Meet the poindexter Family
Owners of Poindexter Farms
About the Business
We are a cow/calf operation. Our daughters, Hailey and Hannah, have started their own herds and will be the 5th generation to run cattle in the Poindexter family name, but our farming heritage runs deeper than that. We own about 100 head with two calving programs - one in the spring and one in the fall. We do some fall calf backgrounding as well. We select sires for A.I. (artificial insemination) based on genetic data and determine who we think will produce the best quality cattle. The beef that everyone eats starts with the decisions we make.
Why Show Me Beef?
There's a trickle-down effect. It's positively impacting producers at the cow/calf level because we're getting data back from the plant (Missouri Prime Beef Packers), which will help better inform our decisions regarding genetic selections and producing better beef. We need the plant as much as it needs us. It's going to make us that much better, and the better we get, the better beef we can supply for Missourians across the state.
then vs. now
When it comes to new technologies and innovations, we are excited about the electronic ear tags that are being developed. The ear tags contain microchips and allow for individual animal tracking and traceability. We built an app that enables us to input all information about the animal from the day it's born to after being processed at the plant. We know everything from when their moms were A.I.ed, when they were vaccinated or treated, and even their weight when they leave the farm. When the animal goes to a feedyard, they walk underneath an antenna that wirelessly reads the tag in seconds. That data is recorded for the feedyard and producer to see and then analyzed to see how the animal is performing.
Before, when you sold animals at the sale barn, that data would get lost. You may have a general sense of how your cattle would perform, but not on an individual level. The data and tracking are next level now, and we can make better, more informed decisions from sire selection to diet management. It's something we've never been able to do before.
