How to make money in the cattle business?

[NEKid]

Are you home schooled?? The highschool should have FFA ,

Not all high school have FFA. We just lost FFA last year due to very few kids anticipate in it.

Yep,Muddy got it,I'm homeschooled. Or,as we like to say,home teached :lol2: I like it a lot more than I would if I were in public school. A lot of advantages over public school,but then again,no FFA. I have a lot more liberties than my fellow public school acquaintances.

 

[yakker]

I actually don't plan on going to an ag college. First two or three years will be at a Bible college and then move back to NE to learn everything I normally could at a college by experience working with someone. Why pay $18,000 per year to learn the exact same stuff I can on a ranch with someone who will teach me? Of course,that won't be free either,but if I give them $5,000/year to teach me all they know,that's a lot better than $18,000! I'll do my best to study up on economics and finances before I hit that point.

Don't discount that college degree. With this day and age if you want a decent paying job you need a degree. You need something to fall back on if things don't pan out with going ranching....before you have a wife and kids. I'm speaking from experience...My wife and I's goal when we got married was to save up to have our own family farm raising hay, wheat and corn. We put away her Chemical Engineering income for several years while living on my farm hand income and I was gaining more experience. When it came around to starting farming, the only way for it to pencil out for me...and the bank, was for her to keep working and that was not part of our plan. I end up getting a job in my degree and hobby farming on the side.

You mentioned you had a rancher friend that could "mentor" you. You will need him every step along the way for the first couple years. You can't afford the learning curve, your greener that heck at your age whether you realize it or not, and your learning experiences will put you out of business quicker than you can think. Them old farts are a lot smarter than you think!! Anyways that's my advice, hope it helps and good luck!

 

[dun]

If there is a FFA organization at the local school, being home schooled doesn't preclude you from joining it. While many of the FFA things are school class related, there are usually non-school related meetings/learning experiences too.
This area has a lot of home schooling and some of those kids are still active in our local FFA. I think it works that way not just here.
I don't mean to sound like I'm pimping for the FFA, but I have seen the positive results for the kids in this area.

 

[M-5]

Dun is correct. While alot of public school are indoctrination. some clubs such as FFA has many benefits including being able to help develop social skills and see things differently . this is a cruel world and I see alot of home schooled kids not being able to assimilate when they become young adults. Education is key whether it be formal or hands on . the last thing anyone needs is to be put in a position to make a living outside of their wheelhouse and not have any skills beyond their dreams.

 

[Brute 23]

Haha,I love how you guys are giving me marriage advice and we were on the subject of cows :lol2:

Relationships... including marriage... is an essential part of business.

 

[hillbilly beef man]

Haha,I love how you guys are giving me marriage advice and we were on the subject of cows :lol2:

Who you marry will have much more to do with your success or failure In the cattle Buisness and life than you can imagin as a teenager. There has been more farms lost to divorce than fires, floods, and tornadoes combined. You do not necessarily need someone as passionate about cattle as you are, but you need at least someone who understands why you have to cancell a date to go put up cows.

My advice for someone starting out is to only borrow money for cattle and land. Trucks, tractors, and other toys can come later after the cattle start making money. A $5,000 truck will do just as much work as a $50,000 truck. Another suggestion is buy your hay for at least several years. What you will have tied up in even crappy hay equipment will amount to a small fortune and can be better spent on other improvements.

 

[NEKid]

I actually don't plan on going to an ag college. First two or three years will be at a Bible college and then move back to NE to learn everything I normally could at a college by experience working with someone. Why pay $18,000 per year to learn the exact same stuff I can on a ranch with someone who will teach me? Of course,that won't be free either,but if I give them $5,000/year to teach me all they know,that's a lot better than $18,000! I'll do my best to study up on economics and finances before I hit that point.

Don't discount that college degree. With this day and age if you want a decent paying job you need a degree. You need something to fall back on if things don't pan out with going ranching....before you have a wife and kids. I'm speaking from experience...My wife and I's goal when we got married was to save up to have our own family farm raising hay, wheat and corn. We put away her Chemical Engineering income for several years while living on my farm hand income and I was gaining more experience. When it came around to starting farming, the only way for it to pencil out for me...and the bank, was for her to keep working and that was not part of our plan. I end up getting a job in my degree and hobby farming on the side.

