Gardiner Angus Ranch started with a Kansas homestead, a willingness to work and a quest to stay curious, says fourth-generation rancher Mark Gardiner.  From “pay it forward” and “there is no downside to marbling,” Gardiner shares both life advice and breeding philosophy during this episode that covers everything from the history of the ranch and their involvement in the start of U.S. Premium Beef to today. Early adopters of artificial insemination (AI), Gardiner talks of the change they’ve been able to make because of technology and access to information over the years. But in the end, it all comes back to the people who help make it possible.  

HOSTS: Mark McCully and Miranda Reiman  

GUEST: Mark Gardiner, Gardiner Angus Ranch, is the fourth generation to raise cattle in western Kansas, near Ashland.  

Longtime Angus producers, the Gardiners were early adopters of AI and are now one of the largest embryo transfer (ET) programs in the breed. Mark is a founding board member and current board chairman of U.S. Premium Beef, former Board member of the American Angus Association, former chairman of the NCBA Seedstock Council and former president of the Kansas Angus Association. He is also active in the Beef Improvement Federation (BIF). Under Mark’s guidance in 2012, the Henry C. Gardiner Scholarship and Lecture Series was created and endowed at Kansas State University, and they began a structured internship program at the ranch.  

Mark and his wife, Eva, have three sons, Cole, Ransom and Quanah, who represent the fifth generation of the Gardiner family ranching in Clark County, Kansas.  

RELATED CONTENT: In the Driver’s Seat   

The Fire – Mark Gardiner: “If you can’t see God in all of this…” 

Miranda Reiman:
Welcome to the Angus Conversation. I'm your host Miranda Reiman with my co-host, CEO of the American Angus Association, Mark McCully. Hey, Mark.

Mark McCully:
And we are in Dodge City, Kansas, the home of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. And

Miranda Reiman:
That's right. But...

Mark McCully:
And lots of great Angus cattle.

Miranda Reiman:
We are not, despite all of the tourism signs as I came into town. We are not here on a tour. We're here for some education today.

Mark McCully:
Absolutely. The Certified Angus Beef Feeding Quality Forum. First, both you and I come with some CAB roots to us. So we've seen this meeting really mature and grow over the years. We are trying to come up with, trying to remember how many years it's been. We're not quite sure, but it's, we've been at this for well over 10 years, maybe 12, 14-plus years.

Miranda Reiman:
I think it's 16 or 17, Mark. I swear it was the year after I started...

Mark McCully:
I'm not that old. It can't possibly be because I remember the very first ones. We used to do these forums. We'd do 'em in two different locations, kind of a north and south, and we tried that for a number of years and then we then went to a format of one.

Miranda Reiman:
We also quickly moved it out of corn harvest time.

Mark McCully:
Yes, we learned about timing.

Miranda Reiman:
That's right.

Mark McCully:
But I think one of the unique things about this conference, as the title of the conference really implies, it's about feeding quality. It was really at the time designed for bringing cattle feeders and managers together to talk about maximizing the genetic potential of cattle for a Certified Angus beef end target in the feedyard. A pretty unique conference at the time, actually probably still think it's a pretty darn unique conference. And over the years, more and more cow-calf producers and seedstock producers have come to this as well. So it's a really neat audience. I think they've got a record attendance this year here in Dodge City of both cow-calf producers and, of course, representatives of the cattle feeding industry.

Miranda Reiman:
Yeah, I think the evolution of the conference kind of happened along with the industries. We've talked more about building relationships and being kind of connected from seedstock all the way through. This conference has really done that. So today they're at the packing plant this morning. There's a smaller group that are taking a pre-event tour of the packing plant. And while they were learning in the coolers, we got to learn here in person with an Angus breeder.

Mark McCully:
Absolutely. Mark Gardiner, Gardiner Angus Ranch, of course, in Ashland, Kansas, just down the road from where we are today. But a consummate learner, consummate, asking questions and curiosity. And it was really, really fun to sit down with Mark and hear what is on his mind and some of the questions he's asking today.

Miranda Reiman:
And nothing we could say about this podcast could tell his story as well as he tells it. So let's get into it.
Well, we're live today at the Feeding Quality Forum here in Dodge City, Kansas. And Dodge City isn't on the way to everywhere, but it is on the way to kind of the heart of Angus country. We got a lot of Angus ranches that I passed on my way down to Dodge City, and I suppose you too, Mark, on your way from St. Joe.

Mark McCully:
Absolutely. A lot of black cows between here and St. Joe. Lots of Angus cattle, some good cattle feeding, and definitely some great seedstock producers. And we've got one of those with us here, Mark Gardiner from Ashland, Kansas. Mark, thanks for being with us this morning.

Mark Gardiner:
Well, I'm honored to be here and it's very fun to have you in Dodge City. I teased Miranda earlier. Finally, you're coming to where the action is...

Mark McCully:


Mark Gardiner:
And you mentioned the cattle feeding and the cow-calf. And as we speak right now, National Beef and Cargill are harvesting 13,000 head of some of the best cattle in America. So we're excited that you're here in Dodge City.

Miranda Reiman:
Well, I think that you need no introduction really to most folks in the Angus business, but grew up here at Gardiner Angus Ranch, fifth generation?

Mark Gardiner:
I'm the fourth.

Miranda Reiman:
Fourth, fourth generation. And your fifth generation would be your kids.

Mark Gardiner:
The boys are the fifth and the grandchildren are the sixth.

Miranda Reiman:
Very good. And of course have been an Angus Association board member. You've been a longtime board member at US Premium Beef where I understand you're chairman.

Mark McCully:
Currently the Chairman.

Miranda Reiman:
Very good. What else do we need to list off in this resume to prove your credentials here, Mark?

Mark Gardiner:
Well, my name's Mark Gardiner from Ashland, Kansas. That's all you need to know.

Miranda Reiman:


Mark Gardiner:
So we're very thankful. And when you think about, and you're coming across and coming out here, this was kind of the migration of America. And my family came here in 1885 and they homesteaded here. And when you look at that, and actually we're at the end of what was the Great Western Trail. And the Great Western Trail came through our ranch and came on up to Dodge City with bringing all the cattle from Texas. And so you think about how did these people get out here? And you think back to the homestead time. And when my family came here, Ashland was actually formed in 1884, 1997. So they got here a few months late, so they had to go west of town, but it was the Homestead Act and they were trying to settle this country. And you think of Kansas, oftentimes you think of the Civil War and bleeding Kansas, but when we get out this far past I-35, I mean this was all the Native Americans and this was not settled.
And so Ashland was actually called Soldiers Grave because some military men had been killed there by the Indians and they were buried there. So after the Civil War, the United States military, they sent out Cavalry and Cavalry were stationed about every 30 miles and they were forts, but they were called readouts because there's not as many trees here. And so every 30 miles or so, there was a US military readout, and my great-grandfather's name was Henry Clay Gardiner. And they settled in west of Ashland, Kansas, in a homestead, which it was actually just a dugout. It was very crude. But that was halfway between Fort Dodge, Kansas, and Fort Supply, Oklahoma. And one of his main jobs, his main job for cashflow was he drove a supply wagon from Fort Dodge, Kansas, to Fort Supply, Oklahoma. And that's about a 125-130 miles. And he would do that once a week, and he was halfway in between there at Ashland.
So a lot of information there, but when you think about that 1885 and all the people coming from the east out here, and of course the conflict with the Native Americans and this was their home, and so we all know that history, but if you think about why aren't there more people out here? Well, they come from the east and it rains more there, and every 40 miles you go west, it's one inch less. And so in 1900, Ashland, Kansas, and Clark County, Kansas, had more people there than any time since then. And most of those people, and our family's no different, they lost that place and several other places. They never left. Primarily because he had that job. But we stayed in that Clark County-Ashland area but the people couldn't make a living because it didn't rain enough to farm 160 acres. And a lot of 'em came from Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky. And so the mass exodus was probably in, well certainly in the thirties, but even before then.

Mark McCully:
When did registered Angus Cattle first enter into the Gardiner family?

