What you
what you go through. Well, I'm still a novice most days I'm afraid. It's interesting of all the people that I would have on practically ranching, calling themselves a novice, I wouldn't think it was my father, but, uh, welcome. And obviously sometimes there's a few role reversals in family operations.
Yes.
Perry is our guest today. And as the name would indicate in those who are close to our family and our operation already know, yes, we are closely related, I guess. This is gonna be a fun one. It's gonna be a tough one because of all the people I've interviewed on practically ranching. I can buffalo most of them. The guy that is our guest today already knows everything there is about me and probably then some. So I won't be able to pull the wool over your eyes.
But dad, welcome to practically ranching.
Thank you.
So today we can talk about a wide array of things as we quite often do, but, what I'd like to focus on and, and have you give our listeners and probably me to be honest, a little more in depth knowledge about our family, but specifically the Dale Bank's name and, the legacy there that, that, uh, resides in there. I think a lot of folks in farming and ranching have a lot of generations and I think sometimes we may take those for granted.
And I think it's really, really useful as we go forth and look. Long term here in the first month of a new year that, uh, we also take an opportunity to look back and catch up on, on what got us here in the first place. So if you would, the most asked question I think about our family and our ranch's history is who was Dale and where did the name Dale Banks come from?
So if you would, give us kind of a, a brief overview of, of where that name came from and how you found out exactly where it came from here, a matter of years ago.
uh, yeah,
yeah, there is no man.
uh, Mr. Banks or Dale Banks But the, the history. Of Dale Banks in the Flint Hills Started, about 1850 when my great-grandfather Robert Loy, immigrated from England to Ohio and then onto Illinois to shepherd sheep. Uh, after the Civil War, he homesteaded Northwest Eureka in our present headquarters area and, called his new farm Dale Banks after the farm that he was raised on in northwest England. and we've kept that name, ever since.
we've used it in the, uh, registration of our cattle also in our farming operation.
And so that was the Loy family. then what came next?
Well, one of
one of his
Amy, married a boy, farm
tall
uh, named Burt
were married
and
and they were married in 19,
and I think
I think,
they went
went on honeymoon. Kansas
and went to the American Royal. And found these black hornless, uh, Aberdeen Angus cattle,
Angus cattle,
stalled under a stairwell in the old American royal and he got
got
them. So in 1904, he
intrigued
Heifers and
s and oil and, and that was the start of it.
Angus,
Angus,
uh, in
uh, in our operation.
And so, that
That was
Burt
Burt barrier.
my
My grandfather,
and, it was he got
he got the
we've found
found out that
from Eureka
Mountain
view those, black
black hornless cattle, cause wasn't
around here. this was in
anything,
4,
five,
that era, most of
seven cattle,
herford
cattle,
or longhorn cattle with maybe a few shorthorns, but they, the shorthorns in
cattle, that all, all had.
So, uh, they were very unique. and most of the. Angus cattle that were around were East, Eastern, Missouri, Illinois, uh, summit Iowa. But, uh, they were still a minority breed.
I could even remember in the seventies when I was, first paying attention to the beef industry. I still felt like Angus were kind of a minority breed, but nothing like what they would've been there in the, the early 20th century.
that brings up a point in my days of actually running, and managing Dale Banks in the, in the seventies, our advertising program and our promotion program was more to sell people on using an Angus bull than it was. On
From accident
cattle,
cattle.
uh, because
Cause we had to convince first
do
to do that
like I say, the predominant cattle were, uh, herford cattle, uh, with,
Uh, a few Shorthorns, not very
the Angus
Angus probably had,
I don't know,
I dunno, right, less than 5%.
market in the United States at that time.
Yep. There have been a lot of changes for sure. Okay, so we've gotten two generations deep into the history. Lo then barriers. Where did the name par come in and when?
Well,
Well,
my
my grandfather
active in politics and loved Angus cattle,
ang.
he served several terms. Kansas legislature and then was appointed to the Board of Administration. Board of Administration is a predecessor organization to the Board of Regents. So they were in charge of the, all the state colleges and universities along with the prisons and the state
State Hospital,
Well,
me back up. His
Amy, died,
died,
uh, when my mother Alice was, about
Al, about seven years old.
