Question... If there was one thing

[frenchie]

Question... If there was one thing you would do different on your ranch,what would it be..What do you regret doing or not doing.

 

[Beefy]

i regret not going with my gut instinct on several occasions and have learned to listen to it when it comes to culling. for instance ive kept several heifers b/c i wanted to give them a chance and they had potential and just never lived up to it. in fact i have let out a few at the last minute before the trailers come to pick them up and i have been disappointed everytime. also i would have more crossfencing than we do now. and better pastures. and less cows. hmm, i guess thats more than one...

 

[frenchie]

i regret not going with my gut instinct on several occasions and have learned to listen to it when it comes to culling. for instance ive kept several heifers b/c i wanted to give them a chance and they had potential and just never lived up to it. in fact i have let out a few at the last minute before the trailers come to pick them up and i have been disappointed everytime. also i would have more crossfencing than we do now. and better pastures. and less cows. hmm, i guess thats more than one...

beefy hind sight is always nice

I have a good friend here that was never to particular as long as a cow calved it was fine.

Well in 2003, everyone is tight for cash up here, he tells meHe needs to cull some cows,but can,t he has some old favorities
so after several beer and some haggling he agrees to let me cull 60 head out of 280 cows

I culled all the old girls,late calvers, poor calf raisers


The result he tells me recently, is that he sold 200 nice ,even calves that averaged 75 lbs heavier.His return per cow was substanially better than his neighbours...

In hindsight ... i learned that a friend could lend a critical eye.

he,s coming to my place next fall to cull my herd. I ,ll hand him my records and he can go at it..

 

[tapeworm]

Frenchman this is a good subject and Im going to think about mine and make a posting on it when I can narrow it down to one thing....I look forward to hearing what others say.....this should give us good ideas to learn from

 

[Jake]

I'd have waited in buying my first heifer and saved up a little more and bought a cow... the heifer was the prettiest you'd ever seen but she ended up being a bust... barely broke even on her... I'm wanting to buy another one or two this summer so we'll have to wait and see, I'd have liked to have built a few partnerships lately... and I wish I had about 5 cows of my own right now...

 

[Frankie]

Question... If there was one thing you would do different on your ranch,what would it be..What do you regret doing or not doing.

I regret buying some Angus cattle because they were cheap. Looking back, I would have done better to pay more $$ for fewer good cattle. The time spent AI-ing poor cattle and being disappointed was wasted. But we live and learn....

 

[CattleAnnie]

Frenchie, I regret taking out cattle loans, as since BSE it's been very difficult making ends meet.

Take care.

 

[frenchie]

Frenchie, I regret taking out cattle loans, as since BSE it's been very difficult making ends meet.

Take care.

I can relate to that... in hind sight I wish sometimes I had walked away in 2003.. fiancially it would have been been the best move.But I have never quit anything in my life, and I won,t start now.

 

[TheBullLady]

I would have sold all our cows before we moved from Illinois to Texas, and spent the first year or two getting the pastures all sprigged, fences built, etc. and THEN stocked it. It took a lot more years to get everything going, and cost a lot more to feed those cows the first few years.

 

[Texan]

That's a tough one, Frenchie. One of the most obvious now---should have bought more cows a few years ago when they were about half the price they are now. Instead of selling too many a few years ago when they were about half the....... Perfect hindsight.

Year in and year out, I expect the biggest mistake I make is not using better quality bulls. I should probably spend twice as much on bulls as I do. Or maybe even more than that. It's just always hard to cough it up at the time, even when you know it's the smart thing to do!

 

[dun]

I alwasy figured the biggest mistake I made was not being born rich. Like the old saying goes, I was born with nothing and still have most of it

dun

 

[Workinonit Farm]

I regret not starting with cattle sooner. I don't really regret some of the mistakes I have made, because they were very good learning experiences.

Katherine

 

[jkwilson]

Two things: I would have bought better equipment (gates, chute, trailer) earlier which would have made it easier to do the things needed to keep a herd healthy. Many times I've been burned and wound up having to spend a bunch of time taking care a problem that I let go too long because the lack of equipment made me delay treatment.

The second thing is that I would have bought better cattle from day one. It takes no more feed or labor to take care of good cattle than it does to take care of average cattle, and the rewards can be much better. At times, the difference between mediocre and good can be a couple hundred dollars a cow.

Both of these come down to pinching pennies when I shouldn't have.

 

[sidney411]

If I knew 2 years ago what I know today I would not have taken out a loan to purchace cattle that I have had nothing but health troubles with and have already sold 1/4 of them and have lost 3 calves out of them and still have 3 years to pay. I would like to have the funds to build more crossfencing, fertilize, lime, re-seed more pastures.

 

[tapeworm]

Frenchman I told you I'd think about it and get back to you...sorry it took me so long...got sidetracked with work. LOL My biggest mistake was not buying a place i had a chance at in the 70s...run about 200 cows....I was stubborn and wanted to lease it...they wanted to sell it. I could have made it work anyway but I was hard headed. Well now it would be paid for.
Not buying property is stillthe biggest mistake young folks make today...cant understand buying a 40,000 dollar pickup truck when you could get by with a nice 10,000 dollar pickup and buy 30,000 worht of land. Do that ever time you trade trucks and you could tell the social security system to kiss your tail when you got ready to slow down!!!!!!

 

[Arnold Ziffle]

I agree, tapeworm --- I've always tried to tell my nephews & nieces, and quite a few friends, that you can't build any wealth by buying expensive vehicles, whose value plummets so quickly. But I think much of the younger generation just seems to want the instant gratification of the most expensive vehicles, watches, clothes, boats, condos, etc. From my anecdotal vantage point, more often than not it is a recipe for financial disaster for the young folks.

 

[greenwillowherefords]

That's a tough one, Frenchie. One of the most obvious now---should have bought more cows a few years ago when they were about half the price they are now. Instead of selling too many a few years ago when they were about half the....... Perfect hindsight.

Year in and year out, I expect the biggest mistake I make is not using better quality bulls. I should probably spend twice as much on bulls as I do. Or maybe even more than that. It's just always hard to cough it up at the time, even when you know it's the smart thing to do!

I would never have endebted myself to a home without much land, or traded vehicles so often, oops more than one already.

Texan, sometimes the more expensive bull is not better.

 

[Campground Cattle]

I would have bought more land could have got it for 400 an acre. Dang could have bought that 200 acres across the road. Now I am land locked. Stuck by my rule that if I couldn't pay cash I didn't need it.
I seen to many cattlemen go under in the seventies when the market went bust, due to loans.