You mentioned you had a rancher friend that could "mentor" you. You will need him every step along the way for the first couple years. You can't afford the learning curve, your greener that heck at your age whether you realize it or not, and your learning experiences will put you out of business quicker than you can think. Them old farts are a lot smarter than you think!! Anyways that's my advice, hope it helps and good luck!

Good stuff! While that is true you need a degree for a lot of jobs,there are still well paying jobs that don't requite one. I know a guy who gets 19/hour and he barely finished highschool. I have the view that if money is my motivator,then when it runs out I'm between a rock and a hard place because I have no more motivation. I enjoy working with cattle,I enjoy being on a horse,I enjoy living faaaar away from the cities and other people. I wouldn't go out and be a doctor just because it pays $100,000/year,I don't enjoy sick people. So I think I'll just have to give it some thought.
Yes,I hope to spend a lot more time than I am now with my rancher friend in the future. I could find a hired-hand's job in about 3 hours out here,there are always some ranchers or farmers looking for an extra pair of hands,but this guy is one of a kind,so I'll stick with him for now. I agree those crusty old farmers know a lot! They know more than I think I ever will! Thanks for the advice!

 

[ez14]

Haha,I love how you guys are giving me marriage advice and we were on the subject of cows :lol2:

Who you marry will have much more to do with your success or failure In the cattle Buisness and life than you can imagin as a teenager. There has been more farms lost to divorce than fires, floods, and tornadoes combined. You do not necessarily need someone as passionate about cattle as you are, but you need at least someone who understands why you have to cancell a date to go put up cows.

My advice for someone starting out is to only borrow money for cattle and land. Trucks, tractors, and other toys can come later after the cattle start making money. A $5,000 truck will do just as much work as a $50,000 truck. Another suggestion is buy your hay for at least several years. What you will have tied up in even crappy hay equipment will amount to a small fortune and can be better spent on other improvements.

Im trying not to borrow any money and id say you probably shouldn't either if you get a job now and save your money you could have a fare bit of money by the time you need it. Its going to be hard to make money if you have to make payments my gross income is 8.15 an hour that makes my monthly pay about 1000.00 or 12000.00 a year if i save my money for 5 years that gives me some money to buy maybe 25 acres of open land to move my herd that im growing on my dads land now. I know that plan probably wont work just like that for you but you could maybe try some thing similar. Then grow from there slowly buying more land and cattle. If i keep my job and save my money by the time im 20 i could have a small herd 25 acres of land and a truck and some guns for fun

 

[NEKid]

Haha,I love how you guys are giving me marriage advice and we were on the subject of cows :lol2:

Who you marry will have much more to do with your success or failure In the cattle Buisness and life than you can imagin as a teenager. There has been more farms lost to divorce than fires, floods, and tornadoes combined. You do not necessarily need someone as passionate about cattle as you are, but you need at least someone who understands why you have to cancell a date to go put up cows.

My advice for someone starting out is to only borrow money for cattle and land. Trucks, tractors, and other toys can come later after the cattle start making money. A $5,000 truck will do just as much work as a $50,000 truck. Another suggestion is buy your hay for at least several years. What you will have tied up in even crappy hay equipment will amount to a small fortune and can be better spent on other improvements.

I understand that marriage and choosing a life partner is one of the most important decisions one can make. That rancher friend I've been talking about tells me a lot about it,and the more I talk to people I know well,the more important it seems. Someday I will find a gal,but that is not for now. Right now,I have other things to think about and other things to spend my money on
That sounds like a good plan of action right there! I agree that the cheaply priced equipment works just as well as the brand new ones,and I've read a lot about not over-buying equipment when starting out. I appreciate the help in all this,y'all have been tremendously helpful,and I'm starting to have hope for this city kid

 

[M-5]

Ha-ha just wait till you get a whiff a some little sweet thang , last think you'll be thinking of is cows. The biggest challenge then will be how to balance it all. Your 15 most of the folks giving you advice hasn't seen 15 in 30 to 50 years but we all remember what it was like.

 

[greybeard]

Haha,I love how you guys are giving me marriage advice and we were on the subject of cows :lol2:

Who you marry will have much more to do with your success or failure In the cattle Buisness and life than you can imagin as a teenager. There has been more farms lost to divorce than fires, floods, and tornadoes combined. You do not necessarily need someone as passionate about cattle as you are, but you need at least someone who understands why you have to cancell a date to go put up cows.

