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the breeding program at profit maker bulls

The Profit Maker cow herd descends from females acquired by Owner – Manager Dave Bittner
during the establishment of his Silver Plume Ranch Registered Angus Herd back in 1975. Each year,
for several years, he purchased 2 or 3 of the highest quality females that were obtainable through
reputable production sales and herd dispersions.

At that time, before we had EPDs and Genomic evaluations to guide us, the gauge of quality was
primarily the result of the show ring. In time, the show cattle frame scores became so large that they
were dysfunctional on pasture without large amounts of supplemental feed. During this time, the
American Angus Association started its Production Measurement and Evaluation Systems, which now
contain the largest database of performance information for Registered Angus Cattle of any database
in the world.

Dave’s professional background included production measurement and the financial evaluation
of production alternatives. Applying these concepts to his cattle breeding operation was a logical
step. Hence, while many of the current cow families descend from show ring champions, they also
descend from 40 plus years of selection based on performance measurement.
A breeding program has to be more than just breeding the cows to the current “hot bull” whether
that is based on EPDs or some other criteria. The challenge is to find and evaluate genetic alternatives
that will consistently advance the potential economic value of the progeny when used in your cow
herd.

Our collaboration with Genex during the past 10 – 12 years has enabled us to evaluate many sires
and measure their impact on our herd. S A V Final Answer 0035 is a bull that nicked particularly well
with our cows. Two sons, PMB Ultimate Answer and PMB Total Answer became the all-time record
performing bulls at PMB from some 20,000 plus having been evaluated since our inception. We have
utilized both bulls extensively in our herds for several years and have been able to share the results
with our customers.

Our challenge has been to find a bull that would take us to the next step in our breeding program.
Because we have seen the result of our selection for feed efficiency for 3 generations in our herds,
the bulls that we were seeking had to be bulls that combined growth with feed efficiency. We also
preferred bulls that were not closely related to our cows.
This led us to the Midland Bull Test, the largest test in the world with GrowSafe Feed Intake
Measuring capability. Leo McDonnell, the long-time Midland Test Owner, partnered us with Carol
Thompson of Potlatch, ID (who I have known for more than 40 years) in the acquisition of Silver
State Ten X 310, a son of A A R Ten X 7008 who has been a breed leader in registrations for several
years with nearly 20,000 progeny registered and performance measured.

His dam is a pathfinder cow with 7@107 WW Ratio. “310” had a WW Ratio of 120. His Midland Test
ADG Ratio was 126 and his YW Ratio was 118. His Test RFI was -5.63. His Midland Efficiency Rating
was 131, the highest in the 2014 test.

He has exceeded all of our expectations! With 147 Progeny evaluated in the AAA database, he has:
WW EPD +72 – Top 4% of the breed, YW EPD +134 – Top 2%, RADG EPD +0.34 – Top 2%, REA,
CW, and Fat EPDs are all in the top 1% of the breed, $F is in the top 2% and $B is in the top 1% of
the breed.

Those of you who have used Total Answer or Ultimate Answer sons can take the same step that we
are taking with the sons of Silver State Ten X 310 that are offered here. Please note that 6 of the top
10 bulls for $TSWC in the sale are sons of “Ten X 310.”

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