Bulls look for new homes

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Emma Hargrove, owner of Circle E Ultrasounding, travels from Alabama to do ultrasounds. She says, “I travel anywhere and everywhere, ultrasounding at farms and colleges.” She tested 85 bulls at UW-Pioneer Farm.

Sarah Pfaff-Cavadini/For Agri-View

Jeffrey Hanks, the assistant enterpriser manager at the University of Wisconsin-Pioneer Farm, runs a mixer for total mixed rations. The forage mix consists of rough hay, corn silage, dried distillers grains, cracked corn, molasses and oatlage. He says he’s a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ kind of guy on the farm, filling in where needed.

Sarah Pfaff-Cavadini/For Agri-View

Justin Daugherty, formerly of Texas, is the animal-care manager as well as the equipment and beef-enterprise manager at the University of Wisconsin-Pioneer Farm. He runs a squeeze chute while bulls receive ultrasounds to check carcass traits. Daugherty says he enjoys his job. ‘The students keep me youthful,” he says. There are about 700 students this year in the UW animal-science program.

Sarah Pfaff-Cavadini/For Agri-View

Krista Wellnitz, right, is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, in her ninth year teaching. Kyle Ellsworth is one of her students – a junior from Elkhorn, Wisconsin. He’s taking a beef-management class this semester. He says he’s helped with clipping, torching and branding the animals. Wellnitz says students help with all the activities – weighing, deworming, ultrasounds and breeding-soundness exams.

Sarah Pfaff-Cavadini/For Agri-View

For the test, bulls are fed for 100 days on a forage-based diet. During the test, weights are taken on the bulls – at day 33, day 66 and day 100. Their average daily gain and weight per day of age is recorded.

Sarah Pfaff-Cavadini/For Agri-View

Bulls are inspected and weighed upon arrival. If the bull’s weight falls into the range expected for his age and if all other requirements have been met, he’s accepted into the program. At that point he receives an ear tag with a test number, along with a cow-manager ear tag.

Sarah Pfaff-Cavadini/For Agri-View

Sarah Pfaff-Cavadini receives a promo card for the 2026 bull sale.

Sarah Pfaff-Cavadini/For Agri-View

Sarah Pfaff-Cavadini For Agri-View

PLATTEVILLE, Wis. – Allan Arndt has a herd of 50 beef cows on his farm near Janesville, Wisconsin. He also has a business partnership with his brother David Arndt and their mother, Donna Arndt, called Arndt Farms where they have a herd of 80 cows. He’s the current president of the Wisconsin Beef Improvement Association, which holds an annual bull test and bull sale. He’s had bulls in the test since 1988.

Sarah Pfaff-Cavadini grew up on a dairy farm in western Wisconsin. She became an elementary teacher and taught for more than 20 years in her hometown of Melrose, Wisconsin. She and her husband, Tim Cavadini, have six children and 13 grandchildren. They enjoy their 175-acre farm near Mindoro, Wisconsin, where they raise registered Angus and Simmental beef cattle, focusing on genetics, as well as horses and other small animals.