IBERIA, Mo. — Down in south central Missouri, the Circle A Ranch sprawls for thousands of acres where the cattle graze on the rolling hills of the Ozarks. Headquartered near Iberia, part of the ranch includes about 10,000 acres, and then Circle A has a second location to the north at Huntsville, which has about 8,000 acres. The Huntsville location also includes a large feedlot.
Sarah Lennon is the operations manager for Circle A. Her grandparents, Dave and Ruth Gust, started the ranch, and it continues as a family operation.
Lennon says data helps drive the decisions to manage such a large ranch. She says the Iberia and Huntsville locations together have about 5,000 head of cattle, and then the feedlot finishes about 4,000 head.
“I do a lot of data analysis to see if we can be more effective with what we do,” Lennon says.
She is from the Chicago area and went to school at the University of Missouri, studying ag business and animal science, before going to work full time at the family ranch. She also worked at the ranch during her time as a student. Lennon says she enjoys working with technology and numbers, so she enjoys diving into the data. She studies things like carcass data, genetic traits and bloodline information.
“It’s definitely valuable information,” she says.
Another aspect of the ranch is being willing to change things up. After initially being a registered Angus operation, Lennon says they switched to raising Wangus cattle, a mix of Wagyu and Angus genetics, in an effort to increase quality and percentage of Prime cattle in the feedlot.
“We haven’t been afraid to make changes,” she says.
Lennon says adding in the Wagyu influence to their existing Angus herd maintained the strengths of the Angus breed while adding more marbling to carcasses. She says the Wagyu influence also helps deal with the heat and supports conception during hot months.
“One of the big areas here is heat tolerance,” she says.
Circle A is split about half and half between spring and fall calving. Lennon also appreciates how the Wangus cattle raise their calves.
“They just make really good moms,” she says.
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Lennon says the Wangus mix they use is three-fourths Angus and one-fourth Wagyu.
“That’s kind of where we find the sweet spot with carcass quality and performance,” she says.
She says a goal of the switch was wanting to increase the percentage Prime-rated cattle in their feedlot and that using Wangus cattle has allowed the operation to get to 75 to 80% Prime.
At the feedlot, Lennon says the roofed facility helps guard against the elements and moisture, the traditional barrier to finishing more cattle in Missouri.
“That helps alleviate some of the cold stress,” she says.
It has a concrete floor with sawdust covering it.
On the ranch at Iberia, the main weather challenge was the hot, dry conditions this summer.
“We’ve experienced the drought as well,” Lennon says. “We’ve had some challenges with that.”
She says the operation had less silage than usual. They put up their own silage and hay each year.
Going forward, Lennon says they’ll continue to focus on improving quality and using the information they have. She says collecting data can be very valuable.
“It’s huge,” she says. “Our database has all the cattle we’ve had for the last 25 to 30 years.”
Lennon will continue to parse sire data and selection criteria. While it is a large ranch she and her family run, she says the goal is to make the most of the resources they have rather than trying to get even bigger.
“I think we’re probably at a good size,” she says. “We’re just looking at how we can be efficient with what we have.”