Lexie Girodat won the reserve intermediate banner at the National Western Stock Show with her home-bred bull
DENVER, Colo. — Lexie Girodat has built a lengthy resume in the beef business.
At age 25, the beef enthusiast from Gull Lake, Sask., has been showing cattle since she was five years old.
She started working with Hereford and Angus breeder Grant Hirsche of Okotoks, Alta., when she turned 12 and learned how to present and select cattle to perfection.
This year, she entered cattle for the first time at the National Western Stock Show, which was held in Denver from Jan. 9-24, and won the reserve intermediate banner for her home-bred bull, 406X Houdini’s Shadow 4185B. She and her father, Warren, felt confident enough to enter the big show with help from the Hirsche crew.
Read Also
Alberta cattle loan guarantee program gets 50 per cent increase
Alberta government comes to aid of beef industry with 50 per cent increase to loan guarantee program to help producers.
They also own a bull named WA Arrowwood 35A with Hirsche, which was also shown at Denver. Judges described it as an excellent bull, but it did not win its class.
However, it was grand champion at the Medicine Hat bull sale and went on to win the same honour at Edmonton’s Farmfair International.
The two bulls will breed cows in Alberta for calves to arrive next January and February, then move to Saskatchewan so that the Girodats’ Rocking G Land and Cattle Company can have calves later in the spring of 2017.
Girodat grew up with purebred horned Herefords, and the family will calve out 325 head this spring.
She said she values working with experienced producers.
“It is like a constant circle where you meet different people and look at their cattle, and even the people that work for you, like the fitters, you learn from them,” she said.
She has learned that customers and their desires are the most important.
“You have to know what they want.”
Her goal is to learn more from the major breeders and develop an elite herd at the family ranch.
Although Girodat hopes to take over the southwestern Saskatchewan ranch one day, she has also had an off-farm job working in the oil patch for the last five years.
As well, she has trained as an occupational therapist and in early childhood care, which are skills she has been able to use as a 4-H leader training 23 youngsters in the local beef club. She also works with her nephews, teaching them how to show cattle with calves from her herd.
The grand champion at the Jan. 14 horned Hereford bull show was entered by Barber Ranch of Channing, Texas, and reserve went to Colyer Herefords of Bruneau, Idaho.
The grand champion female came from Joel Butler of Wentworth, Missouri, and the reserve was from Four L Hereford Farm of Atwood, Tennessee.
The polled grand champion bull was from Lowderman Cattle Co. of Macomb, Illinois, and reserve was from Kya Rhodes of Ada, Oklahoma.
Polled grand champion female champions were Melissa Grimmel of Grimmel Girls Show Cattle in Jarrettsville, Maryland, and reserve went to Colyer Herefords.
Contact barbara.duckworth@producer.com