And when it was time
It time for her to go to college.
go to high school,
High school,
live with an aunt one of his sisters California. And she graduated from a high school, Monrovia,
California
But when it was time for her to go to college, Mr. Barrier, Had her go to Kansas State University, not to KU or Fort Hayes or, Emporia, teacher's College. she went to Kansas
and state.
While there, she met a, a young student, farm boy from Opie, which is just almost, their farm was
Was
north of us about, uh, little less than 50 miles, about 40 miles. but she
she had him and
a while
a while after
they
Graduat got
and my father
married, father was an engineer
and, uh, he worked for Ly County as a assistant county engineer. And then
and
construction company
company,
uh, built
built a lot
There, you know, it was, this was kind of the, towards the end of the depression era, but there was still a lot of road projects they built, uh, 54
highway.
of Wichita or Pratt and, and one 60, he was managing engineer on, on, I know those two projects. they, they got
We got married in very
thirties and so
Well that's, that's where Perry name entered the
Now, it took a while
Wild
actually, my father
for Father to actually,
take part in the ranch because, uh, something called World War ii interfered a little bit, in 19. In, in the
summer,
he was called to active duty. he was an r o TC graduate of K State, and so he was a reserve officer and, uh, he was
he was called in.
Pearl Harbor. In fact, my brother Chuck was born in November of 19, November
22nd.
1941, just a few weeks before Pearl Harbor. And a couple
A couple of
brother
days their was
he left,
move. Left
to go to Fort Bliss, Texas,
Texas
to be in, in the Army. And then
after.
uh, in North Africa and Sicily, it was kind of a story. My, my mother
my mother was
fa
trying, my grandfather died.
she was trying to take care of the ranch. she to sold two complete heifer calf crops
Crops
to try to
to
down a little bit where she could manage it because the neighbors were trying to help her. But, uh, and she had one man working for her, but it was, it was pretty tough to keep things going. And, uh, uh, the
the neighbors,
petitioned through
petitioned to the red front.
father released. Uh, he was in Sicily, about to go in the invasion of of Italy
Italy,
his battalion commander, my father
my father was
commander. Uh, he was a lieutenant on and on
orders,
major, but the company commander called
call him in
home. And he said, what?
what?
He said, you're going
Going home
sure enough, he was on a boat home and, uh, In a few days
days.
he arrived in Christmas Eve of 1943. And, so that's the
let's start, I guess
the Perry family at, at Dale Banks he actually came home.
so without asking you to, um, assume things that maybe you weren. Privy you're present for. Would Francis and Alice have been back in Eureka, Kansas running Dale Banks's Angus? If not for World War ii,
My guess
guess
is
it's probably,
they would. I, I don't know that for sure. You can never, uh, you
sure.
or what things will happen, but, he
But Shirley wouldn't
when he, when he, when it happened.
happened. Right?
grandfather
grandfather
a result of an
was also an accident.
in, uh, in, uh, I think it was
I think it was
or, well, I think it might have been even late 42. But, that
early that had, that played a big
Cause my mother,
for mother.
though she spent time in, California and off to
Off college
home ec, at
Harper
a little while,
Dan.
she was, uh, uh, she
She was actually the one,
interested in the Angus cattle, uh, at that
in that time.
than my father
Father was,
My
father
told
told me an interesting story was about
they selecting bull calves to keep for bulls and ones to steer, to feed on, feed out. And, my mother, put
put one back in.
pen that my dad had cut out. my dad said, well, that bull's got short ears. We can't sell that bull. And my mother said, I don't
I don't care.
can't sell him,
Tell him
He's the best bull in the pen, And,
gonna,
and sh from what I
what I
won.
probably one of many discussions that, Alice won. I hope. Yeah. Anybody that was at a bull sale that we had last November realizes that we have stayed true to Alice's belief as long as they're healthy, the ears are a long way from their, uh, valuable parts and genetics, because I think about a third of 'em had frozen ears this year, thanks to the, uh, February of 21 Storm. Tell me a little more about Alice and her time at K State.
I think you told me one time how many female students there were at Kansas State University there in the thirties when, when they were there. She would definitely have been a, a rare occurrence, right?
Uh, a correct, uh, there
There weren't, I think
I think somewhere along the line I heard there was about 1500 STO total students. and, uh, Only a couple hundred. It was six to eight, to one men to to women. and so, I'm
I'm
the ladies had no problem finding a, a date and, uh, if, if a guy
guy found the girl
out
out with me.
was, uh, he was feeling pretty good.
