Hereford Stories

[Deleted]

sitting here with my thumb up my butt waiting for neighbor as we are going to drive out a route to trail cows home without stepping on his winterweat....  anyhow glen's thread about private treaty asking prices brought back a memory i thought i'd share.  i don't know how many read byron bayers hereford america paper but my favorites are his features on old hereford outfits and his editorials... there just isn't another venue to read anything like what you can in that.  so with that in mind maybe here is a thread to share Hereford stories... the older the better imo.  i appologize if this is long cause it is mutli fauceted.  so you can blame glen.

we had a production sale from 1987 to 2005 basically the years i was growing up so some of my most vivid memories.  there was a rancher from gilt edge that sent his wife daughter and son to every one of those sales.  it wasn't till one of the last sales they told me but one year i had three bulls that couldn't get a 1150 opening bid on yrl bulls.  right after balog shut off the mike i got swarmed by several indians offering 800 for those bulls... all i said was they are 1500 min and took care of that.  anyhow, the daughter of the gilt edge rancher came up and said ace what do you want for those three bulls.  i said well i just told all those indians they are 1500/hd min.  she said deal.  so thought ok got them all gone.  well the next words out of her mouth was... i have to tell you my dad sends us up here with 2500 max to spend on a yrl bull so just to let you know i would have paid that.  that was one of those times i said - F*&^, i knew i was too low.  but how do you complain about someone that bid on bulls for nearly 20 years.  during the sale years i used to give a free bull after the 20th bought on the house.  they got 4 over those years so i can't complain.  i said this was multi fauceted and that starts now.  the dad and the daughter are both gone now and the mother and son are in a home but it was the second to last calf crop they ever raised the mother asked if i'd help sell the calves.  at that time i used to sell calves in conjunction with the wessel ranch at musselshell with beans and his son a good good friend.  anyhow that same whole week we were dealing on the combined calves to go to either bill kuehnn's lot direct and also head of procurement was offering also.  well he made a offer that was just shy of what kuehn offered so they went to heartwell.  but what i will never forget about the whole deal was the day chb made the offer he had asked if i knew any of bred alike similair type etc.  so i gave him the name and the number for the gilt edge ranch.  the very next morning the gilt edge rancher phoned thanking me so much for the reference as in her words we have never had a buyer call us.  so in conversation she told me what she got... my jaw litterally hit the flour as it was 28 cents less on same exact weight and virtually same delivery as what he offered me the day before on the phone.  for shits sake.  and folks wonder why i don't trust anything to do with the assoc.  the other faucet to this ranch that is hard to forget was the year they dispersed.  they asked if i could disperse their herd from them.  i said i'd try.  went down there the day they weaned and videod the cattle, the ranch, the people and put it on my website.  another month i think i could have done it and actually they ended up going to an outfit in idaho that contacted thru my website.  but the december pays sale was coming up and they just decided to sell them at that sale in december which has always been a pretty good sale.  anyhow - i listened to the sale online.  ok gotta go back a few yrs first.  one of the last sales we had the dad actually came to the sale and bought the bulls and shit he spent 2 or 3 times the money he ever allocated his family to spend.  but after the sale he asked me where he could go and get bulls similair with different bloodlines to cover over the ones he was getting from us.  it only took a split second to say courtneys.  so that year he asked me to go thru their catalog and pick 10 bulls i thought would work so i did and mailed it to him.  i watched the sale on superior and he bought three bull outs of that sale for 8 to 12K.  LOL.  ok, back to the pays dispersal sale i was listening to on internet.  those cows come in and goggins say ok we got gilt edge rancher cattle in total dispersement this is a 20 + year product of courtney herefords (when in fact there wasn't a one sired by on of those three bulls just carrying calves).  they sold very well mostly into to idaho.  got a nice phone call from the guy that bought them looking for more.  these are the stories that make me who i am.  whats some of yours?

[kph]

I've got one. You would have almost had to know my dad and how conservative he was to appreciate it though. The year was 1970, I was 8. We were in Kansas visiting Dad's sister. We go looking at bulls and Dad buys 3 bulls from a guy. We were driving a station wagon. So we drive around looking for a trailer to rent, can't find anything so he buys a pickup, a stockrack to put in the box, loads up the 3 bulls in the back of the 2 wheel drive pickup and drives back to Minnesota. The breeder was Raymond Gillette, don't remember the town. The bulls were Beau Rollo and Domestic Lamp breeding. He paid 1500 total for the three bulls and 900 for the truck. At least one of the bulls shows up in a lot of my pedigrees today.

