Humidity & Cattle w/ Jack Cowen Lost Episode

In this episode, we sit down with a true Florida cattleman to talk all things Florida cattle and ranch life in the Southeast compared to west Texas ranchin. From running cows in swampy, humid conditions to moving to west Texas and the differences between the too, this conversation gives a whole new perspective on what it means to cowboy outside of the West.

We dive into the history of Florida cattle, how they’ve adapted to the environment, and what it takes to keep a herd thriving in heat, insects, and tough terrain. We also talk about day-to-day ranch work, lessons learned along the way, and how faith, grit, and tradition still play a huge role in the cattle industry today.

If you’ve only ever thought about West Texas or the Midwest when it comes to cattle, this episode will open your eyes to a whole different side of the industry.

Wanna rep the brand and show the world you're about that ranch life? Snag your Registered Ranching merch now at RegisteredRanching.com. Hats, tees, hoodies, all the cowboy-approved gear you need to look sharp whether you’re in the saddle or the city!

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Y’all stay classy, and ranch on ‘em.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:01

Registered Ranching Podcast. That's right. You're tuning in, and you're about to listen to a lost podcast. This podcast was actually taken over a year ago, and that's why my buddy Willie Wardle is in this podcast. It was lost. We thought it was gone, but Michael Stevens got it back. Shout out Michael Stevens for getting it back for us to be able to post. It's been a long time waiting, so enjoy, as did I when I got to listen back to it. Y'all stay classy and ranch on them. All right. Welcome, Jake Cowan. Jake, who says that? Redo. Jack. Y'all's names are too close. They are. Gosh. People say Lanham XX. Redo the clap. Holy cow. No, we can leave that in. Jack Cowan. Welcome to the Registered Ranching Podcast. Pleasure to have you, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

I'm really glad to be here. Great to get to spend some time with you fellas.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

Gosh, what a great start. Say the wrong name.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I would just like to formally apologize for my counterparts actually.

SPEAKER_04 1:03

Holy cow.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

I've had that my entire life.

SPEAKER_04 1:05

I know. And that makes it even worse for me because I've had it my whole life. Golly. No, thanks for joining the pod. Friend, dad, rancher, partner. You're a lot of things. You wear a lot of hats.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

I try. I try. Try to be adaptive and do what we need to do.

SPEAKER_04 1:22

Well, tell us a little bit about Jack Cow. What do we need to know? Before we get started, dear, what do the listeners need to know about you? I mean, you do some ranching in North Texas. You didn't you didn't grow up here, but you have your hands in a lot of the cattle industry. So yeah, how'd tell us about Jack?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Sure, sure. So yeah, I grew up in Florida on a family ranch. Um family ranch, uh, still have family that ranches back there. Um, but now my part of the family is ranching kind of northwest of you, Tucker. And yeah, um married. My lovely wife Carrie and I met at the University of Florida. We've been married for uh coming up on 14 years now. And we've got two kids. Uh my son's about to turn 11, my daughter's eight. So really obviously big parts of our lives. Yeah. The other really big part of our life is is working on a family ranch together with the rest of the family, which is just a real blessing for us. Um, but it's a multi-generational operation uh and really pretty diverse. So we're uh we have cow calf part of our business. The biggest part of our business, though, is the stalker business. So we buy cattle from from all around, really, um, and in multiple weight classes, and then we grow those cattle until they're ready to go to a feed yard, and then we retain ownership on most everything we run in feed yards in the Panhandle of Texas and southwest Kansas. But at home on the ranch, where we're trying to put weight on cattle efficiently, we grow a lot of winter wheat, and uh in our part of the country we can graze cattle on that wheat when weather permits, uh, starting in towards the end of the year, say late November, all the way through May or even June, depending on how the weather is each year, which is normally a really efficient way to grow cattle without having to feed them. Um, and in our system, you can even, if we pull cattle off of the wheat or some of the wheat fields by March, we can still harvest grain off of those fields, turn it into a really production or a really efficient production system.

SPEAKER_04 3:28

That stalker, I I'm I remember uh after going to TCU is when I really learned more about the stalker program and how much I never understood how much risk and you know b how much of a business mind stalker operators had to have. Not that other parts of the industry don't, because the feeders do too, definitely. But relative, and people may think this is an unpopular opinion, but relatively, I think the stalker and the feed yard guy know way more about their costs and risks than the cow calf guy does.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

That's right. I I agree. I mean, there's a lot of variation within the industry in any particular segment, but I feel like the closer you get to the endpoint, yeah, the more data-driven everyone is. I mean, feedlots are especially data-driven because they're such high volume and low margin operations that you know, making small adjustments and tracking very small things can turn into a lot of money for them by the end of the year or make the difference between profitability or losing money. And stalker operations, I think, are kind of like we're a transition between cow calf places that a lot of times they're a transition on that spectrum also, where we're in a lot of cases pretty darn focused on our costs, but we don't necessarily have quite as much control over certain things as feedlot operations, where feedlot you have a lot of control over things because you're when they you are giving them their feed, you know, every single day you can adjust that ration easily. Whereas when the cattle are on a pasture, you can adjust supplementation, but you can't you can't adjust how much grass is in the field short of planting new grass or you know that kind of yeah, those kind of options, brush control or what have you, but all pretty macro level adjustments, whereas in a feed yard you can make really micro level adjustments. Yeah, I think that's fair.

SPEAKER_04 5:23

I think that's fair. So you grew up in Florida, whole family was in Florida.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_04 5:28

I think you got a pretty interesting story of how like you you have this family ranch in Florida, 30,000-foot view. Uh, you may not agree with this from but from what I see, you have this family ranch in Florida. Um one of your family members comes here, and all of a sudden you sell the ranch in Florida, and the a lot of the family moves to Texas and buys a ranch, and you've had it for how long now? For coming up on 20 years. Yeah, that's right. Holy cow.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

So it's been it's been quite a while. So um, yeah, it was an interesting process. Uh, you know, growing up, especially where we were, there's a lot of development pressure in that area of Florida. So, you know, the idea that we could expand an operation down there was really hard to see because you're if you wanted to try to buy a place, you're talking about paying development values to be able to buy land, which some of that has changed as conservation easements down there have become much more common. And so now land trades a little differently, almost in a tiered system where land that already has a conservation easement, now you could buy it a little less because you're not fighting for development rights. Um, but so as we were growing older, my generation, which was the third generation of the ranch, um around the time uh my older brother was going to college, and then I went to college, you know, we just you know, we were looking at whether or not we're gonna be able to come back to grow it enough to support us or have to do something else. And um between my grandparents and between uh my mom's generation of the family, you know, somebody thought of maybe maybe we should look at something out in Texas with the idea that you know there's options of either selling the family ranch or doing a conservation easement on the family ranch, those types of things. So we ended up finding a place in Texas, Benjamin, Texas, where we are now, um, that was really appealing to us. Uh we really liked the idea of being in a soccer business. Um, grew up Cal CAF, uh, which is you know the majority of what there is in Florida. Yep. Um but we really liked the idea of Cal Caf, or I'm sorry, we really liked the idea of stalker business and some options that came along with that. So after we had identified that, then we started looking at what our options were for the family ranch back in Florida and ended up uh doing a conservation easement and selling some of the land. Um but one good way, one good thing that came out of it. So, like my cousin that still lives there, he still operates on part of the family ranch. Uh I didn't know that boy. He's got his own place now that he gets to run, and we still do a little business together. He he does some things for us down there. Um, so it's great to have some continuity of that legacy of you know, 90 years of doing that down there. Um, but we've been able to to buy the place out here and now, like like we said, almost 20 years of being here in Texas, um, and really in an area where there are some opportunities for growth in in ranching. Um, so it's been pretty amazing to see once we got out here what opportunities there were to grow the business once you once we got established and then once we were able to kind of learn about the differences out here versus back home.

