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<blockquote data-quote="Quickdraw Farm" data-source="post: 1337219" data-attributes="member: 23193"><p>I am now 47 years old. When I graduated high school in 1987 I received around $1,000 cash in graduation gifts. I added $400 I saved by bagging groceries at the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store. I spent the approximate $1,400 at the local sale barn on three heavy bred heifers. I borrowed my uncle's horse trailer to haul them to my parents' house. It was a 2 horse trailer I towed with my 1981 Toyota pickup. That's right, 3 heavy bred heifers in a 2 horse trailer. I put them in the 7 acre pasture behind my house with my sister's horse. I watered the horse and the three heifers in a #3 wash tub. All three heifers were Herefords and I had no idea what they were bred to. I waited, it seemed like a year, for those heifers to calve (it was only about 3-5 months but seemed like forever). All three had black, mottle faced bull calves, unassisted. That's the only Hereford colored cows I ever had but they were good to me for many years. I have owned several hundred, if not thousands, of cattle since then, but I will always remember my first three. I have owned cattle since I bought those first three heifers at the half rotten sale barn in Alabama.</p><p>Since then, every time I could save enough money from my regular job (administrator of the local nursing home) to buy a cow or two I did. I borrowed money to buy land when I could and when a place I wanted come up for sale. I kept heifers and/or used all of the money I got from selling yearlings at the sale barn to buy bred cows and/or pairs. As the years went by I rented land when I could. I now own 200 acres and rent an additional 200 acres. I own 312 mama cows. No one ever gave me anything. I worked it all out. It's all free and clear and I sacrificed to get it that way. My old tractors have a lot of hours on them, my hay equipment squeaks and fusses about having to work, and my creep feeder gates I have to open and close with a claw hammer my grandfather gave me in 1983. My cattle trailer is tired and somewhat rusty, my hay patches have a few weeds in them, and the batteries are dead in my hot shot. But my cows are fat, slick, and healthy, and by George I still make a little money in this ol' cow calf business. Someday I hope to do nothing but fool with these ol' cows. I do enjoy it - all of it. For example, I have pulled 5 calves in the past 4 days, and castrated 16 bull calves (none of them mine, all for neighbors and friends), and I even enjoy being a blessing by doing that. </p><p>A good friend of mine, who is a big time cattle hauler in the Southeast, told me "if you pull up to a farmer's gate to pick up his calves and he presses a button to open the gate he ain't making no money. But if you pull up to his gate and he gets out of a bent up pickup with cow manure slung on the side of it and has to untwist a piece of rusty barbed wire to open a rusty, bent up gate, he's making some money."</p><p>Ps. I enjoy all of your posts very much. Thank you for posting. I MAY enjoy Bigfoot's posts most of all. But Bigfoot has a major problem, it appears as though he is a UK fan, and UK fans are on my hit list. So down with Bigfoot! Just kidding buddy!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Quickdraw Farm, post: 1337219, member: 23193"] I am now 47 years old. When I graduated high school in 1987 I received around $1,000 cash in graduation gifts. I added $400 I saved by bagging groceries at the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store. I spent the approximate $1,400 at the local sale barn on three heavy bred heifers. I borrowed my uncle's horse trailer to haul them to my parents' house. It was a 2 horse trailer I towed with my 1981 Toyota pickup. That's right, 3 heavy bred heifers in a 2 horse trailer. I put them in the 7 acre pasture behind my house with my sister's horse. I watered the horse and the three heifers in a #3 wash tub. All three heifers were Herefords and I had no idea what they were bred to. I waited, it seemed like a year, for those heifers to calve (it was only about 3-5 months but seemed like forever). All three had black, mottle faced bull calves, unassisted. That's the only Hereford colored cows I ever had but they were good to me for many years. I have owned several hundred, if not thousands, of cattle since then, but I will always remember my first three. I have owned cattle since I bought those first three heifers at the half rotten sale barn in Alabama. Since then, every time I could save enough money from my regular job (administrator of the local nursing home) to buy a cow or two I did. I borrowed money to buy land when I could and when a place I wanted come up for sale. I kept heifers and/or used all of the money I got from selling yearlings at the sale barn to buy bred cows and/or pairs. As the years went by I rented land when I could. I now own 200 acres and rent an additional 200 acres. I own 312 mama cows. No one ever gave me anything. I worked it all out. It's all free and clear and I sacrificed to get it that way. My old tractors have a lot of hours on them, my hay equipment squeaks and fusses about having to work, and my creep feeder gates I have to open and close with a claw hammer my grandfather gave me in 1983. My cattle trailer is tired and somewhat rusty, my hay patches have a few weeds in them, and the batteries are dead in my hot shot. But my cows are fat, slick, and healthy, and by George I still make a little money in this ol' cow calf business. Someday I hope to do nothing but fool with these ol' cows. I do enjoy it - all of it. For example, I have pulled 5 calves in the past 4 days, and castrated 16 bull calves (none of them mine, all for neighbors and friends), and I even enjoy being a blessing by doing that. A good friend of mine, who is a big time cattle hauler in the Southeast, told me "if you pull up to a farmer's gate to pick up his calves and he presses a button to open the gate he ain't making no money. But if you pull up to his gate and he gets out of a bent up pickup with cow manure slung on the side of it and has to untwist a piece of rusty barbed wire to open a rusty, bent up gate, he's making some money." Ps. I enjoy all of your posts very much. Thank you for posting. I MAY enjoy Bigfoot's posts most of all. But Bigfoot has a major problem, it appears as though he is a UK fan, and UK fans are on my hit list. So down with Bigfoot! Just kidding buddy! [/QUOTE]
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