POMEROY, Ohio — Tom Karr of Karr Farms was chosen the Ohio Cattlemen’s Assoc. (OCA) Seedstock Producer of the Year. The award, which Farm World helps sponsor, was presented at OCA’s annual awards banquet Saturday.

Karr Farms markets its Red Angus cattle throughout Ohio, to a large radius of surrounding states and into Canada. “I think that speaks to the predictability of the cattle they raise,” said Elizabeth Harsh, OCA executive director. “They do such a good job with their performance programs in terms of having a good idea of what those cattle are going to do for the next owner. That is unique; not everybody has that kind of predictability in their cattle, and Karr Farms does a great job there.”

In the late 1980s Karr was transitioning from the polled Herefords his dad, Horace, raised, into Red Angus. He was crossbreeding them with polled Herefords and other breeds, and had a feedlot at the time.

“At that time I was finishing all of my cattle,” Karr said. “I bought this Red Angus bull, so I had a good cross-section of breeds in the feedlot. The Red Angus just stood out as finishing early, being very efficient.”

He soon divested of the other breeds and went to purebred Red Angus. In 1995, they were rare, he explained. “It is still not uncommon, if you tell someone you have registered Red Angus, they’ll say, ‘I didn’t know there was a Red Angus – how did you get them red?’” Karr said.

“The Red Angus people (Red Angus Assoc. of America) have kept their breed much more pure.”

Red Angus have a double recessive gene, so producers can’t introduce another breed without losing the red color. Karr was intrigued by that.

“They were the first breed that introduced the total herd reporting,” he explained. “We don’t report expected progeny differences (EPDs) or statistics on our best cattle; we report them on everything. Red Angus has been doing that since 1997 or 1998. A lot of the breeders back then fought it because it is a lot of paperwork.”

Producers have to report every calf, every cow, every year, or drop the registration of that particular animal, Karr said. Breeders now see the fruits of that, since EPDs have become so popular.

He no longer has the feedlot; he was more interested in the genetic side of raising cattle, producing good females and bulls.

He has 150 brood cows, with 50 calving in the spring and 100 in the fall. The cattle are all kept outside and they calve outside.

Being a purebred breeder, Karr keeps his bull calves until they are a year old. He evaluates them as they develop. At birth, producers are required to give the breed association a birthrate and then a weaning and a yearling weight.

“The EPDs are a guideline, but you always have to remember that they’re just numbers,” he said. “You have to look at what you’ve got on the ground and make sure that is what you want. The EPDs are predictable, so if you get the good numbers and match that to the good phenotype you should have a winner.”

Added Harsh: “Ohio has an abundance of seedstock producers. Each year the selection committee tries to make sure that we are looking at all breeds of cattle and the most progressive producers for that award.

“While Red Angus numbers are not as large compared to other breeds, those Red Angus cattle that are in Ohio are very good and Karr Farms is certainly one of the very best – not only in Ohio, but across the country.”