How It All Began.
SV Cattle Company was formed when Vicky and I bought 20 head of Angus cows from Gottschalk’s Rainbow Ranch in 1990. We moved the cows to Green Gulch Hereford Ranch in Sierra Valley, California where I was manager. We purchased these registered angus cows to use as recipient cows in the Hereford embryo transfer program. I used milk EDP’s to sort our Angus to use. After these cows calved that 1st spring to an Angus bull named Leachman Prompter, I could not believe what I was seeing! This set of cows were too good to use as recipient females. And that is how Vicky and I got started in the Angus seed stock business. We bred that set of Angus females to a bull called TC Dividend 4146 for the next 4 years to establish some consistency! We sold the bulls alongside the Hereford bulls until Green Gulch dispersed to Sehorn Herefords. At that time we moved everything down the mountain from Vinton to Orland for about a year. At that juncture of life we took a job managing the ranches for Oregon State University in Corvallis Oregon. We shipped our cows back to Sierra Valley and partnered with Roberti Ranch in an annual bull sale on their ranch in Vinton California. We were so blessed by the Roberti’s love, friendship and for holding our cow herd together for the next 5 years. Then in 2000 Vicky’s family bought the ranch in Sterling Colorado and asked us to come help out, plus we could bring our Angus cows too!
This is our 21th year here in Sterling. Our program has been designed and built to be carried on the backs of our Angus cows! We have laid all financial and genetic improvement pressure on them to carry the cost and to improve at the same time! We are fanatical about efficiency; our cows must stay out on grass until after the 1st of the year (we only feed if it snows too much). Our cows must raise an AI or ET replacement heifer or a sale bull. They also only get 2 breeding cycles to achieve that goal. Otherwise they are sold in the fall as bred cows. Our cows must not have any feet or udder issues. If so, they are either used as recipients or culled, period! Our donors need to be flushed and bred back to calve in that same 45 day window. We carry 100 pairs to produce 50 bulls for the sale and 50 replacements heifers so we must have extremely efficient, highly fertile, quality cows!
2022 I believe would be our 19th annual sale at Sterling Livestock Commission Company and oh what a blessing it has been to work with Jim, Becky, Jason, Jenny and the rest of the crew at the yard!
Our Annual Sale will be Friday, April 3, 2022!