(upbeat rhythmic music) (upbeat rhythmic music continues) - Welcome to "A Shot of AG."

My name is Rob Sharkey.

I'm a fifth-generation farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

Are you ready for some purebred passion?

Are you ready to hear about AI?

(Rob chuckles) Well, let's talk with Tyler Schleich.

How you doing Tyler?

- Good.

How are you?

- Good.

Hey, you're from Monmouth.

- Correct, yeah.

- For the three people that don't know where that is, explain it.

- An hour straight south of the Quad Cities, or an hour northwest of Peoria, where we are today.

- Gotcha.

Is that where you grew up?

- Yep.

Born and raised in Warren County.

- Okay.

And it's Schleich.

- Schleich, yeah.

- But it's spelled with a whole bunch of consonants.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Good German name.

- Is that what it is?

- Yep.

- Have you had it your whole life?

(Rob and Tyler laughing) - Yeah, yeah.

- Now, did you grow up on a farm?

- Yes, I did.

Yep.

Grew up, my grandpa farmed, his whole life.

My dad has worked as a banker, so off the farm, so, small family farm.

- Gotcha.

So, did you always wanna get back into agriculture?

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- I mean, my fondest memories growing up are working with my dad and grandpa with the pigs and cattle and being outside.

So, I've always, from the time I've been outta college, I've worked in the ag industry.

- What kind of farm did you grow up on?

Like your grandpa's farm?

- So, farrow-to-finish, hog operation, commercial beef cows, feed lot, a little bit of corn and beans.

- So farrow-to-finish, that is the whole life cycle- - Yep.

- Right?

- Yep.

- Even the breeding?

- Yep, yep.

- Okay.

- So, we had the boars, had the sows, the farrowing barn, nursery, all of that.

Yep.

- So the farrowing is the- - Birthing of the pigs.

- Birthing the babies, yep.

The baby pigs.

- Yep.

- I know.

We talk farmer-ese.

- Yeah.

I gotta be careful when I have another farmer on here, because then we get emails that nobody understands a damn word we said.

(Tyler laughs) - Yeah, I can believe that, right?

It's just our normal lingo.

- Yeah.

- Yep.

- Growing up with livestock, it seems like it goes one of two ways.

It instills a passion for that person to do it the rest of their life, or it tells that person, "Not for me."

- No.

- What'd it do for you?

- It definitely instilled that passion.

I just loved working with animals.

I mean, yes, I can see where it's not as glamorous because there's a lot of hours and it smells, and the manure, and guess what?

No matter what, somebody's always gotta do chores in the morning and night, so.

- [Rob] Yeah.

It does seem that way.

- Yeah.

Yep.

- Also, on your family farm, it was a cattle?

Cow calf?

- Yep.

Yep.

So, cow calf, when I was a kid, everything got bred by the bulls and then weaned, fed some out, sold some at sale barn.

- Even growing up, like through high school, do you do the whole 4-H, FFA, all that stuff?

- So I was more active in FFA.

My siblings were probably a little more active in 4-H, but yeah, definitely FFA from livestock judging, soils, even to the woodworking and welding part, FFA.

- Gotcha.

Now, you look younger.

I know you're younger than I am, so when you were going through it, was it just called FFA or was it still the Future Farmers of America?

- I just thought, well, future Farmers of America, I just refer to it as FFA.

- Yeah.

- Abbreviation.

- You still got your jacket?

- I do.

Yep.

- They're wonderful jackets.

I don't know what that, is it corduroy?

- Yeah.

Yeah, the blue corduroy, yeah.

- I don't know who made that decision, but they've stuck with it, haven't they?

- Yeah, I haven't wore it a whole lot in the last 15 years.

- [Rob] Mine has shrunk.

I don't know about yours, but.

- Well, I don't know if the jacket shrunk or what happened to me.

One of the two.

- No, I've heard that.

- Yeah.

- FFA jackets, apparently- - Oh.

- If you leave them in the closet long enough, they tend to shrink.

- Oh.

- It's not us getting bigger.

- Oh, that's good, that makes me feel better.

- 'Cause I was worried.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Whew.

Good to know.

- Yeah.

(Rob and Tyler chuckling) - Where'd you go to high school?

- So, I went through a high school consolidation, but I graduated from United High School.

- [Rob] Okay, what's, I don't even know where that's at.

