that same contemporary group together again, with Balancers, Angus and all the other cattle that would have been in that pen,” Prosser said.
Those same bulls were the most efficient again, with just a slight reranking in the order of the first three bulls.
“Longevity of Brahman cattle is well documented. We found those cattle very useful in a crossbreeding program for creating a composite.”
“They were all still at the top. In the following sale, Judy and I bought 17 of those bulls from James; that became our start in getting Bos Indicus into our program. Longevity of Brahman cattle is well documented. We found those cattle very useful in a crossbreeding program for creating a composite.”
Western ranches are not set up to run complicated crossbreeding programs or have one herd to raise replacements and another herd to raise calves to market. It’s important to have cattle that can do it all.
“We added Beefmaster, Brangus and Santa Gertrudis to the Balancer and call this composite the Southern Balancer. These cattle have been well received by people who want to get some ‘ear’ back into their cattle (with more heat tolerance, insect resistance and longevity) and are tired of less hardy straight-bred cattle. It’s been exciting adding to the Balancer program while maintaining carcass quality and fertility,” Prosser explained.
DNA testing
Prosser said he has known rancher Lee Leachman for 25 years. “Lee has been as committed to creating females and bulls that work in the real world as we are. We decided to form an alliance to work together and continue to identify cattle that work for the commercial cattleman. I am sold on DNA testing. We’ve worked with DNA for 15 years, but it is not cheap to implement. It costs as much or more than a registration paper,” Prosser said.
[inline_image file=”3545b7d7cb3ab93ba66c552d4dd07ed6.jpg” caption=”Sale day at Bar T Bar Ranch.”]
“We felt that if DNA was not getting us where we wanted to go, and if there wasn’t a useful DNA tool for commercial cattlemen to help sort replacement heifers at weaning, we hadn’t done our job. The Zoetis DNA test that Leachman developed has enough data and identifies the best cows in our herd—and allows us to take the hype out of marketing.
“The cattle actually are what they are. It’s not about the biggest, or any particular EPD. If you can test cattle and pay attention to $Profit, $Ranch and $Feeders, you will find a home for every one of those animals; that will be profitable for you,” he explains.
“Hopefully we can help commercial producers become more profitable and do a better job of placing their cattle. That’s not hype. These indexes are pure science, adjusted for economic relevance. They are reactive to costs we all incur to do business, whether it’s feed or the price difference between Prime and Choice. You don’t get so far out on a limb following one trait or another that you have to back up and start over.”
Marketing
“We sell our steers and open heifers through Country Natural Beef. Our cull cows and bulls are sold through Diablo Beef—our ground beef business. We own the cattle all the way through,” Prosser said.
“If we can produce cattle that can consistently make commercial cattlemen wealthier and more sustainable with fewer headaches, we have achieved our goal.”
“If you can take market fluctuation out of it and produce a quality product for consumers and keep them coming back, that helps keep you sustainable. Selling through Country Natural Beef, a person will never get paid the highest prices during the few years the generic market makes a lot of money, but those are only about two out of 10 years.”
A person is better off to have a better-than-average price consistently. Country Natural Beef has more than 100 cooperating ranches, killing over 160,000 head annually. These co-op markets, with a consistent product for the consumer and a dependable market for the producer, are a huge benefit for the beef industry.
“If we can produce cattle that can consistently make commercial cattlemen wealthier and more sustainable with fewer headaches, we have achieved our goal,” Prosser said.
