Our Story
J.J. Scheckel Angus is owned and operated by Josh Scheckel, his wife Angie, and their seven kids. The story is long and humble from the beginning.
It all started with Josh as a young boy growing up on the small family farm in Bellevue, Iowa, feeding the cows and horses, field work, grinding feed, hauling manure, and finishing out the calves every year. Josh’s father, Tom, owned a small earthmoving company that started with one machine and grew through the years as well. Josh spent all his summers running earthmoving equipment around Iowa on dirt projects and is where he also developed his love and knowledge of the heavy equipment business.
Through his teen years Josh rode bulls in High School Rodeo and continued working for the family farm and business. At 17 years old, Josh went to Auction School in Mason City, Iowa, and became an Auctioneer. Josh’s father Tom also owned and operated United Livestock Auction in Maquoketa, Iowa for over 20 years. Working at the cattle sale barn really opened Josh’s eyes to the huge difference in the quality of cattle, and the different market prices they commanded while coming through the door every week from different owners. Josh also did local household and farm auctions through the early years with his dad Tom, and Uncle Wayne.
At 19 years old, Josh went out on his own, starting J.J. Scheckel Heavy Equipment Corporation from scratch with no employees and no facilities, and an old machine inventory of one or two machines with a value of under $10,000 in total. Laughed at by many, Josh kept working and slowly increasing inventory one machine at a time. J.J. Scheckel Heavy Equipment grew into what we are today over the last 30 years of work from the bottom up.
The J.J. Scheckel Angus operation was also started with the same humble beginnings from scratch over 20 years ago with no family land, not one cow, no inheritance, and no equipment. Josh first purchased 12 registered bred heifers from a dispersion sale of a long time Angus breeder, Summitcrest Farms. Prior to that Josh had a herd of 50 commercial angus cows and had used registered Angus bulls on them for years. During that time frame, Josh had just purchased his first remote and rough farm from a neighbor that said if he could find a way into the farm, he could buy the farm. With no right-of-way or lane, Josh negotiated the purchase of a lane from an adjoining landowner, and made the half mile lane through rock bluffs with his own heavy equipment. This farm was full of junk fences, overgrown pastures, no electricity, no pens, no equipment, and no facilities besides a 120 year old barn, that we still use today. This was a time in Josh’s life that the farm was a huge investment and huge risk, money was borrowed to the max and he had to make every single dollar work and the cattle sure had to work to pay the bills. This was the very formative time when Josh was struggling out in the mud, snow, and rain himself working with his cattle and the very reason our current herd goals and fundamentals were developed. He experienced the pain of hard calving, hard doing, prolapses, bad feet, bad udders where a calf can’t suck, death, temperament problems and all the other problems and pain and the financial burden that comes with poor doing cattle that disgusted Josh at a time when he really needed these cattle to work to pay the farm loan.
Through the years both the J.J. Scheckel Heavy Equipment business and the Angus operation have grown in unison from their humble infancy into what they are today. More farms and land have been purchased, and the size and scope of both the Angus business and the Heavy Equipment business has increased over the years.
To this day Josh is still actively involved in every step of the Angus and farming operation, from all pedigree and mating decisions, to A.I. and breeding work, to formulating every feed ration, to processing all new calves born, to marketing, to writing the yearly sale book, footnotes, and more. Josh is hand on, boots on the ground every day.
Josh likes to spend any free time going out to eat with his wife, having a Wisconsin Brandy Old Fashioned or two, traveling to watch his children compete in sporting events, and flying his helicopter, a Bell Jet Ranger properly named “Air Dozer 1”.
The JJ Scheckel “Type and Kind”
Josh is passionate and obsessive about the J.J. Scheckel cow herd. The strict and intense cow focus is the base of everything we do. We breed for the special type and kind of cow displaying extra length, width, depth, and mass of body with fleshing ability in a balanced and moderate frame size. The fundamentals of solid feet, udders, longevity, high fertility, gain ability, and grade ability are demanded and required. They have to not only work in the real world, they have to thrive in the real world.
