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How did you get into cattle business?
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<blockquote data-quote="GoWyo" data-source="post: 1830262" data-attributes="member: 38220"><p>I was born into a ranching family. My paternal grandparents were all Volga Deutsch in the North Platte Valley in western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming. Grandpa bought a ranch near Lander, WY in 1949. Dad graduated high school in 1962 and won the National High School Bareback and All Around in Valentine, NE that year and went in to wrestle and rodeo at the University of Wyoming. We had a small rodeo company when I was a little kid that they sold in 1970 and went full bore into cattle with a 600-cow ranch. That is what I grew up on and one of my my sisters runs it now, but Mom, my two sisters and me are shareholders. Cows go to the federal land grazing allotments in the summer and we raised irrigated hay and row crops at the time, but have discontinued the row crops. We had a feedlot and a smaller feed truck and our own semi rigs for hauling. Fixed all our own equipment and even built some out of old salvaged junk.</p><p></p><p>I graduated high school in 1984 and had offers to judge livestock at several community colleges, but I just wanted to get out of town and to the University. Graduated with a degree in ag economics and was thinking about grad school, but took the law school admissions test (LSAT) instead because we had been having some disputes with the Bureau of Land Management about our grazing allotment and I wanted to be able to do something about that. Graduated law school in 1992 from U of Wyoming and started practicing in Cheyenne.</p><p></p><p>Met my wife in 1994 and her family had a small place near Cheyenne. We got 10 pairs from the home ranch in 1995, got married in 1996 and we were in the cow business with her uncle and grandmother. My son started showing cattle in 2006 and we bought our first registered Angus cows in 2008 to add to our commercial cows with the idea to replace commercial cows with Angus as we retained or purchased heifers.</p><p></p><p>In 2014 my wife's grandmother passed away and she had changed her will to give everything to her uncle. That wasn't going to work for us. We found our current ranch 45 miles northeast of Cheyenne that same year and were barely able to swing getting it closed. Couldn't afford to buy a single thing at the sellers' auction. Six months later we got our place near Cheyenne sold and started building the herd. We moved out here with 18 cows and 5 yearling heifers. This place runs 30-35 head by itself. We picked up some leases and retained heifers and have built to 70 registered Angus cows and two remnant crossbreds that keep doing a good job. We are a grazing based outfit and have very limited equipment and run things with portable panels, portable chute, pickup and an aluminum stock trailer. We have installed several miles of pasture division fences, put in pipelines and stock tanks and built a barn and a good set of pipe pens at home. I like welding and have built all the pens and some other pasture infrastructure. Every spare dime and minute of spare time has gone into the ranch and cow herd. We sell 20 or so bulls per year and a couple heifers. We were doing some freezer beef, but in 2023 all calves that didn't make bulls or replacements went as ballers to the sale barn because I didn't see much upside to feeding anything out. </p><p></p><p>So here we are 28 years later. </p><p>Still practicing law as a solo out of the ranch (we have fiber optic out here in the sticks) and my bride also works a remote job that requires minimal travel. We can do most everything ourselves, but have great neighbors and we have a partner on a couple lease pastures to get cow work done. We finally hit max capacity with the cow herd in 2022 and looks like we are going to finally get in the black with the ranch. There are still a couple major projects to get done, but this outfit can be run on an hour per day and a few hours on weekends except during calving and A.I. breeding time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GoWyo, post: 1830262, member: 38220"] I was born into a ranching family. My paternal grandparents were all Volga Deutsch in the North Platte Valley in western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming. Grandpa bought a ranch near Lander, WY in 1949. Dad graduated high school in 1962 and won the National High School Bareback and All Around in Valentine, NE that year and went in to wrestle and rodeo at the University of Wyoming. We had a small rodeo company when I was a little kid that they sold in 1970 and went full bore into cattle with a 600-cow ranch. That is what I grew up on and one of my my sisters runs it now, but Mom, my two sisters and me are shareholders. Cows go to the federal land grazing allotments in the summer and we raised irrigated hay and row crops at the time, but have discontinued the row crops. We had a feedlot and a smaller feed truck and our own semi rigs for hauling. Fixed all our own equipment and even built some out of old salvaged junk. I graduated high school in 1984 and had offers to judge livestock at several community colleges, but I just wanted to get out of town and to the University. Graduated with a degree in ag economics and was thinking about grad school, but took the law school admissions test (LSAT) instead because we had been having some disputes with the Bureau of Land Management about our grazing allotment and I wanted to be able to do something about that. Graduated law school in 1992 from U of Wyoming and started practicing in Cheyenne. Met my wife in 1994 and her family had a small place near Cheyenne. We got 10 pairs from the home ranch in 1995, got married in 1996 and we were in the cow business with her uncle and grandmother. My son started showing cattle in 2006 and we bought our first registered Angus cows in 2008 to add to our commercial cows with the idea to replace commercial cows with Angus as we retained or purchased heifers. In 2014 my wife's grandmother passed away and she had changed her will to give everything to her uncle. That wasn't going to work for us. We found our current ranch 45 miles northeast of Cheyenne that same year and were barely able to swing getting it closed. Couldn't afford to buy a single thing at the sellers' auction. Six months later we got our place near Cheyenne sold and started building the herd. We moved out here with 18 cows and 5 yearling heifers. This place runs 30-35 head by itself. We picked up some leases and retained heifers and have built to 70 registered Angus cows and two remnant crossbreds that keep doing a good job. We are a grazing based outfit and have very limited equipment and run things with portable panels, portable chute, pickup and an aluminum stock trailer. We have installed several miles of pasture division fences, put in pipelines and stock tanks and built a barn and a good set of pipe pens at home. I like welding and have built all the pens and some other pasture infrastructure. Every spare dime and minute of spare time has gone into the ranch and cow herd. We sell 20 or so bulls per year and a couple heifers. We were doing some freezer beef, but in 2023 all calves that didn't make bulls or replacements went as ballers to the sale barn because I didn't see much upside to feeding anything out. So here we are 28 years later. Still practicing law as a solo out of the ranch (we have fiber optic out here in the sticks) and my bride also works a remote job that requires minimal travel. We can do most everything ourselves, but have great neighbors and we have a partner on a couple lease pastures to get cow work done. We finally hit max capacity with the cow herd in 2022 and looks like we are going to finally get in the black with the ranch. There are still a couple major projects to get done, but this outfit can be run on an hour per day and a few hours on weekends except during calving and A.I. breeding time. [/QUOTE]
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