Welcome to Buerge Ranch
At Buerge Ranch our focus every day is to raise the best momma cows we can. We believe maternal performance is the #1 goal! We want moderate framed, easy keeping cows that are aggressive foragers and efficient converters of that forage to body condition. We want our cows to have great udders, be deep ribbed, attractive, and feminine. We want them to produce predictable and consistent offspring. (Bigness is much less important to us.)
We have built both our registered and commercial herds using mostly Ohlde genetics. Tim Ohlde has become a friend and helpful resource to us as we have used his various sires to develop what we think is an excellent Angus cow.
The cattle business is a hard way to make money. Controlling our input costs, having the type of calf we expect, and having dependable breeders are all important attributes for our herd. Some cows do that better than others. And, great cattle are not made by a feed truck.
Buerge Ranch got its start in the 1960s in the commercial cow-calf business. Most breeds and crossbreeds have been owned since those early years. Over that span we migrated fully to Angus cattle.
We value predictable and consistent cattle. We have wasted a lot of money buying cows and bulls that were supposed to be something they weren’t. Sometimes these purchase mistakes take years to become apparent. Making fewer breeding mistakes has an impact on the bottom line. Predictability is a big part of profitability.
We develop our replacements slowly. We do not creep feed. After weaning, we use minimal feed supplements, preferring our cattle graze and forage. This obviously negatively impacts weights and corresponding EPDs but the long-term benefits justify the short term sacrifice. Our fertility has improved, our feed costs have gone down, and our cows are producing longer.
We have been in the commercial end of the cattle business for decades but we’re a relative newcomer to the seedstock business. The primary reason we made this leap was because we saw in Ohlde genetics what we were looking for in a cow program, something we can build on for years to come. A program that has worked the same for our commercial herd and for our seedstock herd. Predictable cattle you can trust.
Many of these cow families have been linebred, some for over fifty years. You just know what you're going to get with these cows with very few surprises.
Our cows are industry average in weight (1200 - 1300), a little smaller in frame (5), have Milk EPDs in the teens, are big-gutted and deep ribbed.
Our weaning weights are generally a little lighter than before we made the conversion. But, with lighter cows we can run more cattle and the calves, which are thick and very eye appealing, bring top dollar.
While raising replacement cows is job one, we also raise some pretty nice bulls, too. The genetics in our herd have long been proven.