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She was nearly lost to an “ugly tailhead”.
Instead, what was nearly lost, became the main spark for young Holstein
breeders, the foundation for an unfolding cow family, and the start of
significant merchandising income.
As Emlenton, PA Holstein breeders Mike and Cindy
Weimer look back on their 1987 purchase of Mun-Cre Stewart Lill, they
admit they almost didn’t buy her. At the time, the young couple was
planning their start in the dairy business, and Lill was one of 20 heifers
they were considering buying from veteran Pennsylvania Holstein breeder
Lester Poust, who was in the process of retiring from the business.
“We almost left her out of the group,” Mike says,
recalling a trip he and Cindy made to go back to see Lill and her
herdmates for a second time, before reaching a final agreement to buy the
group. “I had really liked her mother, but at the time, Lill had such an
ugly tailhead, we almost kicked her out.”
That would have been a mistake.
 Instead,
they looked past the flaw, took the daughter of Crescentmead Chief Stewart
home to calve her in, and allowed her to become the foundation animal of
their key cow family that continues to unfold. Lill went on to become a
VG-88-GMD-DOM with records to 5-3 365 days 35,480 milk 4.2% 1497 fat 3.0%
1054 protein. She produced five Excellent daughters (two by Oscar, two by
Trifecta, and one by Blackstar) with records to 51,700 milk. And when they
sold her to Premier Breeders of England, she became the first of many
family members the Weimers would sell for a significant price.
For Mike, a key attraction of Lill was her deep cow
family, which he had admired for a long time. Lill’s dam was an
EX-90-GMD-DOM Tradition with 26,400 milk, the next dam was a VG-88-DOM
Conductor with 23,270 milk, and her third dam was Mun-Cre Elevation Lasso
(2E-95-GMD-DOM), an Elevation (from three generations of Very Good dams)
with 30,302 milk 4.0% 1208 fat.
Lill’s first calf, by Ned Boy, became Mun-Cre SG
Ned Boy Luck (VG-GMD-DOM) with 26,990 milk4.1% fat 3.1% protein, and she
began furthering what would become the most prominent branch of the cow
family. As a 2-year-old, after a successful flush to Aerostar, the Weimers
sold half interest in Luck to Genesis Farm in Canada, where she
unfortunately perished in a barn fire.
The Aerostar flush produced Solid-Gold Gen AS
Lulu-ET. As a hard-working, promising young cow, the
Weimers sold Lulu in the 1994 Genetic Advantage Sale, where she became the
top seller at $23,500, going to Golden Oaks Farms, Wauconda, IL. Lulu
became a VG-86-GMD-DOM with 34,610 milk. Her first daughter, Solid-Gold
Mountain La-La, by Mountain, would become an even higher-profile member of
the cow family, and for the Weimers, took it from being known as the
“Lill” family to the “La-La” family.
 After
calving in March 1996 and getting off to a strong start, the Weimers
agreed to consign La-La to the Grande Dams of Shade-E-Lane Sale, slated
for September of that year. Pre-sale advertising touted her as the
“hottest young cow in the world” at that time. Multiple AI and embryo
buyers agreed, loading her with more than $200,000 in contracts; and
multiple bidders at the sale agreed, as she was struck off for $115,000,
going to Golden Oaks to join her dam.
La-La went on to finish with 2-2 credits of 365 days
45,810 milk 4.5% 2049 fat 3.1% 1413 protein, eventually becoming an
EX-90-GMD-DOM. And in the nearly six years that have passed since the
sale, La-La’s influence has continued to unfold. She’s sent 10 sons to
AI, and to date, her 13 daughters with completed 2-year-old, 365-day
records average 38,034 milk 4.0% 1524 fat 3.3% 1247 protein. Like her dam
and granddam, Weimers had offspring of La-La on the way before they sold
her, the result of early successful flushes to Lord Lily and Cash. The
Lord Lily flush produced Miss Solid Gold LL Lash-ET *TV (VG-89) with 2-5
365d 3X 42,340 milk 4.0% 1711 fat 3.3% 1381 protein, which has become the
Weimer’s hottest member of the cow family.
“We made the commitment early to keep Lash, develop
her, and market from her ourselves,” Mike
explains, pointing out she has attracted multiple AI and embryo contracts,
which they are in the process of filling. “She has been even
‘hotter’ than La-La, as far as people wanting offspring from her. The
way she flushes, we have done well with her.”
Family Traits
Like any cow family, this one has some common denominators – traits
that seem to show up more times than not in the cows it produces. One is
their ability to persist and endure, according to Mike.
