Winter Cattle Journal 2025 | Sinclair Cattle Company: Carrying on the N Bar Genetic Legacy

“Emulation genetics seem to bring an optimum level of intelligence, fertility and production to the table, along with a unique ability for adaptation.” – Logan Baker
The Sinclair Cattle Company of Buffalo, Wyoming, is well known for problem-free, functional, fertile, moderate framed Angus cattle. It all started in the 1980s at the N Bar, where Frank and Tom Elliot concentrated the bloodlines of Emulation 31. A son, N Bar Emulation EXT, was a “curve bender” in the Angus breed, pushing maternal and carcass performance to new levels.
Sinclair Cattle Company, under owner J. Duncan Smith, acquired a significant portion of the N Bar cow herd 25 years ago. EXT genetics continue to run strong in Sinclair cattle. Nearly 40 years after he was born, EXT’s traits continue to influence industry standards.
Logan Baker
Logan Baker has worked full time for Sinclair Cattle Company since 2010, overseeing western operations including day to day cow herd management, and offering input on bull development and sales, breeding decisions and selecting embryo transfer candidates.
“I’m the cow guy,” Baker said. “My wife Jolene and I are in charge of all the registrations and record keeping on all cattle, here in Wyoming and back east.”
Although management and circumstances have changed since the 80s on the N Bar, good cows are still the heart of the program.
“The cows have remained the main focus,” he said.
Baker keeps the cows grazing as much as possible, and tries to feed as little hay as possible.
“We try to use common sense,” he said. “We want to push the cattle but not be detrimental to them, and always keep in mind the health of the land.”
Cows start calving the first part of March, and calve outside as much as possible within the limits of the weather.
“We do use some infrastructure at times depending on the weather, but mothering ability, doability and calf survivability are important to us,” Baker said. “After calving, we employ traditional methods in a rope and drag branding. My five kids like to help as much as they can.”
Cows are synchronized and AI’d, with clean up bulls turned out after breeding. Calves are weaned the end of September; bulls go to Phil Veltkamp in Manhattan, Montana. Yearling bulls are sold at Buffalo Livestock the third weekend in March.
“Phil is a master at developing bulls to let them express their genetic potential and still hold up and breed when they get turned out. They make good bulls for our customers. Bulls we decide aren’t good enough are fed out at Chappell Feedlot in Nebraska. We only sell the top end of the bulls. We’re always culling on them.”
Sinclair Cattle Company retains ownership on these steers and the carcass data coming back from them is positive.
The ranch is located on the face of the Bighorns, but cattle don’t run at very high elevations, so bulls are not PAP tested. Bull customers who run at elevation keep coming back every year.
“They really stick to a certain pedigree and have had really good luck with them,” Baker said. “They have been using the same genetics long enough to identify what works.”
Replacement heifer calves are hauled to Warfordsburg, Pennsylvania at weaning, where Steve Blankely II manages their development and first seasons in the cow herd.
“I send heifers, and I get young cows back in return. They have the facilities to develop the replacements. It hasn’t been 100 percent smooth sailing, but so far we’ve done well. It has been a useful process of being able to see which genetics handle adapting better,” Baker said.
Fred Saunders joined the Sinclair team in 2021, bringing past experience on the N Bar to the table. Saunders is involved in planning matings for the cows. Regardless of who chooses the sire, the goal of every breeding decision is to create problem free cattle.
“We’re trying to make the best cattle we can, all while we keep an eye on mothering ability, fertility, longevity, feet and udders,” Baker said. “We keep an eye on growth too; it may not be the most important part of the decision but it is part of the equation.”
Every fall, a select few cows are chosen to join the embryo transfer program.
“We take the oldest, most proven cows we have here, generally 14 years old and up, and send them back east with the heifer calves in the fall,” Baker said.
The time-tested Emulation 31 genetics prized by the N Bar and furthered by the Sinclair program continue to perform well on the ranch and for Sinclair Cattle Company’s bull customers.
“Emulation genetics seem to bring an optimum level of intelligence, fertility and production to the table, along with a unique ability for adaptation,” Baker said. “A lot of that is being in the sweet spot for size and productivity; I think that allows them to adapt better to different environments. They are cows that don’t have to be babysat all the time. My kids don’t know what a maternity pen or a calf puller is.”
Baker is glad that his children can be involved on the ranch year-round.
“I think it’s pretty cool that some of them have known multiple generations of these cows,” he said. “I feel blessed to be able to raise my kids here, put them on a good horse, go out and work with some good cattle.”
Jolene Baker works as a part time nurse but is vital help on the ranch, as well.
“She does a lot of ranch and computer work; when I need help sorting or gathering, she seems to always find a way to be there,” Baker said.
Pursuit of excellence drives each member of the Sinclair team.
“I like to learn from the cows and see how we can make them better,” Baker said. “I like nature to do what nature wants to do; I think God made them where they can handle it. I also keep in mind that nature doesn’t have to pay any bills. We use technology and other aspects of the industry to continue to try to make them better and more profitable.”