SPEAKER_04 9:12

Sure. And it's it's cool um because we didn't we didn't plan this, but um if you're listening or watching, we are still at BIF in Amarillo, and we we we stacked up some Florida podcasts for you here, some some Floridians and so some natives and so um some native Floridians that is. So what is uh we talked to Hunter about some differences in culture from Florida to Texas, and I I feel like m maybe your thoughts are different, or maybe they're the same because you've ranched in both of them.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

And and remind and for the podcast, where did where was it that your ranch was in Florida?

SPEAKER_00 9:53

We were uh southeast of Okeechobee around Indian town, Florida, so a good quite a ways away from where Hunter is. Yeah, I mean that's a that's probably a good six, seven eight-hour drive. That's right. So um, but yeah, so South Florida and you know, a tropical climate basically. Yeah, nearly 60 inches of rainfall a year. We worried uh we worried a lot more about having too much water on the ranch than we ever worried about having enough water. Um when my great-grandfather had first started the ranch, it was you know, he had some surveying work done and across six miles there was six foot of fall across the whole ranch. I mean, it is really remarkably flat. Yeah. So he did a lot of work to drain it, um, which was beneficial, but there's only, you know, there's only so much drainage you can do there when there's not really many places to go. Um so we could, you know, down there we would worry about times when we were going to be too wet, and when it was dry, we had, you know, opportunities to irrigate a little bit. We had artesian wells there that had been drilled back in the 40s and 50s that would still flow. Um, so we could put some water in pastures and and also a really high water table. So, you know, if you needed cow drinking water, you could go dig a pond and it would be full of water after you dug it. I mean, there is no worrying about that kind of thing, which is one of the big, big differences to where we are in Texas, where there's really limited groundwater resource. I mean, in a lot of places in our area, there's really no groundwater resource. And if there is groundwater, it's it's not very desirable. Pretty salty. For us, it's salty, right? Salty and jippy. So even if you do get some, uh, it needs to be the only thing around to drink for the cattle to drink it. Yeah, yeah. Um, and it's it was really surprising, you know. Even so we have frontage on the Brazos River, and even that the water in the river sometimes is too salty to use as cattle drinking water, which was I had never really considered that as a possibility before coming out here, you know. That was a salty river, right? You know, something that's a river that is too salty to drink out of just doesn't seem never would have crossed my mind. But I also never had worried about having enough water for cattle to drink. But yeah, but as you know, you know, there's plenty of places where we are, they run out of water before they run out of grass. Dang right. Because you can haul feed to cattle, but you can't. I mean, you can haul water, but that gets old real fast. Costs a lot of money too. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

Jeez. So um, as far as culture goes, uh I tend to find a lot of similarities between South Florida ranchers and West Texas ranchers.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_04 12:50

Would you would you find similarities or I don't I definitely think there are.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

I think um there's a lot of um pretty decent size operations in both places. I think that helps to influence that culture because between guys that actually work on those outfits and then you know having enough of those outfits around and stuff, it can keep a pretty good day worker population supported where you can get extra help if you need it, and guys that are pretty savvy, um, which is helpful. And just the you know, a pretty good culture of professional cattlemen, if that makes sense, of guys that do this for a living as opposed to doing it on the side, so they're willing to support the cattlemen's association and willing to support the extension service and research and the beef council and all that kind of stuff to try to improve us as a as an industry and make strides to where we can we can uh do things better and more efficiently.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

And I think in both places you find the culture in general that is values agriculture and ranching specifically a lot. You know, these days there's ranch rodeos in South Florida and things like that that there are out here also, where you know, that attracts a lot of people to come to them and people are interested in seeing that lifestyle in person and and some pretty darn good ranch teams that do it. For sure. Oh yeah, for sure. How old were you whenever your family made that transition? I was 21. Yeah, I was in college. So, and then my older brother, we were both in college at the same time. My older brother Jake, I can still remember it like as yesterday, you know, he graduates from University of Florida, and the next morning we get up, have his truck loaded, and drive out to the ranch in Texas, and he that's when he moved there and has been there ever since. I'll be dang.

SPEAKER_04 14:55

Which uh had had either of y'all been I mean to Texas. Have either y'all been spent time in Texas before um the family thought of moving here?

SPEAKER_00 15:10

So we had both interned at a place called R. A. Brown Ranch. I've never heard of that place. So yeah, with that, uh what was that the was the internship the first time that that was the first time either of us had spent extended time in Texas for sure. Yeah. I mean, other than just you know, maybe a trip or something like that. It was definitely the most time we had spent out west. Um coming for which you were oh five. Five was it five? Oh five, and Jake was oh four.

SPEAKER_04 15:44

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Um that's right. I think Jake spent uh five or six months. Uh he did summer and fall, and then I did the summer after that.

SPEAKER_04 15:55

I'll be dang. I was just a pup.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

You were. You were. I umpired your little league baseball that summer. Yeah, you did. It was it was really fun because there were kids from the ranch on every team, so you had the opportunity of making everyone mad. Isn't that the truth? And the sheriff taught uh coached one of the teams, so yeah. Also didn't want to get crossways with him. Had to be on the good his good side. That's right. That's right. That's funny. Really, really great experience for both of us, um, and a lot of memories from that time. I was just talking to somebody a few weeks back, actually, that I hadn't seen in a long time, and I was talking to him about George Self. Oh, yeah. And my memories of getting to spend time with him and just the things you pick up just going with him uh for a day or two or whatever. Um really, really impactful.

SPEAKER_04 16:52

And was he working full time then or was he three days a week then?