[timbernt]

Ace, your story is pretty similar to one I heard at CE conference about 20 years ago. The speaker said his vet clinic (I believe it was Chicago) got a call from the police department that they needed a vet to tranquilize a horse. Since he was the only one who had ever done large animal practice, he was sent. The occasion was a horse that got out of a trailer in traffic and was suspended by his halter over the edge of the freeway. There were 2 more layers of traffic below and the horse was frantic. The vet was harnessed up and suspended over the edge to IV some Xylazine and attach a harness so the horse could be lifted up over the edge. You can imagine trying to dodge hooves while doing the IV stick. When he finally got the harness on the horse, the fire department rescued the horse first! When the young vet got home he told his wife he was going to be on the 10:00 PM news. Sure enough he was with the caption "Fireman saves horse!".

[guffeygal]

Our Dear Friend Claude Willett ( Long time AHA and Drovers Telegraham Fieldman) told of being at one of Chester Kinder's Sales in SW Oklahoma probably in The 70's.
They were at a standstill on the bull in the ring. The Auctioneer said, Mr. X from Missouri bought this bull's full brother a couple of years ago. Would you say a few words about him. Mr. X proceeded to say that the full brother had grown into quite a good bull. In fact " The bull in the ring is no where near as good a bull as the bull he bought".

[elkwc]

I'll share one story I remember from a kid in NE NM. There was a very prominent Hereford breeder just up the highway 15 miles or so from our place. In the 60's and early 70's they sold bulls and cows over a wide area including shipping some to Hawaii. They ran a large number of cows. Over a thousand as I remember. One day a family friend of ours who had a very nice but small herd of registered cows was driving them down the bar ditch. A large new car sailed by and then turned around and came back. The driver asked if these cows belonged to the prominent breeder. The owner said no that he started with their cattle and had made them better. The driver said that they were so good that they likely belonged to the other ranch and that he had an appointment to look at the cattle at the other breeder but wanted to know if it was ok to stop and look at this breeders herd on his way back. As I remember it he did and bought a few bulls from our friend over the next several years. My first show steer was his breeding. My family used his breeding for years.

[guffeygal]

Are you talking about Albert Mitchell's? My Father (Mike's) got some good cattle for Par-Ker Ranch from a neighbor of theirs Marvin Drake. Cattle were straight Husker Mischief's and really did pretty well for Par-Ker's. He also got some from Lynda Lambert who I think was Albert Mitchell's sister. I can remember Dad saying it took some time for the cattle coming from the "short grass country" to develop enough capacity to eat enough eastern Oklahoma grass to do well. I was out there with him when I was around 11. I remember the big plateau east of Mosquero between Drake's and Mitchell's. I had never seen anything like that.This would have been about 1960.

[elkwc]

Yes I was talking about the Mitchell's. My Dad's home place was a mile south of Gallegos just about an 1/8 of a mile east of Ute Creek. The 54,000 acre ranch my Uncle managed for over 30 years was on the Canadian and when they closed the gates Ute Lake split it is half. My Uncle leased the Gallegos ranch at one point and Dad managed it. Part of it was on the flats and part of it on top of the mesa/plateau/mountain(depending on who you talking to). A lot of difference in climate from the bottom to the top. Dad drug calves every spring for several ranches including the Libby's. They joined the Mitchell's and also Lynda Lambert. The Logan area is where the Meeks originated. My Granddad's sister was married to one of the Meeks so knew them well. I worked for George when I was young and after coming to KS is where I purchased most of my show heifers and the start of my herd. We moved from that area to KS in August of 1966.

The Mitchell cattle were intensely line bred. Many cattlemen including my Dad and Uncle felt they had lost size due to how they had line bred. But they had some very good cattle. My family knew the Drakes. Emelio Trujillo was the man I was talking about. He had a very good cowherd. Another breeder in that immediate area who my Uncle purchased a lot of good bulls from was Jodie Clavel. Another uncle purchased Jodie's commercial calves for a few years. A lot of good show steers came from their herd. Most but not all of the breeders in that area had a Mitchell influence in the background but were outcrossed to give them more capacity, size and in some cases more muscling. Some were too straight barreled for us. Another good ranch that raised good bulls was west of Tucumcari and called the T4's.

