We continue to be busy chasing after our 6 kids on a daily basis! They are all very active in many school and community activities, but we still make sure that they find time to help out on the ranch! They all play a big role in the day-to-day activities, and we love the various interests they have in the ranch! Gabe’s brother Paul and dad, Robert, are a big part of the operations. We are very appreciative that they are willing and able to help us make this all possible.

We continue to grow our herd and will be calving 285 registered cows this year, with a larger majority having bull calves, along with 20 commercial cows that Paul owns, while still doing some custom feeding as well.

We began purchasing cows from Dad and Mom in 2014 and have continued to grow our herd off of theirs ever since. In the fall of 2020 we purchased 90 of their top young cows that were all carrying bull calves, so with adding these top females to our current herd, we feel we have an excellent set of bulls to offer you, and Dad we will also be selling 25 of his bulls with us this year as well. We purchased an additional 70 young cows carrying bull calves from them this fall and plan to purchase a majority of their cows from them over the next few years as they phase out of the seedstock end of things. Dad will continue to mentor and guide us as we continue to grow our operation. We cannot begin to thank them enough for all the help they have been to us and our family through this process. Without them, this sale would not be possible and we know that they are thrilled that we carrying-on what they have worked so hard to create.

The bulls will not go through the ring, but will sell by video this year with Seth Weishaar again as our auctioneer. The bulls will be penned right outside the sale facility by 9 a.m. for your viewing and will stay in those pens until the conclusion of the sale. The sale will be broadcast live on DVAuction and we will have sale reps here and phone bidding will be available for anyone who isn’t able attend. We will have a video of each bull on our website and on DVAuction. We do encourage you to try to get out and see the bulls in person ahead of sale day. They are all being fed at our ranch at Lehr. Don’t hesitate to call us or Dad to go over any of the bulls.

We do not creep feed the calves, so what you see is what the dam produced. As with much of the region, we were in an extreme drought for most all of 2021. We were planning to wean the calves real early due to the drought, but we got a few inches of rain mid-August that allowed us to keep them on grass a few weeks longer until we weaned on Sept 22^nd. Dad’s bulls were weaned Sept 18^th and were raised at his place until weaning, so they are in their own contemporary for weaning, but were included with ours from then on. We feel ratioing the bull in one large contemporary group gives you a more accurate comparison against the whole herd. We started them out on a high fiber, medicated creep feed two weeks prior to weaning and kept them on that with free choice hay for a few days after while fence line weaning them, and then moved them into their big pens. There the bulls were fed a TMR ration formulated with the help of our nutritionalist, Heather Hilger, of Purina Feeds. The bulls are not being pushed hard. They were worked up to what they are currently being fed in early December. We really like this ration that has a high percentage of alfalfa high-moisture baleage in it, which is higher in protein and they consume it really well. Our goal is to have an ADG around 3.50, and this year they were averaging 3.92 on a 103-day test. We feel the performance minded genetics along with the nice fall conditions contributed to the higher gains.

We invite you to come to the ranch any time and view the cattle and see the way we manage our herd. We feel this is a tremendous offering of bulls that we are proud to represent. This is the first year in a long time that we do not have any ET calves in the offering and over 95% of the dams are home raised. I feel this shows the ability of our cows to raise top end bulls from the first to the last. We are hoping to flush a few of our top end cows this spring. We place a strong emphasis on fleshing ability, performance, docility, udder quality, and high maternal traits. We are proud of our cattle and feel you will be proud of “The Explosive Difference” they will make for you.

We, along with Dad, truly have a passion for this business and love breeding cattle with the never-ending pursuit to try to make them better. We will continue to stand behind what we sell just as Dad and Mom have, with high integrity and honesty backing all of our business operations. We hope you will continue to give us the great support you have given Dad and Mom these past years. Thank you for your current and past interest in TNT Simmentals!