knabe said:
why don't you hook up with someone and sell pot loads?
to me the local sale barn is where the prices tend to be lower.
Geographic isolation, and the fact that I was sharing resources with blood relatives that'd only allow me, for example: to borrow a stock trailer, only if they agreed with my stated purpose or desired destination.
My family, like many in my community, ( including our major local agricultural lenders who hold the notes on all 3 local auction markets) DOES NOT believe in Retained Ownership, Bar-coded ear tags, or anything remotely related to Value-based marketing and/or Age & Source verification. They will fight and argue, red-faced, to the point of asphyxiation, if anyone dares to bring these, or similar items into an otherwise polite discussion. "Those are simply ways for the Major Feedlots, Packers, and the Gov't to tell you how to run our business", would summarize my relatives' feelings on a Modern, Consumer-Driven, Beef Industry.
My community simply hasn't figured out, that an extra $20 to $30 a head, even on just 25 steer calves, often nets that hypothetical "extry caif" ( LOL that's hillbilly slang for 'extra calf') that they're supposedly breeding and feeding their cows to produce.
I guess that 30 minutes a YEAR that'd be required to maintain the data on a 50-head herd of cows would take-up too much time, that could otherwise be spent at the Coffee Shop????? ??? :
:-\
My argument with Local Powers that Be will always be :
If a producer in Let's say, idk, Iowa, or even Montana, with 300 cows, or maybe even sometimes 3000 cows ( not including replacement heifers and herd bull battery) can keep up the information, why can't a Producer with less than 100 head ( including 2 good herd sires, a pencil-azzed-calving-ease bull, and a dozen retained heifers....leaving just 85 brood cows of various ages) take the time to make more money?
Of course, it didn't help things a bit, when I often left the conversation as angrily as my "Christian Friends & Neighbors" did. Hence, that's why I'm living in a Duplex in Springdale, and they're still over there, selling unweaned, improperly-vaccinated calves.
Lesson Learned, I guess.
GB