SPEAKER_00 16:55

I think he was either three or four days a week. Okay. He was at the brown working the Brown Ranch division. Yeah. Yep. So that was where usually if I went with him, that was where we went. That was Todd, that's Todd's now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:07

The Brown ranch there south of town.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

Um close to my house.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

Yeah. Real close to your house. Uh he lives at right now, he's living at a house, I mean, just uh north of I guess it was after the if you remember the Y. Yeah. It was just after the Y. Okay is the house he's living at now. Gotcha. Um but yeah, that was uh yeah, George is George is a lot like Buzzy to where uh both you know super wise cowboys that that are both pretty quiet. I mean, George was never very loud that I remember. No, yeah, you're right. And even whenever he would get onto me as a kid, it was never very loud. That's right. Which I I appreciate.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Definitely. Yeah, he was a great role model type. I I I don't remember if it was Jake or my dad that said just a couple months ago we had done something, and they said, you know, remember what Mr. George said. It wasn't roping cattle that makes them wild, it's missing them.

SPEAKER_04 18:12

That that is that's a that's a good George self.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

I live in that white house at H HQ.

SPEAKER_04 18:17

Get in there, I can't hear you. Did he live at that white house in HQ? Where Grace lives now? Yeah, on top of the hill. Yep. That's uh that's his still there. Still there. Do you live in the muckhouse?

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 18:29

Yeah.

unknown 18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

Behind your the one behind your house, yeah. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Or uh still there.

SPEAKER_04 18:34

Yeah, still there. Yeah. Redone a little bit. I bet I could see that. As it should. As it should. Did your air conditioner ever get taken away?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

No. No, we were so it was Travis Moore and I there, and I think we were remarkably um well behaved interns. We never got our air conditioner taken away. We were never forced to shave in a gas station bathroom. Nice. And I'm proud to have made it through without that. Yeah. Um I think we even got our clean bunkhouse bonus every month with which is that's still practical. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 19:15

I don't know if we give that anymore.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

I haven't heard about it.

SPEAKER_04 19:18

Yeah, I hadn't I hadn't either. I hadn't either. Man, how cool is that though? I mean, you you came and interned, which didn't have anything to do with me. I just happened to be a fifth grader at the time playing little league baseball. But um, and then y'all buy a place that's I mean what, 45 minutes?

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:38

An hour. Hour. Yep. Um an hour to the northwest of us, and whole family came. Yeah. I say whole family.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

You're yeah, my folks live in Benjamin now. My brother and his family live there, and yeah, so we're here. My, you know, still have my grandmother and um three aunts that still live down in Florida. Okay. Um, and my wife's family's still down there, so I still make it down there to see everybody. Yep. And lots of friends, of course, from school. Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_04 20:10

What'd you what'd you uh go to school for at Florida? I did ag engineering. Ag engineering. See, I knew it wasn't I didn't know what it was, but I knew it wasn't like ag ed or or agcom or animal science, but ag engineering. Were you planning on use were you planning on ranching with that degree?

SPEAKER_00 20:28

So I always thought when I and I really struggled of what to major in there for the first couple years, and I always thought, well, you know, by the time I was well into it, I thought, well, I can go and after I graduate, work long enough for an engineer to be able to get my license and then go back to the ranch, basically. Um and I did I ended up doing a master's before I left, and I did, um during my master's, I focused a lot more on the animal science and agronomy side. Okay, which which I really enjoyed, and so really kind of managed to pick up a lot of those classes that I would have missed from animal science and in in my undergrad originally. I'll be dang.

SPEAKER_04 21:17

I don't know, you got a master's? You all smart and stuff? Golly.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

I think it was a lot easier to do that stuff back then, Tucker. You think that's what it is, it's just harder now.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

Well, uh, we're gonna move to one of my favorite segments of the podcast. Um, it's called the Ag Gear Hot Seat. And because you're not at wearing Ag Gear, the seat may get hot with all the questions that we're gonna be throwing at you. But if you were wearing an Ag Gear shirt, it'd keep you cool because these shirts keep you cooler than any other shirt, and that's why I wear Aggear and use code Tucker Brown and say fifteen percent at AgGear on their uh store online. Um you ever worn AgGear before?

SPEAKER_00 21:53

I don't think I have. I'm gonna have to start. You have to you have to check that out.

SPEAKER_04 21:57

You have to check it out.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Code Tucker Brown.

SPEAKER_04 21:59

That's right. What is better, being the oldest or being the youngest in the family?

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Oh, that's tough. I would always tell my brother that the being the oldest is better. Yeah. You know, that's maybe part of how he got to be the favorite.

SPEAKER_04 22:26

Well, I don't know what that's like. I feel like it's I always thought it was the youngest that was the favorite.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah. No. I it's um yeah, it's tough. Tough to say. I uh my brother I really feel lucky. We have such a good relationship work together that and and enjoy working together that what's your um seems to fit for us.

SPEAKER_04 22:52

What do you and your brother mesh or like work together best on?

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Oh man. Um I hadn't thought about that. Uh we have pretty generally complementary skills where we're both good at different things. So so it seems to work pretty well in terms of running the company, especially with with my dad also very involved, that the three of us just really work together well and can communicate and come together to make decisions and things like that. Um, but it's always fun to work together when we're working cattle, we have similar styles and preferences, I guess I would say, in terms of cattle handling, in terms of wanting to be quiet and um easy on the cattle and not trying to rush them or ram them through or anything like that to try to keep a low stress environment. I mean, because at the end of the day, you know, uh high levels of stress or anything like that can lead to negative performance. We don't want that. We don't want morbidity or anything down the road as related to that, and we'd rather just take our time and handle them right and and not have to worry about that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_04 24:13

Yeah. Oh, you make a good point, especially when working with stalker cattle, because uh, I mean, you're buying do you buy many high-risk cattle?

SPEAKER_00 24:20

We buy, we buy a lot of high-risk cattle. Yeah, that's a big part of our business. Um when you think of kind of maybe your traditional high-end cattle that's not high risk, you know, a lot of those cattle are they're gonna get weaned big and they're gonna go straight into a feed yard. So uh the the high end of those are gonna kind of a lot of them will skip the stalker segment completely. So we fill out the business with with high-risk cattle, and and that's really what we would say we specialize in is being able to take care of those high-risk cattle, get them through our system uh of weaning, and then grazing them as long as there's forage available somewhere and then onto the feed yard with while minimizing any losses and and making sure they're taken care of right.

SPEAKER_04 25:09

If somebody didn't know the description of what high-risk cattle mean, how would you how would you describe it?

