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February 16, 2006 Mark and Laurie Albers Earn NDBCIA Producer Award Cow efficiency drives Oliver County producers Mark and Laurie Albers. It is part of their commitment to stewardship, caring for the land and livestock sustainability. Through the years, Mark and Laurie have worked together as full partners on the farm, which is in the Albers family for the third generation. For their efforts, the Alberses were named 2004 Producer of the Year by the North Dakota Beef Cattle Improvement Association. They were presented the award at the 2006 NDBCIA annual meeting Feb. 9, 2006, in Mandan. The criteria for the award was cow weight and pounds of calf produced during a five-year period. NDBCIA is professionally staffed through North Dakota State University. “The bottom-line objective of the NDBCIA has always been sound beef cattle improvements, providing members with the information needed to remain competitive in the ever-changing beef industry of today,” says Kris Ringwall, NDSU Dickinson Research Extension Center director. Mark's passion for good records started in 1977, after he graduated from Bismarck Junior College. “I have individually identified every animal since then,” he says. “The cows just had a number, but about 1983 I started with the CHAPS (Cow Herd Appraisal and Performance Software) program and started using the universal letter code to identify the cattle. CHAPS has been good for us.” The Alberses raise beef, small grains, sunflowers, corn and commercial alfalfa hay. Their cowherd is composed of black Simmental, black Gelbvieh and black Angus breeds. They use Angus bulls on cows with more than 50 percent Continental breeding and black Simmental bulls on those that are less than 50 percent Continental breeding. “The young females, heifers and 3-year-olds are bred Angus,” Mark Albers says. “We try to get a little maturity on the cows before pushing them too hard.” Albers says the performance from the black Simmental bulls is excellent. The Alberses have shifted their calving period to early April to coincide with improved weather conditions and time commitments. “We used to start the heifers a month ahead and all that did was just drag out the calving season,” Mark Albers says. All heifers are artificially inseminated (AI) to calving ease Angus bulls before being turned in with bulls. The breeding season is only 54 days. Albers estimates that 75 percent of the pregnant females calve within the first 30 days. Getting cows bred is a major management focus for the Alberses. In addition to AI, the Alberses formula is 20 cows for each young bull and 35 cows for each older bull. They also keep spare bulls, which they turn out after 30 days of breeding to make sure every cow is covered. “One thing that will break a cattleman faster than anything is open cows,” Mark Albers says. “I’m very particular about the bulls we buy. We try to buy bulls with adjusted 205-day weights of 750 pounds or higher. We try not to buy bulls with a scrotal measurement of less than 37 centimeters, with the minimum 35 centimeters. We use expected progeny differences (EPDs). We watch the birthweight and milk EPDs, and growth EPDs are usually in correlation to the 205-day weight.” During calving, heifers get checked every three hours while cows “calve out in the open in a 240-acre pasture,” Albers says. “We have very little trouble. We started calving like that and the herd health has really improved. Most of the disease problems have completely disappeared. It is a wonderful thing to have healthy cattle. It is hard to make them healthy again, so it is very important to keep them healthy.” Cows are wintering on corn stalks and 20 pounds of hay, which includes a minimum of 10 pounds of good alfalfa hay. The Alberses background their steers. “We have a good feed base and it is a way to convert marketable feeds into beef,” he says. “I always feel with our later calving we should be backgrounding.” The Alberses raise all of their own feed. They cut high-moisture corn and store it in a bag, rolling the corn as it is put into the bag. They will market the 2005 steer crop in the first quarter of 2006 directly to a feeder. “We sold to the same buyer for the last five years,” Mark Albers says. “The feeder likes the way the cattle finish.” One area Albers would like to change is the data he gets back from the feedlot, so he can check the carcass quality of the cattle. CHAPS records play an integral part in Albers' management. “We use them heavily,” Albers says. “We get a MPPA (Most Probable Producing Ability) score on each cow, which is important for culling and heifer selection.” The current upswing in the cattle market has caused the Alberses to modify their management approach. They bred all of their 2004 heifers in 2005 and will do the same with their 2005 heifers in 2006. They sold some of their young producing cows. “When the market is going to give you something, you better take it,” Mark Albers says. “The market is great now and one thing we have learned in agriculture is that things do not last forever. If you can pencil some profit, grab it for a rainy day or reduce some debt.” For the future, the Alberses see changes. Laurie has worked part-time off the farm. With the loss of a full-time employee, her career track may change. “We will make a lifestyle adjustment,” Mark Albers says. “Laurie can run everything on the farm. She does the hay cutting and lots of the record keeping, including the CHAPS records.” Their daughter, Megan, a sophomore at NDSU, helps on the farm in the summer. Together they harvest the grain on their farm and manage the 300-head cowherd on approximately 4,500 acres four miles northwest of Hannover. As for the award he and his wife received, he says, “We put a lot into our farm, into the beef business. It is a dual income farm. It is an honor to be thought of that way. It kind of surprised me.” ### Source:
Mark Albers, (701) 794-3694 |
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North Dakota State University |
