Women in Simmental Country

Women in Simmental Country
Written by Lee Hart
In-laws have a great bond at Mader Ranches
R
onda and Jill Mader are a generation apart, only
related by marriage, but when it comes to hard work,
commitment to family and the ranch business, they are
like two peas of the same pod.
As mother and daughter-in-law, respectively, at Mader Ranches,
both ladies appreciate the challenges of sometimes being pulled
in six (or more) different directions within a day — working
at off-ranch careers, raising young children, attending school
and sports activities, getting meals on the table, looking after a
household, tending to the books and record keeping, helping
out with cattle and the ranch when needed, being involved
with marketing livestock, guests to welcome to the ranch, yard
work to tend to; the list goes on. It is any of these activities in a
combination that happen during the day. Yet when asked, both
agree,
The Ladies of Mader Ranches
“I don’t think it is any different for me,” says Jill, who married
Ryley, the youngest of the three Mader children, in 2007. The
pair now have two children of their own, Stella, 6, and Hawkin,
who is coming up 4. “My main focus is our children, but I still
have my work with the ranch, and marketing cattle. I help out
where I can; family comes first but I still want to be a part of
the ranch and contribute to the decision making, so it can be a
challenge to make it all work. But it just does.”
“Nothing special going on here, it’s just what we do.”
Both Ronda and Jill admit they married workaholics, so it was
pretty hard to not get swept up in a non-stop routine — always
another chore to attend to, to keep the family and ranch business
moving forward.
Mader Ranches is a second, coming-on-third, generation
family operation producing and marketing prize-winning
Simmental cattle, for more than 30 years. Jill, Ryley and their
kids live in the main yard, while Ronda and Randy built a new
home, just down the road, a few years ago. The herd has grown
over the years, today standing at roughly 260 head of red and
black Simmental females and they market about 100 bulls per
year.
Randy started with Simmentals in 1973 on his family’s ranch
near Okotoks, just south of Calgary. He and Ronda married in
1977. Ronda was born and raised on a mixed ranching operation
with Saler cattle near Carstairs. She obtained her degree in
education, and Randy obtained his bachelor of Commerce
“Probably the biggest challenge was trying to juggle everything,” degree, both at the University of Calgary.
says Ronda, a retired teacher, who along with husband Randy
“We didn’t know each other at university,” says Ronda. “We
established Mader Ranches, located west of Carstairs, in 1984.
actually met at a cattle sale in 1976 and were married 10 months
“On our ranch it doesn’t matter if it is Saturday or Sunday, if there
later.” She did point out one little story about the courtship.
was work to do you did it.”
They met in the late fall, but Randy didn’t call Ronda again until
January because he didn’t want to spend money on a Christmas
present — apparently everything worked out well after that.
In their own breeding program they use a lot of A.I. and
embryo transfer work to improve their own herd’s genetics at a
faster rate. The ranch will be hosting its 28th Annual Bull Sale,
held in mid-February in 2017.
Mader Ranches has two calving seasons. This year for example,
about 190 head calved in January and February, while roughly
70 head will calve in June and July. They’ve been expanding the
summer calving herd over the past eight years.
The Mader family raised cattle, while Ronda taught school
full time in communities near Calgary in the early days. In 1984
they bought property west of Carstairs and moved there in 1985.
Randy and Ronda have three children, Robyn, 33 who obtained
an agriculture business degree in Texas, Rayel, 31, a hairdresser,
who owns a real estate company in the Carstairs area, and Ryley,
29. He actually completed the land agent program at Olds
College, but quickly decided to focus on the beef business.
“Part of it has to do with spreading out the workload in the
winter, so not everything is calving in that January and February
period,” says Jill. “Part of it too, is to produce those over-age bulls,
that are about 18 months of age when they go into service. More
commercial operations are looking for those bigger, slightly
older bulls that can service more cows.”
Mader Ranches is in transition. Succession of the ranch from
Ronda and Randy to Jill and Ryley is well underway. Jill and
Ryley took on half of the ranch ownership in 2012, and plans are
in place to complete the transfer over the coming years.
Along with the ranch, Ronda taught school for 30 years,
including 16 years working part time while the children were in
school. Along with the beef operation, Randy has been involved
as a successful real estate agent for the past 20 years. They’ve
also always had a full time employee over the years helping with
ranch work. Chase Miller is now part of the team, helping Ryley
with much of the day-to-day operations.
Jill was born and raised on her family ranch, in Sedgewick,
Alberta, south east of Edmonton. The ranch produced mostly
commercial cattle with some purebred Simmental. She
attended the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT)
in Edmonton, to obtain a business diploma, with a major in
marketing. After college she worked as an events co-ordinator
for Northlands Exhibition in Edmonton, quite involved in
planning Farmfair International.
The matchmakers in Jill and Ryley’s relationship were Jill’s
brother Jaron, and Ryley’s sister Robyn. Jaron and Robyn knew
each other, and decided that Jill and Ryley should meet. The
couple will have been married for nine years in 2016.
When Jill first moved to Carstairs area she worked in the office
of DynAgra, a southern Alberta-based ag retailer, and services
company “I really enjoyed being there, but realized my heart
wasn’t in the crop side of the industry,” she says. So when she
and Ryley were planning their own family, she joined Mader
Ranches full time.
While Mader Ranches has had Simmental cattle since the
beginning, it also ran a herd of Saler cattle for several years.
It’s another good breed, but with more market demand for
Simmental, the Saler cattle have been phased out over the years.
