In the palm of his handUntil recently, when a prospective buyer would come to the Koupal Angus ranch near Dante, South Dakota, to fence for farm look at bulls, la vern koupal (pictured at far left) would grab a thick stack of records and carry them out to the rolling pastures. "i''d be digging through the papers, and the wind would be flipping the pages, and i could never find the right page," says koupal.now he takes his $850 palm pilot out of his coat pocket, writes in a bull number, stretcher and instantly gets all the production and bloodline information he and the buyer need. "it''s unreal what this technology can do," he says.

willis bought the bobcat and attachments used from his local dealer for about $11,000. dog fence money well spent, he says. he uses it to move pallets of feed, move calf huts, and clean the barn. the green box shown in the photo above is actually a hog hauler willis picked up at a local auction. it will hold four calves on the front of the skid steer when it comes time to move them from huts to the barn for weaning and processing. his older barn has been remodeled, and the skid steer slides perfectly down the aisles and into the pens for cleaning. anything bigger wouldn''t fit, says willis.some producers cite purchase of a skid steer as their best recent stretcher management change.

nagel''s wife, cindy, and her sister-in-law, angela nagel (both pictured on page 34), are trained technicians who go on the road with the equipment, scanning more than 15,000 cattle a year for producers across the midwest dog fence and west. their business, midwest sonatech, inc. (605/369-2628) works with iowa state stretcher university (isu) to analyze the data. business is booming."ultrasound body composition data is the greatest tool a seedstock producers can use to make genetic improvement," says cindy. "customers are now demanding the data. ultrasound results can make or break a bull."the nagels use two aloka 500v machines fence to collect measurements on fat thickness, ribeye area and marbling, and rump fat. the stored images are analyzed stretcher by isu with computer software. the nagels can scan 20 cattle an hour. they charge $14 a head, which includes $4 for image analysis.