Mark Gardiner:
I think that's a fun story in, Miranda here, I'll tease her because she goes, how can you be so young? Yeah. But my granddad, Ralph, was born in that dugout in 1889. Okay, so how could I have a grandfather that was born in 1889 because, you know, I'm younger, but he didn't get married until he was 43. So Henry Gardiner was born in 1931, and I always, Mark, I always said, Hey dad, did we have Angus cattle because they knew they were so efficient, the calving ease, end product merit, maternal ability? He said, heavens no, your granddad was a contrarian. Everybody else had Herefords, so he got black ones. So they got the first Angus cattle when dad was just very small in the early 1930s, but they were very much enthusiastic about Angus cattle and they wanted to raise their own bulls. And so actually in 1947, dad had the grand champion heifer at the Kansas State Fair.
So for my Angus friends that display cattle, I am a show guy. I call it show jock for short. But all that being said, he had the Grand Champion steer and the Kansas Angus Association gave some money towards buying females in their sale. And dad bought two heifers there in 1947. So that was the beginning. And I'd always go, okay, hey Henry, so our cattle descend from there, those cattle? And he goes, no, they weren't any good. So we did that. They did that, and they were raising bulls for the, I mean, we're commercial cattlemen and we still are today. But the first seedstock were acquired in 1947. And dad was an enthusiast and just wanted to get better and learn all he possibly could. But so 1947 is a quick answer.

Miranda Reiman:
And the first bull sale then?

Mark Gardiner:
Well, first bull sale was not until 1980. So again, give you more history of Henry, and Henry is my hero and mentor. And so you'd think about 1947, he was born in '31, so he went to Kansas State in 19, well, 49. And so he's going to study animal science and industry. And one of the things, and I call him Uncle Larry Corah for short, but Larry always tells a story 'cause he knew it from dad and I did too. But that was the beginning of artificial insemination. And so animal science didn't actually, animal science and dairy science at that time in the fifties was separate, but dad wanted to learn how to AI, and so he went over to dairy science and took AI, and that was the very beginning of it. And it was pretty crude. They used glass pipettes. They didn't go all the way through the cervix.
And I said, did you get anything bred? He said, no, not very many. But he really was fascinated. And really a lot of Gardiner Angus Ranch has always been patterned after the systems of dairy. And he was thinking, if I can take the very best, I can make these cattle raise the average and make 'em better. And so he kept working. He was in the military and got stationed in Germany in the fifties. And that was actually a great experience for him because he took all his leave time and went to all over Scotland and England to these historic Angus herds. And there's pictures at the Perth sale and all these famous places, and it is like you were on walkabout just having fun, he said, yeah, pretty much. But that being said, he kept working on AI through the fifties, and in 1964, he made the decision because he got good enough at that point in time to be total AI.

Mark McCully:
So, you've been total AI in your program since '64?

Mark Gardiner:
Yes. Yeah, yeah. I'll tell a story that I tease, and we have young people with us today and every day, and it's like you, you're a product of your surroundings. Okay, so I'm three years old when he starts total AI. And my brother Greg and I were the primary heat detectors. And at that time in the early days, it was ampules of semen and liquid nitrogen. That doesn't burn. You're not going to drop it. So you learn all those things and you just learn to be above. But we main heat detectors and gatherers as little kids, and it may be a little different today, but at supper one night in the early seventies, I was nine or 10 years old, and dad was raising a few bulls at that time, and he made mention of the fact that he sold a bull. I said, what's a bull do?
I'm trying to pay attention here because this is interesting to me. He said, well, he breeds the cows. So I'm a nine, 10-year-old boy that's never seen anything but his dad breed cows. And so I think about it. And I ponder it and I finally asked him, and it wouldn't be the first time everybody laughed at me, but I go, what's he do? Stick his leg up there or what? So we're a product of our surroundings. But when you think about the history and everything he's doing, he was taking all these measurements and he was doing the early days structured sire eval, he started AHIR when it began and taking these measurements and they thought Henry was a weirdo and they used to make fun of him. He started getting carcass data and we went in the plants with them, and those are cold, and those guys are big and tough, but we'd go in there and get the data.
But he started that in 1970, getting those, and they used to make fun of him because to do that, he had to get 'em on what they called grade and yield. And they go, oh, Henry, that's just grade and steal. And even I'll talk a lot about Mark Smart Gardiner, I'm going as this all evolves and Certified Angus Beef and all those things. I'm like going, well, they don't pay us for that. And he'd always say, you know Mark, we're going to be seedstock producers, and we're no better than the worst bull we sell, and we need to know what their end product merit because we're selling food. And so to answer your question, our very first sale was in April of 1980. And so when you think about it, and that very first sale was kind of funny, I think about mom and dad and it was to start at one o'clock or so, and we sold 52 bulls and at 9:00 AM nobody was there, at 10:00 AM nobody was there, 11:00 AM nobody was there.
And mom finally said, I can't take it. I got to go to the house for a second. And ultimately about 11:15 for that one o'clock, here comes, people start coming. And when we think about that, dad started selling some bulls through the seventies, and I always used to tease him, but those bulls averaged $12-$1,300 that day. And it was one of the great days in our history in that dad had never sold a bull for more than a thousand dollars. And so if you look at breed average and Angus sales at that time, and I'm just shooting from the hip, but we were several hundred dollars below the average of the Angus breed. But it was a great day. I mean, Henry had never sold a bull for more than a thousand dollars. And I used to tease him, well, you never asked for more than a thousand dollars. And he said, yeah, they weren't very good. But since 1980, we had our 45th April sale this past spring, and today we have multiple sales, but that's when we started was in April of 1980.

Mark McCully:
Maybe talk a little bit about where you're at today. I mean, obviously, your program has evolved substantially. Just maybe talk a little bit about the scale and scope of Gardiner Angus Ranch today.

Mark Gardiner:
You bet. Well, from that homestead and with help of so many people, and I want to back up a little bit and think about, I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the American Angus Association. And we'll get into database systems and selection and all that. And so you're going to find, I can't just answer a question, maybe I ought to be a politic -- I can't do it in one word. But from 1964 to 1980, and we weaned 10-month-old calves with fall calving because of our forage systems and everything. But you think about where we were, we were weaning 523-pound, 10-month-old Angus steer calves, and he was trying to make change as much as he possibly could. And so in 1964, they weighed 523 pounds. In 1980, they weighed 523 pounds. And so in 1980, I'm in school at Kansas State University, and I know dad used to get really frustrated, maybe we can't make change, but I come home for Thanksgiving from K-State in the fall of 1980, and he goes, I finally know what we're going to do.
Great. What are we going to do? He said, we're going to use high-accuracy, progeny-proven bulls for the traits of merit. I said, great, how do you know who those are? He goes, Mark, pay attention. Look at this sire summary. I took all the bulls we used from 1964 to 1980 and I averaged up their EPDs. And, so, remember the field data report, American Angus Association, that very first one was not released until the fall of 1980. Now, we'd been a part of structured sire evaluation, Performance Registry International. They used to have certified meat sires through PRI, and we were trying to learn and do all these things, but we weren't able to make genetic progress. So you think about revolutionary times and what happened, and I want to tip my hat to Martin Jorgensen, and we think about some of the opportunities and challenges we have today.
You think we have fun at Angus conventions? Can you imagine when they were fighting about open AI? You can't have it, but Martin Jorgensen had the courage to come forward and do that. And my dad always said, without Martin and opening that up and being able to get that gene pool to everybody, we never would've made it. So I go back to the first field data report. That was the first time all the bulls of the Angus breed had been compared for these traits of merit. And at that time it was essentially birth weight, weaning weight, yearling weight and milk. And so I said, well, how do you know that's right, dad? And he said, look, these are all the bulls I used from 1964 to 1980. I made absolutely no change. Look at them what they are in this sire summary, pay attention. Look at them.
They were 0, 0, 0 and zero for the traits of merit. He said, this will work because this is telling me exactly what those bulls are. And everybody used to say, well, Henry, you used the wrong bulls. And Henry would say, that's right. And I'd go, well, how'd you pick those bulls? Well, and I say this back to the show ring, I'm not making fun, but he won a purple ribbon. There were lots of bull tests back in the day. And so bull tests, I called them, he won an eating contest. So for our more mature listeners, some of you may remember Dale Engler. Dale Engler was the manager of the Ramsey Ranch. Dale Engler was Henry Gardiner's county agent at Clark County. And that's how dad got so excited about all these things. And we would use a bull because Dale Engler said he's a really good bull.
Dale says he is good. But the problem with that was, on average, they were average. We weren't able to make objective decisions. And so to fast forward to where we are today, that very first year, we used those high-accuracy, progeny-proven bulls, we went from 523 to 661 on our weaning weights. And Henry would tell you, I would tell you, we shouldn't have made that much change in one year. It probably rained that year. But now we consistently, and we wean about a month earlier at nine months of age, are consistently over 900 pounds. So where we are today is a product of database systems. The information provided, the American Angus Association, there is no good or bad genetic prediction. You think back to 1980, EPD was a new word, expected progeny difference. Young people today it's common and more mature people, it's common. But those genetic predictions were new and then we found out they were real.
He was able to recognize, by taking all those bulls used for the previous 16 years that made no change. Then we were able to make dramatic change. So to do that and to recognize the opportunity and share these techniques all over the world, today we sell over 2,500 Angus bulls and we sell 3,000 to 4,000 females, both registered and commercial, and we have four production sales per year. And our next production sale is coming up next month. And the April sale and the fall sale are our two largest, but people want bulls and access cattle when they need them. So we also have a sale in January and May, and then we have a customer sale called the Profit Proven Sale. We have that the Monday before Thanksgiving. So we sell a lot of cattle and we're fortunate to do that. But I want to stress, without that information that came from the American Angus Association, it comes from the American Angus Association today. We're on an information island.
We couldn't bake it. And so we had to grow to get better. We were a breakeven to a loss business all my life growing up. And I mean dad would share that sometimes we had a couple men that helped us and they made more money than the ranch ever did. But with these systems and with the American Angus Association and those genetic predictions, we were able to grow the business and give my brother and I an opportunity to come home. And my brother and I have grown the business and we talk a lot at home about work right. It's a work right, not a birth right. And so the next generation, my nephew, Grant, and my twin sons, Ransom and Cole, and maybe in the future Quanah hopes to come back, but they're working that way...
We've got him gainfully employed right now.
You can't have that.
Oh, I know, I said that. He's having the time of his life and just learning.

