Kit and Deanna Pharo were both raised on family farms and ranches in eastern Colorado, not far from their existing ranch location. After fifteen years of pursuing other endeavors, they finally had an opportunity to lease a fairly sizable chunk of grassland and get started with a ranch of their own.

      The years away from the ranch made it possible for them to view ranching from a little different perspective. Although they very much enjoy the lifestyle, they treat the ranch as a business that is expected to make a profit every year. At first they thought they could increase profits by increasing production.

        Not so. They soon learned that the easiest way to make money was to save it. Instead of increasing production, they looked for ways to reduce cost of production without reducing production. Their ranch began as a commercial cow-calf operation with profit-driven goals and philosophies.

      The biggest problem they encountered was finding a seedstock producer who could provide the genetics they needed to produce profitable cattle. They did not exist. Seeing this as an opportunity, Kit and Deanna decided they would become that type of seedstock producer.

      Optimum production is always more profitable than maximum production. Bigger is not always better! Optimum production is the point at which net profits are maximized. Profit is what we really want to maximize.

      Fit their environment. To achieve optimum production ranchers must produce cows that fit their environment, instead of artificially changing the environment to fit their cows. Since most ranchers have cows that are too big and inefficient, they are forced to change their environment by feeding harvested and purchased feed to keep their cows in production. This quickly takes most of the profit out of ranching. We want a cow that can survive strictly on what the ranch produces with little, or no, inputs. A cow ought to be supporting the ranch, instead of being supported by the ranch!

    In order to produce momma cows that fit our environment, we require our cows to run on short native grass year-round with very little feed supplement.

     We let the environment sort out the "good ones”, while we show absolutely no sympathy for open, late, or dry cows. They must produce and wean a calf every year or they are culled. There are no second chances!

      Desirable end product. We not only want a cow that fits her environment; we also expect her to produce a desirable and profitable end product. Her calves must be able to feed efficiently, as well as meet the requirements established by the current beef industry. The industry wants a steer that can produce a 700 to 800 pound Choice carcass with a Yield Grade less than 3.

       Contrary to popular opinion, we believe it is possible to produce ideal replacement heifers and ideal feeding steers with the same bull. To prove this point we enrolled our steer calves in a feed and carcass test for three years in a row. We are extremely pleased with the results. The averages are posted below.