Esselburns MAKE THE SWITCH FROM FEEDERS TO FREEZER BEEF DURING THE PANDEMIC

Story by Amy Beth Graves

Tom Esselburn was getting ready to load up his feeder cattle to sell at the local auction when he got the call. “Don’t bring your cattle here. I’ve got three steers here and don’t know what to do with them. The buyers aren’t coming.”

It was March 2020 and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that would change how the Esselburns and so many others ran their businesses. The Esselburns, who also sold some freezer beef to friends and family, called their local processor who said that normally he wasn’t busy at that time of the year but was already mostly booked up. It was at that moment that the family realized they were going to have to make changes – and quickly.

“It was like the TP shortage where everyone was hoarding. They were doing the same thing with their food because store freezers were empty. COVID pushed us into expanding our freezer beef business,” said Tom’s wife, Kelly.

The Esselburns, who live in Shreve in Wayne County, scrambled to find buyers for their 50 head of cattle. Fortunately they were able to sell them all to private buyers. But the experience made them start thinking critically about their cattle operation and how customers now appeared to be more focused on locally grown beef than in the past. That was enough for them to change their business model to a primarily freezer beef business, Big Prairie Beef, which they sell online as well as at Local Roots Market & Cafe in Wooster.

“Raising quality beef is our life’s work, and it’s a team effort from start to finish. We’re constantly changing. When we were younger, we did things on the farm the way Grandpa and Dad did but now our decision making changes all the time,” Tom said.

Esselburn Grain & Cattle Farm was established in 1986, a few years later than Tom originally wanted to start. In 1979 244 acres came up for sale near his family’s dairy farm. He wanted to buy it but his father told him $2,000 an acre was too much to pay for it.

“Dad thought the price for ground was out of sight back then and of course I didn’t agree. After 1979, everything went south and I ended up buying it for $640 an acre. The interest was still high – 12-14% – but the price for the land was much lower,” Tom said.

Tom and Kelly, who also grew up on a dairy farm in Smithville, moved into an 1860 farmhouse and started converting the dairy to a beef operation. It wasn’t long before they discovered that working with beef cattle was very different than dairy.

“We grew up with dairy and discovered that beef steers were nothing like the temperament of dairy,” Kelly said. “We rented a head chute and figured we’d shoo them in there and they’d be all good and happy. It took much of the day to work the cattle and about killed us. The next time we had a tub and alley and I could hardly see if anything was in the pen but it protected us.” The couple worked with United Producers to help grow their beef operation, and date nights consisted of looking over cattle with the latest technology available at the time – video cassettes.

“Cattle operations in southern states would videotape their cattle and send a video cassette and we’d rip it open and make popcorn and watch it. It was our date night and we’d pick out which lots to bid on and tell United who we wanted,” Tom said. “It seemed like they’d always show up at 3 a.m. and because there weren’t cell phones, we’d meet them at a truck stop and they’d follow us here.”

The couple focused on black cross cattle and once when they were too expensive, they tried feeding holstein steers. “We were lucky to have a barn still standing because they needed to eat everything,” Kelly laughed.

In 2003, the family bought an additional farm not suitable for planting crops and began running a cow herd. They started shifting from buying semiloads of feeders at online auctions to raising their own cattle. With Tom working full time in agricultural sales and Kelly helping raise their five children, it made more sense for the couple to pay for custom operators on the crop side of the business. That became abundantly obvious one season when they were trying to harvest wheat.

“Tom was running the combine and trying to get the wheat off before the rain came and broke a belt. It was a

Saturday and nobody was open to get a belt. We were covered with straw and both dirty and heard a noise and it was the neighbors with their custom combine. I said ‘Go get that man’ and we ran him down. We knew that if we didn’t get the wheat off that day we were going to lose it because it rained the next day for four or five days,” Kelly said.

While having full-time workers on the farm is often a challenge, it’s not too hard to schedule custom operators and a bonus is they have the expertise to manage the area’s hilly terrain, Tom said.

“I could have 14 people working here for a week and get everything done before rain moves in and I don’t have anybody on a W2 and trying to find work for them when things are slow,” he said.

The Esselmans do artificial insemination on most of their cows, resulting in about 70 calves each year. They recently bought a Simmental-Angus bull from Maplecrest Farms, noting that the Hillsboro farm has an excellent reputation for the genetics of their bulls.

Facilities improvements and sustainability have long been a focus for the family. They tore down an old bank barn that wasn’t suited for raising calves and put in a new barn for both cows and calves, a manure storage facility and a feed alley. The new barn has a better ventilation system, resulting in a drop in respiratory issues for their animals.

Row crops and hay are a big part of the operation and for years the family has used cover crops like cereal rye and utilized no till (except where the cattle have compacted the land) to help the environment. They’ve also put in green waterways to help slow down runoff.

All members of the family are involved in the operation, whether it’s running equipment and doing chores or helping sell beef. The couple’s son, Justin, is an agronomist who lives nearby and helps out the most on the farm. He also keeps his parents up-to-date about the latest technology including using gps to plant oats to avoid overlapping. Justin and his wife, Emily, have enjoyed raising their children on the farm.

“We have two boys and a third one on the way. It’s a good way to raise the kids because working on a farm instills good values for them. I really like seeing the generational farming occurring,” he said.

Tom agreed, saying nothing thrills him more than seeing his grandchildren come barreling toward him whenever they see him out on the tractor.

“They just can’t wait to see Papa and the cows, and it’s exciting to see the next generation out there,” he said.