Dan and Carolyn Heyle are meticulous about record keeping for their cattle herd. They believe the information makes them better producers.

When Dan and Carolyn Heyle describe their cattle, they leave nothing to the imagination.

"We have complete records and data to back up what we say about our cattle," said Carolyn Heyle, who designed herd records utilizing a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. "We try to produce merchantable cattle; the kind someone else will want to buy and we document all the details we possibly can on each and every animal."

The Heyle record system is designed so that data can be easily and quickly retrieved. Want to know how a particular cow's second steer calf performed? In a matter of minutes, the Heyles can tell you everything about the calf, from his birth weight to the quality and amount of beef in his carcass. Dan and Carolyn can not only tell you what immunizations the calf received but the company that produced the vaccine, the vaccine lot number and the injection site.

"We keep cows in even-aged groups: first-calf heifers, 2 and 3 year olds and mature cows," said Dan. "Having cows sorted by age into smaller groups makes management of different aged cows simpler, and a smaller bunch of cows is easier to gather and work."

The Heyles have run cows on their farm near Bethany, in Harrison County, Mo., for several years. But in 1997, they made several major changes in the operation.

"I went to AI [artificial insemination] school and began breeding our Angus-base crossbred cows to top quality Angus AI sires," said Dan. "Shortly after that, we began retaining ownership of our steers all the way to slaughter.

"Also, in 1997, we began participating in the Show-Me Select Heifer program and have been involved in it since then," he added. "We manage and breed all heifers to Show-Me Select standards, although we have put a lot of them back into our own herd rather than sell them."

"As a result, our herd is made up of relatively young cows," said Carolyn. "We've culled pretty deeply into the herd and replaced the older cows with superior heifers."

The Heyles also set up an intensively managed grazing system, to get more and better quality forage from a limited number of acres.

"The hard work with intensive grazing is setting up the grazing paddocks in the first place," said Dan. "Once pastures are cross-fenced, it doesn't take cattle long to learn a system. From then on, cattle are no trouble to handle with this kind of grazing system. Even with a single hot wire between them, cows don't mix. And, since we are around the cattle virtually every day, they develop better dispositions and are more docile to handle."

A bit later, the couple began owning their steer calves all the way to slaughter; backgrounding them at home and consigning them to Gregory Feedlot in southwestern Iowa for finishing.

"We've put six calf crops through the feedlot now," said Dan Heyle. "By retaining ownership, we take advantage of the genetic potential of our cattle. If we sold our steers as feeder cattle, someone else would be getting the benefit of our better genetics-and the benefit of the carcass information we collect. We record feedlot performance and carcass data on each animal and that has let us steadily improve the cow herd. There's more risk, but I'm confident that we come out better this way. We sell virtually all of our finished steers to IBP [now Tyson] on their formula grid, which essentially pays us for the quality and amount of beef in each steer.

"We begin culling those cows that consistently produce calves that grade below Choice," he continued. "However, you cannot make major selection decisions on the basis of a single year's carcass data."

Starting with breeding, here's how the Heyles manage their operation: First-calf heifers are AI bred beginning on May 10. Mature cows are bred 3 weeks later.

"We synchronize heats with MGA and prostaglandin in the heifers and with GNRH and prostaglandin in adult cows," said Dan Heyle. "We're getting nearly 95 percent response with both programs."

And the Heyles are picky about the bulls they select.

"We study EPDs [Expected Progeny Differences] and we use top-quality Angus sires exclusively," said Dan. "We look for bulls with a good balance of maternal, growth and positive carcass traits, and that kind of bull exists. We stay with Angus sires; I like the predictability of Angus EPDs."

The Heyles compute the retail value of finished steers in each sire group.

"Our goal is to earn at least $850 per head for cattle we sell, whether finished steers or bred heifers," Heyle added. "There will always be a demand for superior quality cattle."

Dan and Carolyn weigh calves every time cattle are gathered and worked-and those weights are entered in the herd records. Shortly before weaning (usually in September), all calves are immunized against clostridial and respiratory diseases. At weaning, calves get a second booster shot and heifers also are vaccinated against leptospirosis and vibriosis.

"The Heyles wean calves onto MFA Cattle Charge for 2 weeks, then switch them to TrendSetter SLR with 25 percent corn," said Lanse Fish, MFA NutriServe consultant who works with Dan and Carolyn. "They gradually increase the corn fraction until the ration is 50 percent TrendSetter and 50 percent corn by the time steers go to the feedyard."

"The cattle also get pasture or hay," Dan Heyle said. "Cattle need at least 60 days on the farm after weaning to get them straightened out. Our steers last fall gained an average 2.95 pounds per day for 65 days, with 5.7 feed conversion efficiency. They performed well on TrendSetter and the feed cost was reasonable.

"In fact, when our 2002 steers went to the feedlot, they weighed nearly 200 pounds per head more than our calves had weighed on our previous growing program," he added. "The steers were a little fleshier going in the feedyard, too. That kept compensatory gains somewhat below what our cattle previously had gained early in the feedlot.

"But, since we own them all the way through, we get the gain whenever it happens," Heyle said. "We sold the cattle out of the feedlot in April-the earliest we've gotten them sold-and a high percentage of them graded Choice with yield grades of 1 and 2."

Dan and Carolyn Heyle doubt that they will expand their herd much beyond the 70 mature cows they now run. For one thing, in their location, additional forage land would be hard to come by. Instead, the couple will continue to manage grass and cattle to get the most production from each.

"We don't worry much about factors over which we have no control," said Dan. "I cannot control what happens in Mexico or Canada. But I can influence the genetics, the health and the nutrition of our cattle. That's where we put our emphasis."