[guffeygal]

Is Phil Bedigan (probably not spelled correctly) still going. I got acquainted a little with him when we worked for Middleswarth's.
I am pretty sure he got two bulls out of the last carload we were involved with. Good bulls as I remember. I always tried to be very careful in Denver Yards with the slick conditions. Combination of asphalt, moisture , and cold. Phil had a neighbor who had cattle at Stock Show haul the bulls for him. When we loaded them early that morning there was frost on some areas. I gave the neighbor the halter of one calf and the calf started to buck and play a little. Instead of just staying with the calf the ole boy set his feet and jerked the calf down on the frosty wood where there was a rail crossing. Luckily the calf's hind legs stayed under him when he went down. Hope it all worked out never did hear any different. Things we did when we were "Young". I hauled The Royal Saint from Denver to Sulphur Oklahoma for Stone's in 1972 so Randy Ward could come pick him up. Maybe for what Denny now gets to take an animal to Denver he'll send me a little for delivering one to the buyer after Denver.

[timbernt]

I remember hearing a conversation my Dad had with Albert Mitchell around 1970 at the happy hour before the 20 Grand Sale. Mitchell got to talking about some new tax law the Nixon administration was proposing. I will never forget Mitchell saying "If that passes it will put us little guys out of business!". He seemed to honestly believe he fit in the category of "little guy". On the way home Dad described some of their holdings and it seemed pretty big to me.

[elkwc]

Albert senior was also manager of the Bell Ranch during the 30's along with helping with their own outfit. My Dad always said he was a very good horse hand along with being a good cowboy. He was still riding some in the 60's when I was a kid. Little Albert wasn't known to be the hand his father was. The older Mitchell cattle was bigger overall than those they were raising in the early to mid 60's. I remember as a kid seeing the older bulls and cows by them that were 7-10 years old in the early 60's and they were larger than those they were raising in the 60's. Many attributed it to the intense line breeding they did. I'm sure cow and bull selection contributed also. That along with the prices they started asking pretty much eliminated local commercial breeders from using their bulls. Very similar to what we are seeing today. With that being said both Albert senior and little Al as I knew them were very nice men and true gentlemen. Little Al had a helicopter he flew a lot. But by the mid 60's most of the commercial breeders I knew who had used their bulls for years had switched to other breeders. My Dad was hired by many of the ranches in that area to drag calves to the fire and I would usually work on the gathering crews. So we helped many of the larger ranches each year and knew whose bulls they were using.

[bookcliff]

Oct 18, 2014 11:08:31 GMT -6 guffeygal said:

Is Phil Bedigan (probably not spelled correctly) still going. I got acquainted a little with him when we worked for Middleswarth's.
I am pretty sure he got two bulls out of the last carload we were involved with. Good bulls as I remember. I always tried to be very careful in Denver Yards with the slick conditions. Combination of asphalt, moisture , and cold. Phil had a neighbor who had cattle at Stock Show haul the bulls for him. When we loaded them early that morning there was frost on some areas. I gave the neighbor the halter of one calf and the calf started to buck and play a little. Instead of just staying with the calf the ole boy set his feet and jerked the calf down on the frosty wood where there was a rail crossing. Luckily the calf's hind legs stayed under him when he went down. Hope it all worked out never did hear any different. Things we did when we were "Young". I hauled The Royal Saint from Denver to Sulphur Oklahoma for Stone's in 1972 so Randy Ward could come pick him up. Maybe for what Denny now gets to take an animal to Denver he'll send me a little for delivering one to the buyer after Denver.

it always amazes me that more cattle don't stiffle themselves in the yards each year. see several each year do the splits on the ice and slick brick. a couple of years ago it had snowed a couple of times pretty good there and then it warmed up so everyting was melting during the day and freezing back up at night. well one night we were done leading em out to turnout pens and coming back to our carload pen and as we passed by the loading docks at the scale house and there was a polled breeder (who I will leave unnamed since most of you northern boys will recognize the name) turning his pen of bulls loose on the dock to exercise em. only thing was the melt had starting to freeze up pretty hard aready that evening. them bulls took off went to bucking and bumping heads and down they all went, crashing and sliding on that slick after being tied all day. how he didn't get one messed up I don't know. I do know thats why we either walk em for a good piece down the main alley to the turnouts where it aint slick or taken em down to the old feeder calf arena were it is dirt/sand to turn em loose and play when it's like that.

