Baumgarten Cattle Company: Herefords in the Family
Belfield North Dakota rancher Rollie Baumgarten is a fourth generation registered Hereford breeder with an extensive family history in the state and with the breed. The Baumgarten family runs about three hundred fifty mother cows and breeds 100 replacement heifers every year. Their annual bull sale is held the first Friday in February every year, falling on February 7, 2025.
Currently involved in the operation are Rollie and his wife, Wendy with their children Isaiah and Benjamin, along with son Jake and his wife Savanna with their children Theodore, Colt and Lainey.
The Baumgarten family started farming in eastern North Dakota near Casselton in 1885. Another area farmer, Ben Hans, purchased his first registered Herefords in 1914. When his daughter Gertrude married Richard Baumgarten in 1921, Ben gave the couple a dowry gift of ten bred Hereford heifers. The family has owned and raised registered Herefords for 111 years.
It’s a long tradition of working on and with the land to produce a harvest, tending to cattle that are both hardy and attractive. Rollie got his start as a ten year old when his father Hilbert gave him his first heifer calf to show in 4-H. Hilbert was a 4-H leader, so Rollie was active showing cattle in 4-H throughout his growing up years.
“That means I’ve had cows for over fifty years,” he laughed. “I guess that makes me old!”
Rollie’s first wife, Tama Fisher, also grew up with registered Herefords, helping her dad, Ted Fisher, on his ranch at the opposite end of North Dakota. When Ted passed away in 1986, the family took the opportunity to move themselves and their herd west to the rolling hills on the edge of the Badlands. Descendants of the Fisher cattle also remain in the Baumgarten herd. In spite of the all too frequent droughts and the harsher environment of western North Dakota, the cattle thrive.
“The main reason we love Herefords is that they are naturally hardy,” Jake said.
Rollie and Tama’s two children, Jake and April, grew up helping on the ranch and showing cattle in 4-H and Junior Nationals. Sadly, Tama passed away in 2015, but the family has grown to include Wendy and her two grandsons, Benjamin and Isaiah.
“The farm back east was pretty different,” Rollie recalled. “A lot more mud and slop.”
Selling registered Hereford bulls and showing cattle are both long-standing family traditions.
“My dad and grandfather held their first bull sale in 1949—in a tent,” Rollie said.
The tent blew over during the sale, making the event doubly memorable. After two years of selling bulls in a tent, Hilbert and Richard had sold enough bulls to build a sale barn and another barn. For many years, Hilbert and his brother Donny ran things together and took care of the cattle with Richard, but eventually they parted ways.
“Dad and I split things off on our own in 1974,” Rollie said. “We just had a little bit different ideas about how to do things. Dad still had a few cows at home until he was close to 90. He always had a couple of cows around to take care of.”
While the family originally bred only horned Herefords, they currently raise some of both.
“Some of our customers want only horned cattle, some want only polled,” Rollie said. “To some it doesn’t matter a bit. My son, Jake, wanted to get into some polled bloodlines and it’s been very helpful because we have customers who want both. To me it doesn’t matter so long as they are good quality cattle.”
The family has made a regular habit of showing their cattle, making trips to the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado, almost every year since 1994. The work has paid off, with several prestigious awards on the shelf, including Grand Champion Carload of bulls in 2020, and Grand Champion Pen of Three heifers in 2009 and reserve champion in 2015.
“We do show, and we feel we’ve done well, but that’s not our main focus,” Rollie said. “We don’t really raise show cattle. We strive to raise good cattle to sell to commercial producers who run in big pastures like we do. The carload award was great but I think it means more to me to see other people do well with our cattle. Some heifers we’ve sold have gone on to do very well showing, including the 2016 Western States Hereford Show grand champion heifer in Reno and the Champion Hereford Heifer at the 2014 HLSR. In 2019, BCC Dominator 619D, a bull we raised, sired the Supreme Champion Bull at the National Western Stock Show. I think that means more to me than the awards we have won.”
The Stock Show kicks off the year for Baumgartens in January, and they get home just in time to start calving heifers. Or not.
“Sometimes we get our first calf the day after we get home,” Jake said. “Sometimes it’s the day before. We start calving the heifers the last week in January, and then have our annual bull sale the first Friday in February. Our mature cows start calving the 15th of February. In between feeding cows and pushing snow we try to haul some grain if we get the chance.”
With the operation including both grain farming and cattle there’s never a slow moment on the ranch. By the end of March, Rollie and Jake are getting ready to get in the field and mending fences on the pastures. They seed approximately 3500 acres of wheat, corn, canola and sunflowers every year. Replacement heifers are AI’d April 20. Cows are AI’d in two groups, May 7 and June 1. They are also breeding a group of cows for fall calving now. They started using Embryo transfer technology several years ago and they are excited to forge ahead with that technology as they see improved quality in their replacements, more consistency in the bulls they sell.
“We’ve been flushing 5-7 donors every year and putting in 60-70 embryos,” Jake said. “I really hope we can increase how we utilize Embryo transfer. We’ve seen our replacement heifers get two times better in the last two or three years. It helps us produce more high quality bulls and raise bulls with more consistency for our customers. It’s given a lot more depth to our cow herd.”
“I like to keep some extra females around,” Rollie said. “I like to let them and the calves they raise tell me which are the good cows after their first year or two in production.”
After the June 1 group of cows is AI’d it’s out to pasture with the cattle and time to start thinking about haying. When drought conditions persist, bulls are pulled early to shorten up the breeding season.
“We AI once, then turn bulls out for about three cycles,” Jake said. “We’ve pulled them early the last few years and this year we don’t have as many opens as in the past. I think it’s really helped our fertility. A little management makes a big difference.”
The fall cows start calving around August 20. It’s been a lower stress management option than the January and February calves for Rollie and Jake.
“We really like calving without having to worry about the weather,” Rollie said. “We are usually still haying and in the middle of harvest, but for the most part it’s gone smoothly. We check once a day, weigh and tag calves, and that’s about it.”
Bull calves are weaned right after Labor Day weekend; heifer calves around October 15. In between harvesting wheat, doing fall projects, and harvesting corn and sunflowers, they run a fall heifer sale on the internet.
“This year it will be on October 13,” Jake said. “We pick out some show prospects, some cow prospects; this fall we’re offering ten heifer calves and five bred heifers. They might go for show heifers or cow prospects or both.”
By December, it’s time to get ready for the bull sale and the stock show, and another year has rolled around. Bulls will be DNA tested this fall and enhanced EPD’s run based on the DNA testing.
“Probably seventy-five percent of our bulls stay within a hundred mile radius,” Jake said. “It’s nice that they are close enough that we can go and see how they are doing for our customers. The majority of the bulls are used on commercial cattle, black cows or solid reds for producing F-1 baldies, only five percent or so are used on Hereford cows. Ten years ago it was a lot harder to sell a Hereford bull but there is a lot more interest now. We sell a lot of good bulls to folks who are not just customers, they are friends.”
While the bulls get most of the press, it’s the cows that are at the heart of everything Baumgartens do.
“Our biggest focus in on our females,” Rollie said. “The cowherd is the strength behind what we do. Both Jake and I look for longevity, for easy keeping, good uddered productive cows. These big pastures with their rolling hills, maybe only one water source in a mile, and with limited grass keep a cow herd hardy and functional.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article was published in the September 2021 issue of Hereford America.
