Terry Gompert and Ron Ladner on Bonsma and Frame Scoring
Professor Jan Bonsma was born in 1909 and was a researcher from South Africa studying cattle. He developed a breed of cattle from a number of different breeds he called Bonsmara. One of the many things he is known for is cattle evaluation based on visual inspection and measurement.
In this training, Terry Gompert and Ron Ladner teach you about Bonsma and Frame Score, both essential to be a good cattleman. After this training you will be able to visually inspect your cattle to understand which cattle will do best on grass. Let's face it, no matter how you finish your animals, every cattleman will benefit from your cattle doing better on grass.
Terry Gompert was a veteran UNL Extension Educator located in Knox County, Nebraska. His focused program area included grazing education. He became a certified educator for Holistic Management International and there is a scholarship endowment in his name with them for education today. You can apply for the scholarship or contribute to the program to pay it forward for a new group of ranchers to learn from Holistic Management International.
Terry was a cow/calf operater near Center, Nebraska on rented and owned land. Some yearlings were retained and some grassfed beef were produced. Terry considered himself a low-cost producer who grazed nearly year round, not forsaking the opportunity to use crops to graze.
Terry believed locally-grown foods, family farms, sustainable agriculture, Holistic Management® decision making and grass-based agriculture are the most valuable aspects of Nebraska’s future if not all of agriculture.
Terry had the opportunity to speak at many conferences in the Midwest. He particularly liked speaking at farmer/rancher groups. One of his passions was grassfed beef because he felt it is a viable low input model that can save the family farm. Terry was also one of the founders of the Grassfed Exchange with me and Terry was my and many other peoples friend.
Ron Ladner grew up in a ranching family so he is very knowledgeable about both conventional production as well as grass based production. Ron is a full-time rancher today though during the time of this training he was working with Tallgrass Beef as well as ranching.
Ron being a very knowledgeable guy doesn't put words in Jan Bonsma's mouth but uses a lot of direct quotes in this training.
Towards the end of the training you will get to see a live bull and have Terry walk you through How to actually frame score an animal. Terry also talks about using Bonsma linear measurement to determine the ability of the animal to do well on grass regardless of the frame score which is somewhat counter to what most others are teaching and talking about today with smaller framed animals. I am a believer in using smaller framed animals because the likelihood if it being able to do well on grass is higher. That being said, if you understand how to apply linear measurement, frame score is not as important. Even with that, a smaller rumen will usually be easier to fill and will always require less feed. My suggestion, use linear measurement that you will learn in this training and apply it to medium to smaller framed animals and you will be able to produce more beef.