My advice for someone starting out is to only borrow money for cattle and land. Trucks, tractors, and other toys can come later after the cattle start making money. A $5,000 truck will do just as much work as a $50,000 truck. Another suggestion is buy your hay for at least several years. What you will have tied up in even crappy hay equipment will amount to a small fortune and can be better spent on other improvements.

I understand that marriage and choosing a life partner is one of the most important decisions one can make. That rancher friend I've been talking about tells me a lot about it,and the more I talk to people I know well,the more important it seems. Someday I will find a gal,but that is not for now. Right now,I have other things to think about and other things to spend my money on
That sounds like a good plan of action right there! I agree that the cheaply priced equipment works just as well as the brand new ones,and I've read a lot about not over-buying equipment when starting out. I appreciate the help in all this,y'all have been tremendously helpful,and I'm starting to have hope for this city kid

When I was young and dumb and in my natural prime, I spent/squandered thousands of $$$$ out of my salaries drinking good whisky and chasing young women.
The rest, I just wasted.

 

[dun]

When I was young and dumb and in my natural prime, I spent/squandered thousands of $$$$ out of my salaries drinking good whisky and chasing young women.
The rest, I just wasted.

That's one difference between us. The "good" and "young" never entered into it.

 

[JMJ Farms]

Ha-ha just wait till you get a whiff a some little sweet thang , last think you'll be thinking of is cows. The biggest challenge then will be how to balance it all. Your 15 most of the folks giving you advice hasn't seen 15 in 30 to 50 years but we all remember what it was like.

:tiphat: :tiphat: :tiphat:

 

[NEKid]

Ha-ha just wait till you get a whiff a some little sweet thang , last think you'll be thinking of is cows. The biggest challenge then will be how to balance it all. Your 15 most of the folks giving you advice hasn't seen 15 in 30 to 50 years but we all remember what it was like.

I'm homeschooled and so I don't hang around a whole lot of kids,guys or gals. 90% of the relations I have here are folks 30 and older,and for that I'm thankful because I don't believe in "highschool drama" :lol2: I know,it's enevitable that there'll be a looker somewhere in life,but not now.

When I was young and dumb and in my natural prime, I spent/squandered thousands of $$$$ out of my salaries drinking good whisky and chasing young women.
The rest, I just wasted.

[/quote]

See,if I just read this and say, "Oh,that sounds like a good idea,I'll do that too!",that's pretty stupid :nod: I like to not repeat someone else's past,so I take note of them and learn

 

[Son of Butch]

Back to some honest advice.

Know your input costs and break even projections before investing.

Farmers are notorious for being willing to do the physical labor, but not the record keeping to document which choices they made were profitable and which were mistakes.
I've known far too many that have run on the "Well if he can pay that, so can I school of thought" without accounting for the
other fellow having much different inputs or expectations for whatever reason.
ie lower feed costs, lower land prices/inheritance or better market premiums ect.

 

[greybeard]

When I was young and dumb and in my natural prime, I spent/squandered thousands of $$$$ out of my salaries drinking good whisky and chasing young women.
The rest, I just wasted.

See,if I just read this and say, "Oh,that sounds like a good idea,I'll do that too!",that's pretty stupid :nod: I like to not repeat someone else's past,so I take note of them and learn

I, Dun, and I bet everyone else here said/thought the same thing when we were still wet behind the ears, bulletproof and invisible.
First kiss and first benice changed all of that, and we began exercising our God given unalienable right to life, liberty, and the happiness of pursuit--and that's being as honest as I know to be.

 

[dun]

See,if I just read this and say, "Oh,that sounds like a good idea,I'll do that too!",that's pretty stupid :nod: I like to not repeat someone else's past,so I take note of them and learn

I, Dun, and I bet everyone else here said/thought the same thing when we were still wet behind the ears, bulletproof and invisible.
First kiss and first benice changed all of that, and we began exercising our God given unalienable right to life, liberty, and the happiness of pursuit--and that's being as honest as I know to be.

I don't recall ever being THAT wet behind the ears

 

[greybeard]

Well, maybe my memory is better than yours--you have a few more years than I do...

