Commercial Herd
Daddy started our commercial Angus herd back in the 1930's when everyone else around here were raising "white face cattle" (Herefords). He kept a closed herd in that he raised all his own females and the only outside cattle were the Registered Angus bulls he bought.
I began managing the cattle herd when I was in high school after Daddy died in 1965. We continued to keep the Sedgewood commercial herd closed to outside females and began using our own bulls after we started the Registered Angus herd in 1994.
Our commercial Angus females have been selected over the last 40 years for fertility, productivity, and longevity. Sedgewood commercial Angus females are expected to breed as yearlings, drop their first calf when they are 24 months old, and breed back to calve again every 12 months.
Historically, the Sedgewood commercial herd typically ran about 200 head of mama cows. Currently, we are running about 100 commercial cows and 80 Registered Angus cows.
The commercial females also play an important role in our Registered Angus program by serving as recipient cows for the extensive Sedgewood embryo transfer program. We transfer over 60 Registered Angus embryos into our fertile recipient cows the first week of January each year. We turn in the bulls the week after embryo transfer so that any commercial recipient cow that doesn't become pregnant with an ET embryo will breed back in time to drop a commercial calf during our limited calving period. All ET calves are DNA tested to verify their parentage before they are registered.
Registered embryo transfer heifer calf B12 next to her commercial Angus recipient mama. Born 10-11-2018. Donor dam was Sedgewood L27 (see Embryo Transfer tab) and sire was Cowboy Up.
Registered embryo transfer heifer calf A16 next to her 14 year old commercial Angus recipient mama. Heifer born 9-26-2017 and weighed 784 pounds (no creep feed) when weaned on 6-5-2018. Donor dam was Sedgewood L27 and sire was Right Answer.