Bountiful Bovine

When HA Cowboy Up 5405 strutted into the ring at Hinman Angus' auction last Tuesday in Malta, those who know their bulls knew that the 1,619 pound angus was about to start fireworks that would be seen across the state of Montana and beyond.

HA Cowboy Up is the son of HA Outside 3008 – a pedigree that goes back 14 animals – and when the final bid had been accepted and the gavel hit the auctioneer's block, Hinman Angus' "bull of a lifetime" sold for a whopping $350,000 – one of the highest ever for an Angus Bull in Montana, according to the Montana Stock Growers Association.

"It takes years and years to get the consistency of your cow-herd to be able to produce a bull like that," said Dave Hinman, owner of Hinman Angus. Dave and his wife, Yvonne, have been in the cattle business for the last five decades and now run the operation with the help of their daughter and son-in-law, Heidi and Billy Lulloff as well as grandson Tyler.

HA Cowboy Up was born on January 30 of 2015 and had a birth weight of 98-pounds. Dave said that by the fall, when they started to wean him, that he was going to be a "pretty good" bull. The excitement escalated the following December when they did a check-weight on the bull and found that he had a weight gain of age of 4.25-pounds per day every day of his life for that first year.

"He's the heaviest bull we have had like that," said Dave. "It was amazing. In the last 60-days, we have had calls from coast to coast and border to border on the bull. It was an amazing amount of calls."

So how did the Hinman's come up with the name "Cowboy Up?" At the breakfast table, of course.

"One morning we were sitting around eating breakfast together and we knew we needed to name that bull," Dave said. "I got our list of 'potential names out and saw 'Cowboy Cut' and said 'nah, I don't like that. Yvonne said she liked 'Cowboy' and I said, 'Cowboy Up.' We kind of smiled at each other and knew that was his name."

All told, there was 200 bulls sold at the Hinman Angus Auction last week. The next highest sale price behind Cowboy Up for an animal was $34,000. Dave said that of all the bulls the family has sold over the past five decades, the highest was $100,000. Going into last week's auction, the Hinman's knew Cowboy Up was going to fetch a fair price, but figured it would be around $200,000. Dave said that once the bid hit $200,000, he wasn't sure how to act.

"You just don't sell bulls for $350,000," Dave said. "It just doesn't happen, it was a once in a lifetime deal, for sure. The cow end of the progeny from this bull should be excellent, along with the terrific weight performance and the maternal part of this pedigree is about as good as it's going to get. What made him so interesting to people across the country was his (putting on the weight) in a moderate frame-sized package."

A consortium made of Wilks Ranch LTD in Cisco, TX and Express Ranches in Yukon, Okla., bought HA Cowboy Up and some estimates say that his semen will sell for more than $1 million during his lifetime.

"People around town have been really nice," he said. "They have just been so kind and excited for us and our family. It has been awesome that way. This is a family ranch and Yvonne and our daughter Heidi and her husband Billy, and our grandson, Tyler, are all owners in the ranch with us. It's a family business and a family project and to say we were excited would be an understatement."