 

[Karin]

I enjoy working with cattle,I enjoy being on a horse,I enjoy living faaaar away from the cities and other people. I wouldn't go out and be a doctor just because it pays $100,000/year

Golly this sounded just like me when I was your age. I loved working with cattle (minus the cayuse), wouldn't dare think about living in the city and being around people, and never wanted to be something akin to a doctor or lawyer or any of that office-y stuff. And yet, not being homeschooled and coming from a public school system AND going through university AND having some job where I HAD to work with people put a whole different perspective up for me. When I worked at a local farm supply store I was shy as all get out but had to learn that to succeed was to be around other people, and to be able to associate and converse with people of all types and backgrounds.

Of course being a sales-person (a job I vow to never go back to again) is a little different than being a beef producer, but still if you want to sell your self or your product to the right people, be it a pot load of soggy steer calves or your services to be a custom grazer (hypothetically speaking), or even approach someone you don't know to negotiate and barter to buy some calves or equipment off of, you really need to not want to be faaar away from other people. Even if you get to the point of considering selling meat to consumers coming in from some city somewhere you gotta be comfortable being with them. I don't think you are terribly shy (you don't sound like it), but still, it goes full-circle back to "how to make money in the cattle business?": PEOPLE SKILLS and COMMUNICATION is one of the most important skills you will need to succeed, even in life in general.

College or university can teach you a lot of things, but I've found through my own experiences is that it doesn't teach you enough people skills: Effective communication (verbally especially), needs assessments, reading body language (to an extent), conflict resolution, negotiation, even real patience when you've got someone dumber than a sack of nails who can't seem to understand what you're trying to say. Especially in buying and selling you will run into that as you get up there in years, trust me on that. Money talks, but it can sink ships too if you're not careful.

And yakker's got a good point. That college degree can get you into places where a high school diploma can't. I too know people who haven't finished college or just have a high school diploma and they have a fairly decent job, but there's bills to pay too and some of those jobs aren't enough if there are bills and loans and expenses to consider with just living a half-decent life, let alone with raising cattle, if that. I know the loans with the degree can be a pain, but with where I'm going, for example, I've got something lined up that I really hope to get (things are sounding good so far, fingers crossed) that pays very good and is right up my alley as far as my own interests are concerned.

And six years ago I was in serious consideration of never going back to my then-unfinished degree again. Of course I could find some jobs but like with all jobs you start from the bottom. And university hadn't taught me much in how to work with people using the skill sets I mentioned above. I went through quite the learning curve, and had several missed opportunities as well all because I didn't have a complete degree. Actually a lot of the jobs that I would've loved to have then needed a completed degree of some sort which I didn't have, and that alone shook me awake and got me into finishing it up so I could get into something I really wanted to, being beef, forage, pasture, rangeland, or all of the above. So you'd be surprised at where a degree can take you.

NEKid, you've got the whole world in front of you, and a whole lot of choices at your finger tips. And you've gotten a lot of great advice already. I think I've said enough for this really early morning, but want to add a couple other things:

1) Remember Murphy's Law, and
2) Nothing EVER goes to plan, no matter if it's thought out in your head or written in detail on paper. And sometimes you have to get a little religious to hope that it does.

 

[cow pollinater]

I would say that staying out of college altogether is a great choice. Lots of good advice about debt in this thread and ranching is best learned from hands on experience so why start out with student loans that don't help you?
I'm proof that you can do this if you want to. I have a GED as my highest level of education and I'm more or less "retired" at 37 to play with cows and bees full time. Don't focus on farm help jobs. Take one when you need money but think of it as a temporary thing and soak up everything there is to know while you're there. Look around you and see what needs there are and learn how to fulfill that need and then put your name one the side of the truck as a professional service. Now your $10 per hour in labor is worth $30 per hour and instead of taxes being withheld from your check you tell the government what you have left at the end of the year so you are free to reinvest every penny that you earn before the government gets it's hands on it.
On the marriage side of things, look at her dad. If he's the kind of man you want to be then you're good to go because he is her model of a man and she expects that from you and she'll help you get there. If he's anything else you may be in trouble because she'll nag at you until you change to fit her thinking and that includes spending habits.
Best of luck. I know you can do it!