| About Gurr Lake Angus | ||
 Grandpa Gilje and "the help" having a great time. |
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| Gurr Lake Angus is a family farm, owned by Robert, Marlene, Steven, Joellen, Jimmy and Sonja Gilje. Gurr Lake Angus is located northwest of Rolette, ND. Bob and Marlene recently moved into Rolette and Jo and Steve have taken over most of the general operations. Steve and Jo represent the fourth generation of Giljes to farm these acres.
Bob raised a few registered Angus in the 1960s, and maintained a commercial Angus herd for many years afterwards. Having gone through many years of experimenting with sires of all the major continental breeds (Charolais, Simmental, Limousin and Gelbvieh) we again purchased a couple of Angus bulls and found that the modern Angus bulls were giving us dramatic improvements in calving success while still producing calves that could compete with their continental-bred comtemporaries at weaning and beyond. We know that others are learning what we did and that the demand for Angus cattle will improve dramatically in this area. After doing quite a bit of research into the Angus business, we found that our neighbors, the Tastads at McCumber Angus Ranch were among the top sources for Angus females in the country. We purchased 26 bred cows from them in November 1999 and the new enterprise was launched. We will strive to produce Angus cattle that succeed in the economically important areas of growth and meat quality while yielding oustanding females that will be productive, sound and easy keeping. We stress the importance of a functional mother cow above most other traits. There are plenty of programs chasing extremes in performance from the standpoint of high Weaning and Yearling EPDs. We are not caught up in the big numbers game. The same thing holds true for the current carcass stampede. Many of the cattle that are very popular and being promoted heavily seem to give up some very basic traits such as fertility and depth of rib. Our cattle perform and tend to scan very well for carcass data, but we see that as a benefit of selecting for easy fleshing, moderate framed cattle that grow and thrive on reasonable amounts of feed, not our only goal. Our cattle are treated just like the commercial cattle in this area. A live calf, on time, is the first step to profitable beef production. A good cow needs to be able to fend for herself and consistently produce for many years. We stress fertility, soundness, udder quality, and fleshing ability in our cows as the traits that distinguish them from lots of other cattle available. After all, the Cow is the most important member of the beef industry. |
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