Agricultural News
Angus Feeder Ty Rumford Attributes Success to His Consistent Commitment to Nutritional Precision
Tue, 05 Dec 2017 12:06:41 CST
Precision is a big part of cattle feeding. That's something the manager of High Choice Feeders learned from his dad, growing up in eastern Kansas.
"We'd grind feed every Saturday morning. And he had an old hammer mill. And he'd scoop the feed into it, and the corn into it, and milo, and grind it up," said Ty Rumford, operations manager for High Choice Feeders out of Scott City, Kan. "He'd put his minerals package in there. So, many scoop shovels of this and so many scoop shovels of that. And he had a system and I thought, 'You know that's kind of neat how that works.' And it was just very simple- But it's always interested me how consistency and accuracy made a big difference."
Inspired to earn a degree in feed science, Rumford worked at Cargill for 10 years before he moved into management at a family-owned feedyard, always with the same precision that led to progress over time.
To watch a video clip featuring Ty Rumford, operations manager for High Choice Feeders, Scott City, Kan., explain his precision-based commitment to excellence that won national honors from the Certified Angus Beef® brand, click or tap the PAYBOX in the window below.
"Several of the ranchers we deal with really didn't know where they were at when they started feeding- We harvested those cattle. And they would be 40, 50% Choice. A Prime every now and then," Rumford recalled. "And you take those same ranchers, 20 years down the road and we've got guys that are close to 100% Choice and some of them 25, 30% Prime. And it's just made a huge difference. We've increased the quality and it's something the consumer wants."
It takes good records, regular communication and data sharing with ranch customers to hit those consumer targets.
"Each animal is tagged to where we know what happens to each one. We've got scales on chutes. We can tell what each animal weighs coming in and when the cattle are harvested we know what the cattle weighed going out, individually," he explained. "So, a rancher can keep track of those individual animals all the way through his system, all the way through our system and all the way through the packing plant. And he can take that information back to the ranch and look at his genetics. And see what he wants to cull or what he wants to keep, which animals are doing the best for him."
To make the most of those genetics and fit every quality program, Rumford's team makes cattle comfort a priority.
"We give cattle adequate pen space. We give them adequate bunk space. Basically, those animals can come up eat, drink, lay down wherever they want to and not be stressed at all," Rumford said. "We feed three times a day. We feed on time. We feed every pen at the same time every day and those cattle are just like clockwork, they come up. They know when the truck's going to be there and when the truck gets there, they're there. They're ready to eat, so timing is a big factor in what we do."
When high-quality cattle know what to expect, so do the producers, and so do beef consumers.
High Choice Feeders received the 2017 Certified Angus Beef Feedyard Commitment to Excellence Award at the brand's annual conference this fall.
Source - Certified Angus Beef
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