ETF":2qr7t0gl said:
Ryan: You're absolutely right about the people and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Bill and Sandi from Running Arrow and Eric from LonghornRanch have been particularly helpful. I'm just surprised there isn't an active board somewhere devoted exclusively to longhorns.
I'll probably shoot myself in the foot and in the XXX by saying this. However, IMO, I don't think either the ITLA or TLBAA people (members too) are that into discussing a lot of longhorn things except the topics on coming events, shows, registrations, and related "administrative" things: there ARE exceptions for sure. Have no idea why TLBAA doesn't have one...perhaps a money thing with them? With the Longhorn business being a highly competitive nitch market, not all participants appear to want to share information and/or any "trade secrets" (if there are any...).
As in any business venture, one can "duplicate exactly" another's business operation and end up with DIFFERENT results! It's related to "time, place, person phenomena". So, again, I personally don't feel threatened by sharing any alleged trade secrets with others... ;-)
One of the beauties of any messageboard is that users can either (a) have a handle (board name) that one can't decipher if they want to remain anonymous; or, (b) post their actual name and/or ranch name as a vicarious or subliminal "advertisemnt" for their place, AND such revealed identity keeps them "politically correct" (most of time) with their postings so they don't say things that will come back to haunt them.
All this aside, these things are some of the reasons we decided to implement our own messageboard on our website to create another forum option for livestock people.