About Our Family
Mike and Becky have both been involved in the Hereford business nearly all their lives beginning in Ohio (Mike) and Illinois (Becky). The current herd began in the mid-1970’s in Kansas City, Mo., when Mike and a co-worker purchased a few commercial and registered Polled Hereford cows. He and Becky began developing their own separate herd after their marriage in 1976 and moved it to Iowa in 1979. Sons Travis and Kevin received their first commercial cows for Christmas in 1983 and soon moved to purebred Polled Herefords. During their growing-up years they enjoyed success showing at state, regional and national shows. Travis still has a few cows in the herd that have bloodlines tracing back to a heifer he purchased as a junior in the 1995 Iowa Beef Expo sale from Jim Hemmingsen. He is involved in our breeding decisions and marketing as well as the hands-on maintenance of the farm and herd. Kevin and Lindsay and their son live in Thermopolis, Wyoming. Kevin helps market our cattle to western cattlemen as the head of our unofficial “Simpson West” branch, which has resulted in expanding our customer base. About Our Herd
Our small but select herd has been developed with performance as the top priority. Our main focus is on calving ease, low birth weights and high growth and milk traits. Whether natural service or AI, the sires we breed our cows to are selected primarily for those traits along with an emphasis on phenotype and structural correctness. As a result, the bulls we sell from each year's calf crop consistently rank in the top 30% or better for nearly all performance traits and are measured with genomically-enhanced EPD's. We continuously collect extensive data throughout every phase of growth on all the cattle raised on our farm from birth until when they leave the farm. We retain ownership and collect harvest data of our steers through the Tri-County Steer Carcass Futurity cooperative. We also strive to offer homozygous polled bloodlines which are in demand from our commercial customers. After losing a longtime leased summer pasture, we reduced our herd in the spring of 2019 from calving around 20 females to now calving around 10 females plus retaining replacement heifers. We are proud to be a Gold TPR breeder and to have several Dams of Distinction in our bloodlines.
