Claussen's Simmental & Red Angus
History
Since 1914, the Claussen family farm has passed through four generations. Ron's father,
Elmer 'Pat' Claussen, first began to add purebred Simmental cattle to the family herd in 1976. When Ron took over the family farm, he began to expand the size and add additional breeds to the herd (Angus in 1993, Red Angus in 1995) with the help of his sons, Ross, Ryan, and Reid. Thus, the 4RC (Ron, Ross, Ryan, and Reid Claussen) prefix was established.
Breeding Philosophy
Having raised commercial cattle prior to becoming seed stock producers has led us to value cattle that are able to perform to our high expectations with minimal input of feed, labor, and time. This has caused us to select for moderate-framed, functional cattle that are structurally sound with good dispositions. The bulls we sell and use sire calves that are born easy, grow fast, and are heavy muscled. We want females that will calve every year unassisted, and mother up their calves. Our females are easy-fleshing, fertile, with good udders and longevity.
Our commercial cattle production led us to identify breeds that exhibited these traits. We originally had commercial Red Angus cows, which we mated to purebred Simmental bulls. The offspring of this mating so impressed us in terms of calving ease, performance, and carcass traits, that we began raising purebred Simmentals of our own. Knowing that the Simmental/Red Angus cross worked well, we decided to start raising Red Angus bulls for our customers to use on the heifers they retained out of our Simmental bulls. Since the market began to demand black-hided cattle, we chose to offer both Black & Red Simmental and Black & Red Angus.