That's good. That's good. Even though even my
my oldest brother, Lou, started a case eight in the fall of
brothers seven,
it was still five,
five, about.
boys to girls in. and there was still,
Still, I think
4,000 students. the boom occurred about the time
time
I, I started
I started that the boom baby boom occurred. Yeah. Yep.
And luckily the number of,
remember
of girls
pearls.
too
Well, I remember you laughing when I was in K state animal science department in the mid nineties, early mid nineties, and you were shaking your head because roughly half, close to half of the students in animal science and on my judging teams, et cetera, were were females. And you just shook your head in disbelief. And yesterday I saw the picture of Ava's K state meats judging team that just won the National Western Denver.
And there's a dozen kids on that team, and there's one guy and 11, 11 girls. So, uh, what goes around comes around, right?
Yeah,
Yeah, that's, that's
uh, it, it just amazes me. I had the only, you might say animal science, class that I. Girls in was genetics and there were, there were a few because it was the only genetics taught in the holy university. And so, some of 'em in, in biology or, or biological sciences, would take genetics and, and then and
Maybe one or two.
there was, uh, there was not many pre-vet students that were girls either, cuz their chance of getting in
Yeah.
pretty slim.
Yep. And that has definitely gone full circle as well. All right, so we are at generation three, the Loy, the Barriers, and then Francis and Alice Perry, generation Four
Generation four was, uh, three brothers
Brothers.
brother Lou. uh, next Chuck. Lou
Lou is morning at 39. Chuck and
41, and I, I came
I came
uh, 45,
by,
45. So, I'm the baby. I'm still
so Tommy
a lot of people around but, moles
my oldest brother.
had a chemical engineering degree from Kansas State University. And, you know, had a
Had a successful engineering
in the petroleum industry, managing refineries. uh, we lost Lou, uh, about two years ago now. But, brother Chuck graduated from Kansas State and he actually was the first one to come back to Dale Banks. And, uh, Instituted a started to institute a lot of positive things, I think, for our operation, recognizing that, uh, we had to make some changes and do some things, uh, a little differently. and then, I went to Kansas
Kansas
graduated, in 67. And, my
My plans kinda got
like a little, like
like my.
uh, there was a little thing called the Vietnam, uh, war came along. And, uh, had plans to go to graduate school. In fact, I'd been accepted in, in reproductive physiology in University of Maryland. And, but I had to decline because, uh, my
my
board under the draft situation and they would not, allow me to defer any further. In, in an attempt to try to salvage that situation and maybe go on to graduate school in another year. I joined the National Guard was scheduled to go to
to.
training school. And then the Vietnam War really got, he interfered with it, because, I was called active duty. And so
So
about
about a year and a half on
before, Carolyn and I came back to the operation, uh, I met Carolyn
Carolyn.
at Kansas State University. And, even though her uncles teased her that she was gonna go up there and find a farm boy, she, she told him she wasn't, well she kind of did
Did
maybe a rancher.
she, she thought you were gonna be a reproductive physiologist, right?
yeah. anyway, we had a
Shotgun.
we got called up, uh, the active duty, we were scheduled getting married in the, in the summer of, uh, 68. And, those plans got derailed further cause there was no way going beyond just, you know, active duty and, and, and getting
Get married, brother.
be really tough. So we had
We had a
we arranged it in a
shotgun weeks
married and, and after spending
spending about another
in the Army,
year. Now wait a second. I wanna make sure and clarify. You're open-ended joke there. If your shotgun wedding, that was May of 68.
yeah.
And your first child came
gestation
no, November of 73. The, the, you, you probably should have gone on to that Reproductive physiology, uh, masters Tom. Uh, cuz yeah, that's, that's one long gestation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
gestation period.
All right. Proceed.
after spending about
About a year half military
uh, which in some
some ways.
was some good
Good
some ways, you know, you know, military. I,
military. I
I wouldn't want it for my own life, for a, for a career, but, We came back
back
at that point in time, I think, I thought I was outta college too long to, to go to grad school. So I didn't even con we didn't even consider applying, uh, again, anywhere and, and try to get back in into it. And I decided I'd, we'd try to
to improve our
it some and, and, so that's in, August of 19,
9th.