[elkwc]

I first knew Phil Bidegain Sr as a roper. He as very good and had a son Phil Jr a few years older than me. One of my Uncles worked for the T4's at one time and he used a son of my uncles stud for several years. The T4's raised good cattle and good QH's. I know that his son is still the manager and that both of his sons have came back to the ranch. Also some of the family lives in Logan now I think. As far as I know Phil Sr is still alivel. I will ask my relatives in Logan the next time I visit with them. Phil and Yetta are good friends of their's. I know they still have a registered Hereford herd and raise lots of black baldies. The T4 is around 180,000 acres and includes part of the original Bell Ranch. Most of my younger sisters show steers came from the ranch my Uncle managed and most were sired by bulls from the T4 ranch. That would of been from around 1972 through 1977. The cattle were normally mellow yellow with good muscling.

[elkwc]

Oct 18, 2014 19:04:43 GMT -6 bookcliff said:

Oct 18, 2014 11:08:31 GMT -6 guffeygal said:

Is Phil Bedigan (probably not spelled correctly) still going. I got acquainted a little with him when we worked for Middleswarth's.
I am pretty sure he got two bulls out of the last carload we were involved with. Good bulls as I remember. I always tried to be very careful in Denver Yards with the slick conditions. Combination of asphalt, moisture , and cold. Phil had a neighbor who had cattle at Stock Show haul the bulls for him. When we loaded them early that morning there was frost on some areas. I gave the neighbor the halter of one calf and the calf started to buck and play a little. Instead of just staying with the calf the ole boy set his feet and jerked the calf down on the frosty wood where there was a rail crossing. Luckily the calf's hind legs stayed under him when he went down. Hope it all worked out never did hear any different. Things we did when we were "Young". I hauled The Royal Saint from Denver to Sulphur Oklahoma for Stone's in 1972 so Randy Ward could come pick him up. Maybe for what Denny now gets to take an animal to Denver he'll send me a little for delivering one to the buyer after Denver.

it always amazes me that more cattle don't stiffle themselves in the yards each year. see several each year do the splits on the ice and slick brick. a couple of years ago it had snowed a couple of times pretty good there and then it warmed up so everyting was melting during the day and freezing back up at night. well one night we were done leading em out to turnout pens and coming back to our carload pen and as we passed by the loading docks at the scale house and there was a polled breeder (who I will leave unnamed since most of you northern boys will recognize the name) turning his pen of bulls loose on the dock to exercise em. only thing was the melt had starting to freeze up pretty hard aready that evening. them bulls took off went to bucking and bumping heads and down they all went, crashing and sliding on that slick after being tied all day. how he didn't get one messed up I don't know. I do know thats why we either walk em for a good piece down the main alley to the turnouts where it aint slick or taken em down to the old feeder calf arena were it is dirt/sand to turn em loose and play when it's like that.

TK I helped a local polled breeder one year in the early 70's in the pens. It snowed all day the day we arrived and stayed below zero for a couple of days and then warmed up like you stated. One year was enough for me. I also got a full time job with a gas company and ran wheat pasture cattle on the side for several years so the only year I really had time to go with him. Caught pneumonia while I was up there. 

[bookcliff]

dad quite showing at Denver when the frame game started in the 80's. said he wasn't giong to breed 7's and 8's, saw no use in tall narrow made bulls. I remember one of the last years he hauled bulls out there, damn near zero the whole time. I think we washed bulls only once the whole time there. on show day it was snowing so all we did (and most other outfits save the show strings like Pruitt-Wray and the like) jsut combed thru the wet hair and let it freeze in place before showing. the other thing I remember from those early years for me at Denver was early one morning Mom & Dee Burns took us kids around around and pointed out some of the strings that were washing with clorox in the mix.............them was the days when everyone wanted em meller yeller. Also remember up on the hill when Dad, Whitey and OXO were all tied on the same isle one year back when the hippies were still around and in vogue, everyone had just got em to tieouts and was making beds and come down the alley this hippie feller. Jitter was standing there with Whitey Burns and a couple other fellers and Whitey and some of them fellers had been nippin' quite a bit. anyway someone got the bright idea that they ought to clip up that hippie. So a couple of them fllers grabbed the hippie, a set of flats and with Whitey adn Jitter eggin' them on they shaved his head. Boy did Dee get hot with Whitey over that one. needless to say Whitey, Dee and the kids didn't go out to eat that night with Jitter, Dad, Mom, and me and sis.

