Kenny and Lora Crawford know beef cattle, especially the registered Angus and registered Salers they raise.
“I was 9 when we bought our first registered Angus,” Lora Crawford said with a smile. “Mama and daddy, Larry and Anna Beth LaRue, still live right down the road.”
Today, the Crawfords have also added registered Salers cattle to their operation in Camp, Ark. A multi-purpose cow bred for work, fertility, ease of breeding, milk and meat. Salers are originally from the central regions of France.
“We run about 100 momma cows on 375 acres of owned and leased pasture,” Kenny continued. “We show cows all over the U.S. Our bulls have won at the Kansas City American Royal, the oldest livestock show in the country. It’s truly a historical event. The national show for Salers is in Denver each year. That’s our Super Bowl and in 2009 we won National Grand Champion Female. I’m pretty proud of that.” And indeed he should be.
They have also had champions at the North American International Livestock Exposition in Louisville, Ky. “We’ve been in this a number of years now,” Kenny continued.
Kenny added with a smile, “Our main business is selling bulls to commercial cattlemen, along with replacement heifers. I also work part-time for the Fulton County Conservation District and the NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service), a Federal service agency, as a soil technician.” In addition to keeping the books for their own operation, Lora works as an accountant to a pork producer. The Crawfords work, live and breathe agriculture in various forms.
Both the Crawfords are quick to point out the best part of their lives and their work are the people they meet along the way. “You get the chance to meet a lot of people you would never meet otherwise,” Kenny continued.
As they look down the road toward the coming years, they are adding different kinds of equipment now to make their work less physically demanding. “We’re looking at hay lifts and feeders in the back of the truck,” Kenny explained. “Things to make it less labor intensive. We need to think about these things as we get older,” he added.
“Our son, Drew is trying different things too, here on the farm,” Lora added. “He’d like to get into some different crosses. What Kenny has learned at NRCS really does allow you to get so much more out of your land, using prescribed grazing, getting the pastures divided and the water on the sites. We’re getting prices on goats to use in rotation with the cattle to keep from having to brush hog and spray so much.”
Kenny concluded, “As we turned this corner last year, moving from younger to older while surviving such a terrible drought, I’ve come to realize it’s all about utilizing the acreage we have to the max with intensive grazing practices and controlled burns to open up the 80 acres of woods we have as well. We were very lucky last year to survive such a terrible drought. Not everyone was so fortunate. We’ve been very blessed.”
