Welcome from the Sonstegards
What an exciting time to be in the cattle business! We continue to see record prices for calves, and with inventories at all time lows, the cow
calf sector looks pretty promising for the next few years. Because cattle are so valuable it has never been more important to get your cows bred and make
sure they have a live calf that will thrive in your environment. One of the most important keys to making that happen is having plenty of good bull power
in your pasture. We feel that we have a lot of excellent bulls in our offering this year. Our balanced breeding approach focuses on multi trait selection,
producing bulls that can excel in all traits as well as look good in your pastures. It was really a challenge putting the sale order together this year, the bulls
from top to bottom are as good as any set we have offered to date. Whether you are looking for calving ease, maternal, growth, carcass, or one that can
do it all, we have bulls that can fit your needs.
As always, our bulls don’t receive any creep feed on pasture, just grass and mama’s milk. We steer any bull with high birth weight, poor struc-
ture, poor disposition, and inadequate performance. We put 88 bulls on test this year and that group is performance tested, fertility tested, and will have a
carcass ultrasound. From that group we took the top 55 yearlings and offer them in this sale. We have always tried to shoot for a 3 pound gain average on
our bulls, and this year the 88 bulls averaged 3.22 lbs of gain per day. The bulls are not fed to reach their peak gain potential and we feel pushing the bulls
too hard can really hurt their performance and longevity for you in the future. The bulls are fed a starter ration for 3 weeks after weaning then they are
limit fed a 48 meg ration until January (about 90 days), then we move them up to a 52 meg limit fed high roughage ration until they are ultra-sounded.
The bulls have a 10 acre lot to roam and get exercise in. We feel the ration and exercise that the bulls get is essential to their development and helps pro-
mote physical soundness and longevity. The bulls will be semen tested around mid March and all bulls will sell as guaranteed breeders. We also will ul-
trasound for carcass in March and the data will be available prior to the sale on our website. The bulls will have a complete vaccination program and will
be ready for breeding come sale day. We certainly stand behind our cattle and guarantee your satisfaction with the bulls. Our goal has always been to
provide our customers with second to none genetics and service, so you can make your operations more profitable.
The sale will start at 1:00 pm CT at the ranch, with free lunch served at 11:30 am. The bulls will be penned in groups for viewing prior to the
sale. We will also be presenting the bulls in the sale ring live, as well as providing videos of each lot when that bull enters the ring. If you can’t attend the
sale and are interested in the bulls, call us or Kyle Gilchrist prior to the sale. We will have DV Auction broadcasting the sale for those of you who are
unable to attend, but you can also feel confident leaving bids with us or the ring men. We guarantee that you will be satisfied with your purchases. We
provide as much data in this catalog and on supplement sheets as we possibly can to aid you in your bull selection, we don’t just show the strong points of
the bulls! Normally we put a lot of bull photos in the catalog, but due to weather and busy calving this year we have limited pictures of the bulls. All the
bulls on the sale will be videoed 2 weeks prior to our sale, so make sure to visit our website
www.3scc.net
or DV auctions site to view the videos of the
bulls. You may notice the EPDs of the bulls look a little different this year. The Red Angus association combined EPDs with the Simmental association
making a new multi-breed EPD making it easier to compare Red Angus EPDs with other breeds. The base numbers have changed but the percent ranks
of the bulls are the same. Be sure to check out page 26 of this catalog for a further explanation or feel free to call us with any questions you might have
about the changes. If you have questions on anything else or want some help in selecting the best bull for your program just give us a call and we can
assist you in the bull selection process. The bulls are available for viewing anytime, just call ahead to let us know you are coming. Also, consigning bulls
to the sale is our long time friend and customer Rich Leiseth. His bulls have run with ours since weaning and have been treated the same as ours. He has 5
bulls on the sale and they have the 2RJL prefix. We hope to see you on April 13th.
Thank you for your continued support,
Gary, Elaine, Tory and Tyler Sonstegard (3SCC)
Auctioneer extraordinaire
“The Colonel” Kyle Gilchrist
641-919-1077
If you purchased a female
from us in 2012, you can
receive a $100 credit towards
the purchase of a Sonstegard
Cattle Co Bull.
Tyler, Cassie and Sophie
Gary and Elaine
Tory, Kyla, Kena, and Esten
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