All cattle, all the time

from Country Acres - April 2

by Star Publications

Tapping into the “Wildwood

Friday, April 2, 2021

Country ountry

Volume 8, Edition 21

Acres

Focusing on Today’s Rural Environment

all the timeAll cattle, PHOTO BY DIANE LEUKAM Ben Kokett discusses genetic traits of cattle in an auction catalog while Andrea Moss looks on, March 17 at their home near Little Falls. The couple raises Gelbvieh, Angus, Red Angus and Balancer cattle on the Kokett farm.

Koketts raise Gelbviehs, Balancers

BY DIANE LEUKAM STAFF WRITER

LITTLE FALLS – At Kokett Farm, it’s all about cattle.

“Just yesterday, I laid down and a text came in from a guy looking at a PVF Marvel Angus and I told Andrea, ‘that’s all our life is, is cows, nothing else,’” Ben Kokett said March 17 at the farm near Little Falls.

That’s just fi ne with them.

Ben and Andrea Moss have been together just seven years, but their lives have involved cattle for decades.

Andrea’s path has carried her across nations; she was born in France and lived in many places as part of a military family. As an adult, she worked cattle on a large ranch near Carson City, Nevada, at

PHOTO SUBMITTED Daisy Mae, a purebred Red Balancer heifer, stands at attention during a cattle show in 2018 at the Morrison County Fair. the base of the Sierra Nevada the open range. mountains. While there, she “Every now and then, we was responsible for a variety make comparisons and our catof tasks for a herd consisting tle are living at the Taj Mahal of Angus, Shorthorn, Longhorn compared to what those poor and Brahman. critters did,” Andrea said. “I

In general, she feels the love to work with our herd and cattle on the Kokett farm have these cattle are amazing; as far a better life than those out on as cattle go they are friendly, which I can really appreciate.”

For Ben, his love of cattle goes back much further, to when he was growing up nearby.

“Dad bought me a calf when I was 8 and so it began,” he said.

Clover was a Polled Hereford, and Ben showed the calf as a member of the the Snappy Elmdalers 4-H Club.

Now, the animals on the farm are all polled (bred to be without horns), but they are different breeds. The Koketts raise 100 beef cows that are Gelbvieh, Angus, Red Angus and Balancer, which is the trademark of registered Gelbviehs crossbred with other breeds. From the farm, they have sold bulls to 10 states and to Taiwan.

Kokett started with Gelbviehs in 1975, about the time when the breed was introduced to the United States. They made a connection to a dairy farmer in Little Falls who wanted some of his dairy animals bred with Gelbviehs. They made a deal.

“They wanted the calves, and the same with embryos,” Ben said. “We would put in three embryos, we’d get one and they’d take two. We had seen quite a few breeds and the Gelbviehs were the ones we liked, and we still like.”

According to Ben, the best trait of the Gelbviehs is their fertility. He has had plenty of time to develop his opinions, having worked in AI (artifi cial insemination) as a cattle breeder for 44 years.

Most of his clients are dairy farmers within a 30-mile radius. Most of his work is with Holstein cattle for dairy, but when an animal fails to breed back after calving, another breed is selected for better fertility.

“We’ll breed them three or four times, then throw an Angus or Montbéliarde in,” he said.

When he is not on the road working for dairy farmers, he is at home working with the beef herd. Genetics play a huge part

in his enjoyment of the cattle.

“I like a good, deep pedigree, a stacked pedigree,” he said.

He has traveled throughout the country attending cattle shows and sales, all while studying traits and deciding which animals he would like to incorporate into the herd.

Recently, the couple purchased a young purebred bull from a sale at Eagle Pass Ranch in Highmore, South Dakota.

“I studied the entire book and came down to two bulls,” Ben said.

Hacker is a Prowler (the sire) out of a Lifeline (the dam). Prowler was reserve grand champion in Denver and Lifeline was champion in Denver. They also bought an embryo calf of Estelle, the mother of Lifeline.

Hacker also carries a red gene.

“We wanted something that was a red carrier – he was black but has red gene in him yet,” Ben said. “Originally, Gelbviehs were red and black was rare; now they are 75% black but trending back red, so with a new bull we had to make sure he’s got red.”

Also important are traits involving calving ease and birth weight, but to Ben, “breedability” is king, whether raising cattle for breeding, feeders or rodeos.

“A friend always said, ‘you’ve got a beef cow for two reasons and two reasons only: She’s gotta have a calf and she’s gotta feed it,’” he said. “You can buy a cow for $30,000 and you don’t get any calves out of her, what good did she do you? Then, she does have a calf and she has no milk, he’s a little runt and you have nothing. She’s got to have that calf, feed it, rebreed and have another calf, that’s it!”

The couple could talk cattle all day, but when asked about their children, the conversation shifted to how they met online, and to an unfortunate common bond the two share. Both have lost a child.

Ben had two sons, Nathan and Alex.

“Alex passed away in July 2010, at 19,” Ben said. “You never want it to happen to anyone else. It’s the worst thing that can happen to a human being; what else could be worse?”

Andrea lost a newborn son, who lived for six hours. She has two girls, Rachel and Caity, and a son, Jacob.

She knows other people have the same struggles.

“You just gotta look over the edge of that box and you can see other people that have things going on,” she said. “It is what it is. I hate that saying but there’s a lot of truth in it. You can’t change what is.”

Ben fi gures in the end, if he looked to other people’s problems, he would probably still choose his own.

“One old guy told me things aren’t always what they appear from the end of the driveway,” he said. “You always bet they got it good…maybe not. We’re happy.”

Speaking of happy, 17-year-old neighbor Kalli Czech drove into the yard, fi nished with school for the day. She came into the house and helped herself to some orange juice from the refrigerator as the three bantered back and forth.

“Kalli is our righthand girl, she’s my sidekick,” Ben said. “She’s so good with the cattle, you never tell her twice and she just knows. She is the star of the show around here; we couldn’t do it without her.”

Kalli lives a mile away and has been coming to the farm since she