Dr. Bryan Oetting
In Town: Dr. Bryan Oetting, the Beef Farm Manager and Associate Professor of Agriculture at College of the Ozarks, has been a longtime familiar figure at the Point Lookout, Mo., college in Taney County. Bryan holds a Doctorate degree in Reproductive Physiology from New Mexico State University and has taught at C of O for 13 years. He also served as both the Assistant Dairy Manager and the Dairy Manager for the on-campus dairy farm before managing the off-campus beef farm. While Bryan has been in the Agriculture Department at the college for over a decade, his C of O roots go back much farther than that – he lived and grew up on campus while his father, Marvin Oetting, served as a member of the Agriculture Department. Today, Bryan oversees the college beef herd of polled Herefords and the eight student beef farm workstation, and teaches classes ranging from Animal Nutrition to Techniques and Purebred Business to Meats.
In the Country: Bryan raises crossbred beef cow/calf pairs on his 200-acre Omaha, Ark. farm – he partners with a former C of O Agriculture Department employee and they share the management responsibilities. He prefers a cow base of Herefords that throw red and black baldie calves. “I want my cows to have no problem calving, milk well and be tame,” Bryan said. He runs his cows on bermuda and brome/clover mix pastures. Bryan will often hold C of O student gatherings on his farm, and sometimes he hires students for part-time farm work.
In the Future: Bryan will be retiring from his long career at College of the Ozarks at the end of this school year. He is looking forward to spending more time on his home farm and wants to expand his beef cattle herd. He would like to experiment with Artificial Insemination within his herd, and cross Gelbvieh with his red and black baldie heifers.
Story and Photo by Klaire Bruce
