Quickest Ways to Profitability & Harmony

This list is old news, but reviews are seldom a waste of time. Oftentimes, we need to revisit a topic to find the low hanging fruit of our business or keeping a home to be more effective in our lives.

Questions to ask yourself:

“Am i asking the right question?” How can i do this without spending money? Do i need to do this? Am i very efficiently doing the wrong thing?

If you think it won’t work for you, then it won’t. If it’s something we don’t want to change, we will set up the situation to fail on purpose. We often are the biggest stumbling block to harmony in our professions and relationships by refusing to seek a solution which, oddly, in many situations would not only enhance our lives, but be more productive and profitable as well!

As Kit Pharo says, ‘The easiest money you will ever make is the money you don’t spend – and that money is tax-free.”

In ranching:

1. Combine animals into as few herds as possible. One or two is best. One cow herd, one bull herd kept separate until breeding season. Having one cowherd will greatly reduce the number of bulls you need to cover the cows. A single herd moved multiple times per day will actually improve productivity of the soil and increase desirable plant species (aka regenerative ranching) more rapidly than some popular managed selective grazing programs. Think outside the box on this one. Although one herd is ideal, sometimes there may be a reason for another. In the season of life you are young, strong, energetic, it is important to have cash flow and other income streams. Use separate pastures (leased or owned) for short term use. For instance, you may have a herd of yearling heifers or steers. Perhaps you want to breed your yearling replacement heifers to easy calving bulls. If you have many multiple pastures, miles apart – consider another use for the far-reaching ones. Perhaps hay it in the summer, then allow to grow for short term yearling grazing (sell the animals before winter). Lease or sell the land and focus on the main portions. Chances are very good that profitability will increase, labor will decrease, family life will improve.
2. Calve in sync with nature. In our part of the world of north central Missouri, one would look back in history and learn when the bison calved. This is typically mid-May through June, perhaps a bit into July. Oftentimes you may hear, ‘when do the deer fawn?’ But deer are more like sheep or goats than cattle and breeding season weather needs consideration in many parts of the world. While you are at it, shorten the breeding season to discover your most fertile cows.
3. Let cows raise their calves. In extreme weather conditions, it may be necessary to wean calves early and sell either them or their mommas.
4. Select animals for your breeding herd from your own stock. Starting out, try to find local animals raised the way you will be. This will likely be nearly impossible, and you’ll end up culling a lot. Expensive up front, but long term is the best solution to finding adapted animals which can perform without expensive inputs.
5. Incorporate some sort of managed grazing. I use Real Wealth Ranching techniques which is a way of incorporating nonselective grazing, identifying adapted animals, matching calving/breeding season with forage availability, increasing profitability, and creating harmony in your life and human relationships.
6. ‘Kick the Hay Habit‘ might be the name of a book by Jim Gerrish, but it is great advice for reducing costs. Hay and all the labor and machinery expense associated with it seldom makes sense in today’s ranching world. There are exceptions – especially weather related – but by and large it takes a huge bite out of the bottom line.
7. Reduce overheads! Stan Parsons said you only need a hammer and a wheelbarrow to be a financially successful rancher, and the wheelbarrow was questionable. Now, i might be paraphrasing, but his point is clear; that which rusts, rots, and depreciates is not an asset and likely adds labor and other unnecessary costs. Machinery, buildings, vehicles, even a stack of hay!

Decades ago, i sat in on an introductory Ranching for Profit course taught by Stan Parsons and i thought he had the craziest ideas. I’ve long since embraced many of his precepts, but the concepts need to be revisited to keep on track. I’m constantly making mistakes and forgetting to keep my life in harmony with my work.

Hopefully, future blog entries will dig a bit deeper into each point with real life, personal examples, and experiences.

Shabbat Shalom!

Create beauty and harmony!

Predicting A Drought?

Having just returned from a 3-week sojourn visiting friends through Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas, there is very serious and visible evidence of continued drought in those areas.  Fire danger is pegged at super high.  Without rain soon, pastures will struggle to start their normal growth.  Whatever ‘normal’ is anymore.

As the short, cold, blustery, gloomy days of winter slowly lengthen towards spring with renewed growth and opportunity, it’s a good time to review the past year(s) and plan to overcome mistakes and explore new pathways towards better land stewardship, animal husbandry, and profitability. Creating harmony is a good goal, so finding ways to accomplish that will mean different paths to each person and will include others and the season of our lives.

For this moment, I want to consider the very real possibility of severe drought and have a plan in place before it might arrive. How can my ranch harmonize profitability, animal welfare, and land improvement if drought becomes a reality.