Miranda Reiman:
He just says that because there's a new grand baby...

Mark Gardiner:
Well, Abilene...

Miranda Reiman:
A long ways from home.

Mark Gardiner:
Abilene was born on July 15th, and she's a beautiful young girl and we're excited about that. And I've told Mark this before, but Miranda, it's like when he first got there and he'd call, and I was drilling wheat, and he was calling me and we'd talk for hours and hours, and they're asking this and this question and that, and I don't want to say that I've influenced him, but he wanted to learn more. And how do you do this and why do you do that. At the end of the day, and I'm not looking for a job, but he said, you know you'd make a pretty good regional manager. I said, well, those guys are my heroes. And so you need to emulate all those guys 'cause that's our boots on the ground on those regional managers, and those guys do the work. And a lot of those are former regional managers, a lot of them today, but they're my best friends in the world. And what do you think? How's this going? What do you see out there? And Quanah's ate up with that and we're thankful for that.

Miranda Reiman:
Awesome. So we asked you to tell us about current day and you went back to 1980. So I'm just giving you a hard time, but I think it's cool for people to hear that. I mean, if I'm doing math there, it took over 30 years before you had your first production sale. It wasn't an overnight success.

Mark Gardiner:
Yeah. I mean, if you go 1947 to 1980, that's 33 years. And I remember thinking, are we ready, dad, to have a sale? He goes, yeah, I think we'll be okay.

Miranda Reiman:
And your mom wasn't so sure.

Mark Gardiner:
No, she was the realist. Henry, we can't do that. He'd be selling 52 bulls and they were guaranteed from day one, just like, Henry, you can't replace that bull. No, they invested in it and we've got to invest back in them. So it took us 7, 8, 9 years before we were even selling bulls to the level of average of the Angus breed. But it was a grand adventure from the standpoint of everything we can do to get better. And Ray Sims was our auctioneer. And again, for you youngsters that are less mature. I mean, if you ever Google Leroy Van Dyke and the Auctioneer, and actually Keith Evans was in that movie that they made about that song, but we had Ray Sims and we had Phil Youngdoll who was big in Kansas Angus, and we had so many great people that helped us. I mean Roy Wallace, we were a test herd for Select Sires.
And I remember, I'm going to get you to 2024, but we have to look at the past to look at today and the future. And, so doing all this AI through the 60s and 70s, and we think about, Roy had found out dad was doing all this AI, so he pulls in because he wanted us to be a test herd. And so we did that. And you think back and you think about estrus synchronization and all those things, and I think I'm okay to say this. We were using MGA, melengestrol acetate, and again, this is Uncle Larry Corah and everything. So Larry, we're not going to get in trouble. That's statute of limitations. I thought extra-label was just, I didn't know what that meant.

Miranda Reiman:
That was premium.

Mark Gardiner:
Yeah. We were using MGA extra label to condense that cyclicity from 21 days down to 10 days.
And we were learning a lot with that. But I remember when they came out with prostaglandin and we could synchronize all of these cattle so much easier. And I remember saying, well, Roy, why don't, wouldn't we just use the best bull? And I thought he'd be mad at us for not being a test herd anymore. And he slams his fist on the table and says, you should. That's what we should do. And Henry was already there too. So you look at that and you look at walking before you run. But today, all those basics and all the tools we do, and it was all written down and on a clipboard, and we still write it down and the younger generation gets mad at me for that. But I don't know if that ever happens to you, but you can hit the wrong key, but what's your back-up plan?
So everything is so much more accelerated. The young interns that came with me this morning, we were talking about genomics and phenotypes and how that all fits together. It's beautiful and it's accelerated and it's opportunity. Once a year we used to get a sire summary, then it was twice a year, and then American Angus made it where we got it every Friday. And so I'm a nerd. I mean I remember they used to, to me sire summary came out, oh, it was December usually, but it was Christmas morning for me to go look at all that. And so where are we today is an accelerated form of the very basics. They're going to have Jerome Tang talk for the Beef Quality Assurance down at Hy-Plains Feedyard. And it's no different than the X's and O's of what they do, but I want to stress that Mark Gardiner, Mark Smart Gardiner, he's a nerd.
All he wanted to do is be with cattle and horses because that's what I understood. And what, I still understand it, and I'm taking everybody's looking at their watch, you're taking too much time and everything, but it's kind like a student taught me this not very long ago. And why do you even get to do a podcast? Well, I was Henry's blue heeler, okay? I went everywhere with him. And you think back in the beginning days, a structured sire eval, AHIR, or why did I know John Crouch and Dick Spader? When we were doing structured sire evaluation, they had to come out and write down the weights as we were measuring them. And so I would quiz those guys, how do you know this works? Why does this work? I remember when they implemented the milk EPD, I go, so John, how do you do that?
How do you know that's right? And he was director of performance programs then. He said, well, it's just growth and then what's left over? That's the milk. And we had grand discussions about why that was right. So back to why, I mean, I'm actually an introvert. I like the cattle, I like the horses, but every animal's connected to a human. And so we have to be sure that the humans succeed. So all this, and that's this, we love the cattle, but what we really need to do is make sure the people succeed. So you go back and you think about 1978 Certified Angus Beef starts and dad was on the board then when they started it, and why did they start that? Okay, well, National Cattlemen's Association, they needed more Choice cattle, even back then, Mark, they needed more Choice cattle. So what did they do?
They lowered the standards. And American Angus and all these leaders said, that's not right. And so the man that wrote the letter...

