82-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 27, 1991 Beef Club Tours Lancaster County Farms Members of the Red Rose 4-H Beef Club admire the AcresdurlngatourofthreeLancasterCountyfarmsonJuly purebred Polled Hereford and Angus cattle at Salunga 17. LOU ANN GOOD Lancaster Farming Staff LANCASTER (Lancaster Co.) Some of the top farmers in the county credit their success to 4-H roots. It’s no surprise that they are eager to find time in their busy schedules to meet with today’s 4-H’ers. “They are our future breeders to maintain agriculture,” said CJ. Furlong, manager for Salunga Acres. “We want to get more young people interested in raising beef.” With that purpose in mind, about 20 persons affiliated with the Red Rose 4-H Beef Club began a day-long tour of county farms on July 17. In addition to Salunga Farms, the group toured Masonic Homes, which has pastures with Shorthorn, Simmental, and com mercial beef, and the egg process ing complex of Esbenshade Farms, Mount Joy. Salunga Acres Purebred Polled Herefords and Angus grazed on the gently, roll ing hills at the Spooky Nook farm, one of four that Salunga Acres owns. “We breed catde with perfor mance,” Furlong said of the 250-acre operation. George and Dorothy Metzlcr own the opera tion that stunned competitors at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Janu ary. At that show, Salunga Acres look Polled Hereford grand champion bull, reserve champion heifer, best herd, premier breeder and exhibitor and reserve grand champion Angus bull. On the national scale, the Polled Hereford bull placed second. “Our goal is to produce cattle with balance, low birth rate, high weaning weights, and better milk production,” Furlong said. “All cows are bred AI and detailed 'SCotnesifai, ttfoips records are kept in performance.” Furlong told the 4-H’ers, “It’s important to have feminine females and to breed animals for performance, style, and type.” He pointed out these characteristics in many of the individual cattle. Even when things are done cor rectly, puzzling results occasionly happen. Furlong told of using one Angus cow for flushing that pro duced three bull calves with per formance, style, and type. But the cow’s natural calf was bom with all white feet. Salunga Acres prefers calves to be bom in January and February for better marketing. This year, the farm bred 82 Polled Herefords and 38 Angus cattle. They do not crossbreed. In the early part of March, the calves are put out on rye. Salunga Acres operate a certi fied and accredited vaccination program. “We believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Furlong said. “We worm twice a year, and I think breeders would be amazed at how much belter performance they get out of their catde if they did likewise.” With increased frame size, the catde are bred for 7 and 8. “Some times we sacrifice a little milk for size,” Furlong explained, “but you need muscle to back the size to have structurally sound catde.” To remain in the business, Fur long forsees that beef farmers neeo numbers behind catde. Salunga Acres plans to increase the amount of shows they enter this year. Although the barns are kept extremely clean, the cattle are not washed and brushed often. “We don’t have a lot of dme to work with show catde. If we ran this operation in show condidon all the time, we couldn’t get everything done,” Furlong said. They do concentrate on what really counts in the show ring breeding and performance. They halter break close to show time. Members of the 4-H beef club judged four purebred Polled Here fords on the farm. The members needed to rely on both visual observation and performance appraisal by studying the EPD’s (expected progeny differences) chart. “Look for balanced traits,” Fur long cautioned the members. “You must consider birth weight, wean ing weight, maternal milk, year ling weight, and look at the sire. Remember the higher maternal value the better the weight at weaning.” Masonic Homes A drive-through tour of Mason ic Homes grounds in Elizabeth town revealed 600 acres of barley, rye, and oats, a 100-acre orchard and vegetable crops, and a farm operation of dairy, beef, hogs, and During the Red Rose4-H Beef Club tourof Lancaster County farms, thegroup found found solace from the hot sun underneath the Esbenshade Farms feed equipment. Front row, from left: Chris Hess, Joellen Donough, Ryan Donough, and Dwayne Llven good. Second row, from left: Matt Hoover, Travis Donough, John Hess, and Delvin Kropt. Third row, from left: Lilly Ann Kopp, Laßue Donough, Deb Hess, John Day, Sean Kopp, Dean Livengood, and Dale Livengood. poultry. Frank Stoltzfus, herd manager, said the farm was begun in 1910 to supplements the nursing care cen ter and retirement home on the grounds. The cow-calf herd has 72 head of Shorthorns, Angus, Sim mental bulls and 125 Ay shire cows. “Shorthorns have great maternal instincts and make good mothers. There are definite advantages in crossbreeding,” Stoltzfus said. “Dramatic increases are clear as a bell on indexes. If one cow has a high index, you can count on heif ers having the same index range. Figures mean a lot to use, and we do use them,” Stoltzfus told the 4-H’ers. The calves, usually bom in February are weaned at 205 days and weigh an average 583 pounds with some more than 800 pounds. The cattle are raised on pasture and forages are used over winter. Due to extreme dry weather, Stoltzfus said that hay was put in the pas tures for the catde to feed on. “It’s the first time we had to feed hay in July,” he said. This year, the cow herd was doubled. About 140 head are used each year for consumption at the Masonic Homes. The tour included a stop at the formal gardens and a picnic lunch on the grounds before members proceeded to Esbenshade Farms, at Mount Joy’s north plant. Esbenshade Farms Glen Esbenshade owns the Mount Joy operation, which is Pennsylvania’s largest egg pro cessing complex. It has more than 640,000 layers in seven chicken houses. Barry Renno, manager, explained the egg processing oper ation to the Beef Club members, who are familiar with beef, not chickens. The egg processing complex includes a feed mill and trucking operation for eggs and feed. Shavers, Babcock, DeKalb, Delta, and Delta XL breeds are used in the laying operation.