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Illinois Beef Assoc. Seedstock Breeder of the Year Award

Champaing, IL(UofI Extension release)-Panther Creek Ranch of Bowen, Illinois in Hancock County was the recipient of the Illinois Beef Association Seedstock Breeder of the Year Award at the IBA Annual Meeting held in Collinsville, Illinois on Thursday, June 25.  Panther Creek Ranch comprises Mike and Kati McClelland and family of Bowen, Steve and Valerie Peterson and family, and Karol McClelland of West Point.  The Seedstock Award is presented to elite purebred cattle firms that supply genetics of the future and utilize the latest technologies in seedstock breeding.

            Panther Creek Ranch formerly McClelland Angus Farm has been in the purebred seedstock business since 1953 with the purchase by the late Larry McClelland of two purebred Angus heifers.  This has resulted in the continual increase of the herd with more rapid expansion over the past several years.  Brood cow numbers grew to 100 in the late 1970's and into the early 80's.  By 1985 these numbers increased to 120 head and up to 150 by end of the 80's.  From this point rapid increases occurred to 200 brood cows by 1995 and onto 225 by the end of the 90's.  From this point a number of the heifers were retained in the herd and some purchased from bull customer herds to where the following numbers of cows and heifers were bred: 2004-250; 2006-325; 2008-400 and for 2009-430 females bred.  The 430 females are made up of 300 brood cows and 130 bred heifers.  There is both a fall and spring calving herd maintained with around 90 calving in the fall (75 cows and 15 heifers) with the remaining 340 in the spring.

            Panther Creek Ranch comprises a number of farms and locations throughout Hancock and Adams Counties.  The total farming enterprise consists of 3,000 acres with 1,500 in row crop with 1,000 in corn production and 500 in soybeans.  The remaining 1,500 acres includes 200 acres for only hay and 1,300 acres of pasture.  To put together this amount of pasture requires cattle to be in ten different locations within a 15 mile radius of their Bowen location.  Also, 100 of their replacement heifers are with a heifer development contract producer in Missouri.  Almost all the pastures are comprised of Kentucky 31 Fescue and red/white clover.

            For winter feeding there are several different forages utilized.  As many stalk fields are grazed as possible to extend the fall pastures.  Hopefully most cows can be maintained on stalk field following harvest and moved back to stockpiled forages on the pastures.  It is a hope that these two sources of feed can maintain the cows until January 1^st and maybe until mid-January or even to February 1^st.   With this number of cows and their calves, there is a tremendous amount of forages harvested.  There are usually 1,500 to 2,000 big round bales weighing a ton that are harvested from the hay fields, pastures, and waterways.  In past years, cereal rye was sown and 500 ton of ryelage harvested off the tillable acres before being double cropped into soybeans.  In addition to supplement the hay and ryelage around 750 tons of corn silage will be harvested.

Since cattle are maintained in different locations one feed processing truck and one feed processing wagon are used.  This allows rations to be formulated to fit the different nutrient requirements of the brood cows, replacement heifers, developing bulls and feeder steers.  Dry and wet gluten is used extensively throughout the operation for protein and energy sources.  All of the locations where cattle will be wintered or heifers developed have fence line bunks.  Old corn elevators are used extensively for fence line feeders where dry corn gluten pellets are fed from a pickup feeder.

            Marketing of the Panther Creek genetics has been a success story.  Prior to 1994 cattle were sold privately on the farm or through consignment sales in western Illinois.  However, in 1994 they held their first "Workin' Kind" production sale with the 2009 sale being their 15^th annual.  Numbers of animals in their sale started out fairly small, however they have expanded in recent years.  A reflection of this increase would find the following:  1995-100; 2000-150; 2005-200; and 2009-250. 

Even though the number of bulls have remained fairly steady over the past 10 years at 50 head the increase in average price has been phenomenal.  Rounded number average for these bulls would be as follows:  2001- $1,400; 2002- $1,800; 2003- $2,000; 2005- $2,400; 2006-$ 2,700; 2007- $2,400; 2008- $3,300; and 2009- $3,600.  The sale has experienced an increase in the average price of their bulls every year except for two with 2007 being one of these.  Besides the 50 bulls sold in the Annual Production sale there are another 20 sold private treaty off the farm.  Of 70 the bulls most are yearlings, however, there will be 20 head of fall 18 month old bulls sold along with a few 2 years-olds that are used in the operation the previous year.