[picketwire]

some good ones on here, keep em coming. could start an entire thread on stock show stories alone. I just remember the cold icy days at NWSS making a couple trips to the salt shack while the bulls were eating breakfast. Saw plenty of times, people would forget the bulls would be feeling frisky and the footing was horrible and inevitably there would be a wreck. With big carloads or multiple pens we would try to be in early enough to get them used to the morning and evening routine before things got crowded and then they knew the spots that would get bad and icy and they would mind their P & Q's when moving from display to tie outs or night pens. Once they got used to it we would drive them to and from if it wasn't too icy. Took a few more people to watch alleys, but there was always a few extra around willing to help. The snow and cold days I could handle, the ones I hated were the heavy wind days.

[bookcliff]

windy days......................like last year. we got in to Denver about 7AM on Saturday morning and started setting up our carload pen. wind was horrible, made tarping the sides of the pen really tough, but I remember most is later that day as we were giong about setting up and the wind really kicked uphard , Ernst's tent from their carload pen came sailing over the fence into ours and kept on giong until it got damn near to the main alley when Jake and I finally chased it down and took it back to their pen since Marshall had his crew weren't around at the time.


that is one thing, were all getting soft in the yards nowadays...........tents, tent heaters and tankless hot water heaters to wash with hot water............nothing at all like 20 years ago.

[picketwire]

Tents and tent heaters were a good idea and long overdue, and yes sir it is getting pretty soft down there. One thing I will refuse to do though is wash a bull with hot water. I guess I am just stubborn enough that I will sit there all day with a comb and a couple blower monkeys drying them that way. And for the real cold days, washing just ain't that important, especially if the pitchfork crew (always liked the term straw shakers, thank you Rex S.) is doing their job cleaning pens.

[bookcliff]

Oct 19, 2014 12:43:19 GMT -6 picketwire said:

Tents and tent heaters were a good idea and long overdue, and yes sir it is getting pretty soft down there. One thing I will refuse to do though is wash a bull with hot water. I guess I am just stubborn enough that I will sit there all day with a comb and a couple blower monkeys drying them that way. And for the real cold days, washing just ain't that important, especially if the pitchfork crew (always liked the term straw shakers, thank you Rex S.) is doing their job cleaning pens.

I'll remember that Tj when you want to borrow mine. it's a godsend for us since I do alot of the work on the bulls once we get to Denver since I ain't got a showbarn and a clipper monkey crew on the payroll and got a hellav lot of other stuff to get done here that in the grand scheme of things is way more important here along with getting everything ready for me to be gone for 8 days. thus washing 2 or 3 times has to been done regardless of the weather so I can get the clipping finished up once there.

the other thing is you would be amazed how much better they stand, how much cleaner you can get em and how much quiker they dry besides not having to pack a big bottle of draxxin along.

[picketwire]

the other thing is you would be amazed how much better they stand, how much cleaner you can get em and how much quiker they dry besides not having to pack a big bottle of draxxin along.

[/quote]
Oh, you won't get any argument from me on easier and cleaner and quicker! I just prefer warm dry air to washing with hot water, just stubborn that way! And any clipper monkeys in my pens weren't on my payroll, that was taken care of in trades long before fitting day/showday, , after all there is always more than one way to fit a bull or skin a cat or promote a program. I understand all too well the challenges of getting stuff done before being away from home and I appreciate those who accept the challenge and find the way to get it done. Even more so to those not afraid to bring the program developed right! How they do it is nowhere near as important as presenting the program in an accurate profitable way!

[guffeygal]

I use to pack hot water out of the boiler room of The Sale Arena building to use for soap water. Surely made the soap work better. Wet and rinsed with straight cold water. My hands could not stand it without my Platex Dishwashing Gloves. It was usually warmer in Denver than it was in West Henry Nebraska (Known as The Banna Belt of Wyoming)the years we went. One year we waited until mid morning to leave because it was so cold. We had cardboard in front of the radiators on the vehicles . About half way to Cheyenne you could see a strange looking air mass ahead. Went through it, the mirrors fogged up all at once, and the heat gauge went to H+. Stopped and took the cardboard out and away we went. Think it warmed up about 40 degrees in a 1/2 mile. Natives told me it was a chinook. One of those winds Tom was talking about blew Upstream's Carload sign down and into their bulls one year when a blue norther hit. We fished it out for them and weighted it down.

[randy]

Bookcliff, Is Jitter still with us? What about Wayne Fields?

[guffeygal]

Had a good visit with Jay Middleswarth in Kansas City. Asked about Wayne Fields and Jay said Wayne is still doing well. He lives in Henry and still helps Jay Quite a bit I think from what Jay said.