On the second leg of the 2018 Ozark-Osage Ranch Study Tour, tour members were turned loose in Branson, MO. Known as the live music show capital of the world, tour members took in shows, went shopping, and caught up on sleep.
The next day, May 25, the buses were rolling again. It was a packed day starting with the by-the-numbers commercial cow-calf operation, Wilmoth and Sons Ranch of Mount Vernon, MO. The ranch carries 1,500 hybrid black mother cows bred by artificial insemination and cleaned up with the same bulls. The Wilmoths like to keep a bit of Brahman in their cow herd to keep them slick-coated to better deal with the heat, humidity, and pests in the area.
“I can’t impress how important it is to know your cows,” owner Greg Wilmoth told tour members. “We genomically test every female on the ranch.”
Greg, and later his wife, Kathy, told tour members that they cull by the numbers “on paper” well before they look at the animals. The herd is very young, with roughly half of the herd being heifers each year.
“Using genomics, we’ve really refined our herd,” Kathy said.
She shared with the tour that the ranch has seen an 18 percent increase in their weaning weights in the last three years, and a 7 percent increase in their conception rates, bringing it to 96 percent.
After lunch, the tour moved on to the JK Moore Ranch, also of Mount Vernon, owned by Jackie Moore. Though the ranch started as a small cow-calf operation, Moore saw a key market niche going unserved; turning odd-lot, unprocessed calves into valuable feeders. Today, the ranch averages 10,000 head of cattle backgrounded a year.
Moore’s strategy of buying up odd calf lots and processing them was very noticeable as we toured the “grass trap” feeding pens; almost all the cattle there were banded bull calves. Many cow-calf ranchers in the area leave the testicles on their bull calves, believing them to gain better than early-castrated calves. However, bull calves receive a severe discount at sale barns given the added stress and resulting morbidity that comes with castrating later.
This provides an opportunity for Moore, who buys the bull calves relatively cheaply, processes them with close attention to feeding and managing through the stress, then sells them about 60-90 days later as more-valuable steers.
After touring his ranch, Moore took us to the Joplin Regional Stockyards, which he bought with business partner and childhood friend, Steve Owens, in 1986. Today, an estimated 430,000 head of cattle go through the Joplin Regional Stockyards between the weekly feeder sale and monthly cow and bull sales.
The stockyards are the nation’s second-largest livestock auction yard, which made it an understatement when Moore said, “We don’t do anything on a small scale here.”
In keeping with Livestock Ranch Tour tradition, something went wrong with one of the buses at that point. While touring the pastures that surrounded the Joplin Regional Stockyards, the lead bus tried to take a dip that was too much for the 45-foot-long, 54,000-lb. vehicle and got stuck. Luckily, Moore and his guys were able to pull the bus out with a heavy-duty loader, though it took a couple tries and several sets of chains to do it.
While tour members made the best of the situation, the cattle in the nearby pastures were very entertained by the whole thing. They alternated between packing up along the fence to see what was going on and running around their pastures kicking up their heels.
On the last day, the tour started its trip back to Oklahoma by returning to the Joplin Regional Stockyards to pick up tour guides from Stonehill Land and Cattle. Guides told the tour about the community of Miami, pronounced “my-AM-ah” in keeping with how the local Miami Tribe’s pronunciation.
Once we reached the ranch, the theme of community continued; in addition to Ranch Manager George Hubbard talking about the cattle operation of Stonehill Land and Cattle, three other local ag businesses were invited to speak to tour members.
Collectively, Stonehill Land and Cattle, mushroom grower J-M Farms, the Miller Pecan company, and Welch Stockyards all had information stations set up across the meticulously maintained ranch house lawn for tour members to visit.
Hubbard explained that what had been an 80-acre plot for hunting quail grew into the current 1,500 continuous acres that is Stonehill Land and Cattle. Currently, the ranch runs about 550 Angus mother cows with an Angus and LimFlex bull battery. Roughly 70 percent of the cow herd calves in fall, and the rest are spring-calvers. Cow culling is based on calf performance.
Like so many of the ranches the tour visited, Stonehill Land and Cattle is in fescue country, and fescue management plays a big role. Despite its problems—toxicity and seedheads causing a lot of pinkeye—Hubbard said it makes a good winter forage. The fescue/Bermuda grass pastures allow for green-grass grazing well into the late fall most years.
After a marvelous tri-tip lunch, served by the Vinita, OK, Future Farmers of America (FFA) catering group, the tour pressed on to the last stop; the A Bar Ranch in Claremore, OK.
Though this historic ranch boasts a commercial cow herd of over 4,000 and breeds about 1,100 heifers a year, and has a marketing operation selling 12,000-15,000 head, it was the performance Quarter Horse side of the ranch owner Mike Armitage highlighted, calling it his “hobby out of control.”
“I love horses, guys,” he said with a chuckle.
“We maintain about 100 brood mares, but we try to maintain the things we think are crucial to you in the beef industry; we want them really talented, we want them good minded, we want them durable with enough size and soundness.”
Much like his attention to the qualities of the commercial cows he raises, Armitage said that the ancestry of the mares is just as—if not more—important than that of the stallions.
“One thing that we figured out in breeding horses is that the mare is so important, so that’s what we concentrate on. Our mare lineages are where it’s at.”
When the tour adjourned to the Armitage home for our farewell dinner, A Bar Ranch cowboys pushed a herd of broodmares with their leggy foals to the fence for us to see. The horses were beautiful—running along through grassy pastures made you feel like it was the Old West again.
The FFA kids returned to serve the farewell dinner on the lawn of the Armitage family home, while family members played music and sang. It was a beautiful and welcoming setting where we had one last day of ranching fellowship for the 2018 tour.
We all at WLJ hope to see everyone again on the 2019 tour. Though we don’t yet know where we’ll be next year, it would be great to have you come along. — Kerry Halladay, WLJ editor
“I can’t impress how important it is to know your cows.”
