Black Grove Strategy
The Black Grove strategy and business plan is to raise functional, low input cattle that will thrive in our environment and generate profit and return on our investment. Our philosophy is simple. We don't push the land, we don't push the cattle, and we let our registered Angus cattle take care of the business of raising calves the same way they have since they were brought to the United States over 100 years ago.
We believe the most profitable way for a registered Angus cow/calf operation to make money is by limiting its input and operating costs. Towards that goal, our business plans focus our breeding program on fertile, easy fleshing, structurally sound cattle, bred for longevity (functionality), that perform in our environment and remain productive year after year.
The single biggest input cost in most cattle operations is feed (including pasture, hay, and feed). When Walter was an absentee owner, living and working out of town the herd survived on hay during the winter in pastures that were rarely fertilized. Our cattle get three to four bales of hay per mature animal per year and free choice minerals. With the price of commodities increasingly volatile over the past decade, we continue raising low birth input cattle that work in our environment.
Investing in feed efficient genetics, that perform in these Spartan conditions and culling the genetics that do not, continue to financially reward us.
One of the other biggest operating costs in a cattle operation is raising or buying replacement heifers. We have developed a longevity index based on the lifespan of all of the cows in an animal's pedigree that we use to help us in our breeding decisions. If a cow lives to be 15 years old and calved every year, it has produced double the number of calves in an average cow produces in its lifetime. A herd of cows with this lifespan would halve that cost life average cattleman spends on replacement heifers, which is one of the biggest expenses that a breeder has control over.
By carefully selecting for the above traits of longevity (functionality) and feed efficiency and using proven genetics in an AI/Embryo transfer program, we have assembled an Angus herd with genetics that we feel will work for both the commercial cattleman and the registered Angus breeder.