What Makes Gelbvieh a Key

RRIPPE GELBVIEH Hubbell, NE JANUARY 2016 IPPE GELBVIEH RIPPE GELBVIEH Taking Pride In Our Customer s Success In This Issue: 1. What Makes Gelbvieh A Key Piece in the Commercial Cattle Industry? 2. Genomic Enhanced EPD s 3. The American Gelbvieh Association Providing Added Services To All Cattlemen 4.Special Speaker Announced For Night Before Bull Sale 4. 2016 Bull Sale - March 12th 5. Exciting Sires 6. BBQ Beef Bites 7. What Goes Through A Cattle Feeder Buyer s Mind When A Set of Feeder Cattle Enter The Ring. Rippe Gelbvieh 6775 Road D Hubbell, NE 68375 Dustin Rippe Cell: 316.323.4874 Duane Rippe Home: 402.324.4176 Cell: 402.200.0096 Website: Taking Pride In Our Customer s Success What Makes Gelbvieh a Key Piece in the Commercial Cattle Industry? The ability to do well from both a maternal and terminal standpoint is what I think make Gelbvieh unique. That would be my general answer. The reason the Gelbvieh breed gained popularity many years ago was when the MARC data come out that stated Gelbvieh was the top breed for pounds of calf weaned per cow exposed, which is in my mind the #1 trait for profitability of a commercial cow/calf operation. That encompasses breed back of the cow, calf survivability, and pounds weaned. However it is the more recent MARC data that has me exited me. According to the MARC Cycle 7 report, Gelbvieh females reach puberty at the youngest age and at the lightest body weight of any major beef breed. Studies have shown that heifers that reach puberty earlier in life can potentially conceive earlier in the breeding season, giving them more time to recover after calving and therefore contributing to on time calving later in life. While the big assumption is Continental breeds are later maturing, and that is a good rule of thumb, that is simply not the case with the Gelbvieh breed as they are the best of all the major breeds. Mission Statement: To produce superior Gelbvieh and Balancer seedstock based on economically important traits, which provide more profitability for our customers, and ensure the consumer a very satisfying eating experience. As I sat in Kansas City in early December of this past year I listened to a MARC researcher go over how the Gelbvieh breed was one of the largest breeds at 2.5 years of age. (They could have been the largest but the top two or three breeds Continued on page 2. A product of Mustang Media January 2016

were very close.) Even more interesting, the same data shows the Gelbvieh breed had the smallest mature cow size in 5 and 6 year old cows. So what does this data tell us? Bottom Line: The Gelbvieh breed s edge in puberty is much bigger than them excelling in fertility. The fact that they are an earlier maturing animal means they simply grow the fastest from birth to 2.5 years of age and then level off. While other breeds continue growing at a similar growth pattern to their mature weight of 6 years, the Gelbvieh breed gets it done faster. This allows Gelbvieh cattle to achieve a higher rate of gain for the feedlot and reach puberty earlier and maintain a smaller cow size through their life for the rancher. Genomic Enhanced EPD s Nearly every bull in our sale has Genomic EPD s. I know many of you are asking yourself what that means. The Gelbvieh breed along with nearly every other major breed has sent in DNA on their most used sires and dams and they gain DNA information from that on why this animal excelled in Fertility, big birth weight, big growth, low birth weight, high marbling, ect. With this information in hand we now have the ability to send in DNA on our yearling bulls and it is compared against many animals from the past and it comes up with Molecular Breeding Values (MBV). With that information the breed association changes a bulls EPD s and through this process it increases the accuracy. While it varies for each trait, generally adding genomic information to the EPDs equates to 7 to 20 progeny performance records and the corresponding increase in accuracies. I am a numbers guy so I like to put it into numbers. When a yearling bull is sold and the breeder doesn t record anything but pedigree the bull will have an accuracy of.05. If the breeder does a good job of recording data an animal will have an accuracy of around.2. If a breeder takes good data on a large scale, and does Genomic Enhanced EPD s, the accuracy will be roughly.4. You can look at it many ways. When you are buying a bull with genomic enhanced EPDs he can be as much as 8 times more accurate or it is the equivalent of seeing his first set of calves before you even buy the bull. The major benefit of GE EPDs is risk reduction through improved accuracy of the EPDs. The night before the bull sale, we will have a seminar and one speaker will go over GE EPDs.

