All-in cattle feeding

Despite a difficult winter and early spring for Great Plains cattle feeding, the Timmerman marketings still hit 38% Certified Angus Beef ^® (CAB ^®) brand and Prime for a three-month average into this summer. In recent years with more cooperation from Mother Nature, their branded quality numbers have been significantly higher across the board.

Jason and Jeff have been extensively using artificial insemination on the 700-head cow herd they own together, which shows them the impact of genetics on the final results. Three years of feedyard data on the progeny reveals more than half of them grade Certified Angus Beef ^® (CAB^®) brand and Prime.

Those cattle make more.

“When we get a pen of high-grading cattle that have a lot of CABs, it directly affects us,” Jason says, “because it’s money in our pocket.”

Those cattle also signify a mark of achievement.

“I like the self-satisfaction of knowing I did the best I could do,” he says.

Extra effort

That’s a shared Timmerman trait often expressed as extra hours at the yard and office, doing whatever it takes to keep cattle performing and comfortable.

“Hard work will give you a lot of luck,” Norm says.

When the family beats Norm to work, the father knows he passed on that important value.

“I love mornings before everyone shows up, before the sun comes up,” Jason says. He goes through pen by pen. “Which cattle are these? How are they doing?”

It’s his time. Before the calls come and he’s making fast-but-calculated decisions on risk management and cattle marketing. He’s directing employees and checking in with his siblings.

“If you do all the little things consistently, the cattle will do as projected,” Jason says. “We want to do as projected because people are hedging in their margins based on that.”

Pen maintenance, feed delivery and cattle health monitoring—they all add up.

“There is no room for error. It’s a sole responsibility,” Ryan says. “The job we do at the feedlot impacts our customers. There’s a lot of money involved…it’s their livelihood.”

When he went out to manage the new Sterling yard, Ryan didn’t want to take a day off for several months. “That’s when I felt the weight of the responsibility. We had expectations and a good customer base…”

It’s not like a Timmerman to let people down.

Late into a Friday night, Norm might go by Kristin and Jeff’s neighboring offices in McCook and see lights still on in the back, a lone car parked out front. That’s when he knows they’ve got it, too.

“These are the things that are important to the Timmerman family: their faith, being a good family member, working hard at what you’re doing,” Kristin says.

She and Jeff bring a fresh perspective to the finances, giving purchasing advice and making insurance decisions.

“My dad and I knew the outside very well, but needed someone in the back that could complement us–luckily we had family that could do that,” Jason says.

There’s no CFO he’d trust more.

Leo’s legacy

They had a good example of seeing partnership in action. Timmerman Feeding of Springfield, Neb., started by Leo Timmerman, was into the hands of the next generation, brothers Gerald, James, Ronnie and Norm, when they expanded to Indianola, some 250 miles west.

“This was a farm and we built it from scratch,” Norm says. “We came here in March 1973 and in October 1973, we had cattle in here already.”

There was no mill, no chute, no scale house.

“The office started in our trailer house, where we lived. The office was our kitchen table,” Norm says, giving credit to his wife, Sharon. She kept the books there by day and made it a home by night.

“I say my mother was the glue for my father, and Sharon’s the glue for me,” he says. “I think she just listens better than I do sometimes.”

Then there was the support of the brothers in their own locations, managing finances, business development and risk.

“I’ve only had two jobs in my life, the Marine Corps and Timmerman feedlots,” Norm says. After school and the service he joined the brothers who worked together for the next 50 years. “We felt like this is where they needed us, and this is where we wanted to be.”

By this decade, with the third generation involved, there were dads and uncles working with sons and nephews. Roles were getting harder to define and rather than set limits on who traded out of what account or trying to come up with a consensus on big decisions, it was a natural time to let each Timmerman branch individually exercise their entrepreneurial spirit.

They gave their children the opportunity Leo Timmerman gave them.

“He was really a person that showed a lot of confidence in us boys, and he was the one who gave us the chance and it’s where it all started,” Norm says.

“The boys” learned as they went. Norm fed cattle off a team of horses, and drove semis loaded with hay through Omaha at just 16.

Handing over responsibilities to Jason felt like the natural chain of events.

“It evolved to where I was doing more, more and more,” Jason says, noting the risk management shifted to him through the years. “Then it’s how do you keep it organized? Trial and error. Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes.”

Years like 2014 remind them it’s fun to make money. Years like 2015 keep them humble.

“I don’t think it will ever be easy. You’re in an environment dealing with people, dealing with Mother Nature. You’ve got the element of risk,” Jason says. “It will never be easy, it’s just about how you manage your way through it.”

History says they’ll do it. Being a Timmerman means they’ll do it well.

Originally published in the Angus Journal