The AngusSource program has offered Salvador Galindo as much as a $3 premium on his source- and age-verified, Angus-sired calves.
The Source: Star Creek Ranch
Nevada rancher uses AngusSource in building his American dream.
In 1978, 16-year-old Salvador Galindo set his boots down in the Pershing County sagebrush, driven only by the hope that a job as a ranch hand in the high desert of Nevada could get him farther than anything in his home country.
The teenager was armed with little more than a few dollars for gas, a young bride-to-be waiting for him in Mexico and a dream.
Tough conditions
Galindo began his ranching career as a hired hand, worked his way into management for 18 years, and began leasing the Star Creek Ranch to own himself near Imlay, Nev.
Incredibly humble, the cattleman does take pride in his 450 head of commercial Angus cows. Operating on both private and government land in the Humboldt Range mountains between Winnemucca to the north and Imlay to the south, conditions can be rough. Overnight, the temperature drops from 70° F to freezing. At sunrise, snow falls; by mid-morning, sleet and rain; and by noon, it’s nearly hot out.
On about 450 private acres and 430 animal unit months (AUMs), Galindo maintains both a spring- and a fall-calving herd. He weans his fall calves between the first and second hay crops. For his spring-calving cows, bulls are turned out April 15 until the first week of August. Heifers are bred May 5 to avoid calving during the bitter cold.
Creating connections
“This is probably about as real-world as it gets out here,” John Toledo of Tri-T Farms and Toledo Ranches in Visalia, Calif., says of the sometimes harsh conditions. “These cows aren’t pampered by any means. They’re well-managed, but they’re not pampered.”
The California cattleman first met Salvador in 1993 when the younger ranch manager made his first trip to the San Joaquin Valley to purchase bulls. Since that first meeting, Star Creek has purchased its herd sires exclusively from Tri-T.
Toledo suggested to former ranch lessee Frank Olagaray and Salvador that they utilize the then-new AngusSource® program. According to Toledo, Salvador owned the first set of AngusSource calves sold in that part of the country on Western Video in Nevada.
Straight from the Source
“When they started the AngusSource program and when I read up about what it entailed, I just figured we had to do this with Star Creek,” says Toledo. “It was just a natural thing.”
It was a mutual decision, says Galindo, to enroll in the American Angus Association’s USDA Process Verified Program (PVP). AngusSource documents and verifies Angus-sired calves’ source, group age and a minimum of 50% Angus genetics.
The program provides the two cattlemen with a close seedstock-commercial relationship.
“We could sit down and help him with his program really easily, and that’s what we did,” Toledo says. “All the calves are sired by our bulls, so we helped him maintain his database and helped him with tag purchases and getting cattle [enrolled in] that program.”
That process continued for a number of years, but Galindo’s got it on his own now.
“He doesn’t even call me anymore,” Toledo laughs. “Just tells me he’s got calves on the video [auction].”
The obvious draw for Galindo is the ever-present premium for proven Angus-sired calves which can range from $1.50-$3.
“We felt the premiums were going to be there in a good market, but we really felt when we got into more of a historical market with some lows, that’s when the program would really shine, and it did,” Toledo says. The market fluctuates, but the AngusSource premium has always been there.
“It got to a point where [buyers] were looking for those calves,” he says. Buyers called to ask, “Hey, when’s your next set coming?” Inquiries came in for replacement heifers, cattle feeders called for information on heifers to feed, and Toledo says they’ve even heard folks remark that Star Creek’s calves were in such high demand, buyers couldn’t get ahold of them.
AngusSource offers benefits to both the seedstock provider and commercial cattleman. In a highly competitive market, the carcass data and traceability the program offers help Toledo when it comes to seeing what his bulls are doing out in the field.
For Galindo, of course, the premiums and carcass data are invaluable.
“We’ve seen a number of cutout sheets on those cattle, and it’s been real beneficial just to see what they’re doing once they’re harvested,” Toledo says.
The two agree the program has been a worthy investment.
“I like seeing the calves that qualify,” Galindo says. “I’m glad I did it.”
Editor’s Note: Read Salvador’s full story in the newly redesigned January Angus Journal. For less than $1 a week, you can subscribe to the Angus Journal at www.angus.org/Media/About/AngusJournal.aspx.