WORTHINGTON, Minn. – Five Pine Cattle Co.’s 4th Annual Production Sale on Saturday, March 11, is coming into focus. This year will be their second in-person production sale.

With so many little details to work out, there’s lots of work to be done to put it all together.

“Last week was really, really busy for us,” said Matt Altman on Feb. 19 – 26 days before the 2023 sale at the farm.

The sale will feature yearling bulls and better-bred heifers. Yearling bulls are kept until April 1. Their customers are both commercial operations and purebred breeders.

Better-bred heifers are bred to the customer’s sire of choice. They continue to develop at Five Pine Cattle Co., receiving a heifer development ration, vaccinations, and dewormers just like the Altmans’ cattle. The heifers are delivered to each customer’s home in October once they are confirmed bred.

Thirty head of Dynamic Z Charolais cattle will also be featured at the sale.

“We pictured those last Saturday and Sunday (Feb. 4-5),” Matt said. “We did all of their cattle and all of our heifers that same weekend.”

Amanda Altman pictured everything.

Over the course of three days, they photographed and videoed close to 50 head.

“All those needed to be clipped, so it was very, very busy,” he said.

Sending their catalog file to the printer by their Feb. 15 deadline will be accomplished, and for the Altmans, it’s a very rewarding feeling to have met that goal.

Amanda and Matt sat down at the computer on Feb. 12, proofed the document, and made the finishing touches to their catalog.

Out in the barn, about 10 cows calved that same week. They are down to the last 25 percent of the cows left to calve.

“We have a couple of heifers mixed in the bunch, but mostly just cows left,” he said. “We have one recipient cow with an embryo that is due today. It looks like she will make her due date.”

Temperatures are mostly in the 20s and 30s, and everyone at Five Pine Cattle Co. is enjoying it.

With the sale catalog and much of the advertising completed, the Altmans are focusing on getting their farmstead ready for company.

Some tasks can’t happen until the week leading up to the sale – the list is getting long.

Getting the barn cleaned up, pressure washed, and ready for bleachers, plus moving snow piles to make room for parking are on the docket.

“We’re getting our sale day help lined up, too,” Matt said.

Montana is bringing home friends from school to help, and they will have a few local hired hands that will help with sale day preparations of the cattle.

Sale day preparation will start at 4 a.m.

“There will be five people running every heifer or bull through the chute – they will make sure they are cleaned off, and we’ll blow them off. We’ll keep them clean and presentable,” he said.

The bulls are put into pens of three or four for viewing, while the heifers are put into pens of four or five.

The cattle are ready for viewing at 10 a.m. A smoked roast pork meal will be available at 12 noon, with the sale starting at 1 p.m.

Family members and a neighbor will be taking care of food preparation.

In other news, the Altmans are beginning to manage rebreeding for 2024. They have a goal of producing high quality calves that are born around Christmas. To accomplish that, they will select for cows that are highly fertile, easy to breed, and maintain an appropriate body conditioning score through it all.

“We are already thinking about how we are going to do that,” Matt said. “We have to set a cutoff date for our first breeding group, so that was set.”

Cows – that are candidates – and their calves were moved into their own pen. The rest of the cow/calf pairs were moved into another pen. The smaller group of gestating cows were moved into the pen that was originally used by the early cow/calf pairs.

“In about two weeks, we’ll be starting a synchronization protocol to get all those cows in the same heat cycle,” he said. “A week after the sale, we’ll breed.”

The top 10 percent of the cows that go into heat will get two chances for AI from a top bull. After two cycles, any that aren’t bred will be bull bred.

Any cows that are not in the top 10 percent for early breeding will be eligible for an embryo on their first heat cycle. If they don’t take an embryo, they will be AI’d and then bull bred for their third cycle.

“We want them to be easy enough fleshing to be able to handle a calf, but they come into a good heat and continue to breed up,” Amanda said. “They are continuing to have their calf every January for us.

“Even though we’re going to synch them up and we’ll watch for that heat cycle in those three days, we’re only going to breed the ones that come in heat,” she added.

With this intensive of a breeding program, the Altmans will be observing and managing the herd carefully.

The Altmans have three donor cows that have been residents at a Trans Ova facility. During their time there, they produced quite a few embryos. The Altmans have also done flushing at home with the local embryologist.

“We have pushed really hard the last four or five years to get a sizeable group of cows that we like to this point,” Matt said. “Now we can really go after the embryos and push them into where we need to be.”

Five Pine Cattle Co.’s 2023 catalog is available at fivepinecattleco.com, and is also available by mail. Please visit the website and sign up for a catalog.