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Feldun Purdue Ag Center was donated to Purdue in 1914
by a wealthy attorney Moses Dunn and his aunt Antoinette Fel.
At the time it was an apple orchard and now it is predominantly beef/cow/calf operation.
The bull testation came to Feldun in '89. We'll grow out about 300 bulls a year.
The bulls come and are owned by seed stock producers from Indiana
and the surrounding states as well as Wisconsin and Iowa.
They're on test for about 120 days.
The bulls that make the top 2/3 based on performance and
pass the structural soundness committee
and the breeding fitness exams are eligible to be sold.
Commanding all this information gives the producer a good idea of the type of bull
he or she needs to put with their cows to improve their herd.
Looks aren't everything, so now we have a way to provide them the information
that goes along with that nice looking animal.
Even an idea how it will affect their herd, improve their herd hopefully.
Make them more money in the long run.
I had what I would I would call a bunch of junk cows before.
I ran into the people at Purdue.
I bought 4 bulls now through Purdue and I have 2 herd bulls,
both my herd bulls are the top of the line for what I was looking for.
They've done exactly what Brad and Richard told me they would do to increase
my herd and make the kind of quality I want.
I was born in Terre Haute, raised in a little country town outside of Terre Haute called Riley.
I thought, I think I might like to be a stunt man or an actor,
which I had never had any idea what that was like.
I had never met a producer, didn't know the difference between a producer and a director.
So I just picked up and went to California.
I was very lucky that I worked all the time for 40 years.
I bought this farm, just outside of Mitchell.
I decided that I wanted to buy a really good bull.
So I got on line and saw where Purdue had this bull sale.
I called up Purdue and then he started teaching me about the difference
between good cattle, good hay, why you breed, look for a certain bull to breed
for your type of cattle because you want to increase your carcass merit or
you want to have low birth rate calves and all that.
Purdue and I we just became good friends.
All of them up there were really nice, really helpful.
It's been a relationship now going on for 10 years.
And now they've got me where I put bulls in the testation and
I've won the top honors for carcass merit bull in two of their tests.
What I realized was just in one season the difference that
a really quality bull makes with all the indexing and everything.
Mixing your herd. Your herd sells better.
People will come to your farm before you have even had your calves
wanting to purchase your heifers or your steers because
they already know what they're going to look like.
I've bought three bulls from Purdue and they are fantastic!
The calves, I used to be able to walk up to a newborn calf and tag it the first day.
These I think are born running, I really do!
I bought this first farm in 1969 from an older couple Goldie and Dan McMann.
They were retired and really weren't able to farm anymore.
We started over, my first husband, I think Bill was about 3 and Frank about 7 1/2.
We started over out here.
Then unfortunately the marriage didn't work and we divorced,
so I got left with the debt, the two boys and the farm.
I wanted to start over. I loved cattle so I wanted to start over and raise cattle.
I was raised in town, the south end of Bedford.
None of my immediate family had been farmers
so of course everything I learned until I met Purdue, I learned the hard way.
I had like 114 questions that I wanted to know how to do and all of them really, really helped me.
He helped me pick out some cattle, he taught me how to choose what type of a bull I would want
depending on what I was going to do, what I was going to do with them.
So basically he was a great help.
Anything you need to know go to Purdue.
If they don't know they'll get the answer
and believe me they've always known the answer when I've gone.
And they've not only been just helpful, they're friends too.