The ever increasing costs of inputs makes Elizondo's "total grazing" style of management more attractive as time goes on, no matter how high cattle prices are at any given moment.
I'm High on Cattle, Big Money, Everything is Great, LLC Farm
- Thread starter TexasRancher
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farmerjan
Well-known member
EXACTLY.....
farmerjan
Well-known member
Things like that make you want to knock some heads .... GOV'T HEADS....as well as the ones getting it.... against a cinder block wall until they either get it or they are dead. WE... as in the tax payers in this country, can not continue this. Too many of the ones getting all these handouts are playing a system... and are too dam#@d lazy to get out and do what many of us that are over 50, did as a matter of course through our lives... I would like to get handed 3500 a month.... HE// I would like to get 2500 a month from the gov't after working nearly 55 years..... I get half of that from my SS because I always worked a lower paying job... but I managed and PAID MY WAY....Let them all find out... if things go to he// in a hand basket, they are all going to get hungry, and I only feel sorry for the little kids and babies that have no way to defend themselves against the wastefulness of those that think they are entitled to all this.
God helps those that help themselves... I have few sympathies left in my body for all the others that do nothing....
Cowboy hat sermon on keeping input prices low...
thats why they came out with LRP
Dave
Well-known member
I was just talking to a man at church about LRP yesterday. Not worried about this year but next year I will have LRP on the calves. And this year I will be selling before the election.
He talks about small scale farming in the video. What would y'all say is Small, Medium, Large, and a BTO in you're area? Both number of head and acres? Also what size farm or ranch could turn a decent profit doing farm to table?
Dave
Well-known member
Here anything under 200 head is small, medium would be 200 to 500, large is 500-1,000, and BTO is over 1,000. Acres is huge and varies a lot. Irrigated pasture? Range land? Forest Circus and/or BLM? Desert? Roaring Springs Ranch down south of here in the Catlow Valley runs over 1,000 cows on about one million acres. Here in Baker count I know of more 1,000 head plus operations than I do of 50 head or less.
Farm to table requires a decent sized population at the table end. Also USDA inspected processing if you are selling by the piece or across state lines. For me living in a county bigger than the state of Delaware with a population of 16,000. Cows out number the people about 4 or 5 to 1. About a fourth of the people own or live on a ranch. That means that most everyone else is related to or know someone who owns a ranch. A person can sell a beef or two but 30 head would be pretty tough to move. I have had some on here point out that I am only 100 miles from a populated area (Boise). But that is east across the state line. The only USDA inspected plant is 300 miles to the west.
Farm to table requires a decent sized population at the table end. Also USDA inspected processing if you are selling by the piece or across state lines. For me living in a county bigger than the state of Delaware with a population of 16,000. Cows out number the people about 4 or 5 to 1. About a fourth of the people own or live on a ranch. That means that most everyone else is related to or know someone who owns a ranch. A person can sell a beef or two but 30 head would be pretty tough to move. I have had some on here point out that I am only 100 miles from a populated area (Boise). But that is east across the state line. The only USDA inspected plant is 300 miles to the west.
OP
OP
TexasRancher
Well-known member
Why so negative? Catlemen are retiring, droughts everywhere, cattle prices should stay reasonably where they are...inflation is everywhere, why not with cattle prices too.
chevytaHOE5674
Well-known member
I dont think he's being negative, he's being realistic. Guys who have been in this game a good long while have seen these kinds of price cycles multiple times.
OP
OP
TexasRancher
Well-known member
I'm with you...i understand...but right now....i'm having a ball...if it ends it ends.
OP
OP
TexasRancher
Well-known member
Yes, absolutely more risky if you're "buying" cattle this market....i would not be a buyer. I brought my cattle-heifer-yearlings beginning of covid, early 2020 at 1.10 to 1.30 CWT. I can see the prices (calves) drop from 3.00/3.50 CWT to 2.00/2.50 CWT...but I believe the days of under 1.50 calves ARE over with. Inflation has hit all markets (never goes down)..higher cattle prices will remain.
You run for President and I will vote for you. You couldn't have explained and spoke the truth anymore than you did in this post. One of the top 10 post I have read in my 20 years of visiting this forum. And I am sincere in saying so. Good post farmerjan.
Dave
Well-known member
Sorry if I came off negative. I was trying to express reality. Yes, "cattle prices should stay reasonably where they are". But the key word is should. I seriously doubt that they will. I say that speaking from experience. Cattle have never kept up with inflation. In 1969 I sold hanging halves of beef for the same price that the slaughter houses were getting. That was $0.73 a pound hanging. Right now at high prices of today if you sell on the rail the price they pay is about $3.00 a pound. Inflation has been way over 410% in those 55 years.
