A Kingdom for .8 of a Calf

A hundred years ago, Texas Rancher Charles Goodnight became a living legend of the West because of the way in which he and his Winchester-armed cowhands fought off rustlers during cattle drives and hanged without trial any they captured. Today, things are changed. Take the case of New Mexico Rancher George Farr, who last week had to fight off not rustlers but the U.S. Air Force. Farr was driving 500 head of cattle from his ranch to a rail head 40 miles away; the Air Force was about to fire an Athena missile from Green River, Utah, to White Sands, N. Mex. Farr figured that the cattle and the second stage of the missile would reach the same piece of trail at the same time, doggedly persuaded the Air Force to reschedule the shoot and give the cattle right of way.

Modern cattlemen herd their cattle by helicopter, brand them with dry ice instead of red-hot irons, talk about "gatherings" instead of roundups, depend on a good accountant more than a wise old foreman and, when they fade into the sunset, do so in pickup trucks with their trusty horses comfortably trailered on behind. About the only things old pokes would still recognize about the industry, indeed, are its size and its troubles. Cattle roam no less than 40% of all the land in the U.S., account for 20% of all farm income and the principal revenues of at least eleven states; they are worth more annually than wheat, corn and cotton combined. But even with the average U.S. consumer eating a record 105.5 Ibs. of beef products a year, livestock prices have remained nearly constant for 15 years, while costs have risen 73%. "The cattle business is caught in a cost-price squeeze," says American National Cattlemen's Association Vice President C. William McMillan. "It is on shaky ground."

Two Hats, Nine Spreads. Faced by the squeeze and the modernization necessary to escape it, small ranchers are giving up. Not too long ago, a herd of 150 cattle could be grazed economically; today 400 represent the lowest economical unit. The trend is to younger, leaner cattle, raised on bigger, better spreads. The biggest operation of all, and a beacon for the industry, belongs to Robert O. Anderson, 50, who wears one big hat as chairman and chief executive of the Atlantic Richfield Co., doffs that for a cattleman's Stetson when he turns to the business he enjoys most. With nine ranches that occupy a million acres and support 13,000 cattle and feed lots that can fatten 100,000 at a time, Anderson is one of the largest landowners in the U.S. His annual gross of about $1,500,000 makes him more than a match for such legendary barons as Goodnight or King Ranch Founder Richard King.

Anderson made a fortune as an independent oil man before merging into Atlantic. He added cattle as an avocation in the 1950s. As a businessman first, he thinks of cattle in terms of "efficient converters of food," and the two-year cycles of his herds are geared to that concept. On the Circle Diamond, Anderson's main ranch near Roswell, N. Mex., and at his other ranches in Texas and Colorado, heifers are bred at two years of age, or six months earlier than usual. This spots the non-breeders and shy breeders, who eat up feed without producing offspring, also guarantees that good breeders will have .8 of a calf more in their eight-to ten-year breeding span. "That .8 calf," says Anderson, "is often the difference between a profitable producer and just an expensive cow. This is a precision business with no margin for error."

Maternity Room. Other Anderson innovations include a 45,000-acre maternity ranch at Santa Rosa, where pregnant heifers are trucked for deliveries under the skilled hands of six male midwives, and a staff of nutritionists who fatten the calves, once they are weaned, with special, generous diets. "They can eat all they want and as often as they want," says Anderson. "I hate to say it, but I suspect that our cattle eat better than many humans." Anderson's employees also include cowhands with agricultural-college degrees and three hunters whose job is to keep off marauding bears, coyotes and wildcats. The result of the carefully integrated operation is cattle that reach markets in Kansas City or Chicago at 16 months instead of 24 and, with a live weight of 1,000 Ibs. to 1,040 Ibs., will dress down :to 600 Ibs. when slaughtered. "That's the choice of the supermarkets today," explains Anderson. "Housewives are excellent judges of meat. They know what they want--beef cuts not too big for their taste and budget."

Successful as he is, Anderson is persistently concerned about the future of the cattle business. He spends as much time as he can at his ranch outside Roswell--partly because there "I don't have the pressures of big-city life." In his unorthodox way, he keeps track of Atlantic Richfield and its $1.4 billion in annual sales by telephone and frequent visits to Philadelphia headquarters in executive jet. For leisure he plays polo with neighboring ranchers, including Artist Peter Kurd, who paints a good horse but seemed to have some trouble with Lyndon Johnson. Anderson believes that the industry will more and more have to adopt his ways of breeding and feeding cattle, will also forsake its present Herefords, Angus Shorthorns and crossbreeds for a new kind of space-age cow. "The future American breed," he says, "is yet to be defined. By selective breeding, I am convinced we can get the best converter of food, and I don't care what it looks like or what color it is."

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