what to do?

Help Support CattleToday:

lifeofleisure

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 14, 2009
Messages
49
Reaction score
1
Location
Craig County, Virginia
Ok little background here. I visit and read boards regularly without logging in to often. I appreciate the vast information that I have read. Forgive me if this is long.

I am a long time US Navy Reservist (29 years active/reserve) and have a decent civialn job that lets me farm. I have 54 head at the present time in SWVA. most are a X-angus with few of really known cross. Of the older cows at least one has shorthorn-angus, charolais- angus, Blck/whiteface, etc. I have 12 5 year olds all black with a couple red angus ( 2 of my favorites), and 4 heifers bought this spring (I had AI in May with limelight i think was the name of the CE bull) that are 3/4 angus-1/4 saler and well as an 18 month old 3/4 angus-1/4 saler Bull.

I am nearing retirement but have just been tapped for a 270 day deployment overseas starting in October. this isn't the first time but it is the first since I started rebuilding the herd. We (FIL and I) had 96 head in 2006 but he passed away while I was deployed in Iraq and I came home and sold over 1/2 when he passed. A great friend helped with feeding the last 3 months of that deployment.

I have a helper who is a senior in high school who is very experienced with cattle. His dad has 300 or so head. He will be feeding and most likley watching my spring calves be born. Wife is able to help some too, but both Girls are in college 2 hours away from home.

Options
1 Sell everything. Invest money and rebuild with good stock when I return. (seems like a big tax hit and doubt they will get cheaper)
2 Sell calves and all cows older than 5 years old and rebuild when I return. (might be best option even if I wasn't deploying)
3 Sell last spring calves wait for spring cow calves and sell older cows and calves. ( more hay, and feeding time all winter and who knows what this one will be like)

Wife will need some capital for expenses, fertilizer, commodity feed, meds, etc.

Ok wise folks what other options or ideas? I will be retiring from the reserves when I return so this is last time, and I was looking to start expanding again next spring. Guess I will wait a year.

Thanks
 
Alright Shipmate: Option # ????????????? 2 yeah 2.


USS Monterey, USS Mobile Bay, USS Talbot, USS Austin Just to name a few of the ships I went on as a USNR.
 
I am Command Master Chief Seabee (Construction Battalion) never really been on a ship that much, only in troops berthing. I have been in a lot of different countries.

All 12 of the 5YO cows are proven, and I have never had to pull a calf. I hate to get rid of some of the older ones cause they have been good to me. won't know till next spring what the bull and 4 heifers are like, but they come from decent stock.

2 was where I was leaning, but thought i would run it by some of the experienced folks on here.
 
What's your wife want to do?
If you want to cut the workload on your wife, I'd lean toward keeping the weanling heifers & all the proven cows you can't bear to part with.
 
I may be completely off on this, and I'm sure you would already know, but I was thinking there was an ag exemption for deployed military that allowed you to sell tax deferred as long as you bought back in within 2 years? If there is no such program there certainly should be.
 
lifeofleisure":5vagfm6g said:
Isomade - Thanks I'll look into that. I know there are some tax remedies to keep deployed from being affected but I hadn't checked into AG exemptions. Good idea.
I certainly hope there is. If it wasn't a weekend I would have checked myself. No reason we can't take care of you guys taking care of us. God bless you and your family.
 
Hello from Germany. I will try to post a few pictures as the location I am stationed is so much like back home. Sugar beets, Cattle, Corn, Deer, even a goose farm are nearby. Make me homesick, and feel like I am at home all at the same time.
 
Had the same thing years back(03-04) RET USAF 2011, I kept the better animals and down sized so the help could handle it. Cattle prices don't look like they are getting any cheaper. You could sellout and rebuy later just make sure you save the money for the restart.
 
big building is some sort of warehouse. Sembach was a Nato airbase started by the French, and utilized by the US. In the 90's much of it was turned over to the German Government, and rumor has it that the Farmers who had protested against it being built in the first place, started digging up the runway for use as farmland as soon as the area was vacated. Only a small portion of the base remains and it is used by the Army and an even smaller portion by the Navy. The Air Force delated it uninhabitable.

Oh I kept 15 cows, 4 bred heifers, 2 Steers (one for beef this fall, and one young one for next), and the bull. Sold rest.
 

Latest posts

Top