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Sure. So that I I would say it's cattle that are marketed one way or another, but the most common way would be that uh, you know, the cow calf operation takes them to the sale barn. So they get their cows up, they pull all the calves off of them, and haul them all to the sale barn. And the highest risk of those are the ones that uh, you know, they've not been touched until they were loaded into the trailer to go to the sale barn. So they've never been vaccinated for anything. Uh the bulls have never been castrated or anything like that. Uh, so they have a completely naive immune system. They're, you know, only the only thing they've been exposed to is whatever they were exposed to at the home ranch. Um, nothing from a vaccine or anything else like that, and then hauled somewhere where they get intermixed with other cattle, um, exposed to other germs and pathogens and things that might make them sick. Yeah. Um, so that's what we that's what we have to fight, is making sure that the combination of the stress of being weaned, taken off of the mama cow, um, combined with exposure to new um bugs or bacteria or disease or anything like that, and then the stress of being run through a sale barn potentially, and then waiting, waiting for the sale, potentially waiting after the sale to get picked up, to get on a truck, to go to our place eventually. Um, so they might go a while with only hay and water, no feed until they get to us where we can fill them back up. Um, all those kind of things can contribute to the stress, can contribute to the morbidity. Um, so as soon as we get them to us, we want to rest them, get their bellies back full. Um, once we feel like they're depending on where they've come from, how long they've been on the truck, um, what their background was, you know, we want to give them an initial processing at our place where we get them vaccinated and uh get them an ear tag and get them set into our lot, uh, our lotting system so that we can keep track of where they came from, what you know, what they are, um, and get them to somewhere where we can get them fed and filled back up and and and in some cases learn to eat feed because some of them have never eaten feed before. Got to feed them. You know, they drank milk on their mama and maybe ate some grass and have never been exposed to feed, so that can be another another challenge to get them used to eating feed and get that get that rumen adjusted to eating feed as well.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

Yeah. And so you're in all these segments. I mean, cow, calf, stalker, feeder, and then you're it's not like you own the packer, but you're going to the grid. That's right. Is that I would that be right? That's right. Okay. Um of those kind of three and a half segments, um, what which one do you enjoy most?

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Man, I really enjoy all of them. There's definitely my dad would say that Jake and I are definitely sentimental about the cow calf segment. Oh, yeah. Because he his favorite is really stalker and feed yard segment. Um, but I mean, I just have such great memories growing up with that. And, you know, there's a real sense of accomplishment of getting to the place where we're really happy with the quality of our home cow herd. At the end of the day, that that part of the business really is it gets a bit of the back burner to the other parts of the business. I really like the stalker business because it it's an opportunity to make things really efficient. So it's an opportunity to take abundant forage somewhere that is really not good for many things, many uses, and put it to really valuable use of growing cattle in a you know, really healthy way. So whether that's like I talked about earlier, getting cattle turned out on wheat in winter and even still being able to harvest grain off of that wheat in some cases, but even if you graze out the wheat, that's still a great use of wheat and really economical most years. Yeah. But and in the summer, especially summers like we're having in Texas this year, where there's abundant rain, there's a lot of summer grass that that is really in excess of what our Texas cow herd could graze. So it's a great opportunity to be turning out stalkers on summer grass and get that gain through the summer and have the cattle be bigger and a little more mature headed into the feed yard at the end of at the end of grazing. Oh me, dang.

SPEAKER_04 29:54

Well, welcome. You're you're you're welcome out of the uh Ag Gear hot seat. You did you did good. Thank you. You did good. Go to Ag Gear store online, use discount code Tucker Brown, get you some Ag Gear clothing.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

You can lower the MSRP.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

Lower it down. Um I mean, moving from having an abundance of water to worrying about drought. I mean, what I don't even know how to the pros and cons. You know, what what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Right. So the drinking water being the being the biggest concern for us is making sure that we're gonna have cattle drinking water. Um and we're really fortunate in one way, the so we don't like I said, on on our ranch in Benjamin, we don't have much in the way of groundwater resource. But previous owner of the ranch did run quite a lot of water line throughout the ranch and put in water troughs. And and on the north end of the ranch, we're we're connected into Benjamin's municipal water supply, and on the south end of the ranch, we're connected into another rural water supply. So we can get drinking water for the cattle throughout the ranch, even if it's so dry that our you know earth, earthen tanks are dry or getting dry, that we can still get them water in the troughs, which is really a blessing. It's also a lot of maintenance. Yeah. Um that water line. Yes. So so we actually we check our water meter every day. Wow. To to see how much water we're using, and then uh, you know, when the guy goes and checks it, he look he takes uh looks at how much water we've used for 24 hours and then he times it to see what our water use is right then. How many gallons per minute are we using right then? And so we know based on that number if we have a water leak somewhere, and then if we do, where do you find it? We gotta go find it. Yeah, where's it at? So that's usually that turns into the kind of emergency of the day of water leak. Um but it's I mean, it's city water, so it's expensive. It's not something you wanna. I mean, we don't want to waste resources anyway, but we certainly don't want to waste expensive resources. Yeah, resources and money. That's right. Yeah. So it's uh that part's a challenge, but it's also a blessing. We certainly there have been times where we would have had to really de stock further than what we have had to because we had that water available. So that's that's been really fortunate. On the farming side uh of our business, that's also a lot different than what we what we ever did in Florida. Oh, yeah. Uh we really weren't we really didn't do a whole lot of cultivation in Florida the way of like traditional row crop farming out here. Um we would do like we plant some ryegrass in the winter, um, and you know, occasionally plant something else uh or plant improved grasses in the pastures, that type of thing. Um and then maybe a farmer would come and want to grow something on one pasture or something like that. But it was, you know, and that would be a specialty type crop. Like so maybe they want to grow watermelons if watermelons haven't been grown there before, or or peas or beans or something like that. Whereas coming to our ranch now, we're we farm a lot of wheat. Yeah, um, it's pretty extensive cultivation. It um it's a lot of work, it's a big part of the business. It takes a lot of man hours to get it done for us. Um, but we want to have the availability of that of that grazing through the winter to be able to turn out a lot of cattle, and and we want to utilize that cultivated ground that we have. And in our area, wheat is wheat is really the best option. Yeah, for sure. There's a little bit of cotton, but dryland cotton where we are is really pretty tough. If we moved south and east, maybe you know, the south and east part of the county guys can can do some of that, but it's it's pretty dry where we are, it'd be pretty tough. So so we grow wheat through the winter, and then on some of our fields we'll grow a summer crop of hay grazer or millet or something like that to try to get some additional forage or or hay or to cut silage.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

Okay, I was gonna ask if you'd I didn't know if you cut silage on any. Do you cut silage on any of your wheat?

SPEAKER_00 34:30

We do. We do wheat silage, and then we do uh a summer silage of hay grazer or sorghum or um in the past we've been able to get a little bit of corn silage bought, but it's you know it's we're not real close to anybody growing corn, so the freight usually the freight and the combination of the basis on corn price, a lot of our corn farmers that would be as close to us as anybody get, a lot of them are wanting to take it all the way to grain and sell it. So, but we do cut we do cut silage for for uh for using in our feed ration.