Mark McCully:
Harold Etling

Mark Gardiner:
I mean that was all and an idea was born and they started it. And of course Mick Colvin did all the things that he did. And I think one of the things I want to stress to so many of us that being involved and being a part of these things, it's important. So 1978, and you look at all that going on, I mean they were the shorty blacks, they were discriminated. They were so many cents per hundred less per weight. And I remember in the 90s and certainly in the early 2000s, the CAB was taking off and people would say nice things about CAB as they should. And I said, you know, you boys getting a lot of credit for this.
And I said, the reality was you were in big trouble. He goes, oh yeah, we were in huge trouble. So when you think about board of directors and you've got election coming up here, in November, these things matter. And I remember being in high school and then in college, on two different occasions they were going and dad was like, we're going to vote whether CAB gets to stay going or not. And on two occasions, it survived by eight to seven vote, and it was costing 'em $40,000 a year. And that was a lot of money in the early '80s. I like to tease, and I actually know a few of 'em, but I never met any of the seven that came from anywhere. You look forward and you look about the shorty blacks and the cattle weren't good enough, and BIF, Beef Improvement Federation meeting, 1986, Wichita, Kansas.
They brought all these breed execs and the breed folks up to say, what are you going to do? And I say this as praise, but also a challenge to all of us in the Angus breed. And I remember John Crouch went up there and said, we're going to continue to measure our cattle. We're going to be able to see how they perform and see where we need to improve and we're going to continue to get carcass data. They were doing research on ultrasound then. And I never forgot this and I won't name names even though I remember, I was so proud. But American Herford people came up, they proudly said, we did the Monfort study and all my Hereford friends out there, I mean Greg will take your letters and everything, but I never forgot this. They said, we're not going to do anything because the Monfort study told us that we're exactly where we need to be.
We're never exactly where we need to be. We always have to look to improvement. And I remember being at that point in time, I was a 25-year-old kid and I'm like going, they're in trouble if you think that way. And so we have to always be cognizant that we have to work to get better. We have to use all these tools. There's no good or bad, but how do you make that fit? This Dodge City, Kansas, Ashland, Kansas looks better now than it has maybe in my life. I mean, it's August, it will be dreadfully hot, but we're green. And that doesn't happen very often. How do I take this cow to take this cellulose, this grass and turn it into the greatest tasting protein in the world for our consumers, but then replicate the process over and over and over again, and that's what information and knowledge and sharing together and these good people allow us to do so well. So I don't know if I answered your question, but all these things are there for us to use. So you have to dial that down to the traits of importance of heritability. And you have to be aware of all the components, but what makes you money? And so you have to understand that.

Miranda Reiman:
Let's take a quick timeout for a word from the Angus Media Team. Master your marketing, we'll make it easy. The Angus Media team invites you to join us for the Angus Media Marketing Summit on Sunday, November 3rd, held as part of the Angus Convention in Fort Worth, Texas. Our team will help you think about marketing from a new perspective, offering strategies to turn minor adjustments into major gains. Sessions on video, sale book creation, and refreshing your brand are free as part of your convention registration. Visit angusconvention.com to learn more. We hope to see you there. And now back to our conversation with Mark Gardiner.

Mark McCully:
I know we really want to get in and our listeners want to get into the breeder mind of Mark Gardiner. Before we do that, I do want to real quick, an important chapter, I think in your history is US Premium Beef. Maybe just talk a little bit briefly of how that, how and why...

Mark Gardiner:
A briefer? Is that what you're suggesting?

Mark McCully:
No. You say what needs to be said, but you talk about Certified Angus Beef, and I think it's always such a great reminder of some of these things were born not out of a position of dominance or a position of strength, almost at times out of a position of necessity. And I think USPB was an incredibly innovative step that occurred that now we think of today of, well, of course USPB exists, right? So maybe talk about just a little about the early days of that.

Mark Gardiner:
I drug you through all the Homestead Act and all that and the evolution of our family. And I drug you through AHIR early days, but it was the same thing. Why was CAB created? Why did they have 'em make those statements in 1986 at the Beef Improvement Federation? Okay, because we needed to get better. So 1991, they do the National Beef Quality Audit. One out of four steaks eats bad. We were in the war on fat and fat meant fat, but it was really external fat versus taste fat. But we were trying to be chickens and pigs. 1995, they do another National Beef Quality Audit trying to use that. We still nurse, we are still not very good. We hadn't changed anything. And why did we not change anything? How did you sell beef? It is on the average. There was no economic incentive.
And you're a Michigan State University alumni and one of my heroes growing up, and I read everything he wrote because mainly you got to read this. This guy will tell you the future, but Dr. Harlan Richie. And I remember 1995, the end of '95, the markets were terrible. Everything you heard, I mean, our motto was, I mean, and I like Sam Elliot, Beef. It's What's for Dinner., and I used to joke, well nothing, you don't buy it, I won't have a job. Well, they weren't buying it. And so Harlan Richie writes this paper, Five Years to Meltdown. And I read this and I said to dad, and I'm like, is he right? And he said, we're in big trouble. I mean, and what Harlan Ritchie meant in that paper was, at the rate we're losing market shares, in five years we're not going to be a relevant protein.
So this is 1995. The twins were born in 1993. This is my chosen line of work. I'm fricking scared because everything, I mean, if you turn the TV on or you listen to the talking heads, beef's bad for you. And they didn't understand. I mean, you're supposed to eat more carbohydrates and more carrots or whatever, but we weren't the favored protein at that time. And I always, I mean I'm going to get there, I promise. But we always fed cattle. And at that time we were feeding with Ken Burch at Beefland Feed Yard, an Irsik and Doll yard, and Ken kind of talked like this. And I'd say, Ken, did you get our calves sold? Our steers sold? Yeah, yeah, they brought 70 cents. I go, is that good? He said, yeah, yeah, that's the market. I said, what'd those roping steers bring in the next pen? Well, if I let 'em have those good blacks, they'd bring 70 cents too. I said, that's not right. And that was a little bit of the passion. And you talked, I remember talking about Henry and grade and steal and grade and yield was what it was, how you were selling. And that was just selling on the value based on the rail.
Again, back to the association and the relationship with people. For those of you, and this isn't a plug, I mean, I really want everybody to understand that the land-grant mission, I mean, none of us sitting at this table would've ever been able to be educated if you think back to the Blue Buds and all that, the land-grant mission. But that's free and open access to that information. And American Angus is that same way today. And there's going to be competitors coming. There already are. And so how do we provide that information? But the bull at US Premium Beef is purple because there were seven of us that kind of knew or knew of each other and we were all scared. And we talked to guys like Don Good and Larry Corah and Dell Allen, and you're going to honor Glen Dolezal tonight. I mean, but how do we go about doing this? So we come up with a grand idea of let's buy a packing plant. And so we went on this blue sky tour and we went all over the Great Plains and quite a bit of the United States, and we weren't loved everywhere. A lot of things don't change because if you've got those below average cattle and you're trying to upgrade 'em to the average price, do you really want value...

Mark McCully:
You got those roping steers you want 70 cents for.

Miranda Reiman:
Let me know the truth.

Mark Gardiner:
Well, Mark Smart Gardiner could talk his way about the efficiencies and all the things that Angus cattle to get and the markets and what they want to do it. I could talk that talk, but it still wasn't right to not have economic incentives. So I called it the Blue Sky Tour. We went out and about and we were selling the right and the obligation to deliver one fed animal to your packing plant. And I remember saying, we might even build a packing plant. And Steve Hunt was the CEO and Steve Hunt and I went to school together at Kansas State and lived in the same fraternity at Farmhouse.
And I go, we're not going to build a packing plant. He said, yeah, I know, but they say we should. And I go. So we went about and we did that. And I remember thinking going, why would they want us? Why would a packing plant want us? Well, their biggest cost is cattle procurement. They need a supply chain. They need a supply design. And so they needed better. So we were able to raise just under $80 million from producers, 40 million that was raised. It was $55 per share for the right and obligation to deliver one animal to your packing plant, which we bought into National Beef.

Miranda Reiman:
And this was a big investment for you at the time.

Mark Gardiner:
We all gave more than we should have or could have, and we had to accomplish this. We really felt like if we didn't get skin in the game that we wouldn't make it. I mean, we were scared. And so we were able to accomplish this. National Beef is a part of the big four, and we bought 750,000 delivery rights to be able to go deliver to those cattle. And so that was a very high percentage. And so long story short, we bought this packing plant. And again, we'll make fun of Mark Smart Gardiner because he's easy to make some fun of. And here we are in Dodge City, Kansas. We're less than two miles away for where they sent me. And I go to Steve Hunt, I go, why me? Well, you've got carcass data. You understand genetics. So they send me in and they're giving a tour of National Beef right now with all these Cattle Feeders Conference, CAB attendees.
And we went to the conference room there. And remember, I'm no different than anybody else. This is the evil fricking packer. And I'm scared. I'm 36 years old at this point in time, and I'm supposed to go and negotiate a grid. And so when I tell this story, I'm not teasing. I was scared. And so we go in there and John Miller was the CEO of National Beef, and he was very gregarious, lots of charisma. He goes, well, we're partners. What do we need? What do you want to do? And this isn't for hopefully dramatic effect, but it's like Mr. Miller, what makes you money? Well, that's easy. That's the Prime. That's the Certified Angus Beef. That's the high quality. Even to this day, what differentiates the value of these cattle is that quality. They kill a lot of cattle, 4 million head, and 72% of the profitability still comes from the minority, 20 some percent of the cattle. And you think back, and remember, I'm an Angus nerd, and I always thought National Beef was the very best for quality. Why did I think that? Well, they have an Angus heifer as their logo on there, so they should be quality. What do you think that their percent Choice was in October of 1997?

