Grass Fed Ranching EP:75 With Ben Taggart

In Episode 75 of Registered Ranching, we sit down with Ben Taggart to discuss the realities of grass-fed ranching, regenerative grazing, pasture management, cattle health, and what it takes to build a profitable ranching operation from the ground up.

Ben shares his experience managing cattle on grass, improving soil health, maximizing forage production, and why grazing management can make or break a ranch. We also dive into common misconceptions surrounding grass-fed beef, sustainability, economics, and the future of the cattle industry.

Whether you're a rancher, cattle producer, landowner, or simply interested in where your beef comes from, this episode is packed with practical insights and real-world experience from the pasture.

Topics Covered:
• Grass-fed cattle production
• Rotational and regenerative grazing
• Pasture and forage management
• Soil health and land stewardship
• Beef quality and consumer demand
• Ranch profitability
• Sustainable agriculture
• The future of the cattle industry

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Settled up for episode number 75. And we brought a good one in for you today for episode 75. So thanks for joining us again on the Registered Ranging Podcast. Last time we talked about the screw arm, we had Dr. Chris Walmak back. If you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to that one with everything that's going on in the U.S. And as uh well, I'll just introduce our guest right now. He's a new dad. Sounds like he didn't sleep very much last night.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

I did not.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

TCU graduate, uh family uh a member of a family ranch, and they do their things quite a bit different, and it's gonna be pretty cool to hear about today as far as how uh how they do it different and why they do it differently. So please help me welcome Mr. Ben Taggart to the Registered Ranching Podcast. Welcome in, Ben.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Thank you, Tugger. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Dude, uh Fort Worth, well, not Fort Worth, Texas, but what do you consider home base?

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Grandview, Texas. About 30 miles south of Fort Worth, right off 35.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Is the home base. Do you still have the place in Fort Worth on 7th?

SPEAKER_03 1:24

We have, yes, we have a retail location in Fort Worth.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

But the home base, the the home base, headquarters, processing plant, you know, finishing ranch, all that is still in Grand View, where we've been since 1999.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

99. And Ben and I, we went to TCU together, TCU ranch management.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

10 years ago now.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Dude, okay. You didn't have to say it that way. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

Oh yeah. No, time flies.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Hey, don't have any gray in the beard yet, though.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Oh, dude, I got a bunch. You got at least on top of my head. Oh, Ben, how?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Oh no. Yeah. It's the child, isn't it? Probably. Us girl dads gotta stick together. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it is. So your your business, I'm gonna I'm gonna give a 30,000-foot view.

SPEAKER_05 2:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Your and I may be wrong, so you can correct me. Go ahead. Your business is pretty unique because there is quite a bit of it that is vertically integrated from owning cattle, feeding cattle grass, uh, finishing them on grass, you don't do your own processing anymore. You don't do your own harvest anymore, but you do the processing. Correct. And then you have your retail store where you sell it. Correct. That's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

It's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

It's uh so what's the business called?

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Burgundy pasture meats.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Burgundy pasture meats. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

So it originally was burgundy pasture beef started in 1999 by my mom and my dad. We uh, I say we, you know, obviously I was just a pup. Five years old at the time. But uh my dad had been in the cattle business for every well, and here's I'll throw this out there because a lot of your, well, I say that, you would appreciate this, and you already know this, but you know, my dad didn't grow up on a ranch. He didn't grow up in the cattle business. His dad was a businessman from Fort Worth, you know, one of the founders of Traders Village. And, you know, all my grandpa knew was the inside of an office, you know, meetings, phone calls, go home at night, do it all over again. So my dad went to uh he went to AM, had a roommate that had a family place in Hico, and uh he would or one I guess spring, you know, his roommate said, Hey, you want to come with me back to the ranch? We've got to work calves. My dad said, Yeah, I'll do that. So my dad went to Hico help help work calves and caught the bug. You know, it was from that point forward it was He was hooked. Yeah. And uh so he helped my grandpa helped my dad get in the cattle business, you know, co-signing on his first cattle notes.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

And then uh Was that in '99 or was that?

