This story was featured on our KVNF Farm Friday on our KVNF Regional Newscast for Friday, February 14, 2025
Lisa Young: We're here at the Western Colorado Soil Health Food and Farm Forum. Introduce yourself.
Robert Pulliam: I'm Robert Pulliam with Pharo Cattle Company.
Young: Robert, ell us a little bit about yourself and then tell us a little bit about Pharo Cattle Company.
Pulliam: My wife and I live about ten miles south of Montrose near Colona and we raise registered Angus. We're Cooperative Producers for Pharo Cattle Company and we specialize in high altitude bulls for their annual sale.
Young: Pharo Cattle Company, where are they located?
Pulliam: They're located in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado. They have a sale spring and fall in Burlington, which is north of Cheyenne Wells. Then they also have sales in Nebraska, Montana, Texas, Missouri, and Alabama.
Young: Okay, so let me see if I've got this right. You're here near Colona and you raise Angus bulls and that's what you're specializing in. Tell me about that operation and who your product goes to. Tell me a little bit about that.
Pulliam: Okay. We rotational graze cows there. Basically we converted a hay farm to pasture. We use rotational grazing and we're trying to build the soil on this hay farm. As Cooperative Producers, we send all of our bull calves to Kit Pharo and he develops them and prepares them for the sale. When he started, he did not have a high altitude producer and he had a lot of calls for people wanting pap tested bulls so that's how we got into this. We like to represent them at shows like this just to let people know what we're doing and and what's available. Pharo Cattle Company sells about a thousand bulls a year and we're, happy to be a part of that. It's been good for us.
Young: I'm curious about, you mentioned the term high altitude as compared to low altitude bull, I guess. You're going to have to educate me on this a little. Why is that so important ?
Pulliam: Well in our part of the world, one of the dangers is briskets disease. It's basically heart failure. And one of the ways to avoid that is to do a pulmonary artery pressure test on the animals that you're using for breeding. And theoretically the calves from that breeding stock should be fit for high altitude. It also means something that, that we're raising cattle at high altitude and we aren't having any trouble with briskets disease. Kit Pharo, for thirty-five years has been breeding for moderation in frame size. That's one of the issues with the heart failure, it's one of the leading causes of death in, in feedlots in Nebraska is briskets disease and they're not at high altitude. One of the issues is we have taken an animal with 1200 pound carcass organs and we've grown him to 1600 pounds and now his internal organs can't take care of that size of an animal. He gets in the dust and the heat of the feedlot and dies.
Young: So these bulls then go, can go anywhere, as far as the sale goes. You're breeding on your place, so you have the bulls. So what happens?
Pulliam: At weaning we separate the calves, the bulls go to Pharo, we keep the heifers and breed all of them. The ones that catch first, the ones that calve earliest are the ones that show that they are the most fertile, they're early maturing, and that's the ones we want to put back in the herd. Then the others, the later ones and the open ones can be marketed in a different way. Marketed someone who calves later or the open ones can go for grass-fed beef.
One of the interesting things about Pharo Cattle Company is Kit has selected for thirty-five years for calving ease. And he sells about 60% of the bulls that he sells are guaranteed for calving ease on heifers. That means a lot to people who are calving heifers and then he also has selected for fleshing ability. He's looking for a cow that can go out on, on grass and graze all winter and still maintain flesh, enabling her to have a calf and be in good enough flesh to rebreed on time. And that's one of the things we try to practice.
Young: How many years have you been a part of the cattle business?
Pulliam: My wife and I started out there in Missouri. We took about twelve years off from full-time ministry in South and North Dakota. We ended up in Montrose back in the cattle business about twenty years ago.
Young: Yeah, it's a great place to be here in Montrose in Western Colorado. Being here at the Soil Health and Food and Farm Forum, you have a nice booth, a very nice presentation here. When folks come to the booth, what are some of the questions that they have for you?
Pulliam: They wanna know what's different about Pharo Cattle Company. And it's basically a, a moderate size frame, um, fleshing ease animal that's, that's gonna be able to maintain good body condition on lower quality feed without all the expensive inputs that go with it. When we have enough pasture then I'm able to lease enough Land for grazing We can graze all winter and the cows don't suffer for it.
Young: Yeah, that's, that's important. Is there anything else that you would want listeners to know about the business right now and the cattle industry overall? Where d0 you feel things will be going. I mean, uh, you know, everybody right now is kind of looking at the future and wondering about different industries. I know the cattle industry at times, you know, has suffered a lot and you guys are very resilient. We thank you for what you do, but what do you see in the future?
Pulliam: Obviously, cattle prices are at an all-time high right now, and so things are good. The question is, if it takes an all-time high market for me to be profitable What's going to happen when the market goes the other way? And we know it will. It always does. Is there something I can do to be more efficient in my life? Operation and we believe it starts with genetics. If, I have genetics that are easy fleshing and that reduces my labor requirements, my machinery requirements, I can be more profitable.
Pulliam: I've experienced that. I've, I've done both. We managed a ranch with 1600 pound cows. For, uh, about eighteen years and, um, it was a struggle to be profitable year in and year out. You know, when the market's good, we were, we were right there with everybody else, but. The rest of the time, we put up a lot of hay, we fed a lot of hay, and um, with pharaoh genetics, we, we don't have to do that anymore. We don't stay up all night with, you know, nurse mating heifers and pulling calves. We just let them, let them have their calves and, and become cows.
Young: Have you had folks talk to you about that? I mean, were there, you know, maybe they just need educated in what you're doing. I think that's probably why you're here is to try to provide some education about. Why genetics matters and, you know, if you're struggling and spending more time because of not having the better genetics, you're able to do a little education and share folks, uh, share that with folks.
Pulliam: Yeah, the big paradigm change is thinking of more pounds per acre rather than more pounds per animal. If I'm shooting for more pounds per animal, my cows get about five pounds bigger every year because I'm selecting bulls with high growth, uh, more carcass data and um, What we're doing at Pharo Cattle Company is staying moderate in the frame size. We're looking for fertility, early maturity, and those things that actually result in dollars and cents for the producer rather than for the packing company or the feedlot.
Young: I like hearing that a lot. How do folks get a hold of you if they're interested?
Pulliam: pharaohcattle.com has all the information you would want if you're looking for, um. AI service, if you're looking for, uh, next spring's bull sale, any of those things that can all be found at PharoCattle.com .
Young: Yeah, and just to mention too, they don't just do Angus, right? There's other breeds, so.
Pulliam: Yeah, there's producers that produce red Angus. Hereford and then down south they're introducing some some other breeds to produce heat tolerant composites. So those, those are all available. We're just around letting folks know what's going on.
Young: So I, appreciate you stopping by today. Thank you so much.
Pulliam: Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity.