Pastoral care

Meet Subiaco Abbey’s other wards: Registered Black Angus cattle

Subiaco Abbey
Subiaco Abbey

— Since 1878, when three monks arrived in Logan County, with a cow in tow, to establish a new monastery, bovines have been a part of Subiaco Abbey.

Throughout the years, cows have provided milk and beef for the Benedictine community, as well as funds for ministry. But those pioneering monks might be surprised to see today’s herd of prizing-winning, registered Black Angus and the cutting edge technology used to ensure superior genetics.

“Thirty years ago you just judged them by appearance,” said David Bellinghausen, the abbey’s prior.

Today, raising registered Black Angus includes everything from DNA testing and artificial insemination to embryo transference. High-tech gadgets can even tell the farm staff the optimal time for breeding each cow.

“It’s very labor intensive but it’s certainly worthwhile,” Bellinghausen said.

Bellinghausen spends each day helping in the farm office and assisting farm manager Craig Layes. At 70, Bellinghausen said he can’t help with the heavy labor but he has an interest in genetics and does his part by checking records, looking for the best sires and answering inquiries about the cattle.

The monastery has always had a close relationship with theland, said abbot Jerome Kodell, Subiaco Abbey.

“We have always had cattle, and for most of our history also chickens and pigs. Our concern for good stewardship of the land and treating it with care hasn’t changed,” Kodell said. “What has changed is that we don’t depend on the land for food as we did in earlier times, when practically everything came from our livestock and gardens. Even the cattle we raise now are not for our consumption, but to sell as breeding stock.”

The history of the monastery is tied to the land and also to the expansion of the Little Rock-Fort Smith Railroad. Interested in building communities along the rail route, the company reached out to the monks of St.

Meinrad Abbey in Indiana,whose mother house was the Abbey of Maria Einsiedeln in Switzerland. They would donate land to the Benedictines if they would agree to come to Arkansas and minister to the German-Catholic settlers in the area.

“It was a marketing ploy,” Bellinghausen said, adding that the company hoped that if German-speaking priests and nuns settled in the area it would help attract German farmers to buy land from the railroad.

Three pioneering monks were sent to Arkansas, eventually making their way to the land in a horse-drawn wagon. They were gradually joined by other monks from Switzerland, as well as some from across the United States. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII declared the new community Subiaco Abbey in honor of the site in Italy where St.Benedict started his life as a hermit.

Bellinghausen said the monastery was originally along a ridge on the south side of Arkansas 22 but the monks decided to move to the current hilltop in the 1890s and started work on the imposing structure built with sandstone from a nearby quarry.

“It was a better site,” Bellinghausen said of the hilltop. “They probably discovered it was hotter than the devil over there [at the old site]. There’s no south breeze along those ridges.”

By 1901, a portion of the abbey was complete and the community included not only a farm, but a school for boys. The monks had also established other parishes in Arkansas and Texas.

“This was a rural area, so they always had a farm,” Bellinghausen said. “They started ministering to the German-Catholics in this area and started farming some of the land. That was one way they could make some money ... so they always had milk cows, beef cows and all kinds of animals.”

The menagerie of animals remained until the 1960s when the monks decided to get rid of the dairy herd and concentrate on raising beef cattle. A deciding factor in selling the dairy cows was that the milking time interfered with the community’s prayer schedule.

“The cows had to be milked on Christmas and holidays and Sundays, earlyin morning and in the evening, so the milking schedule always interfered,” Bellinghausen said. “It was easier to just raise beef cattle.”

At first, they raised several breeds.

In the late 1990s, Bellinghausen said, a local rancher suggested the monks begin raising Black Angus cattle and arranged for some to be donated. The mixed breed herd was sold.

“That was the origin of our Angus herd,” he said.

Although today’s farm includes a small vineyard, a sawmill and some pecan trees, the main focus is on the sturdy black cows. The farm includes 1,100 acres - about 600 wooded and 500 used as pasture and hay fields. The herd is spread out in various pastures and in the hot summer months, the cattle are often seen clustered under shade trees or cooling themselves in the water.

Bellinghausen said the hot Arkansas summers are hard on the cows.

“Originally they came from cool Scotland and they have to adapt to this climate,” he said.

The current herd includes about 160 registered Angus females and Bellinghausen said technology is key in breeding the herd.

“We decided very early on that the only way you could make very good genetic improvement is by having all the calves by artificial insemination from top sires,” he said. “So we not only use artificial insemination, we also use embryo transfer.”

Of the 160 or so calves expected to be born this fall and winter about 40 will be the result of embryo transfer, which means embryos will be harvested from superior females and placed into surrogate mothers. Bellinghausen said it’s a way to multiply good genetics.

The cows are sold to private buyers, many of them repeat customers. Bellinghausen said bulls range in price from $2,000 to $3,000. Female prices depend on their genetics and their ranking within the Angus breed. The top price so far was $50,000 for one female but most sell for about $2,000.

“We’ve got a great demand by repeat buyers now and, in fact, we’ve run out of bulls and won’t have any ready until Jan. 1,” Bellinghausen said. “That’s a good problem to have.”

A benefactor provides money for the monastery to buy donor females from the Gardiner Angus Ranch in Ashland, Kansas, each year. Proceeds from the sale of cattle are used to replenish and care for the herd with some funds also used to help support the monastery.

Kodell said the herd provides other benefits, as well.

“It also puts us in a position to help local farming people by understanding their issues and working together with them in striving for excellence,” he said. “We find that the presence of the animals also helps provide the kind of natural environment that’s helpful for people who come here seeking peace and healing away from their busy, everyday lives.”

Bellinghausen said the goal is to keep improving the herd as part of the long, rich history of the monastery.

“We’ve been here since 1878 and we hope that each generation will build on the next,” he said.

Information is available online at subi.org.

Religion, Pages 12 on 07/31/2010

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