SPEAKER_03 4:11

That was in I guess that's gonna be in around 80, 1980, okay. Late 70s, early 80s. So my dad attended TCU ranch management in 86 in the evening classes. Oh, so that's where you don't have anymore. Yeah. So he'd go, he'd run ranches all day, you know, he leased a bunch of places, and he'd go, you know, take care of his cattle all day, and then he'd go TCU at night. And so uh he had he's done it all, you know, had mama cows, old calves, you know, ran yearlins, he fed cattle, he had did a couple years running cattle in the high country, you know, up in the mountains, for service leases. Wow. And uh in the 90s, him and my mom uh were trying to find a way to make a better living in the cattle business. And so, you know, so how do how do we do this? You know, my dad, he he was doing, you know, planting, planting everything, fertilizing it, weed spraying it, running a boatload of cattle on a little bit of land, you know, work your tail off, you know, ship them, you know, make ten dollars a head, you know, in the whatever it came to. You know, how do we how do we make a better living at this? And his the quick answer was I need to reduce the inputs because that's what's eating us alive. And so he kind of kind of jumped off a cliff with it. And when I say that, I mean it was like a you know, one year he shipped, he had a bunch of feeder heifers, he shipped them all. He had 13 that were his cuts. And he didn't ship those 13, and him and my mom decided they were gonna, they were gonna finish them on grass and process them and sell them by the cut.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

13 head.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

13 head. That's what to start with. In 1999, like I said, Burgundy Pasture Beef was founded. And in the early days, you know, getting just raising a couple head, getting them processed. You know, he was still running yearlins on the side, you know, kind of make ends meet and uh get a couple head processed, you know, sell the beef, you know, it was very slow. I mean, you're talking one head, two head, you know, over several months, a year. And where he was getting his cattle processed, ran into some uh some hiccups there, because it, you know, one year in I guess 03, I guess, went to get some cattle processed, and the processor said, no, we can't do them until January because I'm too busy with deer season. And so dad came home, told mom, we're gonna build processing plant.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

We're not gonna wait on anybody, we're just gonna build our own.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Yeah, and it was, I mean, and you know, we he jumped off one cliff, you know, I'm gonna sell grass-fed beef, and then jumped off another one, another big one saying, I'm gonna build a processing plant. And so in 2004, our process processing plant was built in Grandview. And uh since 2004, Burgundy has has harvested cattle every week, except for one week. That was February 21, Snow McGeddon. Oh, yeah. Is the only week since 2004 that Burgundy has not harvested cattle to cut up and sell.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

That's wild.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

And so now we've grown, you know. I do I'm shipping 13 head a wheat, and we have small retail location there in Gran View where we do all our processing. And then we've got a plant in Fort Worth or a store in Fort Worth, sorry, and a store in Dallas.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Oh, you have one in Dallas.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

We have one in Dallas, corner of Ross and Hall.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Oh dang.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

We built Fort Worth opened in 2012, the year we graduated high school.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

And then uh then Dallas opened in 2014, two years later.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

And I forgot about the Dallas one. I don't I don't remember about that one.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

Dallas is the hustler. Well that's so. I mean, that's kind of a game. Full cart does good. And in Dallas was kind of a gamble because you know, rent, I mean, you rent is a lot in Dallas. I mean, you have the same size store and you're paying, you could be paying double for rent for what you're paying in Fort Worth. And uh so Dallas had a little more overhead and you know, new things at the start. It's like, man, we really need to sell some beef here. But it's took off. I mean, especially since COVID. COVID was oh yeah, you know, COVID was quite the two-way street. You know, there's some people that lost everything in it, and there's some people that did really well. Yeah. And as far as somebody in the beef businesses goes, COVID was the best thing that ever happened to us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

And so we Yeah, I remember you saying you couldn't. I couldn't cross enough.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

