Wondering

[Caustic Burno]

I relly didn't know where to put this question .

I was wondering today how many of the board member's have actually survived a bad recession messin with cattle like in the 70's.
The bottom completely fell out of the cattle market.

 

[csutton]

Not me, I wasn't even alive in the 70's!

 

[redfornow]

I was there but we didnt have enough cattle to care really.

Did make it cheaper to buy a feeder steer though.

 

[skyline]

My Papaw and Uncle were running cattle back then, but all I had on my mind was who to ask out for Saturday night. Hope we don't see interest rates like the 70's again. Talk about slowing the economy down.

 

[Wewild]

It seems we did eventhough i was young.

I recall the inflation of the time.

i recall my grandmother saying of the great depression that it didn't bother them much as they didn't have much anyway. She did seem to fret some about not being able to buy some good clothes for the kids to wear to school during that time.

 

[CUZ]

I relly didn't know where to put this question .

I was wondering today how many of the board member's have actually survived a bad recession messin with cattle like in the 70's.
The bottom completely fell out of the cattle market.

I was too young (read that as distracted (like skyline)) to really know what the effects were.

Thanks for an excellent question. It leads me to ask you to share what happened.
- Were there signs before the bottom dropped out?
- How long did it last?
- How long did it take before cattle started to bounce back?
- Who got hit hardest - Commercial or Purebreds?
- What were some of the things the foolish did?
- What were some of the things that worked?

Just trying to learn from you and the other more experienced members on the board.
Thanks for the info.

 

[cattleluvr18]

my dad sold out. didnt get cattle again til about 3 years ago. bout sold out of farming too in the 70s. thank goodness he didnt.

 

[Caustic Burno]

I relly didn't know where to put this question .

I was wondering today how many of the board member's have actually survived a bad recession messin with cattle like in the 70's.
The bottom completely fell out of the cattle market.

I was too young (read that as distracted (like skyline)) to really know what the effects were.

Thanks for an excellent question. It leads me to ask you to share what happened.
- Were there signs before the bottom dropped out?
- How long did it last?
- How long did it take before cattle started to bounce back?
- Who got hit hardest - Commercial or Purebreds?
- What were some of the things the foolish did?
- What were some of the things that worked?

Just trying to learn from you and the other more experienced members on the board.
Thanks for the info.

First off cattle management was a lot different back then didn't put near as much into them as we do today.
We didn't have as good of product either, but we had cattle that could survive. If someone would have said EPD we all had that blank look on our face, or thought it stood for Ed's Poolhall and Drinks..
We feed very little hay in the winters cow had to hustle.
You would look out in the pasture and say that old cow aint going to make it this winter,
To your first question fist sign was easy money people were buying on credit like never before.
Second sign was oil jumped to I don't know what, but gasoline went from 22 dents to 50 cents.
To the best of my memory it lasted three to four years.
It didn't really start coming back until the inflation slowed down, the farmer buys retail and sales wholesale.
The were not many purebred breeders then like now .
The foolish things I seen then was debt load, and it is worse today. You should have seen the trucks we were using and the tractors we had.
The one thing I seen that worked for the commercial guys was it got down to a bare bones operation.

PS That is when I sold all my horse's and haven't owned one since. I had some fine horses.

 

[backhoeboogie]

CB, I was on Dad's welfare roles then. The cow's I had were in his pasture and I didn't have many.

Bull calves from the dairy were $5. If no one bought them, the dairies would put them down. Surely you remember. One dairy about a mile away began running a baldy bull over his cows. He sold heifers for $20 and bull calves for $5. I wound up with 25 babies at one time on bottles as a senior in HS. 9 were heifers. Manna was cheap but it was much harder to mix back then. Dad made me a paddle to put in a drill and I'd mix 4 gallons at a time in a 5 gallon bucket. It was the first real profit I made on cattle. It wasn't much but to a kid, it seemed like a lot. When I hit the road as an I & C tech, I sold out of cattle and swore to never own another.

 

[Caustic Burno]

CB, I was on Dad's welfare roles then. The cow's I had were in his pasture and I didn't have many.

Bull calves from the dairy were $5. If no one bought them, the dairies would put them down. Surely you remember. One dairy about a mile away began running a baldy bull over his cows. He sold heifers for $20 and bull calves for $5. I wound up with 25 babies at one time on bottles as a senior in HS. 9 were heifers. Manna was cheap but it was much harder to mix back then. Dad made me a paddle to put in a drill and I'd mix 4 gallons at a time in a 5 gallon bucket. It was the first real profit I made on cattle. It wasn't much but to a kid, it seemed like a lot. When I hit the road as an I & C tech, I sold out of cattle and swore to never own another.

Heck I was running mine with an Uncle on 900 acres. There was no improved grass, there were no meds except for Combotic, and a bullet. We didn't fed minerals, range cubes, nothing and I mean nothing.
Wormed in the fall after we penned. Drove a truck you could throw a cat through and not hit anything as was so rusted out. Chevy had the big six in it with a granny. I spent more on the horses as they were the only way to check them back then. We didn't have ATV's and four wheel drives.
It was the uncles acreage not mine I was field hand general flunky you name it, that was my lease payment.

