Gardiner Angus Ranch: A Family-Owned Seedstock Operation Dedicated to Quality Beef Production
The history of Gardiner Angus Ranch can be traced back to the spring of 1885 when Henry Gardiner's grandparents were among five families that traveled in a caravan of covered wagons to the Ashland, Kansas area.
Gardiner Angus Ranch: A Family-Owned Seedstock Operation Dedicated to Quality Beef Production
The history of Gardiner Angus Ranch can be traced back to the spring of 1885 when Henry Gardiner's grandparents were among five families that traveled in a caravan of covered wagons to the Ashland, Kansas area. The Gardiners lived on their homesteaded land for nine years, where they raised their son Ralph. In the 1920s, Ralph Gardiner began putting together the present Gardiner Ranch. Today, the ranch is operated by two generations of the Henry and Nan Gardiner family, Greg and Mark Gardiner and their families.
As a family-owned seedstock operation, Gardiner Angus Ranch is committed to the production of quality beef from gate to plate. Using their experience in beef cattle breeding, state-of-the-art technology, and data management, the Gardiners produce Angus cattle that make unquestionable contributions to the beef cattle industry. They are optimistic about the future of the beef industry and their role as seedstock breeders.
Gardiner Angus Ranch encompasses more than 48,000 acres in southwest Kansas, where they breed more than 1,500 head of females for fall calves each year. All females, both registered and commercial Angus, are settled by either embryo transfer or artificial insemination within a 60-day breeding season, without the use of clean-up bulls. During calving season, more than 1,000 baby calves are born within a 45-day period.
GAR collects and transfers more than 2,000 embryos annually, resulting in better than 60% of registered calves born from embryo transfer. GAR commercial Angus cows are used as recipients for embryos from registered donors, and embryos are also implanted in recipients from GAR cooperator herds.
Gardiner Angus Ranch conducts its production sale in early April and fall bull sale in September. Since the first sale in 1980, GAR has sold one-fourth of its registered cow herd to continually focus on raising the genetic average of the entire herd and selling customers the very best genetics possible. GAR's spring sale has grown to become one of the largest in the U.S., with more than 95% of bulls sold going into commercial herds.
For the last eight years, all breeding has been done at GAR's breeding center. The facility, designed for maximum efficiency and minimum stress on cattle, has enabled Gardiner Angus to consolidate all feeding, breeding, and heat detection into one location.
Gardiner Angus Ranch was one of the very first Angus herds to embrace database selection for cattle breeding. It has used the Angus Sire Evaluation as a benchmark for sire selection within the GAR herd since the report's inception in 1980.
GAR's database selection process has led to a breeding program where they breed bulls to bulls, meaning GAR uses proven bulls to breed to daughters of proven bulls. The sires they use have thousands, if not tens of thousands, of progeny records. At Gardiner Angus, they believe that total A.I. with proven bulls is more reliable because they know exactly what they're using genetically with high accuracy sires.
The commercial cattle represent the same breeding as the registered cattle, and they are the descendants of Ralph W. Gardiner's original commercial Angus females from the early 1930s. GAR selects A.I. sires from the American Angus Association's Sire Evaluation based on high accuracies for light birth weight, adequate milk, moderate mature size, a heavy yearling weight, and good carcass EPDs. Since 1964, performance records have been kept on all registered and commercial calves born at Gardiner Angus Ranch, and feedlot and carcass data have been collected on all A.I. sires since 1970.
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