SPEAKER_04 35:08

You have any uh you have any trouble for uh with uh development in Benjamin? I couldn't even finish the sentence.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

We don't either. There are there are some uh wind turbines. There's been wind turbines have come through, and there's still talk about some solar panels going in around, but um solar panels take up a lot. Yeah, and it's hard to use that land anymore. I hear they don't. I mean, do it do they it's it's pretty limited use after that. Well I've heard of some guys taking goats around to graze what grass is left in a solar farm, which is kind of half weed control and half getting to use their goats, but yeah, I don't think I think it's not much use to it after they put the panels on it. Uh-huh. But but other than that, it's pretty uh we seem to be pretty stable where we are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:06

Maybe something will change, but I don't think Throckwort nor Benjamin has to worry about development being a big issue anytime soon. That's right. Which can be a blessing. That's right. Florida's seeing the opposite of that. Yes. An extreme amount of development.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Yeah. It is really impressive uh in Florida how much conservation that they've done and how much money has been publicly and privately funded to do that, mostly publicly funded by the key to to preserve some lands. Yeah. Um, and that's I'm really glad that they've done that so that it's just, you know, so you have that ranching industry and heritage there too, and get to see some of the land, how how it really is naturally. Sure. Which is a really great part of the type of ranching that we do, I think. Where um I was talking to somebody the other day, and you talk about how the native range on the ranch looks, and that's where we we primarily run stalkers on our cultivated farm ground, and then we'll run cow calf on the native rangeland because the native range is rougher, rushier, pastures are big, it's hard to get stalkers in and out of them. Yeah, they're difficult to gather, things like that. And the fence you need better fences for stalkers than you do do need for cows. Cows are a little bit easier to keep in, whereas stalkers um like to go floor more. Yeah, so you look at the native range pastures around ours, and then you look at there's a state park about 30 miles north of us. That state park looks a lot like native rangeland everywhere on all the ranches around us too. Which one is that? Um Cedar Brakes, Copper Brakes. Sorry, copper breaks. I haven't been up there. Yeah I didn't know it was that close to you. Yeah. Up there outside of outside of Kroll is where it is. So which I I think that's pretty neat. That and I think a lot of the ranches in Florida is similar of that's your closest snapshot of what this what this landscape really looked like before we started building everything. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 38:24

Yeah, and Florida losing a lot of that native grassland. Or right. I don't even know what I don't even know what to call it. Right. I don't think grassland is the right word, is it?

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Uh yeah. I don't know. Uh native palm.

SPEAKER_04 38:39

Well, yeah, that's that's more like it. Yeah. Especially down where you were, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah. Some of it's flatwoods or or palmetto heads, or you know, there's some prairie down there too, but yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the interesting things I think in our area, there was an there was an NCBA talk or a talk at one of the NCBA committee meetings at the convention this year about encroachment of of uh brushy shrubs onto native grasslands. Um and a big focus of that is like in the Midwest, like Nebraska and Kansas and stuff where this stuff is has naturally just been big wide open grasslands, and now you're starting to get a little bit of woody brush into it, and it's it's hard to fix that. And I feel like we have some of the same where we are here, where mesquite become to a lesser extent cedar, but mesquite's really encroached on a lot of oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:35

Especially if you don't do anything. I mean exactly if you if you overgraze and don't do any brush control, I mean mesquite can tear you apart.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Yeah. Well, you go look at some of these old farms that have gone into CRP and nobody's messed with them for 20 years, and now now you unless you know what you're looking at, you don't even know they used to be farm ground. Right, right. And those used to be open grassland, but now now they're brushy. So I think that's another positive benefit of an actively managed ranch in our area of keeping keeping some stuff in uh managed grassland.

SPEAKER_04 40:10

Yeah, I agree. I'd agree with that. We what do we what do we see, Willie? Um we did a little research on some mesquites and it was like they take up like thir twenty to thirty gallons a day per tree. It's pretty phenomenal. That's a lot of water. It's a lot of water in a place where water isn't is important, that's right, on the low side, you know, it's probably on the low side. Twenty to thirty gallons per tree, that'd be a that'd be a lot of water.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Yeah. I've heard guys west of us talk about when they went through and did some pretty large swaths of of brush control, getting rid of cedars and mesquites. And they talked about in some places they had some little springs and seeps come back through some of the creek beds where they had a little more live water in some of those at times than they ever did, which pretty easy to imagine those mesquite just soaking that water up before it even seeps out of the side of the ground.

SPEAKER_04 41:10

Would those for you having both mesquites and cedars? Because we don't we don't really have cedars. Right. Um does one of them give you more trouble than the other?

SPEAKER_00 41:21

The seed uh the mesquite seem to they'll move into places a lot faster. And usually if you've got like like that old farm ground I talked about that people will let go sometimes, that'll be mesquite encroachment. The cedars usually grow in in shallower soils that aren't as good a in general because they're shallower, they're probably not as good a quality soils. So they're and they're slower growing. I I think I don't know that for sure, but it seems like it. Um so maybe they're not quite as big of a deal. But on the on the fire threat, those cedars are terrible. Oh, I've heard they are don't they explode like explode? Yeah, it's like an explosion when the fire makes to one and it can you know when it when it hits them and they do that, and sometimes it'll shoot stuff into the air, and it's pretty hard to have a fire line big enough to keep that contained if it's if it's really raging through there. Yeah, no thank.

SPEAKER_04 42:20

I don't want that.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

Yeah, that's kind of a scary thought. We drove through some pretty brushy country, and we were talking about that on the way up here.

SPEAKER_04 42:26

Yeah, we were driving through the sixes area there between what is it, Kroll and Wagner and Wagner. Wagner. Oh, that's Wagner, yeah. Sixes I say sixes. Which they have some of that too over there between Knox City and Guthrie, but cedar brakes. But yeah, we were going through Wagner's and just that really red, you know, that red soil that is pretty thin. And they were doing a lot of work. Yeah, there was a lot of work that was going on.

SPEAKER_03 42:51

Look like they were starting to clear a lot of land out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:53

Yeah. We were talking about all those, all that brush and you know, where's the grass?

SPEAKER_03 42:58

And yeah, that's right. How do you gather that?

SPEAKER_02 43:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:01

Yeah, there was some pretty rough country and just thinking about a cow breaking off and thinking, I gotta go down there and get around her.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Yeah, good luck. It makes sense to hear about you know, some of the guys in the area that use helicopters to gather. Yeah, I can see why.

SPEAKER_04 43:15

After seeing all that, I can see why. Yeah, no joke. Well, I want to move to one of my favorite segments of the podcast. Um this is the bedrock tough question. Brought to you by bedrock truck beds. We love bedrock truck beds, it's what we use at the ranch. They're the toughest truck bed flatbeds there are, and that's why we use them. We can count on them. They're tough. If you need a flatbed, go to uh bedrock truckbeds.com. Question you can Google bedrock truck beds.

SPEAKER_03 43:40

Yeah, you'll see you can't miss a giant mammoth as their mascot. The only one.

SPEAKER_04 43:44

Yep, only one. And uh we even we went there down in Shiner. We went down there and while we were getting ours put on, we got to go see the brewery. Yeah, the Shiner Brewery. That was cool. Have you ever seen it before?

SPEAKER_00 43:57

I haven't, but I've seen on the bottle that every drop of China is brewed in China. It is.