We came
Came back.
in time for the county fair and, uh, been going to the
The county fair ever since. That's good. okay, so I want to back up just a minute or two cuz you mentioned, as you talked about Chuck being the first one back here to Dale Banks and implementing quite a few positive changes. What were some changes that, that he would've seen that you two would've seen there? In the, what, mid and late sixties, right?
some
some of
were
things happening in our area,
was this Flint Hills of Kansas is a, is a native
Navy grass.
area, uh, that, you know,
You know, it goes back
hundreds of thousand,
of thousand
of
years.
And, uh, uh, it's
It's one of the last
of the tall grass prairie. And the reason it's left, Two reasons. One, it's, there's a lot of
lot of rock
it's hilly and it doesn't lend itself to the plow.
plow
And two, the top
top
is pretty shallow in a lot of these areas on top of the hills and the side hills, it's very shallow. And so, uh, it, it, a lot of it was left in native grass. Uh, historically the cattle came up from Texas, and were
level up here.
originally, and then in the summer, and then, then sent on to the slaughter market. then, then later
Later they
And when I was a little kid, they came, started coming by truck but it was still predominantly
dominantly as
you know, our operation was a cow calf, but we did, we did graze a lot of cattle ourself also, when I was a, when I was a kid, and, and actually fed
actually.
'em out and sent 'em on to Kansas City or St. Joe. but in the late sixties this area started turning more to Cal Calf. so that was one thing that my brother and I saw as an opportunity to, we needed to expand our cow herd and we thought the Angus Angus cattle would be a, had enough advantages that we could, we could sell more bulls. And so, that's. why we started expanding, but we
We also
uh, we needed to make our Angus
saw
and we need to, uh, document 'em more.
document.
Well, the way you bred, cattle for was you looked at 'em and decided which one was the best, you know, and based on a lot of valid criteria, but a lot of it was just, you know, guessing. uh, so, the way, you know, you went out to find the new herd bull. You went and found, tried to find a son or a grandson or the international grand champion of a couple years before, or the Denver champion but we didn't really do a lot of improvements. We didn't do a lot of documentation, so we didn't know
take
was. my brother
my brother started AI
in, uh, in, I think it was 63, but
that
we, we had to
had
one of
own
of, of the bull to be able to use bull ai. So it was basically in herd ai. and you know, we did make some improvement because we got a few more out of what we considered vvr better herd bulls. But, it wasn't drastic. my
brother.
us in the Angus Herd Improvement Program, which I think
I think it
late. Uh, fifties, but
fifties. It was started not
data
the
program. It was started as a, as a program to have an evaluator come look at the cattle put a, put a score. I guess it was a score. We never had it done. Uh, but we knew
knew
But, uh, was someone like a regional manager that would come and say, you know, this guy needs to go to town and this guy you can keep and anything. But it was all on visual appraisal it was
classifier or
he showed up. He didn't see the production off the cattle or anything else.
anything else.
so, uh, it, and
Eventually.
started recording weaning weights and
That's kinda what.
I think our first cap calf crop was in 65. That was recorded on a H I R and that
That was
the pedigree information and the winning weight. But we didn't do a lot of improvement, initially. I'll take that back. Initially, we, we saw some pretty good improvement the winning weights and the productivity of our cow herd because we had
we had some,
you know, we had
had
were big, nice, good looking cows that have good calf. And, were able to call some of those cows and replace 'em with heifers, and do a little better. A lot of
a lot of that.
probably could have looked at a lot of those and, and noted it. and some of that of course was done, but, it did
It did help
And then the other source of genetic improvement besides calling is the, is a herd bull. And that's the predominant
phenomenon
to improve your herd is see the, the bulls you use. Well, the only source of outside
outside.
was to go buy one. You bought one and used it on, you know, 30 cows or 25 cows in a season and, and you got that many calves. and the other thing was to use, know, our best calves out of our calf crop. And we did that and we did see some but it got to a point, I don't think we were doing much. You know, we, we, we kind of got to a plateau
So were those initial weaning weights in 65, 67, were those actual weaning weights or did you have AHR adjusting those to a 205 day or two? I guess it started out longer than that when did they start adjusting those to an age constant basis?