Miranda Reiman:
I feel like this is a quiz because I did that USPB story, I should know.

Mark Gardiner:
You should know, it was 45%.

Miranda Reiman:
Oh, I was going to guess 50, dang it.

Mark Gardiner:
Yeah. Well, we kind of round up because it sounds so terrible, and I couldn't fathom that back then. And so we talk and we talk and it's for a couple hours, and we got to put economic, people aren't dumb, if we put those economic incentives there, we'll bring those cattle. And I had a very good and still have a good relationship with John Miller. He said, well, we got to be careful because if we get too many of those high quality, and I still hear this today, we get too many of those high-quality cattle, it's only worth the average or the commodity price. And then I said, and I did say this: Well, we got to quit being meatheads and we have to build beef demand. And that's what we as an industry did. And so you think about it and you think about US Premium Beef and some of the politics and all these different things.
Again, Mark Gardiner, because his friend Steve Hunt, he's like, you go debate this US congressman because there were consequences there that we were almost outlied because ownership of packer. And so you can't have cattle and own a packing plant. Well, we owned a packing plant, so I got to debate a US congressman and I got to go see the Department of Justice on several occasions. So I was like, why me? Because well, you're going because you'd be involved and you do all that. And so at that time, and still today, I don't know who number one is, but at that time, IBP, Iowa Beef Processors, was the number one packing plant. And we were very proud when we came out of that meeting, but we put $3 a hundred weight for each and every Certified Angus Beef, which was 3 cents a pound. And we put the Prime premium there.
At that time, it was just the spot, but we moved that to the four week, but we did that. And so each and every animal that came in there got CAB and Prime premiums. And we kind of joked coming out of there because Iowa Beef Processors and their CEO, Bob Peterson, was the biggest game in town. And we joked, we'll take the best. We'll let old Bob have the rest. Well, we did do that. And whether you like this or not, when we did that for those high-quality cattle, the other processors had to too. Bob taught us a lot of other lessons because of the market presence and the things he could do. But I really believe that, and other people that were establishing grid marketing, when we put those economic incentives, and if you look at Certified Angus Beef's takeoff, and they're just linear upward trend for more value, I tease our friend John Stika, okay, 1 billion, 200 million pounds, that's great.
We got to get to 2 billion. Let's go. Let's go, let's go. And we can do that. And they will, and we will. But when that happened, that is what changed from Beef. It's What's for Dinner. to today we are the protein of choice because we, as an industry, changed that I believe with Angus genetics, but Angus genetics that hit those targets of quality, but people were getting paid for it. And so that's what changed the demand equation to where now, I mean, somebody said the other day, how many pork chops do you eat a year? And I said, none. But they said, most, the average person eats four. And you think back to what is pork chop's problem right now? Get all the pork producers mad at me too, but they don't have any marbling. And you put some sauce on it and it's a protein cube and it's everything we were back then.
And so why do people pay for beef? Because it tastes better. And we are never going to be pork or poultry for efficiency. But look out at the Great Plains, look at the upper Midwest. Look at all this forage. We can take that grass. We can take those forages. We can take that cellulose and make it the greatest tasting protein that the world has ever seen. And that's what we as an industry have done, and we'll continue to do. One of your next questions is going to be, well, we're up to eight or 9% Prime. Now, sometimes tickling 10% Prime. And I'll challenge my Angus friends, I even hear a lot of them, when's enough? Enough? Well, if you get a 10% score on your test in school, is that good enough? It looks to me like we got 90% to go. And so I think one of our opportunities and challenges, I mean Choice minus isn't good enough anymore. And really, we even, I mean CAB is a noble goal, but the money's in Prime. And I hope that, and I always challenge John and all of us, we need to differentiate Certified Angus Beef Prime to make it even more valuable because that's the beef the world demands. And we can do that, and we can have a cow that fits the environment, and you get me wound up, but this is good stuff and it's because we have the information that lets us do this.

Mark McCully:
Well, and Miranda and I both lived on the CAB side of things for a long time, and we got that question all the time, right? When's enough? Enough? Right? Surely you've got enough. Right? And I always point back to the spreads. When the spreads start to compress or go to zero, then in my mind we've maybe started, we've got to tap into some new markets. We've saturated some markets, but we don't see that. We continue to see Prime grow, CAB grow, and the spreads grow right with it, which tells me the more consumers we tap into with this product, the more they want it and the spread and the premium continues to grow. So I don't know there's a ceiling.

Miranda Reiman:
I think I read an article recently, Mark, where it was probably 06, 07, and I quoted you as saying maybe 30%. So I'd just like to point out that, like the weatherman, you weren't right. We've passed that, right? like 30%...

Mark McCully:
Well, if you're proving that I'm not right, that's not really hard to do. Right? But think about when that, I'm not defending that. What were we, probably 15% at the time, right? And I think...

Miranda Reiman:
It was double that.

Mark Gardiner:
We didn't know.
We were worried that because I've heard this, well, we don't want to become the lobsters of the protein business, but how did we change that demand? Out here there's Braum's ice cream and Braum's stores everywhere. Well, I don't go in there and order the skim milk. I want the good stuff. And so when we gave the world and Covid had all its challenges and just all those things, but people got a taste for the very good beef, and they're not going back. And you look at, I mean, worldwide demand, you look at the export, it's flat with a year ago, but a year ago was record and it's $416 per head. Every one of those being processed today, all over the US, that goes because the world demands what we have. And that's the highest quality, safest beef product in the world. And so I think the sky's the limit.
And you think back to Prime, why weren't there more Prime steakhouses back when, well Miranda is younger than us. But when we were even younger, you couldn't even, because you couldn't build a business, you had no supply. And when you think about the CAB, and I'm older probably than all of you, but in the '80s and the '90s, and I used to give Henry all this stuff, CAB, whoopity dooda, nobody pays us for us. We found a bull in 1982 or three that could raise the quality grade a full two points on the quality grade score. I said, great. He can do that. And he can raise that Choice level, but nobody pays us for us. And that bull, they have bad feet, they have bad udders, they have less growth. It takes us several months longer to get to the end point. And again, Henry Gardiner, and I'll say this, the older I get, the smarter he gets, he goes, we're no better than the worst ones we have.
We have to know what it is, so we know how to multiply the best ones. But I think when you look at that and you think about that evolution, nobody was paying for more at that time. They couldn't build a business. You couldn't build a business on something that didn't have enough supply. But back in the '80s and '90s and even early 2000s when you guys were all working at CAB, you couldn't get enough. You couldn't sell and be more aggressive, because you couldn't get enough product. So we had the same problem. And what are we today, 35, 36% national average? Again, Angus friends, that's not good enough to keep this going. And so I think when you see people and even just, we have some tours and foreigners, and you feed 'em that good steak, I mean, you can just look in their face. It's like, I've never tasted anything like that. And so it's exciting. And the sky is a limit and 10% is not good enough.

Mark McCully:
Well, you sent me some data, so I want to give a big compliment to you. US Premium Beef, National Beef made an announcement here earlier this summer about providing premiums for genetic merit scores of the Angus Link program. And the first set of those cattle went through the plant this week or last week. I guess my weeks are now getting blurred on me.

Mark Gardiner:
It's there, it's not.

Mark McCully:
Yeah. And that first set of cattle were 50% Prime, 75% CAB in Prime. I mean, just some numbers that probably 20 years ago, I'm not sure, maybe you believe those numbers were possible. I think probably most of the industry thought, nah, that was unachievable goals, but definitely not the case today. I saw on the sheet those brought back $221 and 50 cents a head in premium. So the dollars and the economic signal clearly being sent today, again, not the case a couple decades ago.

