Iowa native began cattle company in Pine Bluffs

Dave Duello, owner of the Duello Cattle

Company, was raised on a ranch alongside

an average of 75 cattle in eastern

Iowa where his family grew corn and soybeans.

After graduating high school in Iowa, Duello

attended Iowa State University where he

received his bachelors degree in animal science

and a masters degree and doctorate in beef/

cattle population genetics.

Duello is a member of the 1986 national

champion livestock judging team and won several

livestock judging awards, including the

second high individual award at the North

American Livestock Expo in Louisville, Ky.

While working on his higher education, he

also worked as a livestock coaching instructor

at the university. Duello coached the 1992 and

1998 national champion teams.

"I have been fortunate to have judged about

every big livestock cattle show, at one time or

another, at the national and state level. It would

take a page and a half to list them all," Duello

said. "I have also been to New Zealand and

Australia in the late 1990s. At that time, (cattle)

was a grass fed product. They do have some

feedlots in those countries who now offer grains

to their cattle."

In the early 1990s, Duello became an operations

manager for on of the largest Angus operations

in the nation at that time, Ankony Angus.

For the past nine years, Duello has owned

and operated his own livestock company in

Wyoming, where he staffs two full-time employees.

He breeds approximately 400 composite bred

cows annually and calves approximately 300

composite cows each spring.

Currently in the company's seventh year of

sales, Duello said that half of its gross sales

come annually at the Western Stock Show in

Denver.

"The sale is unique and extremely successful

every year," he said. "We raise a pretty lean

product from a standpoint of the high end breeding

cow that we sell. We sell cows for embryo

transplant work and a lot of people will raise

show cattle of those different breeds. We get a

cow to super-ovulate and take those embryos

out of the superior cows and let the less superior

cows raise those calves.

"We get 50 to 75 calves out of our top 10 cows

every year – out of the 300 that we calve each

year. We mass produce the superior cattle."

Duello said he enjoys being involved with the

local 4-H and FFA youth with livestock judging,

and although he stays extremely busy on a

day to day basis, he loves every minute of it. He

offers anyone who is interested to come to the

ranch in Pine Bluffs to, "stop and look...and just

say 'hello'."