Harding County, South Dakota is home to Travis and Rebecca Smith and Smith Saddle Butte Angus ranch. The area has been home to the Smith’s for generations with both sides of Travis’ family homesteading in the early 1900’s. The original homesteads are still in the family, the ranch that Travis and Becky call home was purchased by his maternal grandfather in 1987, the land is now owned by his parents and with both families operating their own cattle herds. Rebecca is from the Sandhills of Nebraska near Hyannis and the two met at Eastern Wyoming College. They have been married since 2007 and have three kids, Sons Shea is 12, Dane is 10 and 6 year old daughter Aspen. In addition to meeting his future wife, Travis also learned a number of other skills that have served him well in the registered cattle business including AI. After school they applied those management techniques to the the angus cattle they already had. The Smith’s had been running angus cows and Charolais bulls for years but Travis wanted to start raising angus bulls. “We were doing all the AI work so why not buy some registered angus cows. In 2005 we bought some and grew our herd from there,” Travis said. They knew of many other Smiths in the cattle business and wanted to stand out from the rest. A large Butte in the middle of ranch is called Saddle Butte so that is where the name came from. They are now running a couple hundred cows with all but about fifty being registered angus. “We are working out the commercial bunch the best we can and are in the process of buying some land from an uncle.” After selling bulls private treaty for three or four years and at the request of some customers they held their first bull auction in 2014. Their annual sale is now held at Bowman Auction Market the third Saturday of every year. Initially the sale was held in Buffalo, South Dakota as a silent auction in the old Stockgrowers building. But after several years of dealing with subzero temperatures in the old unheated building with no running water, Rebecca got tired of dealing with it especially cooking the meal. “We would bring in big space heaters and turn them off right before the sale and every one would put on their coveralls. I felt guilty and mean to our buyers and Rebecca’s dad who had been our auctioneer couldn’t do it anymore so we made the move three years ago to a Bowman.” Rebecca still does all the cooking for the meal and the sale like the ranch work is a family affair. “We have been raising registered cows since 2005 with an emphasis on carcass traits like marbling and ribeye size. So we have been breeding to those types of bulls for many generations of cows now. We have like eight different traits we look for in bulls, things that will boost our EPD’s and bring down any EPD’s that have gotten out of hand. We are very selective of our animals and if our bull calves aren’t averaging over 600 pounds at 205 days we cut them. We like to have the bulls be at 1200 lbs for a yearling weight. We sorted off fifty bulls this year.” The ranch is rough country with no running water and the drainages going towards the Grand River and the Little Missouri. The hard ground is covered with bluffs and old buffalo jumps, when the land was purchased the pastures were huge and relied solely on dams. Over the years the family has cross fences the pastures into 600 acres instead of the 1500 acres they were originally and have buried over 20 miles of water pipelines. “The last feel years we have been so dry, the dams are empty and dry. Our saving grace was being able to turn on tanks and that saved the herd.” Travis said. The Smith’s also have implemented no-till farming practices and raise around 400 acres of small grains, oats, barley, wheat and rye mostly for haying purposes. Additionally they have 1800 acres of hay ground and are thankful to rarely have to purchase hay. “We normally put up around 1500 to 1600 bales but with the drought and grasshoppers in 2021 we put up 35 bales.” Smith’s Saddle Butte Ranch strive to raise cows that average around 1,300 pounds and that can wean off 50-60 percent of her body weight every year. “ we want easy keeper that we don’t have to push a lot of groceries into. They get a liquid feed supplement in the winter and spring. We started that in 2008 and it took a little bit for the old cows to adjust to that instead of cake.” The bulls are fed a Hubbard pellet and free choice of processed hay since they live a long way from corn country and easy access to distillers corn. “We try to use local resources the best we can.” They AI the herd to start the 6 th of March but with the angus genetics they are often almost 80-90 percent done with the first cycle by the due date. The commercial cows are bred to start the first of April. They ship their steers the 20 th of October and usually the calves average over 600 pounds. “We treat our registered cows just like commercial herds, they don’t get any extra TLC, they just go down the chute more often. The cattle are summered on Travis’ uncle’s land which they are buying, so they are trucked the 30 miles and Cidr’s are put in as they unload. They are synchronized and AI’ed with generally a 60-70 percent conception rate. The commercial cows are AI’ed to one of their own home raised bulls. Travis and Rebecca dedicate a lot of time to researching bulls for their AI program. “We typically don’t use the most popular bulls, we try and pick our traits. We do a lot of selecting and try to not use something we already have in the herd. We both go through the books and we don’t use what is hot, we use unproven bulls a lot of the time and before they are popular. So might never be popular but they have treated us very well.” With their emphasis on new bloodlines it has worked very well for their customers and their customers base has really grown since the move to Bowman. The family is very selective with their culling of any genetic defects and for a good disposition. “They aren’t pets but we do hand feed them and the kids move them on foot. So we don’t need anything with an attitude. All our bulls are parentage tested and everything is verified. Most of our bulls also hit the CAB markers from the angus association.” Travis and Rebecca are happy to be raising the fifth generation in Harding County and are passing the value of hard work and self-reliance onto their kids as they follow their dream. “Giving producers quality bulls without the BS and adding growth to their herds for greater yielding calves and higher dollar value.”