It’s an interesting phenomenon. At the end of a weekend and his 34-hour reset, Todd (hubby) will dread starting the week’s haul to Hattiesburg, Miss. Yet, get him behind the wheel of the semi an hour and he’s nearly as excited as a kid at Christmas to see what’s changed in the stretch between certain points of interest along the way. Now that it’s a familiar route, he’s even more excited to see friends he’s met along the way.

I’m the same as I approach our personal taxes. I dread sitting down to start inputting receipts and put it off far too long, which only makes it a bigger task to start. But once I get started, I can really nerd out on the project and tracking different costs and trends over time. Setting monthly milestones makes the task seem less overwhelming. In no time, receipts are off the kitchen table, monthly statements are reconciled, and I find I actually enjoyed the process.

Kick-start your bull-buying process

Does buying your next herd sire follow a similar track for you? The process is probably one of the most enjoyable parts of the business. Who doesn’t enjoy going to a producer’s place, visiting about herd philosophies and looking through a pen of bulls? If you’re at a sale, there’s all the pomp and circumstance that goes with it — from presale events, to famous sale-day lunches, to the presale monologue and the bidding itself.

But like delivering that load or finishing that tax preplanner form, writing a sizable check to bring home the bull(s) that will affect your income for years to come can be a little daunting. Starting sooner than later can take pressure off the decision and give you time to do a little homework.

What kind of homework?

Benchmark where you are

Benchmark your herd to assess where you are. This can be as simple as looking at your saleable pounds and any scoring done on your calves at sale time. What would have made you more profit? Heavier weights? More muscling? A different sale day?

More information leads to a better benchmark. Pull together the expected progeny differences (EPDs) and dollar values ($Values) of the bulls you’ve used in the past, and especially those that have sired females going back into your herd. What would have made you more profitable? Are your cows the right size? Are you stocked at the right rate? Looking at both breed-back rates and calf weaning weights, do you need more or less milk?

If you sold the calves at weaning, did the buyer give you any feedback as to performance in the feedlot (health and growth) or on the rail? If you have that data, could you bank making improvements?

You can go a step further by using GeneMax^® Advantage™ to benchmark the genetics of individuals within your herd through DNA profiling. If your herd size means you will be using more than one bull during the breeding season, do you have opportunity to sort the herd into groups that would allow you to buy bulls to better fit each group? Maybe one needs more growth to weaning, and one needs an attitude check.

Where are you headed?

Will you do the same thing with the progeny of your bulls that you did last year? Will you sell at weaning? Will you retain heifers to build the herd? Will you retain ownership (in part or in full) through to the packer?