- So, it would be, so, three schools came together, Warren, Alexis and Yorkwood, and basically, where the rural kids of Warren County go to United.

- Okay.

A state champion football team.

Did you play?

- Yep.

- What position?

- Defense end, offensive tackle.

- Oh, so you played both ways?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- We're a small 1A school, so most, you played both ways.

- I know, but it's like, once you get out of like, 1A or whatever, the whole concept of playing both offense and defense is not even thought about.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- We're like the Iron Men.

- Yeah.

- The good ol' days.

- Yeah- - Yeah.

- The quarterback's like, the linebacker too, you know?

Yeah.

- I, unlike you, never really made it to the playoffs, let alone a state championship.

(Tyler chuckles) That had to be, that had to be awesome.

- That was honestly, just a lot of fun.

And it was a great timing, too.

That was the first year of the consolidation.

- [Rob] Oh, really?

- So it really helped bring the community together, and just a lot of fun.

I had played on a few football teams, freshman and sophomore year, that were in the playoffs fairly deep.

But, to win the state title was pretty cool.

- Carl Sandburg College?

That's where you went?

- Yep.

Small-town kid thought the local junior college would be a lot easier transition than a bigger four-year school for me, so.

- [Rob] But, do you think they're right?

- It worked for me very well.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- It was a lot easier transition.

I lived at home, drove, you know, saved some money, too.

- That's always good.

- Yeah, it was huge.

So, it was a very, very good decision looking back.

- What'd you study there?

- I just got all my gen eds out of the way.

They didn't have an ag program- - Okay.

- At that time.

I know they're looking at it now, but I hope they do, but, I just, gen eds.

- Okay, you got out of school, and then you went to work for a guy named Bud Hobbs.

Tell me about that.

- Yeah, so, actually, there through the college days I was working for him.

I started, I was working down the road for somebody, just helping redo their barn, and he needed some help and approached me and- - [Rob] Down the road from the- - From Bud Hobbs.

Yep, yep.

- From Bud Hobbs, okay.

- And, you know, we were done about middle of the summer with that, so, still had some time and he needed some help, and, it's crazy.

Bud has been a mentor and a lifelong friend, and actually to this day, I go breed his cows for him, now.

So.

That's where I learned.

- Okay.

Artificial insemination.

- Yep.

- AI.

- Yep, AI.

- Okay.

(Rob and Tyler chuckling) - Yes, as best you can on PBS- - Yeah.

- Explain what that is.

- So, artificial insemination would be taking frozen semen from, you hope, an elite, genetic sire and- - [Rob] Bull.

- Bull.

- Yeah.

- And placing it into the cow, the female.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And, making her pregnant.

- Yeah.

If we weren't two very mature people, we'd make jokes right now.

- It'd be very easy to, yes.

(pen clicking) (Rob sighs) - But I digress.

(Rob and Tyler chuckling) So, did, I mean, you've learned this.

- Yep.

- It is, from what I understand, not everybody can quite do it.

It's an art, almost.

- Yeah, yep.

And I think it's a thing I learned at school, that went to a school, and then, quite honestly, the first couple of years outta school really struggled.

Because, I mean, you can't see anything when you're artificially inseminating a cow.

It's all with feeling of your hand.

So you're trying to manipulate and move things around in there to get the semen to the right spot.

So it can be, I think it takes a lot of practice to get comfortable.

- Yeah.

Again, it's a good thing- - Mm hm.

- That we're both mature individuals- - Yeah.

- And not making any jokes right now.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

Yep.

- Does it help if you buy the cow dinner first?

(Tyler laughs) - Well- - See, see.

That one wasn't bad.

- No, no.

- That one was okay.

- No, it helps if somebody feeds her good before I get there, though.

(Rob laughs) - It is, I mean, you make a joke about it, but it's big business because like you said, if you're gonna go to the effort to do that, you're gonna go to the effort to get the semen from a bull that is, you're using quality animals, quality genetics- - Yep.

- So if you screw that up, you're talking a lot of money.

- Yeah, yeah.

It's not, when we talk about synchronization and artificial insemination and even the embryo transfer side of things, you're talking a substantial investment.

So, you're looking to get it done right.

And that starts, that's a yearlong process from a management standpoint on the cowherd.

- Do you gotta like, prove yourself to do that?

- I would say, yes.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- I mean, we have bred cows for over a decade, you know, pushing a thousand to more a year.