SPEAKER_04 44:01

With that with that artesian. Artesian drink local. Yeah, that's right. So whenever whenever you go get your next flatbed, just check out. Yeah. I mean, you're gonna go to China.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Sounds like it must have been a good tour. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:13

And while you're I mean, you're gonna wear your ag gear shirt while you're there. And you get your bedrock. Anyway, the bedrock tough question. What is um for you, what is the toughest thing about ranching and y'all's ranching?

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Sure. I think it's um uncertainty. We we face uncertainty on kind of every front, basically. Um on the farming side of the ranch, you know, planting wheat every year or or uh summer crops also. It it does not have to rain in our country. I mean, it can not rain. Yeah, it could go a year and not rain. So planting wheat and hoping that we can catch some rains and get the wheat up and have grazing is uh is uncertain every year. But also, you know, every time we buy cattle, there's uncertainty in the market. There's uncertainty if if you know this is going to be a set that is worth less than what we paid for them by the time we're done with them. Um never know, especially with the way prices are now. Um historically high prices, it's it's it makes you think twice about going out and buying cattle.

SPEAKER_04 45:27

Yeah, you're dang right. Um because we know it, I mean, we know at some point history tells us that's right that it's gonna go down. That's right. What is it a 10-year, about a 10-year cycle?

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Always used to be a 10-year cycle, so we're kind of and then 2016 hit or something. Kind of stretching this one. We'll see what happens. I'd be all right with that. Yeah. Stretch it a little bit. I hope we I hope we keep stretching it.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

So for you know, for guys who who are uncertain, um I mean for y'all who who may be a little uncertain on those cattle, are you doing any risk management on those?

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Yeah, we're very active in risk management space, which I think anybody that's that's doing what we're doing really needs to be cognizant of that because a lot of these cattle, like I said earlier, we're we're buying them. They might be they could be anywhere from 300 pounds to six, seven hundred pounds when we're buying them, and we're not gonna, you know, we're not gonna be out of them until like we talked about, they go on the grid. So we could own we could own them a year. Yep. Um, and not having any protection would just be, you would need to be very careful. It'd be scary. With you, you'd you'd have to be willing to potentially lose a lot of money if you're not gonna have any protection because in that last downturn, there were guys that did that. I mean, there were guys that bought cattle to turn out on their wheat pasture, turned, you know, turned them out, grazed them all winter, put a few hundred pounds of gain on them, picked them up, and they weren't worth what they paid for them in the fall. And now they just sold them for less than what they bought them after and just used all their wheat, got no money out of it. So that's uh that's pretty hard to stomach. Yeah. Um so yeah, we're very, very active in risk management. We're um pretty much in the market every day. So trying to make sure we're we feel comfortable with our position and we're pretty data-driven about it of managing managing based on our actual numbers and trying to manage to actual outdates and um so normally any, you know, anytime we're buying, we're looking at what those numbers look like. What are what they project to be worth uh as a feeder when it's time to go in the feedlot stage, but more importantly, what they're worth as a fat uh coming out of the feedlot, so that we can make sure that you know when we're buying cattle that that it looks like on paper we're gonna be able to make money. Um so once we get get that rolling, then we want to make sure we have at least some protection for that. Sure. And you're doing that with with hedges? Yeah, we're doing it with direct hedges. Okay. So um directly trading on on the exchange, but there's certainly these days a lot of other options. I mean, yeah, LRP has exploded in popularity, which is really a great, great tool, especially considering that you can tailor it to any size that you want. So livestock risk protection, is that right? Yeah. So if you want to protect 20 head, you can do that, which is great. It's great for people that aren't dealing with a lot of volume.

SPEAKER_04 48:51

Um I think it'd be neat to touch that touch that a little more. Have y'all used it before or have y'all stayed with direct hedging?

SPEAKER_00 48:58

We've we've used it just a handful of times to kind of experiment with it and and see what we thought. Uh for somebody like us that is set up to do to manage our hedging pretty aggressively and proactively, um, the LRP does not have the flexibility that that uh direct hedging does. Um just because once you take out an LRP policy, then that's it until the end date of the policy. So there's no going in or out of the market, it's just it is what it is. You've bought the policy, and when it when it expires, either you get money back or you don't, and that's it. Whereas if we feel like the market is undervalued or overvalued, um, we can go in and out at times um to try to catch capture some of that excess value. So I think it's a great tool. I think probably we'll in the future probably use some more of it as a as a supplement to what we do on our on our normal hedging.

SPEAKER_04 50:10

See, this is the the smarts I'm saying these stalker guys have. Dang, dude. That market trading is so like I you have to be in it all the time. That's right. To understand it. Because I feel like I'm in it quite a bit. But uh, but whenever I get around around you stalker guys that are that that start talking about what the board's doing and not just this board, but the whatever the October board is doing, or you know, and I'm just like uh we transferred embryos yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

Yeah. The other thing we have to worry about is the price of corn, too. I mean, so we're we hedge there any or puts or calls there? We do, yeah. Dang right now, especially with studs, price of these cattle and the allow amount of time we're gonna own some of them and the relative price of corn, which is really compared to what it was the past few years, is really pretty cheap. So if and we're not gonna have a choice, if you know, we're still gonna have to buy the corn if even if cattle prices come down. So we definitely feel like there needs to be some protection for us on that side as well, because if that corn does what it did a few years ago, you know, and the cattle futures are already super elevated and probably you know couldn't might not take another leg up, we would just be stuck with a higher cost of production and no way to without protecting that price of corn.

SPEAKER_04 51:47

Sure, sure. We do a little bit of contracting on some on some feedstuffs on some sure distiller's grain or you know, dry distiller's grain or some beet pulp or um even on some cotton burrs. But right. Yeah, we don't do much of the of the in our in the seed stock part, there's not much hedging. Right. I've never heard of anybody hedging seed stock bulls.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

Yeah. It's a tough hedge to make in terms of it.

SPEAKER_04 52:17

It's hard to put a value on them. Right. All right. I had somebody call me the other day, they were like, uh I need to know that I'm working on this report and I need to know the the price of a yearlin Hereford bull in 2023. And I was like, I wouldn't even know where to start if you asked me to know the value of a Hereford bull today.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

Right.

SPEAKER_04 52:38

I mean I know the value of our lines of you know, red and black and Simangus bulls, but another breed just changes everything.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:50

Because I don't know about them. That's right. I don't know about the herbs. Yeah. But the but the stalkers, you I feel like you have much more of an idea of what that's gonna bring.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:00

Or not bring.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

You know, and the everything on the feeder stalker side, it trades based on the feeder cattle index. So at least you can track that and you can see you can see what all sales are going into that and what's driving it up or down or what have you. Y'all use cattle fax? Yeah, we use what some of the data they're cattle fax provides.

SPEAKER_04 53:27

I find that so interesting.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

I mean do really fascinating work, don't they?

SPEAKER_04 53:31

Really fascinating. Yeah, of just how the whole world is affecting cattle prices in the United States.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

We have some good friends that work up there. Yeah. It's they have some really good folks.