Yeah,
Yeah. They, they had an adjustment. Okay.
to 205
Five days
and, uh, there was, I think there was some attempt along
long.
to put an age of dam correction in there too. So, uh, and I can't
Can't tell
that was or anything, but it, uh, there, there was, there was
you whether
deals, but it was pretty well for in unheard use, in the late sixties. And we started taking yearling weights and, but it was still
I still.
in herd improvement, uh, with, very little, drastic, I guess, uh, improvements and, and it, and it was, it was the best we had. But, know, when I think back now, we, you know, our first sale catalog in 1972, all we, all we've published is I think winning weights and, or
or winnings,
and yearling ratio.
and the bulk of the folks that were selling bulls at the time would've thought that was crazy. Right. To put that information in there in addition to just Siren Dam, maybe cow family name.
Yeah, I
I think right.
they, the pedigree information with date of birth is about, oh, and maybe a foot no with, what
What?
a full brother soul for or what, uh, how much they paid for the si or, or what
What grand.
se was champion at some show. Or maybe even a, a great grand cy.
I chuckle here and nobody can see me smiling on the podcast. But, um, with all the information and genetic predictions, dna, multi trade indices, and all the data that we have today, we're still writing those same footnotes about how they're related to the National Western Stock Show champion, or how much a sister sold for an x y, Z sale. But I digress.
So, the first sale in 1972, you were published in weaning and yearling ratios and collecting, weaning and yearling weights, not birth weights yet. When would you start weighing calves approximately?
I
I thought about this day.
up when we, weighed the first calves, at birth. And I'm
I'm guessing.
74. But I
I, I dunno. Uh, because
I think we might have been like the weaning weights. Uh, we'd actually taken weaning weights a couple of years we, started submitting them on a
on a,
in fact,
in fact, my dad bought
the scale, the single animal scale in, in, uh, probably 55,
Wow. Something like that.
I don't know
dunno. Exactly.
but I
I calculated,
many, thousands of head we'd run across that thing,
was that the guillotine head catch that we had when I was a kid?
That was it.
he bought that in 55
I think
I think. Wow.
it, it was
It was unique.
a, it had a squeeze sheet on
On top of,
squeeze sheet with a gelatine head gate, but
but you know, you can accomplish
your vaccinations and everything and weigh at the same time was the same deal. and so it was
was unique, you know, dad, growing, growing up I heard that head catch called a lot of things and Unique was never one that I remember you or Raymond or Harold or anyone using,
no, uh,
but that's amazing though that a shoot that could both weigh and restrain an animal was really a big deal. today that's commonplace, but in, in the fifties, just having a scale underneath it was unique on its own. Right?
Yeah,
Yeah.
know, the, in in the
the sixties, a
county
few county extension bouncers were buying
single animal scales to go out and weigh people's cattle and, uh, winning time.
time.
And, uh, they
They were all just,
were just
just a cage
a cage
cage on
the animal on.
there.
uh, you
You had to have
it, best if you can accomplish more than one thing at the same time, you know? And, uh, so, but I do
I do back.
that. We were, we'd been weighing cattle for probably 10 or 15 years, and I heard a couple of breeders said, we're not gonna do that. We're, that's, that's silly. know what good cattle are. We don't need a scale to tell us what they are.
Yeah, I've heard that a time or two. So you mentioned cow families, or I, maybe I did. Um, let's talk a little bit about that. I mean, the first four females in a bull, Mr. Berry purchased and brought to Dale Banks in 1904. you've done a little research. Do any of our current cow families at Dale Banks trace back to those four, or where do most of ours stem from?
We don't think that any of the present cows traced to the 1904 purchases. We're, we're reasonably certain of that. gotta realize that sometimes some of these animals, uh, when they were purchased and and transferred back in that era, you know, a guy
Guy did it
his
probably in his
office. He was a secretary and did it whenever he got around to it.
And when you say
might
secretary, you mean the breed secretary
breed secretary.
Yes. Yep.
uh,
uh,
uh, I, some
some of the research
uh, showed that, you know, animals that were maybe born in 1908 were registered in 1910 and, and maybe transferred to somebody find a transfer
transfer
two and a half, three years later. But, you know,
you know,
probably transferred
transfer,
you know, they were probably sold,
probably sold. I.
But we don't think anything traces to 1904, but we're certain that we have majority of our cow families traced to 1908 to 1920 purchases. Uh, we've got,
Got,
got
got the
princesses,
princesses, the blackbird, the black caps,
uh, the
prostitutes, uh,
enamel, uh, the Ericas. Now the Ericas are a little later that, that we think that's somewhere, uh, purchases maybe
maybe.
the late twenties or thirties. Uh, a cow, and I, I don't remember exactly when, but most of these others or Cal families, go back to that era.
