Town Creek Farm Since 1993
WINTER 2024
Vo l u m e 1 2 , I s s u e 1 • P u b l i s h e d b y To w n C r e e k Fa r m , We s t Po i n t , M i s s i s s i p p i • B r a n g u s a n d U l t r a b l a c k
It’s Never As Good As It Gets BY JOY REZNICEK SUNDBECK
PRIVATE TREATY BULLS ARE NOW AVAILABLE.
The Grit welcomes your inquiries and feedback. The Grit is published by Town Creek Farm, West Point, Mississippi.
Town Creek Farm Milton Sundbeck, Owner Office: 32476 Hwy. 50 East West Point, Mississippi 39773-5207 www.TownCreekFarm.com Joy Reznicek Sundbeck, President (205)399-0221 Joy@TownCreekFarm.com Cody Glenn, Ranch Manager (601)508-8689 Cody@TownCreekFarm.com Representatives: Clint Ladner • (662)812-8370 Logan Perry • (863)634-4810 Michael Agar • (336)406-4143 South American Representative Ing. Agr. Federico Maisonnave (011) 595 981 362 898 Maisonnave.Federico@gmail.com TOTAL COMMITMENT
Since 1993 JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST TO RECEIVE THE MOST UPDATED SALE INFORMATION AVAILABLE. EMAIL JOY@TOWNCREEKFARM.COM TO JOIN OUR FOLLOWING. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK.
LOSING A VALUABLE TEAM MEMBER IS NEVER EASY. PARTICULARLY WHEN YOU’VE RELIED ON THEIR EXPERTISE AND EXPERIENCE FOR MORE THAN 15 YEARS. It happened in December. Our nutritionist, Dr. N.T. Cosby accepted an advanced position within the Purina company. Dr. Cosby guided our bull development program since our days in Rose Bud, Arkansas. His leadership, experience and wisdom supplied the underpinning of our development systems and so much more. Purina is a professional company that makes and executes its critical decisions well. We had no doubt that Dr. Cosby’s replacement, Dr. Chris Forcherio, would deliver equally as valuable guidance. Dr. Forcherio made his first visit to Town Creek Farm in January. During our conversations, Dr. Forcherio mentioned that his team will conduct producer programs on minerals across the state of Alabama. I asked what the goals were of the gatherings. “You’d be surprised how many producers still just use salt blocks and leave bulls in with their cow herd year around,” Dr. Forcherio said. I envision producer meetings as a means to help cattle owners understand that it may not be in their best interest to manage in the old way. We have bundles of available knowledge and research to prove otherwise. Resistance to change comes in many shapes. Maybe it’s the way we’ve always done things. Maybe we believe we don’t have the time to manage differently, or we simply don’t take time to learn new ways. Sometimes we just can’t, or don’t want, to see the value of change. In my own operation, I recall a situation that happened many years ago. I had turned a responsibility over to an employee. While performing this responsibility, the employee got into a unique bind and made a decision that was not in sync with our objectives. When I learned of his resolution, I asked him why he made that decision. He said that it was the same decision I had made five years earlier when a similar situation arose. He was correct. However, I went on to explain that we have much more knowledge and technical understanding today than we did five years ago. With our years of experience and
knowledge, a more logical and sound solution existed. Improvement can come in big leaps or in tiny increments. Sexing Technologies is an innovative world market leader in the production and distribution of sexed semen used in the livestock industry. Their reproductive technicians are some of the best in the business. Yet, their team hit a plateau in conception rates with the use of artificial insemination. They didn’t accept the notion that it was as good as it gets. Rather, they went back to the basics and reviewed proper semen handling and storage procedures with all their technicians. Conception rates improved by one percent – a considerable number of pregnancies in their world. One percent improvements can add up. Particularly if you are increasing by one percent in multiple applications. Recently I listened to a podcast featuring James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, who talked about the one percent gains. Clear spoke of Great Britain’s professional cycling team who continually experienced dismal results when competing. A new team coach was hired who believed in a concept that he referred to as the “aggregation of marginal gains.” Clear said that the new coach explained it as “the one percent margin for improvement in everything you do.” He believed that if you improved every area related to cycling by just one percent, then those small gains would add up to remarkable improvement. The coach set a five-year timeline for Great Britain to be competitive. They achieved it in three. During the past four or five breeding seasons, we have fine-tuned our reproductive protocols. We’ve made small changes with every breeding season. Some changes were driven by research. Some by learning of techniques that worked for other operations and some by experience. No matter, each breeding season we’ve made incremental improvements on percent calves born in the first 21 days and in overall conception rates. Where are you in your efforts to improve management practices? What are your daily habits that create your management system? We encourage you to be open-minded and challenge your way of doing things. We never believe we are as good as it gets.