Mark Gardiner:
And that's all opportunity, and that's all the relationship matrix. When we first started talking, and these guys are still meatheads, they're my friends, and you talk about negotiated prices and all that. Since we started in that first week of December in 1997, we have never quit negotiating because their job is to make as much money as they can for National Beef. Our job is to make as much money as we can for our producers. And so when they talked about the Angus Link and the GMS and how we go about doing this, and Chad Barker is actually on the program here, either today or tomorrow, I forget when. And I remember this conversation when we were having one of these negotiations and they wanted X amount, they wanted this carcass weight. I said, well, if that's your sweet spot, let's put a premium in there.
Let's put some incentives in there to go there. And I'll never forget this, and he'll smile about it today, but he wasn't smiling. He goes, I'll just say it. Why in the hell would I pay you twice for the same pounds? And I smiled back at him and said, I don't think we're ready for this conversation yet. But you look and you evolve and American Angus, Troy, and you and I don't know who all else went. Maybe Sarah went and presented to National. And so then I get to go before the tribunal again. So explain us this and the board, why should we do this? I go, because that recognizes genetic merit. And you remember how we put for CAB on that very first. I mean, you want to attract the very best cattle. You want those supply lines and those supply chains. And if you put a target out there and you put that incentive out there, it'll come.
And so with the parameters that have been put there, and interestingly enough that set of cattle, they were 185 on the GMS score, and they were from customers that have bought bulls from us for 30 years, and we buy a lot of customer cattle. But what's so exciting is to link that up and to work together. And there's other processors kind of thinking and whispering, and it's not a lot of cattle yet, but it's kind of like CAB or AHIR. Any of these things we do, we got to get started and we come and they want to know more. I think what is so cool is when we can have economic incentives, even from meathead packers that are our partners. Oftentimes we criticize the processing industry. What are we going to do if we don't have 'em? I mean, your cattle become pets and then there's too many of them and nobody wants them.
So we're all in this together, whether it's cow-calf, stocker, feeder, all those things. But we have to work together and we're notorious in this business for, I often, they go, well, okay, you're a family business, how y'all get along? I go, well, we don't, but at the end of the day we have to because if we don't do that, then we're not going to make it. So I think when you look at, they always call it vertical integration. I don't think we'll ever see vertical integration in the beef industry, but we will see vertical cooperation and working together to be able to share that information. Back in the old days, they would never share. I give all the information to our customers, and here's what it is, and maybe you want to look at retaining ownership, and how you, and one of the customers that had one of the really highest Angus Link scores, he goes, I probably should feed some of these too.
I go, you should. And so I think knowledge is power, education, skin in the game, being a part of it, learning what makes money, learning what works back on your operation, but you can do all these things. And I think that's so cool what the leadership and just the vision of the beef industry and, more specifically, what the American Angus Association has done, and I'll lecture you a bit here. What we've got to do is be so careful. If we lose that land-grant access to that information, we're toast. I love y'all. But if I can't get the information that I need to be able to make a living for my family, and really more importantly for my customer's family, we have to go to where that is. And that makes me fearful because the corporates, and I thought the corporates are coming my whole life, and I don't know that they can beat these family-based operations, but we have to have access to that information.

Mark McCully:
Yep. No, I totally agree. I even wrote a column on that a couple months ago. I feel passionately about, that's I think one of our biggest roles as the American Angus Association is to maintain that access for our breeders.

Miranda Reiman:
And so that access is available for breeders of all sizes. I mean, that's kind of one of the...

Mark McCully:
Absolutely.

Miranda Reiman:
When you talk about the land grant model.

Mark McCully:
So switching gears now to, we talked about all this demand, we've talked about all this economic signal that's being sent. Now, how does that play out? I know there's listeners right now going, well, that's all great, but I got to run cows, right? So how does that play out in your breeding decisions and your philosophy of how do you achieve that while also maintaining a cow herd for you and for your customers?

Mark Gardiner:
Well, I think it's a great question and one that we all in the cattle business live with every day. And I would say that the cattle business is relatively simple from the standpoint we've been 60 years total AI without the use of cleanup bulls. And when I say that the business is simple, we've had a time-restricted breeding program my entire life. Dad started the heifers at 50 days and cows at 60. When Greg and I got home from college, we narrowed that down. We keep the first cycle for the heifers. We keep breeding and we sell 'em. But so we keep the first cycle in the heifers, but the key ends up on reproduction is keep the ones that want to breed, multiply the ones that want to do that and make food out of the rest. And a lot of times when folks come, and a lot of people have been there to Gardiner Angus Ranch, we've, as we've grown, we've had to add facilities because we can't get the work all done without it.
But the average cow is on our own for 10 and a half months a year. We have to bring 'em in and we'll synchronize and we'll breed them. And then we start ultrasounding in 25, 26 days kicking out the pregnancies as fast as possible. But that cow is on her own for the rest of the year. I mean, she's grazing for 10 and a half months, whether it's wheat pasture or native range or some improved grasses. And so I often hear, well, you can do this. Well, anybody can do this in any environment. You have to figure out what works. And as you can tell from our discussion, Henry's my hero and I'd like to be better at any one thing than Henry. But do you know what his conception rates were per service back in the '60s, '70s and '80s? It was 65% per service; we're the same today.
So I think what is so important is making sure, I mean, give those cattle, he used to say, give 'em a job description and they can look however they want. Now we all like to look at attractive cattle and functional cattle, but if they don't work, they're going to tell you. First and foremost, Gardiner Angus 101 is we select for calving ease, dead calves don't grow. So we have to be disciplined and select for that. Simultaneously, we select against mature size. We'd like them to be breed average or less. Within those parameters...

Mark McCully:
Do you use weight or height more?

Mark Gardiner:
I actually, and what we learned is we do, and we still weigh all of our cows and there's a fire. And so we don't have as many cows and we had to sell 'em to pay the bills. So we'd get into that later if there's time.
And Miranda is looking at me like there's not going to be time. But that being said, I evolved to the yearling hip height EPD because of the correlation between that and height and weight. And so we try to stay breed average. If we bump up against 1.0, we get 'em back. I mean, we use a lot of bulls that are in the bottom, 10, 20% of the breed for that. So if we put pressure and make sure that we have a live calf born, we put pressure against stature and weight. But to do that, and then within those parameters, and this is Henry 101, Roy Wallace 101, if you keep those things in balance, you won't get out of balance at that point. You can select for cattle that have as much growth as you want, as long as they fit those parameters. And we've done that provided that they're elite for end-product merit and the maternal function to replicate the process year after year.
And it's really just that simple. And some of these lower heritable traits like reproduction, it's the number-one performance trait. We all know that. But it's 0.1 or less heritable. Every literature review, every research, it's 0.0001 heritable. The correlation, I mean, I'll get it today, they'll almost spit at me. You're a terminal breeder. No, we breed for all traits. All traits matter. We try to multiply the ones that have the traits of economic merit that will fit our environment. And so I think if we keep those things in check, I mean size and birth weight, then we can use those to make those cattle better. One time people, somebody asked me recently, what's the one trait in the Angus breed that there is no, or in cattle, that there's no diminishing return. That's pretty easy. It's marbling. There is no downside to marbling. And when you used to work at Certified Angus Beef, and you still do, but that being said, I mean when you and John release those Targeting the Brand, and I'll say it again and get pen pals for this.
If you want to make a directional change, and if you want to get us from 1.2 billion pounds of beef, make those standards higher. What is it today? 0.65 is Targeting the Brand? It's top 40%. Well, again, I'm not trying to lecture people how to breed cattle, but if you're an Angus breeder or a cattle breeder and you're using cattle that are below average for marbling, shame on you. Just shame on you, because what we have to sell is taste and the product that we sell is beef. But then they come back, well, my cows, I live in a real tough environment and I live where it's 18 inches and I mean, congratulations, last Sunday, it was 112 degrees. It is kind of hot. And then we can have blizzards. I mean, we all have to struggle with that. We have to balance that. But I think what's so exciting and what is so, such a great opportunity is the Angus cow that can do these things. And if you think, what are we the lowest cow herd in the United States in 50, 60 years? I don't remember exactly. We're producing more beef with less cattle than ever before. And that's genetics. And that's Angus cattle.