“Whenever they get something, they get over it
quick,” Mike explains, estimating that he has now seen at least 100
total milking animals from the cow family. “It’s because of the
strength that is bred into the family. They’re tough and they’re
strong.
“Their front ends don’t wither away. And when
they’re milking heavy, they don’t ‘peel down’ to nothing,” he
continues. “They can look beefy; they just hold themselves together.
They’re able to milk a lot, still flush, and not have health problems
– way different than the average cow in the herd.”
Mike says that family members don’t tend to have
“showy”, fancy udders, but they are well attached, and like the feet
and legs in the family, they tend to be consistently sound. He adds that
their udders tend to develop in the second half of their first lactation,
particularly their height of rear udder. He also views family members as
being persistent in their lactation curves, and says they handle BST well
– which every milking member of their herd receives, starting 70 days
into every lactation.
“The thing we wanted to change in several daughters
was get more stature,” Mike explains. “They were shorter, medium-sized
cows, and we wanted to stretch them back out some. That has seemed to work
(through the bulls they have used).”
“There is a tremendous will to milk in the family.
We’ve seen that,” assures Gary Janssen , manager of Golden Oaks Farms,
Wauconda, IL. Golden Oaks has been following the family firsthand since
purchasing the Aerostar dam of La-La in 1994, La-La in 1996, then Solid
Gold Juror Luvbug-ET (EX-DOM), a maternal sister to La-La, in 1997. They
liked the Aerostar, and once her daughter became the headliner in a
high-profile sale, they decided to add her to their herd as well.
“In addition to the fact that we had her dam, La-La
appealed to us because of her high numbers, her udder and her feet and
legs. For being out of a bull that was supposed to be so ugly (La-La’s
sire, Bis-May S-E-L Mountain-ET, is classified 59 points), we thought she
was a real nice cow!” Janssen quips. About a year ago, Golden Oaks sold
La-La to partners Corey Wolff of Vision Genetics, and Ryan Krull.
Today, the best thing Golden Oaks has from the
family, according to Janssen, is Golden Oaks Lavender-ET (VG-87), a
Winchester from La-La. “All she wants to do is eat and milk. And stay
out of her way. That’s the kind of attitude they have,” he says of
family members. “They’re medium-sized, not tall, have a lot of
strength, and a will to eat and milk. The family consistently makes that
kind.”
“They have tremendous width throughout. I think
they are cattle that are going to last a long time, and get better as time
goes on,” adds Ray Moyer, Junge Farms, New Tripoli, PA, explaining that
he has tended to use bulls that sire tall, sharp, open-ribbed cattle on
members of the cow family he owns.
Junge started building from the family when he bought
choice of a Lord Lily flush from La-La at the same sale where La-La sold
to Golden Oaks. Today, she’s GP-83 with 36,810 milk, and with PTAs of
+76P +115F +2003M, is the highest-indexing cow in the herd.
Test can also be extremely high in the family, Junge
assures, pointing out that their Lord Lily ran a 5.2% fat test as a
2-year-old. It seems like a cow family that can be bred from easily, he
says, pointing to several generations of strength in the cow family as one
reason why.
Mike Weimer says one of his long-term goals with the
cow family is to breed one of the great strength bulls of the breed. The
trouble with strength bulls, he points out, is that often they don’t
have enough production to keep getting used. It’s hard to keep them in
the lineup long enough to find out how good they really are, he believes.
“I think it is important to have these kind of cows
in commercial dairies,” Mike says. “When La-La was a 2-year-old, I
viewed her as the ideal commercial cow. She was 58 inches with super feet
and legs.”
Partnerships Play A Part
The Weimers have pursued opportunities to own cattle in partnership
with others in the industry. Corey Wolff, Vision Genetics, was a partner
with the Weimers on La-La, for example, buying half interest in her a week
before her first calving, and is also part owner of her high-demand Lord
Lily daughter, Lash, as well as several other family members. Partnerships
with people in the industry can be beneficial, both Mike and Cindy point
out, explaining that Wolff has helped develop interest in the cow family.
In recent years, they’ve also developed other
partnership agreements with investors who are not directly involved in
this business. They’re known as Solid Gold Partners (I throughVI).
The partners own the animals, and the Weimers care
for and manage each animal. Any eventual profits are split. “If they
make money, we make money. If they don’t, we don’t,” Mike simply
says. “We have an incentive to make every partnership as profitable as
possible.”