So I think reputation has helped build that business, based off of success stories, yep.

- Your wife, Cassie?

- Yep.

- Where'd you meet her?

- I met her at the Illinois State Fair.

(Rob snorts) Yeah.

- Sounds romantic.

- Oh, I know.

Two livestock kids met in the swine bar at a state fair.

- Okay.

Were you like, showing cattle?

- Yeah.

Yep.

- [Rob] Okay.

- We were both down there showing, yep.

- [Rob] Is it cow jockey?

Is that a bad term?

- It depends on who you talk to.

- Okay.

But it can be used as kind of like a rib, right?

- Yeah.

It can, you know, cow jockey, maybe somebody that is really good at grooming one and with clippers and- - Y'all know how to make 'em look pretty.

- Yeah.

- I will say that.

- Yeah.

I'm not very good at that.

I do a better job on the AIing and management and feeding them and taking care of 'em than- - But like, if you're showing down at the state fair, is it out of line for you to hire somebody to groom?

- Yeah, no, no.

- No?

- No, absolutely.

Most of that's all hired.

Right?

Is it?

- Or you're on somebody's crew that would quote, the term would be fit one.

- [Rob] Fit one?

- Yep.

- I don't know what that is.

- So, you would, I guess, kinda comb and glue the leg hair and the tailheads to make everything look nice lines and smoother or bigger.

- Yeah.

It is, I don't know how you would say it, but it's to make the steer, the cow, whatever you're showing, it's make the most desirable so if you want, you know, more junk in the trunk, you might, you bush the hair up so it looks- - Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, you could refer to that.

Maybe like a beauty pageant for livestock.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Lot of work goes into that, that the average person doesn't realize.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

- A lot of hours at home before you ever get there.

- Do you paint the hooves?

- I think most do, yeah.

- Yeah.

I like when they take the tail and they just make it like a ball.

- The ball.

- Do they still do that?

- Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Yep.

- If you haven't seen it, it's like if you were alive in the nineties, that would be all the girls' hair.

- Yeah.

- It all went straight up.

- Yeah.

- It was the best hairstyle ever.

- Yeah.

- I don't know why we've gotten away from it.

I think Jennifer Aniston had a lot to do with it (Tyler chuckles) but I think if we could go back to the bangs, honestly, I think we'd all be happier.

- It might come back.

You never know.

(Rob exhales) - Fingers crossed, right?

(Tyler chuckles) All right, Cassie, so she understood the livestock.

I mean, she understood what you did, right?

- Yeah, yep.

- How long you been married?

- 10 years yesterday.

- Yesterday?

- Yeah.

- Well, congratulations.

- Yeah, thank you.

- I mean, 10 years in a marriage, that's not all that common anymore.

- No.

No, it's not, you know?

And nobody ever tells you, it's never perfect, you know?

- Oh, my marriage is.

- Yeah.

Yours is?

Good for you.

(Rob cracks up) - It is work, right?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- I mean, especially when you're dealing with unknowns like livestock.

- Yeah.

- Do you ever sort cattle with Cassie?

- Yeah, we do.

We actually do that a lot.

I mean, we run a breeding business together that would definitely be easy to get in arguments about.

- Now, my dad, he gave me some advice one time when I got married.

He said, "Don't ever sort hogs with your wife-" - Mm hm" - "'Cause it's not gonna end well."

And yet, you're working with Cassie and so, do you guys just know that that's the way it's gonna go?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think we've done it long enough, we just kinda know what not to say- - [Rob] Yeah.

- At certain times, so you just- - [Rob] Do you use professional words?

- We really, really try not to, especially with the help that we have running around.

It's, yeah, yeah.

- Well, tell me about the business.

- Sure.

So, then 2009, it really took off from just breeding a handful of neighbors' cows for some side cash in college, to a true business.

Once Cassie and I started dating, she learned how to do it, and then from there, we started taking on bigger projects at once because there was two of us able to help.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And, it's just really grown from there.

I mean, we used to chase all over the state.

I mean, we would be in Northern Illinois, we'd go Eastern Illinois, and we still do for the most part.

Gotta run all over every spring.

- Okay.

- So.

- You've start the business, tell me about this.

- Yeah, so in 2018 we bought a bigger house, 'cause we had a little one, well, her room was our bedroom in a tiny little farm house, so we bought a bigger place, and at that time we decided there was no cattle buildings there, or what was there could not be used.