In our area of north central Missouri, the ‘normal’ time to begin stockpiling forages for winter grazing is about August 10.  However, for the past 5 consecutive years, those late summer/early fall rains have been nonexistent.  This is entirely why I sold about 33% of my cow herd in the fall of 2020 because of my grazing protocol for the past 30 years I had no stockpile and was looking at another winter of feeding hay.  No more I decided, so I sold any cow that had no calf at side and any pair which was not replacement quality calf regardless of age or condition.  Additionally, even though it was hard for me (because I like colorful cows), I sold any cow with ‘chrome’ even if she was a good producer.  Colorful calves are heavily docked in price in our area regardless of quality.

That was my ‘drought’ plan for that winter even though we really were not in a period of low rainfall; the rains are just not coming at the time needed.  Shortly after that, Jaime Elizondo appeared in my view again, this time via Instagram, so I e-mailed him and asked him what in the world he was talking about! I took his courses and am a monthly subscriber to ongoing education (Fat Wallet Rancher) – game changer!  Within weeks, I now realized my managed grazing program was creating my ‘drought.’

Although, even with having found a few head of cows or heifers to increase mob numbers, I’m seriously understocked.  However, referring back to my trip and the talk of the experts, it could be that Missouri may experience real drought this year (2022). Time will tell.

The point of sharing these thoughts is perhaps to remind myself of a good way to address the unknown and be prepared.  For sure, no one knows if we will have a drought.  It is somewhat dry in our area now, but subsoil moisture is good and ponds are full.  But if one is uncomfortable going into the season fully stocked, then make changes now if livestock prices are good.  And that they are.

1. Sell any and ALL cows without a calf – immediately
2. Sell any bred cow with or without a calf at side if she doesn’t have a replacement quality calf
3. Sell any cow – open or bred – who has missed having a calf at any time in her past
4. Sell steers of any weight which are in demand
5. Sell heifers of any weight which are in demand and you don’t plan to keep as replacements
6. Maybe go through your bull battery and see if there are old bulls that need selling.   Be careful here until after semen check to be certain you have enough adapted bulls for your own herd.
7. Anything with a flighty or dangerous attitude goes immediately.
8. Making sure you are calving in sync with nature will be one of the biggest changes you can make to become more profitable, though it’s not the only easy management change you can implement to address drought situations.

Some of our cows may not be good cows – how do I justify selling them to someone else?  Oftentimes, if I have a known poor producer (which thankfully I no longer have – but it takes drastic purging to get to that point), or one which has developed a flighty or dangerous disposition, I speak up at the sale.  But most will be fine in a more traditional herd.  I push my animals to perform in mob grazing, total grazing, and a very short breeding season.

Bottom line is to ask one’s self – if I can’t make money with this cow or worse, she is costing me money, how can I possibly think that simply having another calf to sell is a good thing?  NO!  Even if you go through a time of low inventory and not many calves to sell – it is far better to not have the expense of an unproductive ‘factory.’  Sell it into a situation in which she may perform.  She is simply not adapted to our farm and management and probably never will be.

Perhaps you will need to find a side gig or off farm job to make up the difference for a few years, but when those replacement heifers and possibly home raised bulls out of the very best cows you have start to build in numbers, you will be SO far ahead of the game.  However, that will also affect your cash flow until those heifers start producing.  Cow/Calf production is a long-term game.  Be prepared.

As far as the possibility of a drought, this also leaves you in a position to be very low on numbers.  If you have been diligent and don’t have any of the cows mentioned in the sell list, then it will be harder to part with some.  Maybe wean early (sell the cows) and keep their replacement calves – they won’t eat as much – yet you will still be keeping your best adapted genetics.  Depending on the cost, one may consider shipping the stock to a place where custom grazing is available.

There are times in some areas with years of extended drought – if those are normal, perhaps livestock is not the right use of the land in that climate.  Or maybe just a certain class of livestock will work.  However, in north Missouri, droughts are usually short duration and/or are of our own making. I remember my grandpa telling of a time in the 1950s in which they cut down trees to feed the cows, but am thinking that works well but only for short term.

In Missouri on primarily cool season forages, we typically experience a ‘summer slump’ in which heat and humidity and no rains result in little to no growth in forages in the middle of the summer. This is not drought, but an annual event which can be planned for. Utilizing total grazing techniques can prepare you for this slump by having ample forage for grazing until the cool season grasses start growing again when temperatures start cooling in the fall.

What has worked for you in a drought situation?

Shalom!

tauna