“We’ve always had red and black Simmentals and the focus
has been on producing good quality cattle that work for the
commercial cow-calf operator” says Jill. “Our focus is on
producing cattle with calving ease, good feet and legs, good
fertility, and being over all easy keepers.”
While Ronda says she will always be part of the ranch she is
pleased to see it transferring to such a capable next generation.
“I see in Jill the same commitment and values that I had when
we were starting out,” says Ronda. She’s glad to be able to take
things at a bit slower pace. There were plenty of hectic days of
teaching school part-time and later as a substitute teacher, then
picking up her own kids and getting them to sporting activities,
helping with 4-H projects. Then coming home, preparing an
evening meal, (the family always had dinner together), and then
perhaps looking after some paper work or record keeping for
the ranch. Ronda also helped out with Randy’s long-running real
estate business — plenty of phone calls to answer, and around
the ranch she helped out on days when needed. “I was always
the other person.”
“ We’ve always had lots of visitors with the purebred cattle too,”
she says. “They were people coming to look at the livestock, or
for other Simmental Association activities. I’ve always been a
firm believer in education, so we often had students or young
people (national and international) stay with us anywhere from
one to three months, to learn about the beef industry in Alberta.”
Ronda was also quite involved in preparing for and attending
shows and sales such as Edmonton’s Farmfair, Canadian Western
Agribition in Regina as well as more local events such as the Olds
Fall Classic. Of course there was preparing catalogue material
for their own annual sale, which for the past four years has been
held at home in one of the expanded, and renovated buildings
on then ranch.
main yard so when visitors come, we have these great facilities
where we can showcase our livestock.”
As the ranch moves through succession, Ronda’s not leaving
that all behind, but she is pleased to see Jill take on many of the
responsibilities. Jill’s background in marketing for example, has
been a huge asset in taking photographs and organizing material
for their annual sale catalogue. Jill designs their own catalogue
as well as providing design services for other breeders and ranch
advertising. Jill’s house is now the hosting house for buyers,
visitors and longer-stay guests. “For ourselves, everyone gathers
at my kitchen table every morning to plan what’s ahead for the
day,” says Jill. While with two young children and other office
responsibilities she’s also available to help out with the cattle as
needed.
Another highlight over the years has been having the
opportunity to travel and that’s something she’s hoping to do
more of. She and Randy travelled quite a bit involved in the
Simmental business, to attend events, meet buyers, or look at
cattle in France, Australia and New Zealand as well as across
Canada. In 2004 they spent 23 days on the road travelling across
Canada visiting clients and commercial producers.
“I love to travel and I think it is one of the best forms of
education. The kids often travelled with us,” she says. “So I’m
hoping we can do it more. I like just going to meet clients as we
deliver bulls in various parts of Western Canada, but it is also
great to get out and see other parts of the world.” She and Randy
have already made trips to Africa and China as non-ranch
related vacations, but there are many more locales on the list.
Plans are also underway to see Jill and Ryley travel to a major
livestock show in Australia in 2018.
Jill and Ronda have a genuine mutual admiration and respect
for each other’s talents, abilities and support.
“We owe so much to Ronda and Randy for helping us to get
started in the beef industry,” says Jill. “For a young couple today
it is extremely difficult, and we couldn’t have done all that we
have without them.”
Highlights for Jill over the years includes meeting some
excellent people and establishing lifelong friendships from all
beef breeds as they attend shows and sales. “It can be hectic at
times, but we do it all as a family,” she says. “Sometimes we’re
leaving a show while Ronda and Randy are just arriving to take
on the next shift.” While they’ve placed in the top five and top
10 several times at major livestock shows such as Farmfair and
Agribition, she says she’s hoping one day to have cattle in the
Supreme Grand Champion spotlight. She and Ryley have also
established themselves as respected livestock judges, and judge
as a team at events such as Farmfair, Agribition and the Royal
Winter Fair.
Jill says it was also a highlight for her to see the Annual Mader
Ranches Bull Sale finally held at the ranch. “We had to renovate
one of the buildings, and we wondered if anyone would travel
out to the ranch, but it has been a success every year,” she says.
They host up to 300 buyers and guests the day of the sale. It was
originally a live-animal auction with each bull moved through
the ring, but they’ve now changed it to a video sale — becoming
common in the industry. Jill spends weeks prior to the sale
videotaping bulls that will be on offer, and those videos of each
animal are played for buyers on a screen in the sale barn. Again,
her marketing, communications, and public relation skills have
made for an excellent fit.
For Ronda, there have been many highlights over the years.
She was particularly pleased to see facilities developed in just the
past year to create a Bull Development Centre at the main ranch
headquarters, which she can see from her dining room window.
In the past bulls have been raised at another, nearby location.
“Now we’ve developed the corrals and shelters right here at the
“It is great to see so many young, capable people involved not
just in the Simmental breed but the beef industry in general,”
says Ronda. She is particularly pleased to see a third generation
of “Mader Ladies” taking an interest in the beef industry.
Granddaughter, Stella, along with her dad took a heifer to the
Olds Spring Classic, this past April. Stella will be taking part in
Summer Synergy and Cow Camp in Olds this summer as well.
“We are glad to encourage the next generation to be involved in
the fun and camaraderie that is a big part of the Simmental and
cattle business.”
“There is great opportunity and potential for the future of this
industry,” she adds. “And closer to home, I think we are pretty
lucky — I’d say Ryley married perfect in finding someone like
Jill. It is great when you can find someone who shares the same
passion and love in what you’re doing.”