Page 32 - MWC 3-9-2023s

The Midwest Cattleman · March 9, 2023 · P32
Red Dirt, Black Hide: Forty Years of Commercial

Salers Success with Mike Mcaskill

Southwestern Oklahoma is sale in Amarillo. The calving
a region steeped in cattle in- ease associated with Salers is
dustry lore. “Millions of long- what initially attracted Mike
horn cattle passed through to the breed, and he had gone
here,” says Mike Mcaskill, to this sale seeking a young,
the 2022 Salers Commercial low-birth-weight-producing
Producer of the Year. Doan’s bull. “There was a bad bliz-
Crossing, a key outpost along zard that day and not a half
the Great Western Trail, dozen people showed up for
once stood across from the the sale,” said Mike, who took
Mcaskills’ property on the advantage of the thin crowd
Texas side of the Red River. and picked up an older herd
Today, it’s not longhorns bull in addition to the young
you’ll find graz- bull he had
ing the grass- desired. The
land in Mike’s “It’s a true honor to young bull was says—but there were some with varying degrees of suc-
corner of Jack- have Mike Mcaskill put on Mike’s disposition issues early on. cess when it came to disposi-
son County, but replacement Shortly after acquiring the tion. Still, he persisted.
a herd of doc- as a customer. It’s heifers and the first two Salers bulls, Mike The search for docile Sal-
ile, productive older bull ser- purchased a potload of reg- ers bulls eventually led
Salers-Angus a real pleasure to viced the ma- istered yearling heifers. Mike to Monte Rowell of

crossed cattle. ture cows. “To put it mildly, they were Ninnekah, Oklahoma. Mike
Mike and sell bulls to people Mike was woofy,” Mike said, and he says he spent two hours look-
his family have like him.” impressed by added that the poor attitude ing at the thirty-some bulls
been reaping the vigor of of those early Salers led him Monte had available before
the benefits – Monte Rowell Salers calves— to prioritize docility over any- developing something of
of a Salers-in- “they’ll be up thing else. Mike continued to an impromptu docility test.
fluenced herd and sucking purchase black, polled Salers “Monte strung cubes out in
for nearly forty years. It all in ten or fifteen minutes,” he bulls over the next few years, a trough and let the bulls
started in 1984, at a Salers