Thorstenson Gelbvieh & Angus, located near Selby, South Dakota, is a family run farm/ranch that focuses on providing trouble free, performance seedstock. It is operated by Vaughn Thorstenson, Brian Begeman (Brother-in-law),
Jeff Lesch, manager of their north ranch, and Dustin Burggraff, a herdsman at the south ranch at Mound City.

The Thorstenson family has been raising cattle in Walworth County in north central South Dakota since 1885. In the early 1900's the ranch had registered Shorthorn cattle, but was still predominately a commercial cow calf operation until the early 1970's. At that time Ken purchased a group of registered Charolais, Limousin, and Gelbvieh cows. The Gelbvieh cattle quickly moved to the top as the most functional cattle with the best disposition.

By 1975 they had become a full fledged registered Gelbvieh operation selling hybrid bulls and a few purebred Gelbvieh bulls privately each spring. In 1982 their first annual production sale was held in conjunction with Maize Gelbvieh of Gettysburg, SD. This was held at St. Onge South Dakota. In 1984 their 3rd annual production sale was held the first Saturday in March at Mobridge, South Dakota, where it has been held ever since.

AI has been an extensive part of their breeding program since the early 1970's. They continue to AI approximately 2/3 of the cowherd annually. They have been blessed to have owned some of the greatest herd sires in the breed through the years. The most well known is undoubtedly Minnesota Double, a performance trait leader for over 15 years. His influence is still being noted in their foundation cows. Other well known resident herd sires includes:

The Thorstensons have sold semen from all of these bulls and in many instances the progeny from these resident herd sires have greatly impacted the Gelbvieh breed.

In 1993 they decided to diversify their operation and purchased some large groups of Angus cows from several well known breeders. That original group of cows has been culled hard and AI'ed extensively to create a powerful set of Angus females. They have had the privilege of owning CA Future Direction, one of the great carcass bulls in the breed. They currently have approximately 250 Angus cows, which are also used in producing some of their Hybrid Balancer bulls.

At the present time they have a spring calving cowherd with over 650 mother cows and a fall calving cowherd with approximately 100 cows. They offer purebred Gelbvieh, Hybrid or Balancer bulls (Gelbvieh x Red Angus or Black Angus) and purebred Angus bulls.