Mark McCully:
So to that very specific point on that same kill sheet, I think those steers went out averaging over 1600 pounds, 1650. I don't even write the weight down...

Mark Gardiner:
1579.

Mark McCully:
They were big. They were big. And again, we all understand the economics of that. If they went out lighter than that, we were probably leaving money on the table. I was always taught that the mature cow ought to be about the same weight as her finished steer. Does that mean we need to be having 1600- pound cows or can we bend that curve more with genetics today?

Mark Gardiner:
Watch this, Miranda. The easy answer is yes, we can do that. And no, we do not need 1600-pound cows, but we don't need 8-900-pound cows either because she can't do that. And so again, that same database system that allows us to hit these targets, the cow I just described that's on her own for 10 and a half months a year grazing, in good years, she weighs 1350. So the bigger ones are going to be 1450 and the others are going to be smaller on. And we run about 4,500 Angus cows. They're primarily commercial because we have to sell all the registered. But we'll get into that later maybe. And in tough years, they're a hundred pounds less. And that's the beauty of the information systems we have that this ruminant animal can do that. And so how did those steers get to be 1577 pounds?
And you look at what they were sired by, a lot of those were by a sire that are in the bottom 10% of the Angus breed for stature. And they're breed average for growth. And we have to use some of these forages. I mean, we put those cattle on feed, they weighed a 1,000-plus pounds. We would've bought them at 500 pounds. So we used wheat and grass to graze them. And in general, we're going to call it two pounds a day. And those came last November and we would've grazed them until March something or other. And then they went on feed. But those were with breed-average stature, breed-average growth.
We all want low-input cattle, but we sell outputs for a living. So how do we balance those two things? So honestly, for my operation, and it may fit very well somewhere else, but cattle that exceed 1.0 for yearling hip height, I mean 200-pound yearling weights that are out of them, those scare me because they're too big. So how do we take these cattle to use our environments, use our resources, use those ruminants to convert all those things so we get them to the appropriate weight before they go on feed? And it's a little different deal than it was a couple of years ago when cost of gain and corn was short. I look at everything and it's math. And so right now cost of gains are kind of in the $1 to $1.05 And so those cattle, for ease of figuring, they put on 579 pounds in the feedyard and our cost of gain was a $1.
And so those cattle brought like 201-plus on a cash basis. And so they weighed 1577, take that times two, that's the gross dollars. But every pound I put on, a dollar cost of gain and they're worth $2, I made a dollar. But why wouldn't you put 'em on feed sooner? Well, I buy these calves and I'm the world's worst cattle buyer because I'm buying 'em from our customers, and I just take the weighted average and go 5 cents above whatever it is for your area, and heifers get steer price. And so I was looking at yesterday, Superior had a large sale, and seeing how our customers got along. And you look at that, and I mean heifers were 10 to 15 cents back and on a lot of those cattle that sold. Well, I can upgrade that and just pay because the heifers we'll breed them, we'll sell a lot of those and the ones that don't settle we'll feed.
But I think all those things, you look at the economics, I can feed them, I'll give my opportunity cost at home of 50 cents a pound. But it really didn't cost me any cash because I got the same overhead, I have the same land payments, I have the same crew, the same taxes. So it lets us utilize our operation better and to take that. And so if I got 50 cents cost to gain, and I'm going to put 'em on those grazing, and so I'm gaining two pounds a day, and those calves, a lot of those six-weight calves yesterday were approaching $3. So if I can take those and put on a 50-cent cost to gain and gain two pounds a day, that's just economics too.

Mark McCully:
Well then you look at, you're selling carcass weight and you look at their cost to gain on a carcass-weight basis. I think those cattle dressed maybe 66%, something like that. So I mean, again, the economics are continue to feed 'em. You mentioned some out of bounds. Do you think we're starting to push biological limits of how much these cattle can eat, how much they, there's lots of anecdotal conclusions I guess, or anecdotal fingers being pointed towards whether it's congestive heart failure or cattle that just don't have the health or all of the different things. Do you think we're up against some biological limits there and are we going too fast as it relates to selection pressure on growth specifically and intake? I mean, you talked about early, some of these performance tested, they won an eating contest. We know that correlation between growth and appetite and intake is pretty high.

Mark Gardiner:
Point A.

Mark McCully:
Yeah.

Mark Gardiner:
The easy answer is, first, I don't pretend that I know, but I'm going to find out. And the other answer is no, we haven't gone too far. And so you get the same calls I get. And I think one of the challenges, and we're here in the Great Plains and there's a lot of mega yards, and those are good people, and those are my friends and your friends. This is not 1985. And Randall Spare is a speaker, and we were roommates and we've got a good history together, but he's our veterinarian and I like to make the joke, so we might as well get it on the podcast, I taught him how to ultrasound because Bill Beal taught me how to ultrasound and my wife Eva. And sometimes we give programs together and we'll talk about ultrasound and sometimes they'll go to me, are you a veterinarian? And I go, no, but I slept with one last night because my wife, Eva, is a veterinarian. But they call Randall and I, Orville and Wilbur. It's as simple as animal husbandry. I think with all this information, all this technology,
we sometimes forget the husbandry. And you talked about the correlation between gain and appetite, and it's very, very high. And remember I talked about Ken Burch and he sold those cattle and he's a good friend at Irsik and Doll. It's like, eh, eat more, feed him more. But we have to be able to manage those bunks and I think the mega yards, and we have this, they try to run it from a computer. They're not reading the bunks themselves and they treat all the cattle the exact same. We did a research project, one of the things we, and they were on an intake system. We wanted to know about that correlation again. And just seeing what, and a lot of those, and kudos to 'em for doing on those efficiencies, and they have, I don't know what they call it now, but the GrowSafe Systems, those are usually over shorter periods of time that may, we did it for the whole feeding period with these cattle.
And one of the challenges and opportunities, and we still saw that 0.8 correlation, but one of the things that scared me in that, because we could see when and what they were eating, but there were times when they didn't have feed for 18 hours and, Houston, that's a problem. And so we have to manage those bunks and you can't treat what the Angus breed and other breeds are with genetic merit cattle. You cannot treat them like cattle that have the capacity to only gain three pounds and only eat 30 pounds at their maximum intake. So I think we have to blend that husbandry and know some more. And I know Kelly Retallik because we've been taking our steers harvested here in Dodge and they've been taking heart scores. And I tease her or I'll continue to tease her. Well, those all lived. So I guess until they were harvested, they had good enough hearts, but we need to learn more.
And that's why when I say I don't know, but for it to be as simple as, and you get this too, well, they're Angus. Well, most of the cattle are Angus, and so Angus have got a problem. No, we as an industry have an opportunity to get better and we need to know more, but I think we've got to get husbandry back into the business. And we've got these young people behind us here listening, but don't forget to get out there and get dirty and see things. You can't run it all from a computer. And the powers of observation. I'll go back ancient history and I don't know if they're still there or not, but HeatWatch. And I had some customers and that they put 'em on there and I go, this one, and I go, your cattle are dying because you haven't seen their calves out. You've got to get out there and see 'em and be a part of it. So long answer short, we need to get better. We need to learn more, but you ain't seen nothing yet on what we can do.

Miranda Reiman:
That's a good segue to talk about the future, I guess as far as, you've mentioned young people a lot as we've got your three interns here.

Mark McCully:
And real quick, a kudos to you. Would you have any idea of how many interns you guys have had over?

Mark Gardiner:
Well, I've told you multiple times that I am a nerd, so I keep all this stuff going in my head.

Miranda Reiman:
If he doesn't know the number, I'm going to be disappointed.

Mark Gardiner:
Oh, I know the number. But Henry always, we had kids coming all around all the time and lots of Australians, because dad talked at the World Angus Forum and New Zealanders. And I used to tell him, you're in charge of Aussie control. They'd go on walkbout. And they'd show up and usually Mark got to take 'em around and do things. And they were with, and that was all good. But we put structure to it with the help of Bill Beal and Larry Corah and Deb Norton, Julie Tucker, some good advisors to us. How can we do this? But we've had 72 interns since 2012. And people a lot of time, and actually that pool of, I mean a lot of them have gone on to great success and do different things. And I get calls from a lot of other producers, and I need somebody to be able to do this. And we've had four full-time employees that we've selected out of the intern pool. But I mean, they just asked me that the other day on their first day, why do you do this? Well, it gives us a little more muscle. And they cleaned the bazillion waterers yesterday.