So, we underwent a pretty good sized project and built the barn we always wanted to build, and it's been pretty awesome to have that now.

- So was this like a, I mean, not just a business plan?

Was this kinda like the dream?

- It was, yes.

I mean, to have a facility that half of it is insulated, so when we're calving in the middle of winter, we have heat, we have floor drains and wash racks for the show cattle or sale cattle, and then, everything is connected there.

And the idea was, is that one person can sort the cattle by themselves and get 'em through the shoot.

- Yeah, I grew up, you know, I'm just grain, right?

But I grew up in a shop that, it was not, it had a heater, but I mean, come on.

- Yeah.

- So, when I got on my own, we built a shed and I put the infloor heat, you know, and it finally, it's like it had a place in winter that I could work without freezing.

- Yep.

- It meant the world.

It just like, all of a sudden, I'm happy to be out there.

Was this the same way?

- Yeah, it was huge for us because we have two little girls that I wanted them to be actively involved in everything and we don't have any hired help to help us with the cattle, so, you know.

- Ah, that's why you didn't want to use a professional words.

- Yeah.

- I got it.

- Yeah.

Yes.

- It's all starting to make sense now, isn't it?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, it has always been Cassie and I doing that.

So, with two little kids running around, we needed a place that they could be safe, warm, and we could still get work done.

- Yeah.

So you do have a job, right?

You work for a feed company?

- Yeah.

Yep, so I work for Kent Feeds.

- Mm hm.

- Yep.

- Now, I mean that, a lot of times you have the deal where like, that pays the bills, right?

- Yeah.

- But, is this chasing the dream?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So, Kent Feeds, I mean, great to work there.

The nutrition, beef cattle nutritionists.

- [Rob] It's been around forever.

- Yeah.

I mean, that is what I do.

I work with wonderful people, but yeah, the breeding business, our own cows, is chasing our own dream on the side, and it has been, it's been huge for us because, once we welcomed our first child in, my wife was driving 60-something miles one way to work, and it just, it wasn't working very well.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- So the breeding business was up and going at that point, and that extra income allowed us to, she quit, and then a year later she found another job that worked better.

But, so it has been there as our saving grace, and it's been there as our extra income.

- Well, and I mean, there's a sense of pride too, from, I mean, this is yours, you've built it from the ground up.

- Yeah, and we have never done a very good job of tooting our own horn or being boastful about it, but yes, I mean, we did not buy this business from anybody and we have ran it just ourselves there's no employees.

It's us two.

- Yeah.

I know you don't toot your own horn, but it had to feel kinda nice to be recognized, right?

- Yeah.

- Illinois Soybean Association 20 under 40 program.

Was it an award?

- Yeah, so this was their initial year of kicking it off.

I actually did not know I was nominated for it.

My wife did that, kinda secretly.

- [Rob] Cassie.

- Yeah, yeah.

(Rob chuckles) So, I've learned a lot about it since, I guess, being selected.

But, yeah, so 20 under 40, nomination and so a couple letters of recommendation and all that good stuff.

So, yeah.

- Agriculture's kind of a funny deal because 40 is actually kinda, considered still young.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

- So to be picked as that, I mean, what'd that mean when you heard that?

- Really, very humbling.

I mean, I like to work hard and try to be very active in the ag community, and just do a good job representing our industry.

So when you do get an award, it kinda, it puts a smile on your face and makes you feel that, hey, you know, what you're doing, people notice and keep it up.

- Do you get a plaque?

- So far, I got a hat, and I think I'll get a plaque down the road.

- You got a hat?

- Yeah.

- Illinois Soybean hat?

- Well, it's a blue hat with a emblem on it, says 20 under 40.

- [Rob] Ohh.

- Yep.

- [Rob] That can get you into places- - Yeah.

- [Rob] You know what I'm saying?

- Yeah, yep.

- Like, I don't know, I don't know where it'd get you into, but- - Yeah.

Well, it's- - You could always try it.

- Yeah, I thought it was kind of ironic, you know?

20 under 40 young farmers, we get another hat.

(Rob laughs) - Yes.

Us and agriculture aren't necessarily short on hats- - No.

- But if you show up to sell something without a hat, then we're upset.

- I know.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Gosh, you would be, it's so hard to deal with us.

- Yeah.

(Rob and Tyler chuckling) - You work very hard for what you've got.