You know they cleaned us out. I mean, we had, I mean, that was the first time since 2004 that our big freezer there in Grandview was empty. And when I say empty, I mean nothing but steel racks in there. Steel racks and light bulbs. That's all that was in there.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

We need 13 more.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

Yeah, and it was and when that happened, that was that was when a major shift in the company had to happen. And so I'll back up a little bit as far as that that shift goes. So the beef company outgrew the size of the ranch a long time ago. And so some things had to change.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

And it evolved over time, you know. My dad had the mama cows and would raise the calves to process, so he owned them the entire way through. And then it evolved into you know, selling all the mama cows and buying yearlines that fit the protocol. And we'll get we'll go over the protocol here in a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

We talk about that quite a bit whenever you and I are talking about little groups of heifers and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

Yeah, 100%. Oh, yeah, you know what the protocol is. Everybody calls me, hey man, I got some grass-fed cattle I want to sell you, and say, all right, well, are they this, this, and this? No, but they're grass-fed. Sorry. But uh we'll go over that because I mean we're we're a little difficult, I guess you could say a lot of people would say we're difficult, people on the commercial side of things, but it's really not that tough. But uh it turned into you know, buying winged calves, you know, six weights, running those up, then it turned into seven weights, then eight weights, then nine weights. And so now we run, we have a couple ranches that we run personally, and then I had to steal, I stole play out of the RAB's playbook.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Come on.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

And so now we have what also we call cooperators.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

And so we've got a lot of ranches that we we partner with, contract with, and they raise cattle for us, fit our protocol, you know, and we're we're very strict about it. I tell people that when a ranch calls me wanting to sell me cattle, and you know, I'll go visit, we'll talk, it's usually two or three years before I take the first load of delivery from that ranch for them to get everything in order to meet all our protocol and for it to be what we need it to be. Wow. And so, yeah, like I said, we're now 13 head a week, and I mean the ball has rolled downhill quick since COVID. It's snowballed quite a bit. I need I need to go to 14, 15 head kind of as quick as I can, but there's you know, in the beef business, there's a few hurdles behind the scene that have to be worked out. You know, you know as good as I do that you can have a train load of ground beef behind you if you're not careful.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah, real quick.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

The key is you gotta sell the whole carcass. Yeah. And I've told you that, you've heard me tell you that. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yeah, we talked about that a lot when I started selling those three head and 2020. Yeah. Which works out good now because now I have an opposite problem because the hospital buys all of my ground.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

See, and when you get into a deal like that, yeah, hold on to it.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Yeah, and I am. Yeah. Sometimes I'm low and I'm like, you wait. I will go for right now.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

We you know, prior to COVID, we had a little bit of a ground beef problem. You know, since COVID, not really, you know, put it in perspective. You know, right now I have I have 2,500 pounds of ground beef in our big freezer in Granby right now. I produce 1,800 pounds a week.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

So, I mean, we roll through it pretty good. Yeah, but then value-added products is always your best friend when it comes to ground beef, you know, snack sticks or all beef Frankfurter, you know, which is I still call it the hot dog. Uh my mom scolds me for that one, but it's still a hot dog in my eyes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

But the snack sticks seem to be like, I don't know, it seems like they got some momentum behind them.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

They do. And you've you've noticed everywhere you go, like this all slips here across the street. You know, you can go in there and there's this whole display rack of these fancy snack sticks you've never seen, never heard the name of. Half of them will say grass-fed.

SPEAKER_06 13:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

And I the snack sticks, I guess I guess just because you know, the consumer loves anything that's easy.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

And but I mean we we have Well, I feel like that's been what chicken has had over beef for a while is the ease of cooking it or the ease of being able to eat it. Because you can just grab it with your hand. Right. There's not much of a beef product that you can just pick up with your hand and dip it.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

Especially when it comes to yeah, your chicken nuggets, your chicken tenders. Exactly. Though those types of things. Yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yeah, and now the snack sticks have kind of been the beef it feels like that's been beef's answer to the ease of eating the product.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

There's a lot of a lot of producers out there, even the big boys that just, yeah, just put a boatload of inventory into snack sticks.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

You think it's a is it ground beef that's going into the snack sticks?