The American Gelbvieh Association Providing Added Services To All Cattlemen By Kelli Retallick No seedstock producers would be where they are together without the commercial cow/calf producer just like no breed association would remain relevant without the seedstock producer. The point being each sector relies on another to make the beef industry successful. When the American Gelbvieh Association (AGA) started to investigate ways to better service the beef industry as a whole it was obvious to turn some of the AGA s focus to the commercial sector. The AGA wanted to provide a service to the commercial industry that would add value to their bottom line. In order to provide this type of service the AGA knew it wanted the program to be three things adorable, knowledgeable and accessible, and in August of 2015 the AGA launched Smart Select Service, genetic tools for ranchers. Smart Select Service gives ranchers genetic tools to select cattle to increase their profitability. It is a non-breed specific program allowing commercial cattleman to stay ahead of the curve by pinpointing individual cow production. It focuses on finding an optimal level of maternal efficiency which will supply a solid cowherd base to produce the cattle to fit your needs. Enrollment into the program is open to all females in the herd including replacement heifers and mature cows for the annual low cost of $1 per head. Talk about affordable. Enrollment provides access to an on-line data management service to record cowherd data ranging from vaccination and pasture management to individual progeny data, weights, and exposure data. With this data the AGA is able to provide commercial cattlemen with four different herd reports including a progeny, herd sires, dam production and herd summary reports. In addition, this information allows AGA to provide its customers with two genetic tools, feeder profit index (FPI) and stayability score (ST score). Feeder profit index is an economic selection index that allows cattlemen to select progeny to perform in the feedyard and on the rail. It also predicts an animal s breeding value as parent for those aiming to produce progeny to be sent into the feedyard. Because FPI is a terminal based index, little emphasis is placed on maternal traits, such as stayability or calving ease, in its calculation. To obtain FPI a producer must submit calving ease records (based on a 1-5 scale) and weaning weights. The second genetic tool offered is a stayability score which allows producers to gauge the reproductive longevity of individual animals. Stayability score predicts the probability a female will stay productive within a herd to at least six years of age. In order to receive ST scores producers must submit a record of the heifer s first calf, a calving record every other year, and exposure data. With these two genetic tools, producers are better able to select animals which increase both the profitability and efficiency of their herds. You report the records and let AGA handle the data management and analysis. How many times have you told yourself, I have to start taking better cowherd records? How many have actually taken the step in looking into other data management systems but decided it was too expensive? Here s your chance to have an affordable alternative to a data management system, access to staff who know how to run the program and will help you, and on top of it all the ability to get genetic tools the same one s used by your bull supplier. Don t have the time to sit down and gather up all your enrollment records? Don t worry start this year with your bred heifers. Try it out then the next year, re-enroll the three-year olds and enroll the new set of first calf heifers. After a few years everything will be in the system and you can start to looking at the production trends of your cowherds or differing levels of efficiency. Don t wait, start today! Ranchers can enroll at any time and if you have any further questions please contact the AGA office at 303-465-2333 or email Kelli Retallick at kellir@gelbvieh.org. Feel free to visit http://www.gelbvieh. org/smartselect.html for more information. A product of Mustang Media January 2016