And a few folks that maybe aren't involved as deeply in the seed stock world as others. make sure that we understand cow families. basically for the most part in pedigree cattle breeding, the daughters of a certain cow will retain that cow's name and then a unique number, to her within that herd. So if Princess 38 0 9 has a calf at two years of age, that calf will be princess. 54 11 or something like that.
And, and so that princess name gets passed down, generation after generation Cys quite often the same way. Although if you have a more known, well-known Cy, a lot of times we'll change that name. But, uh, just wanted to throw that in there so folks understood what we were talking about.
So, as far as Cal families, how would you see them different today in selection in cattle breeding mating decisions compared to, let's say, when you first started making some of those mating decisions in selection decisions in the, in the late sixties and seventies? Or, or has it changed
when we
we started to get enough
on our cal herd, especially the
data. We,
we
we started to recognize some things.
Cal families that
that seemed like
you know, they, they
they were
better or
before
certain areas. and
and seemed like that carried on.
uh, from generation to generation. we used to say the prostitutes, that was our growth cattle, We had, uh, the black cow, the, the black birds were cow, the cows that had more milk. Uh, you know, there were certain other ones that were, uh, more complete in all all ways. But, as we started AI into, outside bulls, were able to match and, and also had more data on these cows and, and that we could characterize them and we said, well, this cow needs more milk.
We'll find, we'll find a si that'll put a little more milk in the, in a progeny genetically, and, or, or if they, they need a little more growth, we'll find something that'll put a little more growth in them. And so now
Now
I don't think we can say that we have
have Mexican.
the cow lines.
They're
all
all pretty.
I think. we have, I don't know, 10 or 12 different Cal And, especially years ago, before we'd kind of evened them up, you could tell which cow families were the best ones because of, of, there was more of them. got retained, they had ca, they had calves on schedule and. And the calves were good. so you ended up retaining more of those. don't think today there's quite that, difference, but we do have more blackbird than any other, any other group.
And, uh, I'm sure that in the late, uh, sixties and seventies, uh, we propagated the blackbird and called less of them than we did some of the other cow lines. Like I say now, I think they've evened up more.
Well, and if you remember, um, Derek Jackson that bought a heifer from us through last year's sale, 21. He had gone back in our pedigrees, found out information that I didn't even know, but that was a, that was a heifer, that was a Blackbird cow, family heifer that he purchased. And he went back through and I put it in our catalog, but she had like four generations in a row that had calved to the first AI on the exact same day. And he went back six or eight or 10 generations.
And, and whatever we've done, good or bad, it seems like those Blackbird cows have, have, uh, shown that there is some inherent reproductive efficiency fertility. You know, consistency there that, as hard as I may have tried to screw it up by mating them to the wrong bull through the, the years they've still got it.
So I, I think I was a guy 10 years ago that just kinda almost scoffed at Cal families and, and saying there was more value in a certain Cal family with all the EPDs that we had at the time and, and now have even more, again, kinda like the, uh, phrase we used before. What goes around comes around. I, I think there is still some value in that. I think we see, even though we try to complimentary mate these females to a sire that improves on a weakness they have.
And, and consequently we may moderate a strength that they had. Uh, I think there's. especially when we talk about just functional longevity and, and reproductive efficiency and, and soundness and things like that, I think there's probably some value there that, that we don't even realize in these cow fam, some of these cow families
We used to name my, my father was doing all the, you know, the registrations, uh, we named him
name
numerical order.
Order
In other words, the first, first blackbird would've been Blackbird Adel Banks. And the second one was Blackbird,
Blackbird
and then the next
the next.
It didn't matter what, which cow was out of, they, they just got num miracle. The, uh, when we started re when we registered 'em, we down the line and you could see that, back, In the late,
Late
sixties, we had
we had,
probably four of the cow lines that were pretty even in numbers. which was kind of interesting. But one of those lines as we got
we
more information, we started calling probably a little heavier, started to drop out, and that we still have
have some
But, uh, it took some other breeding, you know, to improve them a little bit, but they, they, they
those, they didn't up black
and so, and then there's some others that
southerners that are probably
as we, we've gone on. But, uh, but especially back
back
late sixties and early seventies, was, We, we were changing the cattle some, but, uh, it was a little based on a lot what they'd done before.