SPEAKER_03 14:12

It is for me.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

You know, what some bottom of the barrel cheap, you know, what goes into a slim gym type deal, I have no idea. I don't even want to know.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Dude, whenever you read those things, you go buy beef jerky and it's like it says beef, pork, other products, and you're like, Yeah, yeah. What the heck's going on here? Yeah, not that it's not safe, but it's not a it's not a beef jerky.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

If I want beef, yeah, I want beef. I don't want pork, chicken, I don't want any other stuff next in there.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

And you know, what percentage of it's beef? Right. They have to tell you that.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

No, they don't. But I do I do think it's cool that that your family kind of went I don't think it's against the grain, but you did something different than what the rest of the beef industry was doing and found a way to make it work.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Right. In 99, when my dad, you know, called all his buddies in the cattle business and said, I want to raise and sell grass-fed beef, they told him he was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah, that's a little ahead of the curve, too, because it feels like grass-fed beef kind of came on like 2015.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

Where it sure enough took off, yes. I would in that in that range from you know the mid, you know, 2005 kind of range, you know, that's where we kind of okay, like this is started rolling a little bit. This is gonna be a thing, you know, and then by 2010, you know, this isn't a fad. And then, you know, here we are. I'm I read a Star Telegram article the other day that we were featured in, and uh, and this was I can't remember, you know, 2005, 6, 7, somewhere in there. And uh maybe a little after that, but you know, it had said it was talking about how grass-fed beef was was taken off, you know, and it said in the next 20 years, you know, it's gonna be this multi-billion dollar industry or whatever, and they weren't wrong.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Here we are.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

I mean, you know, now don't get me wrong, I'm not making a billion dollars off this deal. I wish I was. Dang. But uh everybody told him he was crazy in '99, and then especially when he told him he's gonna sell frozen beef. And I mean, because you think about it, you know, who wants to go buy a frozen steak? Well, it's not, you know, our customers are the people that are after a product that they know more about. You know, and it's just like you selling your beef, you know. Of course. There's the story with it. They know where it comes from, exactly. Ask how it was raised. And the story sells your product the first time, but if it's not a good product, it's not selling it a second time.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah, great point.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

And so if and you know that, I mean, because if it's good beef, they're gonna come back. Your story always gets you the first sale.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

And so when he told them he's gonna sell frozen beef, once again, you know, man, you are you're crazy. And then he told them he's gonna build a processing plant. You're real crazy. You're real crazy. Here, you know, okay, well, we've we've been at it for five or six years now. And so, and it's you know, once we built the processing plant, well, then you know, we were able to offer uh a chilled selection. You know, we deter from saying the word fresh because that implies that there's something wrong with frozen beef.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Sure, okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

You walk in the store and like, oh, here's our fresh case, here's our frozen case. Yeah, the white white. I want my employees to say fresh case because that implies there's something wrong with frozen.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah, great point. I've never thought about that.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

Nothing wrong with frozen. It's just something you can take home and put in the free. You can cook it that night if you want, you know, leave on the counter, put it in warm water, whatever you want to do, or not warm water. Excuse me. Room temperature water. Unless you're like me and impatient. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

My my brother took this food science class, and I remember he came home and I was putting them in warm water. He was like, do not do that. Do not do that.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

We won't see the sunrise if you do that. We'll be all right. We're gonna cook it right after, I promise. So uh now we can offer, you know, this fresh selection, and we kind of have a rolling deal, you know. We process cattle, you know, goes into our fresh case after a week. We know we vacseal everything like most people do now.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

As they should.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

Right. They should. People are still putting stuff in butcher paper. I don't know why, but whatever. I guess if somebody wants to save 10 cents a package, dude, it's so worth it to vacseal. People ask me how long it lasts, you know. We tell the customer a week in the fridge. I personally let it go to two weeks, you know, and that's just a little safety barrier.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

You know. Some people know, some people it scares them. But then frozen vac seal, if your seal doesn't break, I've eaten not beef, but I've eaten, you know, deer that was like eight, nine years old, and done wrong. As long as that hole it your package didn't get a hole in, didn't get covered in ice, frostbite, it lasts forever.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Yep. Yeah, may get a little bit of that freezer burn. You can cook that out. Yeah. Feed around that.

