"Beef or dairy? Red or black? Original breed color or color driven by customer demand? Put up your own hay or buy it? Use a bull or AI?” These are some of the personal preferences addressed by four generations of the King family on their farms near Ava, Mo.
Members of the King family involved in the farm include Wendell, 83, and his great-grandson, Dylan, seven years old (one of 23 King great-grandchildren), as well as Wendell’s son, Lendell, and his son, David (Dylan’s dad and Wendell’s grandson). Wendell came to Douglas County from Oklahoma in 1961 and originally had both dairy and beef cattle. Two of his sons kept the dairy for a while before selling out to devote more time to the Limousin operation.
At the age of seven, Dylan King is already involved in rodeo competitions and thinks he would like to keep the family farming tradition by returning to its roots in dairying. “I want to milk,” he said. My mom’s already explained to me you gotta get up early.” For now Dylan helps on the farm by opening gates, carrying feed buckets, and feeding dogs.
Wendell described how he got his start in the Limousin business: “We went back to Oklahoma visiting one time and these people knew a fellow that had some Limousin cattle. It impressed him and he wanted me to go see them. We went and looked his cattle over and right away they impressed me. When I came back, I decided that was the route I wanted to go.” Wendell prefers red Limousin. “Mine are all red,” he said, “but the boys have both black and red.”
“Dad is a traditional breeder,” said Lendell. “I’ve changed to meet the customers’ call for black bulls.”
Lendell went on to say that about half of his herd is now registered black Limousin cattle. According to David, his dad, “diversified into that to keep the bulls sold out.”
“I like the red cattle, too, when you have a need or call for them,” Lendell said. “But when buyers call and ask if you have any black bulls and you say no, that’s the last you hear from them.”
“I wish all the breeds would go to their traditional colors and phenotypes and let the commercial man do the cross-breeding, but we cater to the customer,” said David. “I hope the red comes back. I hope everybody goes back to their original base, but I’m afraid that isn’t going to happen as long as black breeders keep honing their marketing skills.”
Wendell agreed. “You can’t pick up a sale bill or catalog or anything… everything’s black anymore. They’ve sure gone strong to the black.”
Another area that sets David apart from his father and grandfather is that he buys his hay rather than putting it up himself. He attributed that decision to his off-farm job as a railroad engineer. “If a man doesn’t have time to put up hay, I think buying hay is the way to go. It doesn’t pay for me to take a week or two off from the railroad and watch it rain and not get any hay put up before I go back to work. I take that money that I made during those two weeks and put it with a few extra calves that I run and it comes out for me. Last year we were pretty short on grass and hay was high, but most years it has worked out.”
Wendell and Lendell use bulls, while David breeds by artificial insemination. David’s use of AI and synchronization fits with his work schedule. “I went to school four or five years ago to learn to AI myself,” he said. “Synchronizing is about the only way I can do it. I synchronize my cows; breed them; and then kick the bull out with them after that. Synchronizing seems to be the only way I can put a set date to be there to breed them if I’m going to take a day off work. I’ve got red cows and I AI, so I get to choose which cow has a red calf or a black calf. Another reason we went to AI was to get back to smaller birth weight bulls.”
Despite generational preferences, there are several things the King family agrees on. Whatever the color, they prefer Limousins for efficiency and low birth weight. Most importantly, “We’ve all (Wendell, Lendell, and David) been in the service. We’ve all served our country. We all have a love of the land and a love for farming,” David summed up.
