Shipwheel Cattle Company's annual bull sale a family event

Reporter's note: As regular readers know, I've been trying to educate myself about the cattle industry, having attended a couple bull sales, traveled with veterinarians doing "cattle things" and spent a day with a cattle buyer.

My friends Rita and Larry Surber were catering the sale lunch for the Shipwheel Cattle Company's annual bull sale. Larry invited me to come along as a helper to serve the lunch. It gave me a chance to actually participate in a sale, well, to an extent. Here's what I observed.

The Shipwheel Bull Sale

Bull sales, nowadays, usually have a slick sales catalog with color pictures of the bulls to be sold accompanied by performance numbers for each animal. Potential buyers use the catalog to learn about the production potential for each bull and the auctioneer uses the catalog, as well, as a guide for the sequence in which each bull will be sold at auction.

In an introduction inside the cover page of the Shipwheel catalog, Lori and Klint Swanson, the owners of the ranch, explained their families' 70 years of experience with cattle and how they hoped to be around to serve their customers for another 70 years. The sale had a family feel, even the kids were involved, and the kids, Austin and Bree, had no doubt ranching was in their future as well.

The sale was the second I'd attended using services of Bill Pelton Livestock. Pelton was one of the pioneers in Montana to introduce the use of technology to give buyers more time to study the bulls for sale and learn about the attributes of each bull that might enhance the productivity of their herd. And there was the option for bidding by phone. Pelton said earlier that technology has speeded up sales without the time spent moving live animals in and out of a ring for bidding. The Shipwheel sale, involving 40 bred heifers and 80 coming two year old bulls, lasted about one and a half hours.

At the Shipwheel sale there was still plenty of time for potential bidders to physically check out the bulls to be sold before the sale began. That time provides buyers a chance to see the bulls they have read about and have an interest in. It's also part of the important networking that producers use to greet old friends and learn of the news that is affecting their industry. The "taking a look at the bulls" precedes lunch, then the sale begins.

The bull sale lunch

The Surber's, with the help of their daughter-in-law Vanessa, had prepared pulled beef roast sandwiches, beans, salad and homemade non-bake cookies. Larry Surber said, "Last year we prepared a different cookie and some of the people who attended the year before asked where the chocolate cookies were. We brought back the original cookie." Seems some things at auctions become traditions very quickly.

A few people had lunch early and then, a half hour or so before the bidding began, the customers began to pour into the sale barn to eat. The Surbers had several friends who came to help serve the lunch so I had time to wander around to talk to people and take some photos of what was happening.

Bull genetics 101

Larry Gran works for Zoettis, a company that specializes in cattle genetics, explained in lay person's terms what the EPD numbers (Expected Progeny Difference) in the Shipwheel sale catalog mean for each bull. Gran's company used a program to provide data for the Shipwheel bulls being sold using DNA markers. Those numbers are predictive, meaning they show the expected attributes of offspring from the bulls two years in the future. The analysis uses a database of 180,000 cattle already tested.

Asked how much this type of analysis was being used, Gran said, "With Angus seedstock producers (producers building a certified Angus herd) I'd say around 25 percent use this type of data. For commercial producers (producers selling their stock to feedlots for finishin) there is less use but as demand for Angus products increases so will the need to produce more uniform and desirable animals."

To quote Bob Dylan, "The times they are achanging" in the cattle industry. Future Shipwheel owners speak

Austin and Bree Swanson, both children of the owners of Shipwheel Cattle Company, were busy at the auction but took a few minutes to be interviewed. Their comments reflected the 'family nature' of the business and their enthusiasm for Shipwheel. The future of the ranch and the next generation's role in it was very evident.

Bree, a fifth grader at Meadowlark Elementary in Chinook, had invited both fifth grade classes to the auction, and teachers and principal had agreed it would be educational for the students. Asked why she invited her class, Bree matter-of-factly said, "I wanted them to know what we do on a ranch. It was kind of my dad's idea, but I think it's a great idea and they'll learn a lot. Some of my classmates live on farms and ranches but most of them don't really know what it takes for them to get their food."

Bree made it very clear she liked living and working on the ranch. She said, "I can't imagine living in town. There's so many things to do out here, I'd be bored any place else." Bree is active in 4-H and is raising a heifer as a project. She said she especially enjoyed working with the animals on the ranch.

Austin, a seventh grader at Chinook Junior High, had hosted his classmates last year and said, "I explained to them what we do on the ranch and how a bull sale works."

He's now active in FFA and is raising a heifer, a pig and a steer as projects. People who know Austin say already he can efficiently operate most of the equipment on the ranch and loves ranching. Asked if he saw himself on a ranch, he said, "I hope to take over when my dad retires." He definitely has a plan already.

Even the sale barn had a 'family feel' with company-themed banners and family memorabilia. A 'wall of fame' had several large pictures of bulls that were well regarded products of the ranch. Bree and Austin's maternal grandmother, Marilyn Williamson, was cutting some fresh flowers to set by a birthday cake for Bree, her birthday would be celebrated as part of the bull sale. The whole place and event had a nice feel that Shipwheel Cattle Company is definitely a family business and plans to stay that way.