Right. So through the years, I guess let's just say since you've been back, if you had to list your top one or two challenges that you've had in terms of owning, managing the ranch, can you, can you narrow it down to one or two? What, what have been the hardest, uh, mountains to climb, I guess?
first it starts with the kids. No.
Well, especially the eldest Let, let's skip that one cuz we're, that could be a whole nother hour podcast. So let's, let's skip the Matthew Challenge
Oh, challenges, gosh, Probably weather
probably.
probably one of the biggest things,
Sure. You know, I can't control
and it seemed
It seem like it's unique every year, So that, that, that's probably
big one.
big.
other things are just things we can't, we can't, we can't
Can't
uh, the
control black swan,
and things that, uh, occur. but
but
lot
a lot of those
we survive and, and we get, get along and we, we get frustrated with it, but they're things we cannot actually, uh, do
do anything about.
ourselves. Uh, so,
So
let's try to
try to do
with the things we can
so
And
that's probably
a lot of my frustrations, especially in the, in seventies, and into the
the
We, we were trying to,
Try to
trying to breed cattle and improvement and trying to, weigh
weigh cattle and
on
out
but it was frustrating. there in the late sixties and early seventies, we weren't making much improvement. we just didn't have the tools available breed these cattle. Uh, the show ring was probably still as good as a, it, it was a still a major tool and it just wasn't good enough, until we started
Started
enough records and pooling it with all the
all the other
and other people started to doing what, what we'd been doing since the mid sixties. we didn't
We didn't make
Now, open
open ai.
uh, occurred in, I think
I think
74 or five, and they allowed, uh, members of the American a association to register cabs out of bulls. They, they did not, they were not an owner of, and that allowed us to do
to
That was pretty controversial at the time. Even, even my father thought it was a bad deal. he thought it was gonna be
dominated by just
but I pointed out a couple things
a couple.
well, we don't have access to what, uh, we can't go out and buy
Buy that
that time, probably a $10,000 bull or $20,000 bull, uh, there in the sixties, uh, and into the seventies, maybe a 25 or $30,000 bull. so. Let's use some semen outta one and find and be able to match, what the bull offers to what the cow offers and try to, I improve our, our cows. And,
s.
it was awful frustrating, through the seventies. now the economic problems and the problems of the cattle business in the mid seventies, probably way overshadowed, my ability to do much about, try to do much about, getting changes to how we selected cattle and, and, and the records we had. But, it, it's, and
And it's been frustrating all along. I mean, it's
I'm sure that we've got traits that we would like
like document
and, uh, have, tools to improve that. Uh, We're
we're not
we, we just keep, keep working
working on
when the
it.
were expected, progeny differences were, tools were
develop
It just made a world of difference. but we had
When they had it on fruit tires,
a, uh, you know, not a,
not a, not a big,
number of them. And then
and then we then we got
And in fact, uh, the early EPDs, uh, uh, the association,
association essentially eliminated any data on,
on
on.
They essentially only, the data only had, uh, you could only get EPDs on, on, uh, highly used, uh, AI sars. and I was kind of instrumental in getting the board to take another look at that and say, well, you know, there's, there's some bulls that are being used naturally out there that sure they don't have as many progeny, but we need to get them into the system. cuz they'll
They'll never
or never get used enough if, if they don't have any EPDs to start
get to start with
and so they started, they cha kind of changed the, What
what they
and uh,
were used, how they, how they managed the system. Well, I've heard you and and others say the same thing. You weighed calves for years and years and years and you compared them to other calves within the herd and tried to select for the biggest ones and keep the biggest heifers and et cetera, et cetera, and you made very little, if any progress, and it was once you were able to use EPDs that of.
I think everybody knows today, allow you to compare your calves versus the next breeder down the road versus the breeder in Montana or Florida or wherever. and once we were able to do that, that cross heard comparison, uh, genetic selection has been on the accelerator ever since. And so that allowed us to factor out, basically factor out the environmental effects and, and focus on what those genetic, uh, variation were.
In the, in the late and early seventies, the bull testing stations, started, coming about.
