Tucker Family Farms: “God is Good”

This smokehouse in the Tuckers’ front yard was built around 1750 by the surveyors who staked out Nelson and Amherst Counties.

Bill is the seventh generation of Tuckers to forge an agricultural livelihood from the foothills of central Virginia. Looking at the well-worn peaks of the Blue Ridge from the circa 1780 home where Bill and his wife Claudia raised their three daughters provides a false sense of eternalness. While the Tuckers were the Beef Improvement Federation’s (BIF) 2001 Outstanding Commercial Producer, it took an “Act of God” to ensure Bill’s future as a cattleman.

The Tucker’s original cash crop was apples; animal agriculture was a co-product of the cider and fruit business. As early as the 1920s hogs were used to glean the fallen fruit. Jersey cattle provided milk for sale, feeding a family, and added fat and protein to pig diets. As the operation expanded, successive generations of Polled Herefords transformed the Jersey herd into the Tucker’s beef herd which utilized land not suited for orchards.

Such was the Tucker family business – right up until the night of August 19, 1969. Hurricane Camille had struck land 1,000 miles away in Alabama and Mississippi before traveling north to central Virginia; there the heavens opened dumping 27 inches of rain on mountainous Nelson and Amherst Counties in a 24-hour period. One hundred fifty-three inhabitants of these rural communities were killed (or never found) due to the resulting flood and mudslides.

Eight miles from the epicenter the Tuckers were unharmed but awoke on the morning of August 20 to find only half a dozen apple trees remained of the orchards that had sustained their family for generations. Eight-year-old Bill observed that most of the cows had made it to high ground – he wasn’t going to have to pick apples.

Grass grew where apple trees once stood and, by the age of 15, the breeding decisions of the high-percentage Hereford commercial cow herd had been turned over to Bill, who purchased performance-tested Angus bulls to use on the Hereford-based herd. As a student at Virginia Tech in the late 70s and early 80s, he became interested in a red breed.

Back then, few in Virginia had heard of Gelbvieh, and soon after learning to pronounce it, Bill incorporated red, horned Gelbvieh sires into his now primarily Black Angus herd. As anticipated, the Gelbvieh added revenue traits of increased growth and muscle, but came with maternal advantages of earlier puberty and more milk than some other continental breeds. Tucker began marketing Gelbvieh-Angus cross calves over a decade before American Gelbvieh Association coined the name, “Balancer.”

While few, if any, premiums can be recalled from the cattle markets of the early to mid 80s, Tucker used the British Continental cross to increase revenue, and not just by increasing pay weight. The F-1 females were unique to the area and proved more productive on Virginia’s endophyte-ridden fescue pastures. Content to watch his friends in the seedstock business produce bulls, Tucker began to create a foothold in that gray area which exists between seedstock producer and commercial cow-calf operator. Nearly three decades – and another red breed later –Tucker’s niche has grown into Virginia’s longest continuous supplier of commercial replacement females.

The 20:20 Rule …

Over the years, as Tucker followed up with customers, he found that while many had originally balked at the occasional red-hided heifers, those heifers seldom left the herd once they got into production. The red females earned customers respect for their ability to produce through Virginia’s humid summers that were made even hotter through the effects of “Fescue Fungus.” Tucker took his customers’ anecdotal evidence to heart and added Red Angus to his breeding program, and his 20:20 rule was born:

In the summer, red cattle grazed (20 minutes) longer before shading up in the morning, came out of the shade (20 minutes) earlier in the evening, and weaned 20 more pounds of calf the following fall.

Fall-calving females are not challenged like their spring-calving counterparts, as the fall, especially after frost hits, is when fescue is at its highest nutritional value and the endophyte is far less impactful.

Today, his “target” red replacements are three-quarter Red Angus and one-quarter Gelbvieh, Tucker feels this provides for the maintenance of adequate levels of heterosis while optimizing additive gene differences between breeds. Tucker often utilizes a unique approach to marketing red replacements in black-dominated Virginia. He “coaxes” buyers into sampling the red heifers by breeding them to Black Angus bulls then offering to buy the calves back regardless of hide color. Buyers usually become “color-blind” once they have weaned one set of calves off the red females.

Data-Driven…

Tucker’s focus on cow herd-building traits and replacement female markets could lead one to assume that his interest in post-weaning and end-product traits are afterthoughts. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Steers are weaned and “de-fescued” (grazed on endophyte-free pastures to restore a desired mineral balance) before being shipped to western Kansas feed yards. For almost 20 years Tucker has been using sire-identified feedlot performance and carcass data to benchmark herd performance and refine selection decisions to improve successive generations. Tucker invests in bulls with the potential to improve carcass and feedlot performance. His most recent closeouts show his selection efforts have paid off; 4.92 ADG, 5.2 DM Conversion, and 85% Choice.