Steve Blankely II
While some programs may chase the latest “fad,” Steve Blankely II believes the Sinclair program, founded on the good old N Bar genetics, is about building things that last. He started working for Sinclair Cattle Company at their Warfordsburg, Pennsylvania location in 2007.
Blankely has been doing ET work for Sinclair since he started. Since 2021, development of replacement heifers has shifted to Pennsylvania as well.
“We’ll calve 140 heifers this year,” he said.
Heifer calves in Wyoming are weaned and loaded on a truck for Pennsylvania.
“We develop them slow and try to give them an equal playing field,” Blankely said. “We breed at 15 months, and give 60 days with the bulls. If they don’t breed, they don’t last.”
The south-central part of Pennsylvania is a very different climate from north central Wyoming. Making the most of the strengths of both climates, the Sinclair managers also believe that moving cattle from one ecosystem to the other helps to weed out less versatile individuals and increase the capacity for adaptability in their program.
Keeping the young females in Pennsylvania seems to be working well.
“We have better facilities here, and although our weather can get pretty harsh, it’s usually not as harsh as long as the weather in Wyoming.”
It was a huge change for the program, but lower death loss on the first calf heifers’ calves and lower heifer development costs offset the hauling expenses.
“You can’t expect different results if you don’t try something new,” Blankely said. “We tried, and the results have been better.”
They start calving around February 10, and calve for about 60 days. Heifers are calved at a central location where they can be penned in the barn if needed; cows are calved on grass. Recip cows in the embryo transfer program calve right in the middle of it all.
“It’s hell for about three or four weeks but then it’s done and over with,” Blankely said.
There are no excuses during calving season.
“If she’s nasty, has a bad udder or doesn’t want her calf she’s going to be a problem again. If one cow is going to mess me up for half a day, I have other things to take care of when I’m calving out 400 head.”
All of the heifers and cows are synchronized and AI’d, so Blankely is busy when the calves start coming.
“Last year we AI’d every cow on the place in 10 days. We try and sync up the heifers with a 30-day CIDR protocol, and we do a seven and seven protocol on the cows and recip cows. We seem to have the best results that way.”
Blankely has 20-40 embryo transfer calves born each spring,
“We try to put them in fresh,” he said. “If the recip cows cycle correctly, we get around 65 percent conception rate on fresh eggs, and around 50 percent conception rate with IVF.”
Embryo transfer dams are all older cows that have spent a productive lifetime raising calves in Wyoming.
“We like to keep things to the old time, proven stuff,” he said. “We bred a 2005 cow this morning and we’re going to try and flush embryos out of her again.”
The oldest cow Blankely flushed was 22.
“She still raised a calf at that point,” he said.
Producing cattle with good udders, good feet and strong carcass traits never goes out of style, no matter what might be popular at the moment.
The best of the bull calves born in Pennsylvania are shipped to Manhattan, Montana to be developed along with the Wyoming born bull calves.
“Anything I cut gets put right in the feedlot here,” Blankely said.
They’re getting the data back on these steers and he said results are “phenomenal.”
“We’re keeping up with the industry in marbling. Ribeye measurements are a tick small but we’re getting better every year,” he said.
Fred Saunders
Fred Saunders has plenty of experience with the genetics behind Sinclair Cattle Company’s cow herd. He grew up on a commercial outfit near Bondurant, Wyoming. After a rough winter, the cows were sold and his family ran yearlings.
“I grew up in country where you learned to utilize grass,” he said. “If you can keep the ‘green monster’ [tractor] turned off in the fall you can keep money in your pocket.”
Saunders brought his grass management knowledge to the N Bar, where he worked as Tom Elliot’s cow foreman for 11 years.
N Bar Emulation EXT was born in 1986, and Saunders went to work for the N Bar in 1987.
“EXT was a yearling bull when we went there,” he said.
“I absolutely loved my job when I was at the N Bar. We came from Hardin, off the ‘seeded strip.’ My wife and I thought we’d drove into heaven when we went over and interviewed at the N bar. When we drove on the place we fell in love with the place. I was very blessed and lucky to work with a man like Tom Elliot. He was an extremely smart man. After being around his dad I could see where Tom got it.”
Saunders learned about genetics and breeding cattle from Tom and Frank Elliot.
“I owe a lot to Tom Elliot,” Saunders said. “Tom introduced me to the purebred side of it. I really got into the genetics; genetics really intrigued me, it really tricked my trigger. Tom was a great mentor and a very good cow man. He knew what a good cow was supposed to look like, and his dad was just as good if not better.”
During Saunders time on the N Bar, they ran their own bull test, tracking average daily gains and performance. They AI’d everything on the ranch, and Saunders might breed three or four times per day to catch cows at the best timing for conception.
“We pretty much built it up from within,” Saunders said. “When I went to work there, they had about 260 registered cows and 400 commercial cows. When I left, there were a little over 1000 registered cows plus about 200 commercial cows.”
The N Bar cows were extremely good mothers.
“The cows calved out on the prairie, in the snowbanks, or in the willows. That set of cows could go anywhere in the world and work. I was pretty blessed by the mothering ability in that cow herd. I had never before seen anything like it. That Emulation line always knew exactly where their calf was. I had worked on some big ranches all my life and been around cows that didn’t know where their calf was. You get spoiled around a set of cows like that.”