About,
And,
and, uh,
there
and there was, it was a good, good idea, I guess
uh, what started it
it.
need to, we need to compare these bulls and see how they'll do and which one can gain better and everything. and so there was some
Really,
thoughts behind that. And, but what happened? It became a horse race. It became almost like the show ring. Uh, who could, who could have the. Manipulated his cattle to get the fastest gaining ones and pushed the devil out of 'em no matter what it did to their fertility and to their feet and leg and longevity. we did find some cattle that, that would gain faster that way. but
but it was
some of
some of the people that were
real hard lost
lost.
what we were really trying to accomplish. We were trying to improve the, the overall quality of, of cattle and, they viewed it as a, as a kind of a horse
A horse. So you've been back at Dale Banks since August of 69 for good. so in 50, 60 years of, uh, being in farming and ranching, what's the biggest change that you've seen either in the Angus and pedigree livestock business or. Agricultural production in general, or the people or whatever. What's the biggest change from the sixties?
I don't know if I can point out one big thing now. The development of expected progeny difference in performance data, uh, and predictions that has changed. Uh, I think the seed stock business and also the commercial business buying bulls. Now, overall, I'm not sure that's
That's
in, the
big
Some people
Some people.
know, everything's gotten bigger. and that's true and a lot of people have exited the, the, the industry, that's been happening probably since, right after World War I,
1830s
was a massive in the fifties and again, in the eighties. And, uh, you know, sure we're getting better or bigger, excuse me. uh, that is, that
that.
con been happening all along. and I'm sure it'll continue to happen. Now, certain things in the, in the cattle side of it that'll, uh, mitigate it a little bit, is that we still have to operate on the land it still takes
Take some out there,
the, you know, you can't manage it from. From the story of the Empire State Building. But, you have to have people out there and that, and that's still the way we're gonna run, cattle. We've gotta see 'em. sure it's not the
something.
scene, but we gotta observe what our cattle do, uh, in a, in an environment they're in. But I don't know if I can point out one, one big item that's, that's happened that's drastic,
Drastic, I guess. Well it's, it kind of goes back to when I asked you about the biggest challenge and you said the weather. I hate talking about the weather. We always do it because it drives nearly everything that we do. It drives the markets, it drives our daily tasks.
and honestly, like you said, I think we may hate these weather changes, but when we come out on the other side, hopefully we're better because of it and we learn something about maybe an expensive lesson, but we learn something and if we do it right, I think it helps us as cattle breeders to select the ones that can make it through and can do their best on low inputs and can make it through some struggles drought. Cold nights, whatever the case may be.
And, and so, uh, when, when we talk about biggest challenge and biggest changes, yeah, they, they probably, they probably do go hand in glove sometimes. Any last thoughts
uh, we have made some real improvements in, uh, think Angus cattle and, and cattle in general. we went through an era there in the eighties where, uh, we had tremendous competition from other breeds. Angus had, had gained a pretty good, know, increase in the, in the seventies, but we were struggling to maintain that. But it seemed like as we got. Into the a into the
The.
started moving ahead. And I think a lot of that was because of, seeing that we needed to provide a product or a consumer, that was better than what we had been doing in, in the seventies and eighties. something that they, they really wanted and they wanted to eat. and, uh, I think some of the tools we have developed, with EPDs, helped us do that. And, they're being improved all the time uh, I think they'll continue to see advances that way.
an example, the epd, we had an EPD for marbling back in the eighties. In my opinion, it was not very good. we the ultrasound. Method of evaluating live animals. That added tremendously the amount of data. And I think we improved the formula and, and we were able to end to select for
selecting.
up until then, we had no way to select for marbling. And we just used an Angus bull boom and knew that was better than most of the herford bulls, the limousine bulls out there. But, uh, other than that, we didn't have any way to advance the marbling in Angus cattle. And, we do have that tool. There's some other things, other traits that were, uh, just come on that, that we've got EPDs for and they're gonna improve as time goes on.
And, hoping we'll get some other, other, selection EPDs for traits that are, that we need to have in the Angus cattle, such as, you know, longevity. uh, I think that's coming. it's a little more of a struggle, but so was, was marbling, and so was birth weight and, well
anyway. Nobody had.
Those, those traits are more highly heritable. But, we'll, we'll get there.
Yep. Hopefully we do fairly soon, but, uh, you're right. It, it is a challenge, but that's one of those challenges we keep going after. Well, I think that brings us around, uh, to our time. I appreciate you being with us today and, thanks for holding the family together and Dale Banks together and, hopefully your next generation and generation after that, will continue to do the good work that you and mom and grandma and Granddad Perrier and all the barriers and Loys before them did as well.
So thanks a bunch, dad. Have a great day.
Okay.
Thank