About GMAR
Green Mountain Angus Ranch
Green Mountain Angus Ranch is a family owned and operated business. Gale Todd (Tim’s father) purchased his first registered Angus Cows in 1972. They had their first production sale in 1973. The family out grew their South Dakota ranch and moved to Montana in 1981. All cows are owned and managed by Tim and Kris Todd and are located at the ranch near Ryegate. There are no COOP herds in this operation and all bulls are bred and raised by the Todd’s. No Bulls are purchased from other breeders and resold.
For over 40 years Green Mountain Angus Ranch has been committed to providing superior seed stock for the commercial producer. Our philosophy of low birth weight with high growth produces the type of cattle that are born small, get up, and get a shot of colostrum to accelerate a strong immune system and stay healthy in the early stages of life. Although our breeding program considers every trait from frame size to milk and carcass traits, the basis of our program is the low birth and high growth calf. Healthy calves take less maintenance. We want that calf to have the genetics to maximize his potential for whatever his environment gives him. We have been breeding cattle this way for twenty years. We are 4 to 5 generations into this and that is why we get the consistency we get and why these cattle breed true. We are committed to our customers. It’s the input we receive from them that directs our breeding program.
Calving Ease
Our breeding philosophy has enabled us to become an industry leader in calving ease genetics. A huge portion of our customer base is because of our reputation for providing sound reliable calving ease bulls. Approximately 75% of the bulls raised by us would work on heifers. These bulls still have the growth and size to be moved up to the cow herd after a couple of years.
Disposition
Two of the major sires represented in our cow herd are Rito 6I6 and 1I2. With approximately 300 daughters and granddaughters in the herd, they have a major influence in our program. Both these bulls are in the top 10 in the docility trait. We know calmer cattle feed better and cows with good dispositions are easier to be around. We have avoided all of the blood lines that have a reputation of getting hot.
Carcass Merit
Carcass is a trait that we pay attention to but don’t single trait breed for. We try to stay average or slightly above. The Angus breed as a whole is a carcass breed. We’ve found that some of the high carcass cattle just don’t work in our environment. Fertility and fleshing ability seem to be lost in some of the high carcass cattle. The data that we have gathered from our customers has been positive. Green Mountain Angus bred cattle have performed and graded at a high level for the feeder.
Feed Program
Here at Green Mountain Angus Ranch we have had the same feed program for 15 years. After weaning the bulls we put them on a ration of a custom bull feed called Bull Grower #4. This is a wheat mids based feed that tops out at 10 lbs per bull. The roughage consists of long stemmed grass hay fed free choice. This ration has worked great in keeping the bull sound but still grows them out. The 2 year old bulls are on this until green grass and then summered in our north pasture. We bring them in sometime in December and started giving them a little grain. They are sound, hard and will be ready to cover lots of ground.
Customer Service
The relationship we have with our customers is one of the most valued and most important portions of our business. Green Mountain Angus Ranch guarantees all bulls against injury that keeps the bull from being a breeder for the first breeding season. A breeding season is defined as the 90 day period following the first time the bull is turned out. If a replacement bull is available, he will be provided or if a buyer prefers a credit towards a bull in the following year’s sale, less salvage value is given. We work hard to keep our customers coming back. Ninety percent of our bulls are sold to repeat customers.
The Future
Looking toward the future Green Mountain Angus will continue to have an aggressive breeding program. Through the uses of artificial insemination, we will continue to use the best sires available throughout the breed. Also we will stay with our philosophy of using older proven sires. Green Mountain Angus Ranch will also continue its embryo transplant program not only using the best cows from the best cow families in the herd but also putting in embryos from other trait leading cows throughout the breed.