SPEAKER_04 53:43

Yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

Um we have one, we didn't cover it earlier, but when we talked about internships, so now we do internships. Oh, yeah. So one of our former interns is actually an analyst at Cattlefax.

SPEAKER_04 53:56

Who do I know?

SPEAKER_00 53:57

Matt McQueg. I don't know if you do. I know Matt. Yeah, you know Matt.

SPEAKER_04 53:59

Yeah, I didn't know he interned with you, honestly. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

Long time ago.

SPEAKER_04 54:02

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 54:03

Hard to believe it.

SPEAKER_04 54:04

But y'all get a lot of Florida interns.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

We do. We do. We have one right now, even.

SPEAKER_04 54:09

Do you? Do I know?

SPEAKER_00 54:11

I don't know. Cy Griffin, you've met him?

SPEAKER_04 54:14

I don't know if I have.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

Yeah. Have to come by. Do you always get a Florida intern? Not always. Not always, but we still have some pretty good relationships with our old professors and people in the state. Yeah, you know, that'll it's all word of mouth for us, so they'll send somebody our way or call about somebody they think that would be a good fit or what have you, which I think I mean, we just had we got so much out of our internships that it's pretty important uh to us to, you know, help some of these kids see something different, get some experience.

SPEAKER_04 54:49

Right. Well that's neat, because it's not easy. Do it, you know, h hosting the internship is right is not easy.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

And then to try to give them a good experience and a rounded experience and take them to see some things and not not work every single day, at least a couple days. Maybe we could take them to see a feed yard or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 55:12

Yeah, have some fun. Yeah.

unknown 55:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:14

And picture of a rodeo, maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:18

Any uh for y'all are involved in TSCRA and uh Texas cattle feeders.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

Yeah, so we've kind of um my brother and I have always kind of tried to make it where we're, you know, ideally we're not gone at the same time. So we kind of end up alternating at things or that kind of thing. And so the way it's ended up working out is is he's become a lot more involved in in TSCRA. He was actually elected a director at the last meeting, so he's a director of TSCRA, which is really awesome for him. I'm really proud of him. Um, so he's involved at Cattle Raisers, which I think is a great organization, and then and then I've gotten a lot more involved at Texas Cattle Feeders. I was fortunate enough to get elected to the board of of cattle feeders last October. So really enjoying the world.

SPEAKER_04 56:16

Didn't know we had a director on the podcast, golly.

SPEAKER_00 56:19

Really enjoying to get to get get the chance to be more involved in the organization and and and uh meet the other really impressive people that are involved. It's yeah, pretty humbling.

SPEAKER_04 56:34

Yeah, uh which you and I got to spend a lot of time together at YCC. That's right. Which was the one of the best trips I've ever taken. For sure. You got to do it twice.

unknown 56:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

Yeah, I failed the first time and failed failed the if I just had to know I failed it, I would have failed it to go again, you know. So I got to do the remedial course the second time, but it was it was really phenomenal. And and uh Texas Cattle Feders is the organization that had sent me on it, so I was super, super appreciative of them investing in us. I mean, because that's really what it is for these for these organizations like cattle raisers and cattle feeders to send us and for NCBA to put them on. It's I I agree with you, phenomenal. Oh, yeah, phenomenal program that they do. And and uh, you know, I saw uh a dear friend earlier today, uh Ashby Green.

SPEAKER_04 57:30

Do you know Ashby?

SPEAKER_00 57:32

And he told me that Rob was the chairman of his YCC class.

SPEAKER_04 57:36

Really?

SPEAKER_00 57:37

I didn't know that. Neither did I. I think he said 1981. Yeah, to in some time.

SPEAKER_04 57:43

It has that he uh he told me today um a saying that I really or yesterday, he uh I did the panel, the young producers panel yesterday here at BIF. And in that, he I got asked, or somehow it came up where I was talking about where most of my followers are from. And Florida is one of the states that I do have a large following in, or a a percentage of my followers are from. And so um he came up to me afterwards, he said, Tucker, you know why Florida, you got a following in Florida? I was like, Well, I think it's I think part of it's because we've been involved in Florida Cattlemen's association. He's like, Yep, the world is run by those who show up, and y'all been showing up.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

That's right. I like that.

SPEAKER_04 58:27

I mean, I think it's so true on anything.

SPEAKER_00 58:29

Oh, it is.

SPEAKER_04 58:30

I mean, not just not just my followers, you know. I it oh yeah goes up to a whole lot of stuff of yeah, you know, Texas cattle feeders is run by those who show up. Um and CBA is run by those who show up. For sure. Our country is run by those who show up.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 58:47

And I thought that was just really wise of he he's such a good one. He is Ashby.

SPEAKER_00 58:52

He is Doc.

SPEAKER_04 58:54

He goes by a lot of names, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 58:56

No, Dr. Ashby, Dr. Green.

SPEAKER_04 58:58

Uh-huh. Did you ever have him as a professor?

SPEAKER_00 59:01

No, no, he wasn't. Uh at least he wasn't teaching in animal science when I was there. So um, but I worked for a local rancher there in Gainesville. Jake and I both did work for a local rancher, Dr. West, when we were in school, and he was really made a big big impact on us as well. And and him and Ashby were really close friends. So that's got to know Dr. Green. Yeah, he's a good one. Got it. He's a good one. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 59:28

Uh, you've been to both conventions, probably. Uh what is one thing. Well, I'll go, I'll go here. What is one thing um that Texas beef industry convention, whatever it is, could take from Florida?

SPEAKER_00 59:47

Oh, that's tough. They are really, to me, I don't know what you think, but they are really different beasts, yeah, those two conventions. I agree. I mean, Florida is like their convention, I feel so feel like, has turned into such a institution and cultural event almost of it. Is remarkably popular. Yeah. The people that are not either not really in the cattle business or only on the periphery, and they show up to that convention. Yeah. And it is the sponsor list is phenomenally diverse of the people that want to be involved in that. And they do, you know, they try to make it super family oriented and have a lot of fun options, and they they do a great job down there. Um and then so like TCFA's annual convention is is a lot different because it's it is quick and to the point. Um, and it is kind of get a lot of business done in a short amount of time and and and uh move on. And uh and not, you know, there's not a lot of time of things of uh, you know, maybe not be too interested to one person or another that it's it's bam bam bam through the programming, through recognitions and educational items and and uh recognizing different awards and things like that, and and then some time for fun and then you know let everybody go home. Then go home.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:19

It is yeah, they are different. I mean, same with TSCRA. I haven't been in involved with Texas cattle feeders, but same with TSCRA. Like they they try to have a dance and and a dinner, and they do, but if you've ever been to Florida's It's like dance, dance.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

It is, yeah, it is being cool, uh yeah, yeah man.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:39

That's good. Now, any advice for people working with family? As as we're as we're wrapping it up here, want to get having good advice for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:47

