The faces behind TMD Black Herefords are Troy and Melissa Denelsbeck. We are a young couple in southwestern Minnesota running a calf to finish feedlot with Holsteins and our beef calves and raising corn, soybeans, and alfalfa on 800 acres along with Troy's family.
Our journey into this breed began in early 2012. We had bought 50 cows over the winter and needed bulls. We'd previously used Angus and Hereford bulls on our small cow herd and had always thought the black baldy cows and calves were the ideal. With a herd that now consisted of a vast mixture of black, baldy, Hereford, Simmental, and Charolais cows, we really wanted black baldy bulls, but where do you find them?
Our searching online led us to discover the Black Hereford. That March, our first three registered Black Hereford bulls came home from J R Kroening Herefords in northern Minnesota. We were blown away by the temperament of these bulls! We were amazed again in January 2013 when we preg-checked our cows and found a 100% conception rate! That was the day we decided to breed registered cattle.
We started doing some research and drove to Missouri for the Smithson Farms sale in February. We had a budget of $15,000 and hoped to get six heifers, but, having no experience with registered cattle, we had no idea what to expect. We definitely felt God's hand in our plans that day when we ended up with three of the four heifers we'd really liked plus three others for a total of six... and we paid exactly $15,000. We also brought home another bull that day to bring our total to four.
Our short-term plan is to keep the heifers to expand our herd and offer the bulls for sale. Long-term, we'll see what God has in store.
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