I mean, did you learn that from your parents, grandparents?

- Yeah, absolutely.

I've been pretty blessed with a lot of influences in my life.

Yeah, my dad is a very hard worker.

I mean, yes, he works off the farm, but I mean, when I was young, and I think where a lot of the passion was instilled, he'd come home from working all day, eat supper and then we'd grind feed till well past 10 o'clock at night and do swine chores, you know?

So, learned it from there.

My grandpa was the same way.

What was really neat was, 'cause my dad was at work and I was a young teen, Grandpa was very active, still, so I got to spend a lot of time with him and learned a lot of valuable life lessons.

He was a good teacher.

And then, I've been very fortunate when I got to work with Bud Hobbs, I saw the same thing.

And even with my wife's dad and grandpa today, so, a lot of influential men, I guess, showed me that.

- Yeah.

For what you do is pretty much like the show "Yellowstone."

- Yeah.

- It's a joke.

- Well- - I mean, you don't take people to the train station?

(Rob laughing) - No, no.

- That show, I mean, honestly, if I was a cattle guy I'd be a little miffed, because, you know, it's like they've got, how many people working there for- - Ah, yeah.

- And it doesn't show that big of a herd.

- No, it kinda looks like they run the herd the size Cassie and I do- - Yeah, I know.

- And there's umpteen- - Some 20 people.

- Yeah, yeah.

(Rob laughs) - 20 full-time people in the buck house.

- Yeah.

- Come on, Kevin Costner, you can do better.

(Rob laughs) You run into somebody new, right?

Or, somebody young, I should say.

You run into somebody young, that has this dream of starting a business with livestock, cattle, something.

What advice do you give 'em?

- Just don't give up.

'Cause you'll find some lows in there, and, you know, there's definitely some highs, but you just gotta keep working, don't give up, and stay true to what you want to build.

You know?

There's a lot of, in the livestock industry, there's a lot of fads or stuff, it seems like.

But, you know, stay true to what you want to do.

- You raise, I mean, you're dealing with breeding livestock, right?

- Yep.

- Does that follow, like, the markets of like, the market cattle?

- For the most part, yes.

The bull market is driven off of performance, you know, which is where the majority of people sell their cattle by the pound.

The show side of it is completely different.

But, yeah, I would say the seed stock business actually tries to be, you know, a step or two ahead of the commercial market.

- When we interview people on the XM show, mainly out west, right, that deal with breeding stock and that.

They talk about how much preparation, how much effort, how important their bull sales are.

Do you guys deal with that, too?

- Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the bull sale is, you know, we sell most of ours privately, but that is our chance to show off our genetics and hopefully that's appealing to our customers.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- You know, 'cause it takes, you gotta start think, I mean, you know, nine months just for that calf to be born, you're selling a bull as it's 14 to 16 months old, there's a lot of preparation involved in that.

- But it's gotta be somewhat like we talked about, an art, right?

Because you can't say, like with corn, right?

You want the biggest yield per acre.

This you're dealing with what you think is gonna be desirable for people to use as breeding stock.

- Yeah.

And then it's those customers, to buy bulls, everybody's got a little bit different opinion of what they want.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- For their herd bulls.

So you try to breed and raise something that's appealing to the majority.

- Yeah.

And if they don't understand that, then that's their fault, right?

It's gotta be a little frustrating, right?

- It definitely can be.

- When you finally have like, this bull you think, "Finally, this is what we did it," and then the buyers are going, "You know, I think things have changed."

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Where can people find out more about you and your business?

- We're fairly active on Facebook, social media.

We have a website, and then we advertise in a few places as well.

- The Schleich Cattle Company?

- Schleich Cattle Services is normally- - Cattle Services?

- Yeah.

- No, it's not gonna be someone that wants like, hamburgers, right?

This is breeding stock?

- Yeah.

Yep, yep, yep.

Breeding stock and then, AI or ET services, yep.

- Okay.

I think it's really cool what you have built, from the ground up.

It says a lot about you, it says a lot about your family, your wife, and you know, even your dad and your grandfather and what they've instilled in you.

- Well, thank you.

- I really like it that the Illinois Soybean Association provided, you know, a platform to show people like yourself that, you know, it's appreciated, by us in agriculture and outside of agriculture- - Yeah.

- That you're working so hard.

So, Tyler Schleich.

- Yep.

- Thank you so very much.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next week.

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