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QUAIL VALLEY FARMS

Embraces Innovation

By Olivia Willrett, Freelance Writer

F rom operating a large-scale deer operation with a small herd of Santa Gertrudis cattle on the side to running a herd of more than 700 cows, Quail Valley Farms has made quite a few changes in their operation over the past four years. Owner Ricky Cleveland has worked hard integrating reproductive tech- nologies through his embryo program to push the boundaries of the Santa Gertrudis breed. Cleveland made his start in the cattle industry on his family’s cow-calf operation. “We ran 75 to 100 head of commer- cial cows when I was a kid, so I grew up around cattle,” he says. “My dad was one of those who liked to keep his kids busy, so we always had plenty of chores to do.” The cattle operation of his childhood evolved into a deer business, rais- ing white-tail deer with an extensive embryo program. During this time, Cleveland got back into the cattle

business with a few head of Santa Gertrudis. Eventually, he sold off the deer herd and went all in with the Santa Gertrudis breed. “Four years ago, we had fewer than 10 cows,” Cleveland says. “Today, we have 700 to 800 head. We’ve gone through a lot of growing pains, and we still haven’t quite caught our breath yet.” Even with all that change, Quail Valley Farms has managed the keep one thing relatively constant – their strong embryo program. “When we were doing our deer stuff, our embryo program was a huge part of our world,” he explains. “So we took what we were doing with the deer business and went full force with it into the cattle. Now we run around 300 recipient cows and put in around 700 embryos last year.” With that much growth and change, Cleveland credits his operations man- ager, Brian Wood, and sales manager, Josh Latham, in assisting with Quail Valley Farms’ success. There’s also a

generational connection as Cleveland’s son, David, has been working at Quail Valley Farms for the past few years. “It’s a really tight group of people who work well together and are working toward a common goal of making this the best seedstock producer we can,” Cleveland says. With goals to grow to 1,000 head of purebred cattle utilizing 100 percent artificial insemination, Quail Valley Farms recognizes the benefits of repro- ductive technologies, especially with a breed that’s made a lot of changes in a short period of time. “We push the envelope all the time with our breeding style and how we do things,” Cleveland says. “We’ve been very aggressive and progressive with our breeding programs, and it’s paid off.” Cleveland claims the advantage in their strong embryo transfer program lies in their ability to stay abreast of the advancements the Santa Gertrudis breed has made. With developments in feed efficiency and carcass trait expected progeny differences (EPD), the Santa Gertrudis breed is becoming more and more appealing to commer- cial producers. “I’ve been asked, ‘Why did you pick Santa Gertrudis?’ “Santa Gertrudis as a whole has made more changes in the right direc- tion than any other breed out there,” he says. “Nothing comes close. And to get to these percentages of Choice and Prime in the beef that we have and the heat tolerance for the Southeast, there’s really nothing else that can touch Santa Gertrudis in my opinion.”

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LEFT: The Quail Valley Farms family.

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