About Ole Farms

Ole Farms' History
Ole's Breeding Philosophy

In 1911, Alfred Olson homesteaded on the yard across from today's Ole Farms central location. His farm consisted of one quarter and he used oxen to work the land. In the early years he grew very good grain crops, but by the 1930's he found his yields dropped off, and he began rotating with sweet clover, thus gaining a dramatic increase in production. His most profitable years were spent raising sweet clover for seed in the 40's. Seed was used as a plow-down crop in the U.S., prior to the use of commercial fertilizers. Alfred expanded his business into dairy, selling cream to support his wife and 4 sons. In 1952, the farm was sold to his son Carl, and his wife, Mary, which by then included 3 quarters. Carl further expanded the farm to 8 quarters by 1974. His mixed farming operation included some beef cattle, grain farming and hogs. He and Mary sold 4 of their quarters of land to Kelly and his wife, Anna in 1975.

In 1979, Kelly and Anna built a 1200 head feedlot, to compliment their hog and grain farm. In the 1980's the main focus of the farm was feedlot, pasturing and custom feeding. In 1992, Ole Farms Ltd. was incorporated, and in 1996, they purchased 100 cows and diversified the farm to include a cow/calf operation. In 1998, Ole Farms launched a program to include registered Angus Cattle, with the bulk of the purchase taking place in 2004, when 300 head of purebred cows and heifers were purchased from Crowfoot Cattle Co.

As of the fall, 2006, Ole Farms still has the feedlot along with 1000 Commercial cows, and 440 Registered Black and Red Angus cows. Ole Farms now produces cereal, forage and pasture crops. Ole Farms Ltd. is currently operated by Kelly and Anna and their two sons, Graham and Travis, and several full and part-time employees. At our Annual Family Day Sale, you will likely encounter other family members - sister, Cheryl, Graham's wife, Leslie, and Kelly and Anna's parents! Numerous other family and friends combine to make the event a success.

Ole Farms Ltd - "Sharing in the Excitement of Agriculture"

At Ole Farms our motto is "Sharing in the excitement of agriculture". We print this on our business cards and in our Family Day sales catalogue because we believe it! You must believe in your product, and be excited about creating it. We believe that the family farm/ranch provides a great lifestyle, is a wonderful place to raise a family and that our lives are enhanced because we are able to do what we love, and be profitable at the same time.

With profitability as our goal, we believe that in the current economic climate, the aim should be to develop cattle that can be sustained on low cost maintenance rations ie: grazing. We need to have cattle that can graze most of the year, even during our -30 conditions, with 2 feet of snow on the ground. If you try to do this with a cow geared for "maximum" production, you will have less longevity and significantly less fertility. The goal should be "optimum" production - a cow that fits the ENVIRONMENT. We expect cows to winter in harsh conditions, and to do that we need a cow with moderate frame and sufficient back fat to be easy keeping on swath grazing. Our cows work for us. They graze 300 days of the year. That helps create profit. In 2005 we swath grazed all of our cows until April, and some cows until May 10. At the same time they need to last many years, get bred back every year and raise a calf. They must be trouble free - no trimming of feet, no helping to nurse, and no calving assists! To us this is a 4-5 frame cow that's 50 - 52 inches tall and about 1200 - 1300 lbs … To the reader, that may sound heavy but a 5 frame cow that weighs 1000 lbs will not make it in our climate. Frail and tight-hearted cattle with no base will not have the longevity to live in our harsh climate. Cows need to have tremendous capacity … that's the factory that converts the forage that they graze all winter into energy, stored as fat - a better insulator than hair could hope to be.

In the cow/calf operation there are many factors that contribute to profitability, whether it be fertility, cost of wintering your cow herd, longevity, hardiness, vigor of calves, or stress free calving. Fertility and winter feeding costs are the two single most important factors in profit/loss. There are two types of cattle. Cattle that are maintained through grazing, and cattle that require industrial machines to have the food placed in front of them. The latter, we believe will continue to be unprofitable as long as the cost of these machines remains high. The natural climate in our area has long been considered to be one which requires several months of feeding. We believe that you can re-write that paradigm. The key to profitability lies in spending less than you generate in revenue. Sounds simple, but many producers forget that. We handle our purebred cows the same as our commercials. A purebred cow that needs to be pampered will produce cattle that are not suitable to the profit-oriented commercial cattleman. Our cattle are developed on high roughage diets. We are selling mainly 2-year-old bulls because we can calve them in May and therefore, eliminate most of the climatic challenges. Our bulls can be grown modestly on a high roughage program without being burned out on grain as many yearling bulls in the industry are. This we believe will substantially lengthen the productive life of our bulls and females, thereby make us money.

In the cow/calf operation when profitability is the target, optimum production must be the goal….not maximum production. These things are often very different! Maximum production may lead to a program that doesn't suit your environment, which in turn may lead to more open cows or the need for expensive machinery to cater to them. It is the balance between production and maintaining a fertile, easy keeping cowherd that fits your environment that makes you profit. Cows that work for your operation - not you working for them!