More recently Tucker has become interested in adding value to the “fallout” – the heifers that don’t breed to make replacements or the tail end of the steers that didn’t fit on the last truck to Kansas – by providing them the best forage and marketing them as grass-finished beef. Tucker also directs calves from dams that have a history of YG 4 progeny to the grass-finishing operation.

Tucker’s interest in revenue traits that impact carcass value and feedlot profitability are not governed by his need for adaptability. He uses sires that predict high returns for these industry segments, and culls ruthlessly when resultant progeny lack adaptability traits. In his world, adaptability means all forms of low maintenance – easy fleshing and able to build body condition on forage, but also able to shed hair in the spring, and raise a calf and rebreed without supplementation. Docility is also an adaptability trait in Tucker’s operation with the limited facilities on rented farms – and Tucker culls heavily on poor dispositions.

“Baptism by Fire”

While Tucker’s home in the Blue Ridge foothills is long on aesthetics, it falls short on elevation. At Virginia’s higher elevations (cooler temperatures and more consistent precipitation), Bluegrass competes more favorably, but the Tucker’s Amherst farm is just high enough to be teased with the high quality and very palatable forage. Their staple, like most of central Virginia is native endophyte-fungus-ridden fescue.

The occasional lost tail one sees in Tucker’s herd is not a result of frostbite, but rather the effects of the endophyte fungus’ resultant vasoconstriction. The fungus’ impact on hair coat shedding, pregnancy rates and cow production is less obvious, but more costly.

Over the last 30 years, the Tuckers have gleaned much experience about use of legumes, rotational grazing systems, endophyte-free fescue and today, utilize all of the above in different facets of their program, especially stored feed, backgrounding weaned steers or his emerging grass-finished beef trade. These practices are not just used in the development of replacement females – they get fescue. Tucker’s philosophy on the replacements he keeps or sells is the same. “Our reputation is built by offering females that work for our customers. Our customers live on fescue. Our females must breed, calve and rebreed on endophyte-fungus fescue.”

The replacement business was the source of another philosophy put into practice. That being to structure appropriate environmental challenges, so that “fallout” can be identified sooner, and the “keepers” will be more uniform and provide fewer surprises in terms of their productive lifespan. Tucker has named this program “Bounce Back” and it is an integral part of his heifer development. Replacements are nutritionally challenged, then 30 days prior to breeding put on better forage to improve their plane of nutrition. These heifers are then synchronized, bred A.I. and given a short exposure to natural service sires that are of similar genetics to the A.I. sires. Every heifer exposed contributes one way or another – either making it as a replacement female or participating in the grass-finished-beef program.”

 “Let the Land Come to “You”

When asked about stocking rates, Bill’s quick reply is that he wants to be on the “right” side of 2 acres per cow in most years and on most of his ground. But, he’s quick to add that the entire operation includes raising a disproportionate number of replacement heifers since that’s a major cash crop, and backgrounding weaned steers prior to sending them to the feed yard. Add to that land to produce stored feed, and the past American Forage and Grassland Association President must average 5 acres for every calf that will be marketed.

As the reputation of Tucker’s replacements grew, so did the cow herd needed to supply the growing demand. Tucker had to develop growth strategies that would expand beyond the family farm. Neighboring farms were rented; some serving as contract growers providing labor and management in addition to grass.

Today the operation consists of 14 different farms in two counties – some nearly an hour away. Tucker applies a realistic and holistic approach to the management of his operation. While his expertise lies in combining genetics, grasses and grazing management, he understands that profitable production of an operation as spread out as his is not that simple. He has to also balance landowner desire for aesthetics, capital investment of fencing and facilities, available labor, the price of fuel and daylight hours.

Tucker’s philosophy on the amount of capitalization a cow-calf operation can afford and where one should prioritize that investment is foretold in his long time quote, “Don’t ever pay more than $2,500 for a truck or less than $5,000 for a bull.” Bill strives to keep overhead at a minimum and place investment where it offers the greatest return and the most positive impact on customer’s needs – so genetics and forage always win out over fixed facilities and machinery. While facilities are functional and efficient, most visitors would attest that Tucker’s cattle – as well as his trucks – live up to the reputation.