Counting my pennies

[gfd_703]

I took a class put on by the State of Tennessee a few years ago and the one thing that I came away with was this statement. There are two groups of people making money off of cattle in the state, the registered man selling at a high dollar and the low cost man that only spends what he must. He said everybody else was loosing money but most just did not know it yet.

 

[Caustic Burno]

I took a class put on by the State of Tennessee a few years ago and the one thing that I came away with was this statement. There are two groups of people making money off of cattle in the state, the registered man selling at a high dollar and the low cost man that only spends what he must. He said everybody else was loosing money but most just did not know it yet.

That statement is dead on I'm the guy at the bottom. I won't skin a frog unless I absolutely have to.

 

[cmjust0]

I spent about two hours, a half a can of PB blaster, and about a quart of sweat recovering old rusty gate hinges out of the poles in my stock barn.. Got six full sets and one extra.

They're about $6.50/each at TSC, so I figure I paid myself about $40 an hour for the labor.

I've also got a five gallon bucket a few inches deep with old nails I've pulled from the old chute..."system"...that was in my stock barn.. There aren't any driveable nails in the bucket.

I know that because all the driveable ones were seperated and went into the new chute "system" I'm building. They're actually heavier than new nails, and since they've been dulled by my having hammered them out backward, they don't split the old dry yonderwood I reused..

I'm a tightwad. It'll probably get me killed one day as something comes crashing through my shabby setup, but I can't help myself. :lol:

 

[Brute 23]

I took a class put on by the State of Tennessee a few years ago and the one thing that I came away with was this statement. There are two groups of people making money off of cattle in the state, the registered man selling at a high dollar and the low cost man that only spends what he must. He said everybody else was loosing money but most just did not know it yet.

That statement is dead on I'm the guy at the bottom. I won't skin a frog unless I absolutely have to.

I am also the guy at the bottom. Cows had better be self sufficient and self sustaining. They will get grass, mineral, and water.

I will be the first one to plow up native grass and plant coastal. The extra head you can run will pay for the grasss.

BUT alot of this other stuff that people talk about on here are not profitable or the profit is so low it is not worth the time.

If you were to make a graph of time invested in cattle VS cattle profit you will see.

Right of the bat your time and profit will go up pretty quick as long as you have cattle that will produce calves and sell.

But as you go on you will notice your time still on a very steep climb,,, but your profit, although rising, it is starting to flatten out.

You start noticing that it takes two or three times the amount of time to get the same early on profits. At what point do you stop?

People have this misconsieved notion that the more they invest... the more they will profit. :roll: That is not the way things work a majority of the time.

Cattle require a few necessities. The market will only pay what they want to pay. You will likely not see a return on your extra time and money.

 

[Herefordcross]

Our cows will eat Canadian thistle once they have been sprayed and are completely brown

 

[novatech]

I don,t have the dollars for the down payment on the land, much less the cash flow to makes the payment the cattle won,t make. My A/C on the tractor is a straw hat. A gate is only used on the corral. I found a way of to get all the necessary facilities I need free except for labor. The city farmers are buying up all the land. I tear down the fences corals barns and even some of the houses, and charge for it.
All the salvage goes to my place, lease land. I have pipe post fences, adaquite barns. My corrals are all pipe with slide gates and a WW squeeze chute. These came from a guy that wanted to raise long horns. Old bath tubs make good water troughs. Old plumbing pipe make gates. When the power co. replaces poles I get them for free. If I feel it necessary to buy new equipment, I buy it through my equipment rental co. and rent it out, I get to use it when not out on rent.
If I could only get paid for my thought process time and sweat, I would be a billionair.