Tucked away in the southwestern corner of North Dakota is the small town of Bowman, the main hub of Bowman County. The town itself is home to 1,700 people. This is ranch country and the sparse nature of Bowman County’s countryside is difficult to comprehend.

Try this: Bowman County itself has a population of roughly 3,200 people and is the same size as Co Clare, where the population is over 100,000 people.

The Brooks Chalky Butte Angus ranch is located 12 miles north of the town of Bowman, down a four-mile dedicated dirt road.

Steve Brooks is rancher and owner here. Also involved in the business are his daughter Skeeter, brother Ryan and two full-time ranch hands.

Illustrious

Steve knows a thing or two about cattle. His six-year stint in the North Dakota Beef Commission included a term as its president, as did his eight-year stint in the North Dakota Stockman’s Association. He spent eight years on the board of the American Angus Association and was chair of the Certified Angus Beef Board. His passion lies here, with the Angus breed.

“We keep 600 pedigree Angus cows on 15,000 acres here,” Steve told me as we drove across the vast ranch.

“We aim to sell bulls at 14 months of age and heifers at 18 months. Our bulls have gone to ranches in 25 states to date, including Hawaii – this business is all about reputation and our attention to detail and focus on quality works well for us.”

The bar is set high at Chalky Butte Ranch. There is a zero-tolerance approach towards dystocia, lameness, poor rearing ability, imperfect udders, infertility and poor growth rates. This culling policy has been in place for generations and has produced a functional, top-quality herd, which makes life easy for Steve and his team and ensures that his customers keep coming back. All six-year-old cows are sold, regardless of performance.

“We sell them to keep the turnover of good genetics high – we’re actively selecting the best AI sires each year. Also, at this age they’re still worth something,” Steve said.

Tight spread

Seventy percent of the cow herd calve down in 30 days from 10 February and the full 600-strong complement will have calved within 60 days. Steve estimates that less than 10 cows are assisted at calving time. The herd’s calving interval runs at 361 days and 5% of cows will go empty annually.

The vast majority of breeding is done via synchronised AI, using the seven-day CIDR-based protocols that are common too in Ireland.

“We heat detect, as opposed to going fixed-time (AI) on them. Around 15% won’t display heat and they’re served anyway. Breeding is a busy time here I can tell you.”

Running them tough

A small autumn-calving herd is in place, where any empty (open) cows will go to act as recipients. Steve and his team flush a handful of their best cows every couple of years and implant embryos into their open cows.

“We had a $300,000 cow some years back and she gave us 145 embryos in a single year. She has 39 daughters in the herd now,” Steve told me, with a grin on his face.

“It’s our alternative way of squeezing more from our open ladies before they’re culled.”

Steve’s top bulls will sell for in excess of $23,000. In 2015, his bulls averaged $3,900 and his heifers $3,500. His cows are worth around $3,500 each.

Though impressive, these prices are well back on 2013 and 2014, as are prevailing national live and dead prices in the US this year.

Despite its worth, the herd is run very much on a commercial basis.

“We run them tough – our cows must earn a living. I am not in the business of babysitting. We don’t use any growth promoters, feed antibiotics or implants. They’ll be in a commercial situation when they’re sold from here, so we rear them just like a commercial cow-calf herd – that’s our philosophy.”

Bullish on bulls

Chalky Butte Ranch bulls have criteria to meet if they’re to enter the ring at Steve’s annual sale. Steve wants a birth weight of 80lb (36kg), a weaning weight of 620lb (280kg without any supplementary feeding), a yearling weight of 1,280lb (580kg) and a sale weight (1 April) of 1,350lb (612kg).

Any bulls that don’t meet these standards or display bad temperaments are castrated and fattened for slaughter. Their mothers will be up for review too.

Steve’s heifers and bulls are sold in December and April each year respectively at Bowman auction market. Like many American cattle auctions, they are streamed live on the internet.

Many venture over 300 miles to be there and Steve himself will cover 15,000 miles in the fortnight following the sale delivering animals. Heifers and six-year-old cows are sold in-calf based on the foetus’s gender. Steve’s 2016 sales featured calves from the well-chronicled Sitz and Connealy bloodlines.

Mindset

The emphasis that Brooks Angus place on improving the quality of their animals is not unique. The American rancher is a stickler for herd quality and functionality.

North Dakota is an area of extremes. Winters go as cold as -42°C and summers up to 46°C. There is 14in of precipitation annually – compared with 39 in Ireland – half of which is in the form of snow.

Given that rotational grazing here means allocations of hundreds of acres at a time and that a stocking rate of 17 acres per cow is considered exceptional, Steve almost fell from his chair when I told him of the stocking rates that some of Ireland’s very best grass managers achieve.

I left the Brooks ranch feeling lucky for what I had, but also wondering whether Irish suckler farmers, myself included, needed to adopt the Steve Brooks mindset when it came to their own cow herds.