top of page

Welcome buyers, friends, family, and supporters to our 4th Bar R Wagyu Production Sale. We are grateful for the connections and friendships we have made over the years with people from the USA and across the world because of our shared interest in Wagyu cattle. It is an honor to be part of a breed that has truly revolutionized the high-quality beef eating experience as we know it, and we look forward to continuing to advocate for the Wagyu breed. We recognize that its influence has only seen the tip of the iceberg.

We have put together an exclusive lineup of Wagyu cattle for this sale which will excite the most established Wagyu breeder, the new breeder, and also attract commercial cattle producers from other breeds to use our bulls for easy calving and producing premium F1 calves for the marketplace. For the past 32 years, we have raised our Wagyu cows like a commercial cattle rancher. They are range-calved with no assistance and rangeraised in tough terrain on their own mothers. Ninety percent of the animals in this sale were raised by their biological dams, and we believe it is important for Wagyu cows to be able to raise a live calf to weaning each year.

The progeny tests for the National Wagyu Sire Summary began with the breeding of Angus cows to Wagyu bulls in 1994 by the Washington State University Animal Sciences Department. The first results on carcass data from old genetic and new genetic Wagyu sires were completed in 1997. The progress Bar R Cattle Company has made on carcass traits in our herd can be attributed to following the National Wagyu Sire Summary data. We have invested in annual evaluations of the Average Daily Gain (ADG) and Residual Feed Intake (RFI) of our young bulls through a GrowSafe system since 2010. This year, for the first time, we had the opportunity to utilize the carcass reference population from Agri Beef (70,000 Wagyu carcasses). They have been individually DNA analyzed by Neogen to develop a genomic Expected Progeny Difference (EPD) for performance, carcass, and feed efficiency traits of individual Wagyu cattle. Agri Beef and Neogen have also developed a total index of these traits for each animal. This is the only genomic index we know of that takes into account not only carcass and growth traits but also feed efficiency (i.e., RFI), which in today’s world of increasing feed prices is economically imperative.

The future has arrived with the advent of genomic evaluation allowing us to select young Wagyu animals at an accuracy never seen before. The genomic EPDs are equivalent to data from 10-15 progeny carcasses. This tool is a game changer for the Wagyu breed.

Sincerely, Jerry, Heidi & Arlie Reeves

bottom of page