Enjoy the high prices while they are here. Utilize the money to pay down debt (I don't have any) or to pay cash for things you need to make life easier. I have said here how I plan to buy a flaker feeder. It will make feeding easier in the winter. And at 72 making feeding easier and safer is a good idea. I have recently been talking about a small no till drill. That will help to make the fields more productive. Both of these things will hold their value and I can write them off my taxes. Is there something you can do to help lower your costs? This is the year to be looking into that. My closest neighbor is right now building a hay shed. He also bought a couple loads of pipe to build a better corral system. Both increase and improve on what he has.
You can certainly buy cattle right now to make money. I don't believe I would be buying breeding stock. But if you have the pasture for them there is money to be made with stocker cattle. I would be putting LRP on them. If you have any #2 or #3 cows now might be the time to move them. You probably wont want to replace them until the price drop comes. That is always the tricky part. When to sell to get the best price and how long to wait to buy better stock cheaper.
farmerjan
Well-known member
Thank you for the compliment... I just call it as I see it and it is hurting me to see where this country is going. We have so much going for us and a past that shows that there were people willing to work hard and FIGHT hard to keep it. I only hope that there are enough left to feel that way in the younger generation coming along... and enough young people that are "NOT CONFUSED" as to who and what they are to be able to fight to keep this country free.
I am someone who believes in tolerance, but not in stupidity.... and many in the younger generation has crossed into the stupidity and just outright insane territory.
Hoping we will ship steers we weaned... we are getting very dry here, already into the moderate drought level... would rather keep some of the heifers at this point, keep numbers down to make sure we make it through this weather situation. You can always eat heifers or breed them... can only feed the steers and eat them....
It works great too.
I understand what you're saying and agree with you 100 %. I am not downing the younger generation because we were that younger generation ourselves at one time.
And I am sure the older generation when we were that younger generation had about the same opinion of us too. But the majority of us probably had about the same opinion as our generation had to say about us older people now. Probably has always been that way and will stay that way.
When I get in discussions with younger people on subjects like this I always tell them the reason they don't see things the way older people do his because they were born into the world the way it is now and cannot compare the way things are now to the way things were even 62 years ago when I was born. They don't see the world as being over populated like people my age or older might describe it. The world population in 1961 when I was born was approximately 3 1/2 billion people. Where as in todays times that population is over 8 billion.
When I use that example to try and explain to them as why that is a bad thing. They don't see it as a problem. It's always been pretty much like that for even people 30 or 40 years old. In their minds they are thinking what's the big deal about a world full of people. I usually have better luck getting my point across to young farmers than people who doesn't know nothing about farming.
Young farmers know how much food can be produced on so much land. They know real close to just how many Cattle or row crops etc…., can be produced on so many acres. So when I tell them that most of the worlds smartest scientists on earth are all in agreement that the world can at the most sustain 9 billion people. The young farmers seem to understand better the statement (Supply & Demand ) and that means every thing from the basics to food supplies, water, shelter. We as people no matter your race has this to look forward too in really not that many more years.
Actually that's the reason we are already having problems. Like Iif you're a farmer it's not making as much profit as it takes to farm for a lot of us to not even break even. I am sure the cost of buy necessities like groceries, utilities, medical bills etc…, is a problem for most of us and the prices are only going up. Why ? Supply and demand. These issues don't even put a dent in explaining the problems caused simply because of the growing population.
And there isn't nothing going to stop it from
growing. All of the plagues, wars, diseases and so on that has happened hasn't never slowed the population growth down and it won't.
Here in the U. S. our issues with the weather over the last few years has been a problem for farmers but what we have had to deal with isn't nothing compared to not even that many years ago like the dust bowl days. Our droughts don't begin to compare to when like for example the Arkansas river ran dry in the 40's . As bad as things have been in the past hasn't ever slowed down the human population's growth. Never in the history of mankind had the earth's population been as high as it is now.
kenny thomas
Well-known member
I hope you are correct but i sure aint betting the farm on it.
farmerjan
Well-known member
@504RP ......Oh, I understand what you are saying, about being the younger generation,,,, and having answers for everything and thinking the older ones were "old fashioned" and such... BUT.... I may have been way out of my time because I listened and studied what my mother and grandmother were teaching me...not that I always agreed with my parents... I read history and saw on paper, and in films/movies, how bad things were even though I had not had actual experience at it... My grandmother said I was born 100 years too late for the way I thought and wanted to do things...