 

[CKC1586]

My Dad farmed until 1972. He started out as a kid helping his Mom raise his siblings when his Dad was killed, he farmed with horses. They did cash crops and then he started in dairy when he and Mom married. My Grandpa milked (had Holsteins) I think that influenced them in going into dairy too.(Grandpa quit milking and started raising horned Herefords, he sold out in the late 50s or early 60s). He also did hogs and Mom had chickens and I remember the egg truck coming to pick up the eggs. He sold the dairy cows in 1967 as he was going to have to go bigger and Mom wanted him to cut back as they had a health scare. He kept some beef cattle (left from my brothers Herefords crossed with Holstein) and did that mostly for freezer beef for us and the rest of the family. They had worked hard and raised their family but times were getting tough. They were out of debt but in order to keep going they were going to have to expand and go into debt again, Mom decided it was time to get out while the getting was good. It was probably a good decision for them. I still remember the day of the auction, that was tough. So I guess I have lived through it but really was too little to remember anything other than I had great hard working parents and they gave me a good life.

 

[john250]

I relly didn't know where to put this question .

I was wondering today how many of the board member's have actually survived a bad recession messin with cattle like in the 70's.
The bottom completely fell out of the cattle market.

I remember that crash pretty well. Someone may correct me on the exact details.
It all started when Nixon put price controls on meat at the grocery, trying to fight inflation. Cattlemen being cattlemen, a lot of them shut the gates to market and held. And held and held. When controls came off, there were about a million overweight cattle going to market and the crash was on.
Personally, I sold a good crop of feeders for an avg. $0.28/lb. Ouch.

 

[fit2btied]

Not me. Graduated high school in '72 and went through the gas lines at the stations, but didn't move to the farm and get into cattle until '81.

 

[Caustic Burno]

I relly didn't know where to put this question .

I was wondering today how many of the board member's have actually survived a bad recession messin with cattle like in the 70's.
The bottom completely fell out of the cattle market.

I remember that crash pretty well. Someone may correct me on the exact details.
It all started when Nixon put price controls on meat at the grocery, trying to fight inflation. Cattlemen being cattlemen, a lot of them shut the gates to market and held. And held and held. When controls came off, there were about a million overweight cattle going to market and the crash was on.
Personally, I sold a good crop of feeders for an avg. $0.28/lb. Ouch.

You are right on Nixon but the free fall continued under Carter. Remember when 16% was the good rate.
Loaf of bread went from a quarter to a dollar and beef left the table for chicken and pork.
I remember selling some cows I had bought for 325 (that was big money then) and getting 125 for them.
I still remember that ouch very well.

 

[alabama]

Do y'all also remember the beef boycot back in the 70's. I was just a whiper snapper but housewives were protesting the price of beef in the supermarkets. Thay had a big campain to boycot beef. It hurt a lot of ranchers.

 

[Ryder]

Cattle market and every other market goes in cycles. Up and down. When it is up, just know the time is going to come when it goes down. In long run, president doesn't much matter. Politicians and fed reserve can shift the curve one way or another for a while, but can't stop natural forces of economics.

When soomethig is going good, people feel it will always be that way and get too optimistic.
Bigget problem I have seen is peple going into debt they can't handle in a downturn.
Old timers I have known from way back that did ok over time did not spend money. They made it and saved it. Drove old trucks and tractors you wouldn't think would run if you looked at them. Always looking for a deal. They did not call a vet every time a cow sneezed.

They pretty much operated the same in good times and bad. Nothing fancy. Very conservative.
They had money to buy what they needed. If they spent a dollar, they expected three back. Did not like taking risk they couldn't handle.

 

[john250]

I relly didn't know where to put this question .

I was wondering today how many of the board member's have actually survived a bad recession messin with cattle like in the 70's.
The bottom completely fell out of the cattle market.

I remember that crash pretty well. Someone may correct me on the exact details.
It all started when Nixon put price controls on meat at the grocery, trying to fight inflation. Cattlemen being cattlemen, a lot of them shut the gates to market and held. And held and held. When controls came off, there were about a million overweight cattle going to market and the crash was on.
Personally, I sold a good crop of feeders for an avg. $0.28/lb. Ouch.

You are right on Nixon but the free fall continued under Carter. Remember when 16% was the good rate.
Loaf of bread went from a quarter to a dollar and beef left the table for chicken and pork.
I remember selling some cows I had bought for 325 (that was big money then) and getting 125 for them.
I still remember that ouch very well.

I'm still trying to forget 16%!

 

[fit2btied]

I'm still trying to forget 16%!

We moved to the farm in '81 with a 12% loan. The people that bought our house in town had a 17% loan and were relieved to have secured it! :roll:

 

[larryshoat]

It seems like fat cattle hit a bad spell about every 10 years, then following that fat cattle will trade about 10 dollars higher . If you kinda look back fat cattle establish a new trading range about every 10 years . In 95 I bought some ground off a neighbor and paid too much . I was selling fats for about 70 cents and I remember thinking if they stay there I"ll be alright . By the end of the year I had bought some 5 $ corn and sold some cattle in the low 50's . Good times and bad times will come and go and by the grace of God we'll make it through both .

Larry

 

[kerley]

The late 70s were hard times for me. I owned and operated my own construction related business, earned enough for me to buy a nice farm in the west. As luck would have it, Interest went to over 20% and money was so tight you couldn't afford to buy a box of nails. As a result of high interest, and very large amounts of money owed to me, and people filing bankruptcy on me, I had to sell the ranch and all livestock. When times got better, I was careful not to expand as before. As a result I operated small and never ever recovered. I survived, I never had a large debt load. I remember my parents talking about the Great Depression. Dad was born Jan 15, 1896 in Crocker Missouri. When he returned to Missouri after WW1 times were hard. He was the second born of 17. He moved to Tulsa, Ok. To work in the oil fields. I remember my parents telling me that if they had not been on the farm with the milk cow, chickens, hogs and large garden, they would have starved. Well I'm just an old man now with a lot of lifes memories. And I am "Wondering what the younger generation is going to do" Just my two cents worth.