Working Ranch Magazine - Index

Working Ranch Magazine - magazine - Index

Ladd Drummond. Ladd and his wife, Ree,
have four kids including, Alex, Paige, Bryce
and Todd.
fall to have feeders to market in the fall.
They wean fall calves the first of August
and put them back on grass or wheat
until they reach about a seven and a
half- to eight-weight feeder calf.
“Typically with all our spring calves,
we start weaning them in October.
Then, they go on down to our wheat
operation as the wheat tells us it’s
ready,” Tim says with respect to
Mother Nature. “That’s probably the
worst thing about farming
— you never can
guarantee yourself what
kind of crop you are
going to have. But for
the most part, it’s usually
pretty good in that
part of the country.”
The southern operation
doesn’t deal with a
lot of winter weather, he
adds. They get about 30 inches of rain
per year and the ground is a little more
sandy, so the cattle don’t bog down as
much while grazing the wheat.
While some of the native calves are
retained and go through the wheat
and summer grazing seasons, many of
the 12,000 stockers that Tim and Ladd
partner on are bought. The use of
video auctions has changed the way
the Drummonds purchase their cattle.
“You can’t afford not to buy the
video cattle or cattle that have had
52 |WORKING RANCH | JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2008
There are family members everywhere on the outfit. Thatcher Drummond, Tim & Ladd’s cousin
(tending the irons) helps out during some of the works. That’s Tim in the background with the
denim shirt. Tim and his wife, Missy, have two children, Caleb and Halle. “The thing I probably
look forward to the most is when my children are full grown and hopefully graduated college
and they are able to come back,” Tim says. “There’s a lot of steps between now and then that
will be just as much fun, but it is exciting to think that hopefully they’ll have the opportunity to
come back and there will be room for them to do something if they want to.”
some health history on them. It goes
right back to your labor force. Back
when we were buying all those southeastern
cattle, your cowboys were
working non stop, every day, all day
long just doctoring the cattle,” Tim
says of his younger years riding herd.
“With larger cattle numbers, the
southeastern sale barn cattle are
tough. We were trying to keep up with
this, that and the other. It’s just too
“Dad always told me if you learn
to work, the rest of it comes
easy. The main thing is you just
got to know how to work.”
Tim Drummond, Drummond Land & Cattle Company
hard on everybody and everything.”
Tim and Ladd still purchase some
calves privately, but those deals are a
little tougher and harder to find to fit
the needs of the ranch. “You can sit
down in front of the video and buy
whatever, whenever, and it comes
whenever you want,” Tim adds.
They own cattle through all phases,
including some in the feedlot. But
many of their calves are sold to major
feeders in western Oklahoma, Kansas,
Colorado and Texas.
“The feeding industry has gone
through so much consolidation,” Tim
points out. “Ten years ago, maybe 15
years ago, everybody and their dog fed
cattle. And today it’s down to a handful
of people — primarily major players.
The way we market cattle anymore
has changed dramatically.
“We try to sell direct. I guess that’s
one of the ways it’s changed. Now you
have the video marketing. Years ago,
you call up this guy or that
guy and they’d shop your
cattle around to Heaven
knows who,” he continues.
“Anymore, you’re down to
just a small handful of people
that are interested in any
sizeable numbers.”
Calves come to the Osage
country for summer grazing
depending on how the winter
shapes up at the southern operation.
“We’ll come back to grass with a
couple thousand steers usually in the
spring,” Tim says. “And if we have a
really good year, we might come back
to grass with a little less than that if
we are able to finish them up down in
southern Oklahoma.”
At the Osage County ranch, grass
starts coming around the first of April,
with the frost returning about the
15th or 20th of October. Traditionally,
the grass they run stockers on is burnt