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 and West. Their business, Midwest Sonatech, Inc. (605/369-2628) works with Iowa State University (ISU) to analyze the data. Business is booming."Ultrasound horse fence and fence 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 stretcher use two aloka 500v machines to collect measurements on fat thickness, horse ribeye area and marbling, fence and rump fat. the stored images are analyzed by isu with computer software. the nagels can scan 20 cattle an hour. they stretcher charge $14 a head, which includes $4 for image analysis.

in the palm of his handuntil horse recently, when a prospective buyer would come to the koupal angus ranch near dante, south dakota, to 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 fence right page," says koupal.now he takes his $850 palm pilot out of his coat pocket, writes in a bull number, and instantly gets all the production and bloodline information he and the buyer need. "it''s unreal what this technology can do," he says.

he also likes the white stretcher polywire made by premier because it "has a lot of give, even after it''s been out in the sun for months." the cheaper yellow and black polywire sold at farm supply stores is flexible when you unroll it, horse says klocke, but it gets brittle out in the sun.twenty years and still tickingdairy farmer dan johnson of elk mound, wisconsin, has used his blitzer solar fence controller for almost 20 years. it''s been hit by lightning twice, requiring replacement of the the solar fence grid and one other part, but otherwise, it''s worked fine, he reports. johnson milks 60 holsteins and grazes the hills stretcher of his 285-acre farm.