The J.J. Scheckel type and kind of bull is a real world cow maker first, a high maternal bull from a proven hard working dam. We also like these bulls long, thick, wide, and deep in a moderate 4.5-6 frame package. A 3-dimensional bull with a lot of muscle and original breed character. Super strict attention to longevity, structure, and rock solid foot quality is demanded and required. We like bulls able to work hard, breed hard, and leave behind beautiful and stunning females that are full of fertility, longevity, perfect udders, and all the traits to keep replicating the process.
We’re a “Meat and Potatoes” type of operation.
We’re out here living with our herd every day ourselves, doing the real work in a tough environment, 100% outdoors, no special buildings or provisions, or pampering. We are in the mud, snow and ice, and we believe in real data, real weights, real information – that everyday reliability within the herd, the stuff you can’t quantify, the problem-free cowman traits. We have a vested interest in making these cattle and our herd work for us.
In a world of numbers and gloss, the real game is still won, and still lost, in the pastures. All the computer generated numbers in the world will never out perform the cow that wins in her real world pasture setting through fertility, reliability, production record, and longevity. Those 14 year old cows that been there, done that, and did it problem free year after year – those are the real winners of the race in any herd. Those are the type and kind of cattle we breed for here at J.J. Scheckel.
The end goal of J.J. Scheckel Angus is very simple: We breed the type of cattle that will perform reliably and at the very top end of the industry for our customers, whether that be a customer that buys our bulls to use, and then sells his calves at weaning, retains and feeds his cattle, and especially for the customer that retains their heifers for their own cow herd. We feel we can make a positive impact in the cattle industry.
Josh founded J.J. Scheckel Heavy Equipment in 1996, a construction equipment dealership focusing mainly on rebuilding, renting, servicing, and selling Caterpillar equipment. Since its founding, J.J. Scheckel Corporation has sold machines in every state, and every continent in the world. J.J. Scheckel Corporation is still growing well into the future. You can follow the heavy equipment company on all social media channels or its website.
Our Location, Our Farms
Our farms are all located in Bellevue, Iowa, a small community in Jackson County. Bellevue is in far east Iowa, along the Mississippi River. The Scheckel family has been raising livestock and crops in this county since immigrating here from Luxembourg in the mid-1800’s. Every generation since has been actively involved in cattle and farming. J.J. Scheckel operates on our owned pasture ground to meet our herds needs..
Many associate Iowa as flat land with beautiful black dirt; Jackson County, Iowa, is much different- Bellevue lays along the Mississippi River Valley, known as the Driftless Region, and is extremely hilly, steep, and full of rocks and bluffs. Our farms are some of the roughest, steepest, and rockiest ground that can be found anywhere in the country. This ground makes for some sturdy cattle.
Our Environment
Our extremely rough environment works well in developing cattle that can handle various obstacles and terrain, along with weather extremes. I would put our location up with any in the USA in terms of how aggressively fit and sturdy our cattle have to be to maintain themselves. This environment tends to sort out the weak-legged, poor-disposition animals rather quickly. In most pastures, the cattle have to walk several miles to water and forage daily. The feet and legs and overall confirmation of our animals has to be rock solid to survive and thrive in these underfoot conditions.
Temperatures here in eastern Iowa are also some of the most extreme you will find anywhere in the USA; summers regularly bring 100° days with extreme humidity. The winters often bring temperatures 20-30° below zero or worse. We experience a lot of wind also, deep snow is common as we generally get storms from several inches to several feet. Ice and freezing rain are common place. Spring time the temperature on any one given day can start at 5° in the morning, and rise to 65° during the day, then back down to 5° or lower at night, creating very massive temperature swings daily that is really hard on cattle’s health. Our cattle have to maintain themselves in this hard environment without buildings to survive. 100% of our cattle are outdoors 365 days a year with no special buildings or pampered provisions.