Special Speaker Announced For Night Before Bull Sale New Location: Bellville Country Club Rippe Gelbvieh is excited to offer this opportunity to the community. Troy Applehans with CattleFax will be speaking at the Country Club in Belleville. I encourage everyone to attend even if you aren t in need of a bull. Troy is a Market Analyst for CattleFax and he specializes in the Cow/calf and stocker market. Troy was a co-worker of mine when I was employed at CattleFax. Cattlefax is a member owned information organization serving producers in all segments of the cattle business. CattleFax was formed in 1968 by a group of progressive cattlemen who saw the value of a selp-help system to collect, analyze, and distribute information needed for good marketing and business decisions which has resulted in the largest private database in the country. Once again I would encourage everyone to attend. There will be something for everyone to learn in this presentation. Please give me a call if you have any questions. The presentation will start at 7 PM. Supper will be provided. Troy Applehans Market Analyst - Cow/calf and Stocker Market Specialist Troy is the CattleFax market analyst responsible for feeder cattle and cow/calf regions of the Southern Plains region as well as Southeastern states of the U.S. He also covers feedyards in the Midwest region. Troy is a graduate of Oklahoma State University with a degree in Animal Science and a strong cow/calf and seedstock cattle background. Previously, he was employed by Cargill Animal Nutrition as a cattle mineral specialist, Future Beef Operations as a member of the cattle procurement team and the American Gelbvieh Association as a regional manager. He also served as Director of Field Services/Advertising coordinator for Cattle Today, Inc. for many years. 2016 Bull Sale - March 12, 2016 Belleville 81 Livestock Today we have 100 black and red Balancer bulls and 8 purebred Gelbvieh bulls in the bull pen. In addition 10 of those bulls are 18 month old black balancer bulls. There are 54 legit heifer bulls in the pen. On sale day I would bet we will have 95 to 100 bulls to sell. Rippe Gelbvieh does not show any cattle. Everything we sell we market through our annual sale. Our #1 objective is to market bulls to commercial cattlemen. We do not have any banners from some show. Our banners come when a bull client of ours feeders top the market or they perform exceptionally well for them in the feedlot. There are a lot of calves born as a result of Embryo transfer and Artificial Insemination. The exciting part is we have our first In-Vitro calves born. These calves life was started in a petri dish and after they grew in an incubator we implanted them into commercial cows. We did this to speed up the genetic progress we could make. I want to invite each of you to our place to look at the bulls or look at their mothers. If I can t make it to show you, my dad (Duane) is most of the time there. We also have two very good hired man that spend the majority of their time with the cattle in Denis Hickey and Joel Cast. One of those two would be more than happy to show you around also. As always udder scores, cow weight and percent body weight weaned are listed with each bull in the sale. I feel like it is very important to watch the udder scores of the dam. However keep in mind the age of the dam when evaluating our udder scores. If the udder is a 7-7 and the dam is a 10 year old cow that is pretty good. When it comes to birth weight we weigh each and every calf. We work very hard to take good honest data to use in genetic progress for ourselves and commercial cattlemen.

Exciting Sires: OVER AT EASE 510A RAAA:1646467 New Red Angus sire that we purchased from the Overmiller family. We purchased this bull for 20k and he flat excels in performance and carcass traits. We have many black and red bulls out of this bull. CAROLINA EXCLUSIVE 1230Y AMGV1220437 I had the opportunity to see this bull as a yearling in North Carolina. He flat excels in great phenotype, carcass, and growth. We have several PB bulls out of him and a few black Balancers. BROWN JYJ REDEMPTION RAA1441805 Redemption is a Red Angus bull we had many calves out of last year. They excel from a calving ease to growth spread. Great carcass numbers. More moderate framed cattle on average. SCHIEFELBEIN EFFECTIVE 61 AAA17065105 This is an Angus bull we used to add Calving Ease and he did do that. He also excels in marbling. We flushed this bull to our great donor cow Roxi and those calves are flat out good. A product of Mustang Media January 2016

