We hope everyone has a good calving season and good moisture for green grass for this spring. Thank you to our customers that supported us at our bred cow and heifer sale this past December.
We are looking forward to hosting the bull day, Sunday, March 16th at 1p.m. (mst) at our barn. Our address is 51 Sherman Lane, in Choteau. Half mile west of elementary school, past the high school tennis courts, only place on the right side of the road.
If you are not able to make it, we are happy to video call from the bull lot or share pictures or videos upon request.
Thank you for taking the time to consider our bulls. We feel privileged to share these genetics with you. We are always happy to answer any questions and show you both the cow herd and the bulls.
Private Treaty SaleInformation
Bulls start selling IN PERSON at our place, Sunday, March 16th at 1p.m. We will start taking phone orders at 5 p.m. after the open corral March 16th for the sale day price, bulls will be priced from $4000-$6000. We are continuing the “buy now” option. You may buy any bull ahead of time for the “buy now” price of $7000.
The bulls come with a first breeding season guarantee. Sevens Livestock reserves the right of ½ semen interest. Buyers may pay when they make their selection or upon delivery. We are planning to deliver the bulls soon after the sale as calving permits. Let us know if there is a time that works best for you.
Contact
51 Sherman Lane
Choteau, MT 59422
Ben: 406-480-2953
Karli: 406-868-1233
sevenslivestock@gmail.com
Ben, Karli, Brooks (7), Alidy (4) & Boyce (1.5) Johnson
About Us
Let us introduce ourselves to people who we haven’t met yet. Sevens Livestock Co. is Ben and Karli Johnson, we operate a commercial & registered cow-calf operation outside of Choteau MT. Our name comes from our brand 77 on the left thigh, odd place for a cattle brand but when its been in the family since before Montana was a state and was featured in Ronald Reagan’s movie “Cattle Queen of Montana” I guess it gets grandfathered in. We are both 5th or 6th generation Montana ranchers, but with how life works out, we didn’t end up on a generational operation. We met at MSU while getting our agricultural degrees, moved to Ben’s hometown of Sidney, MT to take over his grandpa’s feed business and to ranch alongside Ben’s family. Ben did nutritional work developing supplements and rations for both feedlot and cow calf. After our oldest, Brooks’ was born we had to urge to move to Karli’s hometown of Choteau to be closer Karli’s family, who live in Helena now. Drought in Sidney also spurred the move, so we brought our 110 cows with us to feed in Choteau that winter and try to find summer grass for the following year. We leased some ground coming out of CRP from Karli’s uncle, that neighbored J.D. and Linda Rice. Through developing neighboring relationship we ended up leasing J.D. and Linda’s place in 2019 and bought their registered cow herd that they had started in the early 90’s and sold bulls private treaty. That’s how we got started in the registered business, had our first bulls for sale in 2020.
We now have over 200 registered females and are continuing to share these genetics through a private treaty bull sale. We strive to build relationships with our customers that goes beyond just a sale of a bull. We offer nutritional consulting, and started selling Hustler brand feeding equipment, as Ben missed that side of the feed business after its sale in 2020.
Our Cow Herd
J.D. and Linda have done a great job over the years of balancing productivity and practicality in their cow herd. J.D. has selected for powerful bulls with strong maternal backing. We are proud to continue to produce powerful bulls that will make a maternal female and desirable steer calves. We utilize A.I. sires that have proven EPD’s, trying not to chase the newest and hottest sires in the catalog. We focus on having functional cows that raise marketable steer calves and our own replacements. We define functional as structurally sound, births and cares for her own calf every year, has a good udder and docile enough to be comfortable to work around. This is out of necessity, as we do almost everything ourselves and usually with our kids. We can’t have cattle that need lactation consultants or are aggressive in any form.
Sometimes, like on any place, things come up that go against our definition of functional. Our promise to you is that we won’t be keeping any replacement bulls or heifers out of anything that isn’t functional to us. We understand that we have a responsibility to help make your herds more functional. We take that responsibility seriously. We are always happy to show you the cow herd.
Yearling Bull Management
The bulls are not creep fed ahead of weaning. After weaning, they go into the lot. Their ration consists of Sainfoin and barley hay. They also get the Hubbard Ammino Grow pellet, this year with the nice fall and winter they were fed the pellet lighter than normal (4-6 pounds) and still gained very well. We have used that pellet the last 4 years and have been happy with the development of the bulls on it. The pellet is formulated to promote muscle growth over fat. They have been on Hubbard’s Blueprint chelated mineral program both on the cow and in the lot. The bulls were fertility tested by Dr. Kurt Johnson on March 5th. They have had a standard vaccine protocol. They were wormed with a Safeguard drench and poured with Clean Up this winter. They were also freeze number branded. The bulls are all genetically tested to improve the quality of EPD’s and confirm parentage.
About the AI Sires
Dynamic (DY)
Low birthweight, high calving ease sire with loads of growth being a Deer Valley Growth Fund son. The replacement heifers out of Dynamic have the look to become tremendous cows.
Comstock (CS)
Low birthweight, high calving ease sire with a moderate frame and stout muscling. Calves were born light, but with lots of vigor and weaned off the cow well. We used Comstock on the cows that we’d like to bring down the mature height on bit.
Surpass (SP)
Maternal focused sire with calving ease and growth. We think he is as close to having it all on paper as any current sire with calving ease, weaning weight, docility, maternal height and carcass traits. We bred him to some of our top cows because of that. Should make really nice females.
Tahoe (TA)
Well-rounded, well-proven sire that brings calving ease, growth and desirable females. We have some 6 year old cows out of Tahoe that we really like. We used him extensively on this years heifers and were very pleased with how they came and weathered the cold snap mid-February.
GDAR Traveler 3173 (TR) & GDAR Rainmaker 340 (RA)
We purchased some semen out of old bulls from GDAR that we felt were foundational to a lot of the pedigrees we are using today to see how they compare to today’s genetics. We were not disappointed in appearance or performance of any of the calves. Both bulls were born in 1983 and started their respective lines in the GDAR and many other programs.
Sevens Herd Bulls
These are some of our favorite herd sires we’ve kept throughout the years that were matched up with top females that we believed would make great bull calves even though they didn’t catch A.I. and they did not disappoint. Parentage and genomic enhanced EPDs confirmed through DNA.