Miranda Reiman:
Is that hazing?

Mark McCully:
And they're nodding their heads.

Mark Gardiner:
Well, I said, it's a little backwards. We're going to go to the education seminar before you got all dirty, but we're going to ultrasound 1500 head next week, so they're going to pay for their steak tonight. But people gave me an opportunity, people gave us an opportunity. It helps us be better at our job. It gives us a little more muscle. But if there's any message I have for all of us in life, but let alone American agriculture, pay it forward, give them that chance.

Mark McCully:
Well done. Sorry, I segued your question or I derailed your question rather.

Miranda Reiman:
No, that's all right. That was perfect. I was just going to ask about the future.

Mark Gardiner:
I think it's amazing. This is the greatest time in history, and I would've said that 30 years ago, too, to be in the beef business. And it's probably more volatile. And I mean, Henry 101, I used to think if you work hard, Henry Gardiner is like, it's hard work and we better work real hard, so you better get to going right now to work hard. But now we got to work smart too. And they did back then too. We just didn't know it. But it's more volatile. But I think of the opportunities of American agriculture, you talk about US Premium Beef and you talk about Certified Angus Beef and that differentiation. If we were still selling everything on the average, there'd be no cash and no money in it. And so when we look at people, they still want to buy $2,500 bulls from me, and I'd love to help, but our steers are worth $3,400 right now, so I really can't do that.
So when we look at the evolution, and I'll give American Angus and I'll give Certified Angus Beef, you know I love my cows, I love ranching, but it's got to be a business. And so how do we achieve that? So what makes money? So I got to understand that. And so you do all that. I think the future is amazing, but you're going to have to get out and get dirty too. And so I think that it's so much more accelerated than when I got out of school, but I think the opportunities are even greater. And so when we look at that next generation, we look at all their exposure, and I like to give kids a hard time. You go to a restaurant, kids over there having a date, and they're both on their phone, well talk to each other, put those things down. You have instantaneous information.
So use it. Be curious about it. Why did you do this? I mean, John Crouch, do you think that milk works? How do you know that? So say why, why, why? How can't we do better? We're having some late-day deads in the feedyard. Why is that? American Angus, let's take heart samples, let's learn from it, let's see. How do we improve that? And I think, well, as we've grown and expanded, and I make the joke, you have to be partners with your veterinarian. You better be a partner with your bank 'cause they own us. And so we have a 30-year note that we extended on April 1st, 2021. Well, we've got 7-8 billion people in the world by the year 2050. We're going to have to have more food than we've ever had in history to feed the 9 or 10 billion people. Well, our note to pay off the ranch and all of our debt comes due on April 1st, 2051, and I'm going to eat the best steak ever. But it's their job to make sure that we're still here to do that.

Mark McCully:
No pressure guys. No pressure. Well, that's awesome. And a couple of things I've always specifically admired about you Mark, is one, that curiosity. I've seen you at programs and you're in the front row taking notes, asking great questions. I think you've led lots of research projects going back. And again, if there's a question, let's go dig into it and figure it out. And then always your appreciation for your history. And always as you talk about your family and talk about your dad, specifically, I've always admired that you really, really, you never lose sight of where you've come from, and that's just always been so impressive.

Miranda Reiman:
Can I also add that your appreciation for other people as well? I think you're kind of a model of that 'if you see something good, tell somebody.' And I know those of us that have been on the receiving end of that sure appreciate it. Because you wonder if anybody ever reads your stuff or listens or, so you also extend that appreciation beyond to your wider network as well.

Mark Gardiner:
Well, that's a very kind, and I often get asked a lot of these things, and it's not me, it's we. And I can't say-- how about those Wildcats--but when you say, Henry, the opportunity that we had to get better is there every day.

Mark McCully:
Absolutely.

Miranda Reiman:
It's fabulous. And that's actually great advice for the young people listening. It's great advice for those of us who are maybe a little more set in our ways after a few decades in the business.

Mark McCully:
And in a society that's just so good at pointing out all the negative and can be so discouraging. I think we all need some, sometimes those reminders that there's so much opportunity out there, there's so many things going right, and we just need to saddle up and take advantage of it.

Mark Gardiner:
So it used to bug me when I get emotional. It's like in some of these people back here, it's okay, you're human, okay, because you grow up, you're tough and you're rough and you don't ever show emotion. But why is there emotion? Because this stuff matters. Your family matters at home, America, American Angus, all these things. And do we have problems? How do we get along? Well, sure, we have challenges, but let's go forward together. Okay, let's go forward together.

Mark McCully:
Absolutely.

Miranda Reiman:
So I could keep asking questions all day long, but I always end on a random question of the week. But I'm going to use my random question of the week sort of as a bonus question this time, because we didn't get to the subject at all of the fire. I want to know what is one of the, it was huge devastation on your ranch. It was kind of a game changer, I guess, pivotal moment. I want to know one of your favorite stories to come out of the fire.

Mark Gardiner:
Well, first and foremost, that's the greatest blessing of my life. And so why is that? Is because you learn what matters. And you think about American agriculture and you think, okay, and I didn't show any emotion on that. We lost 600 cows, which was they were all pregnant. So you lost 1200 head. And one of the youngsters asked me, do you like to hunt? I go, no, not really. Because a lot of the cows that didn't die, we had to put down with the gun. So that still haunts me. But the great blessing is what so many people did for us. We wouldn't be here today without it. And so the story, one of the stories I'll tell, one of our customers, I mean, we lost 7,500 bales of big bales of hay. And of course, you go back to the land grant and everything. Well, Gardiner, you should have had those bales spread out farther apart.
I only had 'em 35 miles apart. Do you think that was enough? I mean, it all burned. Okay. And so I had a customer coming -- first off, the next morning, we still have to take care of the living. And I tried to preach, we have to be here, right here, right now and take care of what we can take care of. Well, how are we going to feed them? Well by sunup the next morning, our customers were coming with hay. One of our customers called and said, my dad's a chuck wagon cook. He said, they're going to come and they're going to cook, and you'll see Randall Spare. And I mentioned different people, and he went through the same, all this. And they're trying to help. And he and I joke that we deal with triage every day. And so we're used to handling lots of different things and we pick on the youth and instantaneous information and all these things. But that was March 6th, 2017.
These kids from all over from Kansas State, Oklahoma State, I mean Texas Tech, I mean, they all came to help us. They didn't go to wherever they go for spring break to party. They came to help us. And so I'll never forget that. And I'm wearing a buckle today, that my house burned down, which it was just stuff. It was like, we got out, we're fine. But this buckle was given to me at Kansas State, but all these professors from K State and different places came. But Dave Nichols found this on the bottom of our basement. And how about those Wildcats? We get emotional again. But he shined that up and gave it back to me. So you don't know how much people care and how much they showed up. And they had the devastation in Canadian, Texas, and one of the messages that I give to anybody that's going through those. You're here for a reason. The Lord has spared you for a reason. And so all you can do is one day at a time, one step at a time, but honor, honor that life by going forward and helping others.

Miranda Reiman:
That's a great note to end on. Thank you for putting the people business first in the cattle business and for sharing all your knowledge. We covered, gosh, everything from economics and history. I think we're in back-to-school mode. We've covered all the subjects today.

Mark McCully:
Absolutely.

Miranda Reiman:
Thank you so much for your leadership in the business, which we didn't even get to cover much in this, but thank you for your leadership in the business and for always being willing to share your ideas and share positivity.

Mark Gardiner:
Well, you're very welcome.

Mark McCully:
Greatly appreciate it, Mark. Thank you.

Miranda Reiman:
That's a wrap here in Dodge City. To learn more about the Feeding Quality Forum, watch for an upcoming edition of the Angus Journal, or to find in-depth coverage from several of the sessions here, visit our sister publication, The Angus Beef Bulletin @angusbeefbulletin.com. Until next time, this has been The Angus Conversation, an Angus Journal podcast.