BGGR GRAVITY 803A AMGV1263787 This balancer bull won the Balancer futurity in Denver and we purchased semen on him. They excel in phenotype and structure. In addition they have good growth numbers. NEVADA 1170Y AMGV 1184487 We do not have a picture of this bull yet but we will by sale day. We recently purchased this bull last spring because we loved the calves we were having out of him. He is a curve bender from birth to growth. His progeny excel from a stayability standpoint. In addition he has as good of carcass numbers as Watchman. I am very excited about this herdsire. BBQ Beef Bites Recipe adapted from the More Kitchen Keepsakes Cookbook By Karla Rippe Like most of you probably do, our family eats a lot of ground beef. I m always excited to find a new recipe that is a little different from the norm. My husband and one year old both love this one! It s great as a heavy appetizer or as part of a Super Bowl party. It s especially nice for a party because they can be made ahead of time and reheated. BBQ Beef Bites 1 lb ground beef ½ cup BBQ Sauce 1 egg slightly beaten 1 Cup Cheddar Cheese 2 packages of refrigerated flaky biscuits* *I have used 2 of the 16oz containers, and 2 of the 7oz containers. The 7oz containers are about the right size of dough, but will only yield about 40 bites. You have to work a little harder to shape the dough of the 16 oz size but they work just fine as well. Brown ground beef and drain. Add BBQ sauce and egg and mix well. Separate the layers of the refrigerated biscuits. (I could get three of the layers apart in the bigger packages and two in the smaller ones.) These will be your shells. Press each circles into the bottom and up the sides of tiny muffin tins. Spoon the beef mixture into each. I use about a teaspoon each. Top with grated cheese. Bake 8-10 minutes at 400 degrees. Remove from tins and serve hot. If preparing in advance- Cover, refrigerate, and reheat at 350 degrees or 5 minutes.

What Goes Through A Feeder Cattle Buyer s Mind When a Set of Feeder Cattle Enter the Ring? Since I bought Roode Feedyard in Fairbury, NE I am buying more cattle locally than ever before. I want to remind each person that buys bulls from me to call or text me 316-323-4874 when you sell your feeder cattle. As I set in the salebarn one Friday at Belleville 81 livestock I jotted down some notes on what is going through a feeder cattle buyers mind. Before a buyer ever comes to the sale, there is generally a set of cattle they have their eye on after talking to the owner of the salebarn. The opinion of your cattle of the salebarn owner is important because of this. A buyer of feeder cattle generally has a certain weight class of cattle he is after. He might be trying to buy feeders that fit into a certain marketing window. He might be trying to buy feeders that he plans on backgrounding and reselling. He might feel that 7 cwt steers are the best value for his money. Whatever his reasoning is there is generally some method for their madness. Before your cattle enter the ring, the buyer pool for your calves has already diminished. As your cattle enter the ring the salebarn owner will say whose they are and where they are sitting. If this step is skipped buyers are always nervous. Are these trader cattle? Is the owner not proud of his cattle? Are these cattle sick? Why is definitely asked. Do any of the buyers know this person is also important. Does he generally have good healthy cattle? Does he do everything half way? After this the salebarn owner will go over their health program, if they have had their fall weaning shots, ect. If they are not weaned some buyers will not bid on them. If they have not had any fall shots some buyers will not bid on them. The amount of buyers continues to diminish. The last thing the salebarn owner will go over is where the producer buys his bulls. People that buy really good bulls advertise that. That tells me he cares about using good genetics. When you are selling your calves, have the salebarn owner announce where you buy your bulls. If someone is proud of what they are selling they will be present and will be there to answer any questions the buyer might have. Finally, at last your cattle enter the ring. The buyers are looking for problem cattle as they come in. One that is sick, has a limp, or anything that could be a problem that they want to cut out. In my mind, never sell one that is sick with your group. Many buyers will simply not buy a set of cattle because one is sick, including me. Now the buyers are looking at flesh and condition. Are they too fat? Are they green? How are the genetics? At this same time the buyer is also evaluation how full the cattle are. Every one of these factors could or will eliminate a buyer before bidding has even started. Today, the salebarns will only have a handful of buyers and many of them will not bid on your cattle because they do not fit what they are looking for on that day. Don t give the ones that are looking for your cattle a reason to not bid. A product of Mustang Media January 2016

RIPPE GELBVIEH 6775 Road D Hubbell, NE 68375 PRSRT STD US POSTAGE PAID LINCOLN, NE PERMIT NO. 777 Phone: 402.324.4176 Website: rippegelbvieh.com Rippe Gelbvieh 2016 Bull Sale Saturday, March 12, 2016 at 1:00pm Belleville, KS Belleville 81 Livestock Sale Barn For More Information Contact Dustin 316.323.4874 Duane: 402.324.4176 Before you sell your feeders, please call me. When I need to buy feeders, I would prefer to purchase them out of the genetics we produce. The more notice, the better. - Dustin 316-323-4874