John and his wife, Melody, used to make a living selling females, but “you can’t get rid of the factory if you want to make more calves,” he says. They now produce bulls their customers need with a really solid foundation of maternal, functional females.

Those females have a balanced lineup of traits like heifer pregnancy, udder quality, foot scores, milk and calving ease, married with phenotypic qualities like structure, femininity and breed character. As a prominent cattle judge, McCurry says soundness and skeletal structure is a must.

McCurry says he’s proudest that “this is truly a family operation and of our independence. We’ve never followed anyone’s template. We find traits that are necessary, but not necessarily tied to a name.”

They host a bull sale on the second Thursday in March.