There are so many ... except the younger farmers that you mention.... that really do not have a clue of the "cause and effect" of so many things... things that actually are necessary for SURVIVAL.... because if there is a huge disaster... and sadly I am thinking it might be some catastrophic thing like drought of epic proportion, or something as horrible as a nuclear attack... that I realize will wipe out huge numbers. But there will be some that survive, and the basics of food, water and shelter is a concept that many have no clue about except what the gov't provides.. There probably will be something horrific to lower the population numbers because like you pointed out, the earth can only support so many, just like the land we farm can only support so many or so much....
From the time I was in 4-H and raised chickens, and then in my young adult hood, I wanted to be self sufficient and independent of someone else "supporting me"... I wanted to provide for myself, and to "do for myself".... I thought I would have a partner/husband to do it with...family and even a community of people with talents that would compliment each other as every community has begun over the lifetime of man..... but that didn't work out... but I admire those that do not want to "live off the gov't" even when it was a make do, or do without, situation. That is one thing I was proud of my Yankee heritage.... the real old fashioned make do with what you had, and the innovations to make things better for the person.... The mindset of those that don't want to do things, to lose the handouts they are getting, just disgusts me. And I am not so giving as to be willing to help those that are in that mindset.
Guess I am just getting old and cranky.....
God Bless the younger generation that is willing to work, that understands that they need to know some of the basics of how to take care of themselves... and that it isn't always better for "technology" to be the only answer to things... some of it is great... but you literally cannot "eat" technology in the most basic, raw, form ... maybe when we are more machine than human... but for now all the "fake meat" and all that comes from technological advances, can get destroyed pretty easily. Food does not magically appear on the plate and it takes time and effort to go from the planting to the harvesting to the eating. A disaster of some epic proportion will not be likely to pick and choose what survives and what does not... so we will be back to the basics of survival, in some form or another.
As far as this all going back to the high cattle prices, this cycle will come back down, hopefully not in too bad a crash, but I am not too hopeful on that front. There may be less cattle numbers here, but the inflation as @Dave was referring to, is never going to be an equal thing with cattle prices compared to other costs. The prices of cattle will drop when the general public can no longer afford to buy the product... and then people who went way in debt will go bankrupt and the cycle will start all over as it has done for over 100 years. I just look for the current over inflated prices of things to bury many in a way that they will never be able to dig themselves out of.
There are so many ... except the younger farmers that you mention.... that really do not have a clue of the "cause and effect" of so many things... things that actually are necessary for SURVIVAL.... because if there is a huge disaster... and sadly I am thinking it might be some catastrophic thing like drought of epic proportion, or something as horrible as a nuclear attack... that I realize will wipe out huge numbers. But there will be some that survive, and the basics of food, water and shelter is a concept that many have no clue about except what the gov't provides.. There probably will be something horrific to lower the population numbers because like you pointed out, the earth can only support so many, just like the land we farm can only support so many or so much....
From the time I was in 4-H and raised chickens, and then in my young adult hood, I wanted to be self sufficient and independent of someone else "supporting me"... I wanted to provide for myself, and to "do for myself".... I thought I would have a partner/husband to do it with...family and even a community of people with talents that would compliment each other as every community has begun over the lifetime of man..... but that didn't work out... but I admire those that do not want to "live off the gov't" even when it was a make do, or do without, situation. That is one thing I was proud of my Yankee heritage.... the real old fashioned make do with what you had, and the innovations to make things better for the person.... The mindset of those that don't want to do things, to lose the handouts they are getting, just disgusts me. And I am not so giving as to be willing to help those that are in that mindset.
Guess I am just getting old and cranky.....
God Bless the younger generation that is willing to work, that understands that they need to know some of the basics of how to take care of themselves... and that it isn't always better for "technology" to be the only answer to things... some of it is great... but you literally cannot "eat" technology in the most basic, raw, form ... maybe when we are more machine than human... but for now all the "fake meat" and all that comes from technological advances, can get destroyed pretty easily. Food does not magically appear on the plate and it takes time and effort to go from the planting to the harvesting to the eating. A disaster of some epic proportion will not be likely to pick and choose what survives and what does not... so we will be back to the basics of survival, in some form or another.
As far as this all going back to the high cattle prices, this cycle will come back down, hopefully not in too bad a crash, but I am not too hopeful on that front. There may be less cattle numbers here, but the inflation as @Dave was referring to, is never going to be an equal thing with cattle prices compared to other costs. The prices of cattle will drop when the general public can no longer afford to buy the product... and then people who went way in debt will go bankrupt and the cycle will start all over as it has done for over 100 years. I just look for the current over inflated prices of things to bury many in a way that they will never be able to dig themselves out of.