At the N Bar, Saunders measured hip height of cows and bulls and pelvic measured and reproductive scored the heifers.
“When I would arm those heifers and score their reproductive tracts, it was consistent that the EXT daughters came to the top. Where I really noticed EXT’s ability was those heifers or cows could raise 60-70 percent of their body weight in a calf, and two weeks after the calf was weaned you wouldn’t know it was the same cow. Turn them out on grass and they were fat. EXT’s daughters were pretty much phenomenal cows. Sometimes they had a little attitude to them, but shoot, when you calve outside you need them to have a little attitude.”
While Saunders worked at the N Bar, they did cull on disposition, and over the years “the attitude part got better.”
Frank Elliott, Tom’s father, told Saunders: “The more you stack Emulation 31 the better he gets.”
“He was right,” Saunders said. “That was the unique thing about the N Bar cow herd; when you linebreed, and then you take a bull that has a pretty tight gene pool and throw that bull on the commercial man’s cowherd where the gene pool is huge, it’s almost like crossbreeding. EXT was double bred Emulation 31; Explosion was triple bred Emulation 31. It was pretty fun to go look at a set of commercial calves by those bulls and see how much one cross tightened the gene pool up.”
Two years after Saunders left the N Bar, most of the cow herd was sold to Sinclair Cattle Company.
“When Sinclair purchased the N Bar cow herd, I felt like they got a diamond,” Saunders said. “Tom did too. We had worked pretty hard at it.”
Coming Back
Three years ago, Saunders was asked to help manage the Sinclair breeding program.
“I told them no two or three times before they finally convinced me to give it a try,” he said. “It’s been fun and I’m glad I did it.”
Tom Elliott and Fred Saunders started planned mating the cattle the second year Saunders was on the N Bar. Toward the end of his time there, Saunders planned the matings himself. Now, planning matings for Sinclair cows is easier with computer technology to keep records at his fingertips.
“This is such a unique set of bloodlines,” Saunders said. “My goal is to keep this Emulation line going and raise functional cattle that work in today’s world. That’s the challenge.”
Saunders’ other full-time job is working with Northern Video, so he sees a lot of cattle every year. He still believes the Emulation 31 influenced Sinclair cattle are special. Saunders’ has a unique perspective on the Sinclair herd, since he came back to the breeding program after several decades away from the N Bar genetics.
What Frank Elliott saw in Emulation 31 genetics decades ago, Saunders can still see running strong in the Sinclair cow herd. He sees the value of linebreeding within the herd, but is not afraid to use other bulls if needed.
However, “an outside bull has got to have some Emulation blood in him,” he said.
Carrying on the Sinclair breeding program is a job Saunders sees as a responsibility and duty to the genetic base built on the N Bar. While producing bulls to sell is a big part of a seedstock operation, that’s not what drives Saunders. The ideals Tom Elliot drilled into him all those years ago on the N Bar are still driving Saunders’ breeding decisions, whether an AI breeding or a flush of a donor cow.
“My ultimate goal when I’m breeding a cows is to create another female out of that cow that can do what she’s doing or do it better,” he said. “I breed for females. I felt that way when I was at the N Bar, and that’s still in the forefront of my mind. How am I going to breed this cow to create a female as good or better than she is?”
Saunders believes the Emulation cattle are very adaptive to any environment.
“They are able to survive in numerous places. They know how to go out and make a living; that is one of the top priorities to a cow. Can she go out and live on short grass with not a lot of water, raise an efficient calf, breed back and maintain in a year? That is one of the unique things about the Emulation bloodline; they could flourish about wherever you want to put them without a lot of input costs.”
Cows need the ability to go out and work in the hills, breed back, produce a calf at 50-60% of body weight efficiency and last 12-13 years, Saunders believes.
“She’s got to be able to work for the rancher,” he said. “I don’t care what her numbers are as long as she can produce me an above average calf.”
Saunders said that for ranchers with tight margins, pushing the cows for better maternal performance will help the bottom line.
“You can take that group of cows and turn the heat up,” he said. “Can you get her breed back in 28 days? Or 35 days? We’ll AI the heifers and the bulls get them for 21 days and they’re out. I’m a little more lenient on the two-year-olds, they get 35 days with the bulls. You can just keep turning the heat up on them to make better cattle.”
Sinclair Cattle Company is a team effort.
“It takes everybody,” Saunders said. “Logan does a great job, and so does Steve. Duncan, the owner, is fantastic. This N Bar cow herd means a lot to him. Logan and his wife Jolene do all the records, and do a fantastic job managing the cow herd. They are a fantastic family. Logan is really good out in the country with the cattle and does a great job. Logan knows the cows better than I do, and is extremely sharp on the Emulation cattle.”
“I take the responsibility of trying to enhance the Emulation bloodlines very, very seriously,” he said. “All we are is stewards, and right now it’s our turn to do it. I knew how good the cattle were years and years ago, but the uniqueness of the Emulation cattle is more prominent to me and means a lot more to me now than it did when I was at the N Bar.”