This week on Angus Underground, your hosts are discussing one of their absolute favorite topics: breeding philosophy!

Today your hosts have the distinct pleasure of welcoming Cody Jorgensen to the podcast! Cody is the Chief Livestock Operations Officer for Jorgensen Land & Cattle in Ideal, South Dakota. Jorgensen is the nation’s largest beef producer and seed stock operator.

For over 100 years, four generations of the Jorgensen family have sought to improve their land, their cattle, their crop genetics, and the lives of their family, as well as the families near them. Over this time, they’ve grown from a family homestead to an operation known nationwide for its superior Angus herd, excellent certified seed, being a leader in soil health, and prime pheasant hunting. But don’t let their 12,000 acres fool you; they’re proud to remain a family operation rooted in a tradition of excellence and innovation.

In their conversation together, Cody shares the history of Jorgensen Farms, what makes them so unique (i.e. why they pay close attention to soil health), his duties as the Chief Livestock Operations Officer, how they work together as a family, how they’ve developed the structure of their program, how their breeding program works, and the indexes they’ve created that are unique to them. Cody also takes listeners into a deep dive into their breeding genetics, the pedigree of specific bulls in their program, insights into the best bull they ever raised, and some of the major steps that they’ve taken in up-leveling their program.

If you’re curious about the overall scope and vision of a large and complex breeding program, don’t miss out on today’s conversation!

Mentioned in this Episode:

Jorgensen Farms

The Montana Bred for Balance Bull and Female Sale — Nov. 13th, 2021

Rafter 5M Land & Cattle

Connors State College Bull Test Sale — Dec. 2nd, 2021

Ginger Hill Angus Bull and Female Sale — Nov. 20th, 2021

Shady Brook Angus Farm

Bruin Ranch

Facebook @AngusUnderground

Instagram @AngusUnderground

American Angus Association

Quotes:

“When you linebreed — especially if you try to linebreed off one cow in particular — you don’t know how much, or how intensely, you can do that until it’s done, and then [you] either have throw-aways or it worked.” — Cody Jorgensen

“I would say we’re doing both [inbreeding and linebreeding]. We’ve been doing both with different tactics in mind.” — Cody Jorgensen

“The sweet spot that I personally like [for our cattle] is somewhere between 5% inbred and 15% inbred. I think once we get over 15%, in a lot of cases, we’re going to start seeing some inbred regression.” — Cody Jorgensen

“The numbers coming out of our evaluation are much more balanced. So you don’t have these extreme low-birth EPDs and these high-yearling EPDs.” — Cody Jorgensen

“We have to do, as a family, what we think is right with our cattle. And developing our genetic evaluation so that we could pivot and study other things that we can’t get at AAA was a major step for us.” — Cody Jorgensen

Learn more about our sponsor, Montana Ranch, by visiting

MontanaRanchAngus.com.