The other day a Wisconsin farmer called to place a semen order, and I couldn’t help remembering the first time he called, about 24 years ago, when one of my boys was just learning to write and tried to take the phone message since I was out.  Too shy to explain to the man on the other end of the phone that he wasn’t getting it all, the child did his best but all he was able to take down was the man’s first name and his area code, which he showed me when I came in.

“Mommy, can’t you look it up?”  he asked helpfully when I said I needed more information than that in order to return the call.  No, I told him, that’s not enough.  I’ll just have to hope he calls again.

And call again he did, thankfully.  He confirmed that he had called awhile back and spoke to a child.

“Wow, am I ever glad to hear from you!” I said.  To this day, when “Ken” from (414) calls, that’s what I tell him.

Another humorous story was when someone called wanting to buy a bull calf, because his neighbor had bought one from us, raised and used it, and it had gotten out to breed his heifers and he liked the daughters so well he wanted to get some more like that.

Hearing your stories over the years, finding out how different sires have worked in your herds, discussing your goals and plans for your breeding program, and helping figure out which breed will work best for you—this is what makes our efforts feel worthwhile.

We’ve been at this long enough that now we often do business with the next generation of customers.  One such farmer called recently, saying how he and his father liked the daughters of our bulls, but had gone back to using Holstein for awhile to get more production.  Now he’s tired of having to watch so closely for calving difficulty, so he’s ready to go back to some of our Milking Shorthorn and Dutch Belted sires.

Another producer mentioned how great the feet and dispositions were on daughters of our bulls. He, too, went back to Holstein for milk production, and now is missing the reproductive performance and calving ease of our bloodlines.

“Making a sale” is not so much our goal, but rather working with you as you decide what fits your plans the best.