Um, communication, yeah. Um is it that easy? Overcommunicate. Over communicating is better than undercommunicating for sure. Um and open, honest, frank, uh, you know, avoiding topics, not talking about things, uh, I think that's really not a great way to do things. I mean, it might feel better um in the short term, but in the long term, it's gonna it's gonna be a problem. So I think you're better off just making sure you tell people what you think, how you feel, um, you know, as opposed to just keeping it all inside and ending up with resentment or something like that. And I feel really fortunate, and I and I guess maybe it's one of the reasons that our family deal works is that my dad has my parents and even my grandparents have always been, you know, if we come up with something, if either any of us came up with something that we thought we should do or wanted to do or wanted to try, I mean, they're generally pretty supportive. Um we might only try it once because it was actually a terrible idea, but uh but sometimes it works. Um and my dad will say, you know, some things you just gotta learn by doing it. So sometimes you gotta let somebody make a mistake and see that it's not gonna work because you can't just tell them that it's not gonna work. Um, so I I really appreciate that open-mindedness of trying new things. We we always say that we try not to do anything just because that's how we've always done it or that's how we did it last time. We try to be um critical of how should we do this? You know, it's hard to take a um fresh per fresh perspective of things when you know when you're kind of in it every day. But you know, when it gets time to do something or after we finish with something, think back of you know, maybe we should do this differently differently next time, or or um is there a way that we can improve this, or you know, even asking interns, any of the guys, um, you know, visitors, you know, be open to what they might come up with because it could be a great idea. Yeah. Just something we don't think of because we're in the weeds every day.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:17

I think that's very fair. Yeah, you kind of get caught up in you know, taking care of your part. I mean, for us, we we get caught up in taking care of our part and right sometimes miss the bigger picture. Or always tell our when our cooperators come in, I'm like, hey, if you see something, uh like we can get blind to some things.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:36

Whenever it's like growing up with people who grow up in a a town where a train comes through, like they don't hear the train. And so we I feel like we can get the same way at the ranch of where like that fence has been busted and probably needed fixed, but we've seen it for a long time and we're kind of blind to it. And so I we always ask our cooperators like, hey, if you see something, like tell us. Because sometimes that band-aid we don't see that needs ripped off or whatever the case is. But I think that's very fair. The the we always talk about playing the long game of what's better for the long game, and and forget it, try to forget about the short game and caring about that long game and that communication part plays a big role.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:19

And I think the other thing I try to do, and I should probably do it a lot better, but you know, like I gratitude is important. You know, we we all work together, but everybody has kind of different things that they're doing. I mean, sometimes we're all working on the same thing, but a lot of times we've got our own thing going, and and making sure that everybody understands how much we appreciate what they're doing, what they're contributing, and that what they're doing is important, even if it's not the same thing as what I'm doing today, what they're doing is still really important and certainly thankful for everything all the family members do, but we Also, couldn't even think about doing what we do without without our crew, and they're just really phenomenal. And really blessed to have the team that we do.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:10

Uh for people who are trying to get into we find the feed yard being a great place for people to start. There's maybe the most help needed with the with all the feed yards you go to or send cattle to or have seen. That to be true.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:31

Or if you just want to break into the industry, I mean, because we go to a feed yard that couldn't use another hand in something. And that's one of the things is especially at larger yards, like there's level jobs. Anyone that's willing to try and work hard out necessarily be easy. But there are opportunities, and there are opportunities to advance. Talk to guys that have worked up from the bottom. I mean, so that's a great opportunity to just trying to break in and to see get exposed to a lot of different things at one time. Um working in a in a yard like cattle health handling.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:27

Right. Equipment. Yeah, bunch of equipment. Feed taking care of feet, commodities, bunch of every time somebody asks me, you know, where can I everybody wants to go be a campman for the sixes. Studs. If you're gonna become one, you here's a good place to start, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:52

And especially if you're wanting to do something horseback, uh, you know, pin riders. Maybe some people don't think that's that glorious of a job, but you can put a lot of horse. Dang. Every day. Every day.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:09

Well, we'd like to end the podcast with um asking what's your favorite verse is favorite bottle verse.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

One that's really been wife and I for a long time, several years. Um think about a lot from Isaiah 464, yeah. Your old age and gray hairs. I am he. I am he who will sustain you and I will carry you. I will sustain you and I will rescue you. It's really just been that she grew up with, preacher that she the pastor that she grew up with that married us, I think he was the one that first, and it's just been special for us for our whole marriage.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:04

Whole family. How long have you been married?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:07

Upon 14 years.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:15

46-4. That's a good one. Uh any questions for us?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:21

We're here for you, but man, too many to ask, I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:26

Um, it's been quiet today.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:28

Really has been quiet. I'm just the uh assistant. What do you think's been the most interesting thing that you've seen this whole week? This whole week, even before you might have gotten here. Okay, good answer.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:46

Interesting. We did get to a speakeasy last night. That was pretty interesting. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We went to a speakeasy. Nothing to do with cattle, but uh I mean our conversations actually. What was actually the there was some beef advocacy going on? There was what were we were talking about fair piece, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:05

No, well, we did talk about that too, but it was a company. Yes, yeah, it was one of the some of those new technologies in the tag that you take an eye and you can tell how much cattle eat and how much they move. New technology coming out.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:21

But um, the one thing I thought, and you made an interesting comparison about docility. Talking about the two the two pairs of cattle. Yeah, I'm figuring out how what was it a super high risk group of cattle that they saw this insane gain on, which you made the point the question or a question. I mean, yeah, this is all we were all question marks, no explanation points here. Yeah, but and they did this experiment, and you can fill in whatever I'm messing up. But there's two sets, one's super high risk, and the other set was pretty much about the high-end high quality, yeah, number one. And they saw a huge change in the high-risk ones, which no response at all. And we were trying to think of like what how could we explain that? You would think the high-end ones would just blow up from doing that. And Tucker made a point that maybe it's a possibility because of their docility, and response to that allowed them to focus more so on eating and getting bigger than uh running or fighting everything that they saw.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:24

Use therapies now.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:26

Yeah, the our question was there was this group where these South Texas cows that were kind of wild all colored at some here, in like 14 days, grew 19 pounds of carcass weight astronomically, and um at 19 more pounds of carcass weight than the number ones. Yeah, so we were just asking questions of why would that be? And you know, is my question was would that be is there a contemporary contemporary contemporary contemporary gain?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:57

Sorry, compensatory gain.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:59

Yeah, is there is there like a is there a similarity to that to where docility allowed them to catch up, find that unfound gain because of when their docility calmed down, were they able to find that compensatory gain where those one angus cattle had already found it?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:17

Right. Yeah, maybe the number ones had kind of a low baseline cortisol level, but uh fighty cattle, we'll add some more, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:28

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:28

But I don't know. I thought that was a pretty fascinating concept in thinking about that. So that would be my answer.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:35

Yeah, I've never attended before, so it's a learning experience, uh as I call it it's a lot of nerds, and that's why we're here. Thanks for being on the podcast. Thank you. It's fun. Another family man. Thanks for giving that.