Though warm temperatures persist, the days are noticeably shorter as the sun slides south down the ridge before it rises a little later each morning. We’re a couple of weeks to 30 days away from calving, depending on when we put the bulls out, trying last winter to keep our newborns out of September 1st heat by turning the bulls out two weeks later.
But to tweak our program slightly requires more than agreement between Robbin and I. The bulls have their own calendar, and we only wire fences to enforce our management decisions. Around Thanksgiving of last year, the bulls were ready to go to work. We were retrieving bulls and fixing fences daily, so we had to put a few out around the first of December to keep them away from the neighbor’s heifers that were to be bred to Wagyu bulls.
At 8:00 a.m., this Mark Beck bull cools down before retreating to oak tree shade.
drycrikjournal 
Wondering why you don’t have Wagyu as your bulls. Is that to maintain stronger stock? Risk/benefit?
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For us, the strength of the Wagyu is Snake River Farms’ marketing. All the Wagyu X calves, including heifers, are under contract to them. We still need to raise Angus X replacement heifers for our cow herd. Currently, 20-25% of the calves are Wagyu X. Our Wagyu program is evolving as we negotiate market and weather conditions, but we have more options with an Angus X cowherd.
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Thank you, John.
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