The Weimers say they go the extra mile to be real
honest on the “negative side”, right up front, in terms of what can
happen to the cattle their investors invest in. Otherwise, it’s easy for
their partners to become disillusioned and lose sight of the long-term
nature of their investments, they say. They require all their partnership
cattle be insured.
“They (Solid Gold Partners) compare everything to
the stock market, so now, they’re really tickled with their return!”
Mike says, only half joking. “But they’ve also learned they can’t
‘pull the plug’ and liquidate as fast as they can with stocks.
They’ve learned that sometimes we can liquidate an investment in six
months and make a lot of money, and other times it might be two years
before we make any money back.
“The partnerships have allowed us to buy back some
animals from La-La and other families that we didn’t have the cash flow
to do ourselves at the time,” Mike sums up, pointing out that with their
partners they have bought back daughters of La-La by Winchester, Brett,
Gibbon, Manfred and Gelpro.
Experienced Sellers, Buyers
In their 15 years in the dairy business, the Weimers have gained
plenty of experience selling and buying cattle. Their original plan was to
have a sale every five years. So, in 1992, they had their first sale,
offering their entire milking herd through a sale at their farm. In 1997,
they had another sale, the Solid Gold 10th Anniversary & Impact of
Aerostar. In each sale, they also included good-pedigreed consignments
from other breeders.
“To have a sale, you have to sell enough animals to
make it worthwhile,” Mike says, but he points they wound up just having
to replace some they sold because they were staying in the business.
Instead of hosting sales, they’ve now turned to just selling cattle
privately and through consignment sales.
The other key reason they’re not interested in
selling cattle they don’t really want to sell is because they’re in a
growth mode – which they hope to continue until the herd reaches their
long-term goal of 300 cows. They’ve spent the past couple years getting
the herd – now at 180 cows - settled into a new free-stall facility. And
they plan to start construction of a new milking parlor soon, then as time
and resources permit, will add more facilities to reach their desired herd
size. Their Solid Gold herd is located on the farm where Cindy grew up,
which the couple purchased from her parents two years ago.
They’ve increased their herd size with 120 head
they purchased, mostly private, focusing on 2-year-olds with functional
type, then paying according to pedigree. Mike selected and found most of
the all-registered herd additions himself.
“A little bit more gets you a lot more,” Mike
confidently says, explaining why he firmly believes it is worth spending
an extra $200 or $300 per head to get a little higher caliber cattle when
building or adding to any herd. “Even if you don’t merchandise
anything, the added investment pays off in just milking better cows.”
Mike adds they just enjoy working with cows that have
good type. A walk through the herd confirms they’ve been successful
putting together an impressive group with good udders and feet and legs,
which yielded a BAA of 107 percent on a recent classification.
Before getting into dairying, Mike had plenty of
opportunity to learn about merchandising. A Maryland native, he grew up
working with his parents’ herd, then after college and a stint teaching
high school agriculture, went to work for the Pennsylvania Holstein
Association, first in membership services, then as director of sales. In
fact, his first transaction in his sales role was orchestrating the
private sale of Cindy’s home herd when her parents wanted to retire from
dairying.
After spending four years working with the
Pennsylvania Association, Weimer went into the sale management business
for four years with Backus Associates. Ultimately, he concluded he wanted
to get off the road so he and Cindy could raise their family on a farm.
“This is definitely a two-person business. Cindy
does her part and I do my part,” Mike says, crediting Cindy for helping
with a lot of the paperwork and record-keeping for their herd and
partnerships, as well as taking the lead role in developing and
maintaining their website (www.solidgoldholsteins.com).
Cindy also works as Industry Relations Manager for
American Dairy Association & Dairy Council Mid East, helping to
communicate with dairy producers how their dairy checkoff dollars are put
to use. She works from an office on the farm.
Even though their main buying focus has been on
adding sound cows to fill facilities, the Weimers are also continuously
looking to add more high-profile genetics to the herd. And they
acknowledge that no matter how successful their La-La family is or
becomes, it probably won’t last forever.
“There are very few families that stay hot for
20-30 years. They all go through cycles,” Mike says. “We’re aware
that can happen sometime, and that’s a reason we like to branch into
other families. And we just like the challenge of finding another cow
family that can rise to the top in our herd.”
He says he looks for something that really
“intrigues” him, that he can really market from, and that is a little
different. Plus, it has to meet his standards for type. Recent
additions have included a Ricecrest Marshall from an 88-point 2-year-old
from the Rinehart Dawfin family, a CVM-Negative Brett from an 88-point
2-year-old Fatal, and a Jasper daughter from an
Excellent Emory with 48,000 milk. |
