In the palm of his handUntil 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 barbed wire ev disc lock cable thick stack of wire records and carry them out to the rolling pastures. "i''d be digging through the fence papers, and the business marketing tool 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 barbed 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.

ultrasound works wire magicone security tool that fence south dakota beef producers blane and cindy nagel can''t do without is tool an ultrasound machine. all heifers on their 300-head maine-anjou herd are scanned each may and then bred according to their barbed muscle scores and marbling levels. ultrasound data for all sale bulls is provided to potential buyers. "as a breeder, i use it as a mating tool," says blane, who farms near springfield. "the buyers of my bulls use wire it as a selection tool." nagel pays most attention to the marbling around the ribeye area. his cattle naturally muscle well, so he is looking for those who are also heavily marbled.

"purchasing a bobcat for general farm use has been a lifesaver -- for loading hay, cleaning out fence rows, hauling rocks, etc.," writes jeff suess, henley, missouri. the fence gehl skid steer saves me time, labor, and my back. i use it more than i thought i would," says bill haas, bellevue, ohio.atv ready to rodeoatvs are near the top of the list of tool products rated by stockmen''s survey[tm] respondents. well over half of participants cite a favorite brand or model. "i''d be lost barbed and wire without my atvs," says marty green of grand mound, iowa (pictured above). he jumps on either his polaris 300 or 400 4x4 every day april through september to check fence calves for scours, pinkeye and lameness, to check cows for heat tool detection, to fix fence, and to move cattle to different paddocks.