SPEAKER_03 19:04

Seasoning takes care of that.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

But yeah, that you the freezer burn on a butcher paper happens. Like, I mean, six months, nine months.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

I mean, it's pretty quick.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

I've had it happen like I've had it happen five months before. And then the thing about butcher paper that drives me absolutely nuts is thawing it out.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Oh, then it's just nasty.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

Yeah. I mean, you need you have to plan ahead and thaw it out, you know, the day before. Yep. Because, you know, if you and I woke up this morning and say, hey, we're gonna cook ground beef tonight and it's frozen in butcher paper and we need to throw it in the sink in the water, it's sweet, it's nasty. Yeah, swimming in that water. Water gets all, you know, it's just I don't know a lot of people still do it, but yeah, if you're looking to buy beef, vac seal it.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Oh yeah, 100%. Worth it. Do you do your uh what do you think about the ground beef chubs that are in that plastic?

SPEAKER_03 19:55

So we do we do a little bit of custom processing. When I say custom processing, you know, other people bring an animal to us, we process it.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah, which we've done before with you.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

Right, correct. And uh if they ask for chubs, we'll put it in chubs. There's nothing wrong. The chubs last forever, too. I mean, you might get a little funky spot up on top, you know, where it's taped up.

SPEAKER_06 20:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

But other than that, they last quite a while too. If we'll do chubs if they want it. If they want backsfield, we'll do that too. But the only thing that we put in chubs regularly is our uh what we call our pet food.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

And that's you know, you're you're that's crazy that you're selling pet food too.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Right. You're I mean, talk about going at it at all angles.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Well, you gotta you have to sell that whole animal.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

And and I don't say that lightly when I say you gotta sell the whole animal. You know, we've already talked about the ground beef, you know. That's you know, that's the majority of your carcass. Yeah. Like, you know, I had I unloaded load of cattle last night, 10 30, and uh guy that hauls those for us, he's been driving for us for a long time. And uh he asked me, he said, so what do you sell the most of? And I said, Well, that's kind of a loaded question because you get the most ground beef off of a carcass. So inherently you're gonna sell more ground beef than everything else. And uh then he corrected me, so well, never mind, what what sells the fastest? It's like, well, fillets and ribeyes, you know, your usual.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

The stuff that everybody sees, the you know, they see the dollar signs, like, oh, I can sell my steaks and my fillets, you know, this guy wants to buy them all. Yeah, you know, let's put these cattle on the ground, and then it's like look behind them, it's like, holy cow, we've got a ground beef problem. Yeah. But, you know, aside from your ground beef, you know, you've got organ meats, you've got heart, liver, kidney, tongue, you know, all that stuff. We sell all of it.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Do you sell cheek meat too?

SPEAKER_03 21:47

We do sell cheek meat. Do you do it as cheek meat or just what do they call that? Well, ours is labeled cheek meat. Is it? Yeah. I mean, there may be some other, you know, there you can get these beef cuts with these goofy names here and there and

SPEAKER_01 22:00

You know what people like a Mexican style cheek meat is called something. I think they do it at the taco truck, which we're going to today. Yeah. I hope she's open. She's open. Mike's already checking for it.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

But yeah, we sell cheat, and it's just we put two cheeks in a pack and just beef cheek. That's all it is. Those sell. I mean, the day they hit the stores, they're gone.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Yeah. Mike, will you look that up? What cheek meat's called? It's like cheap or cheek. Cheek with a K. C-H-E-A-K. Key?

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Yeah, there's some Okay. There's some little common names, you know.

unknown 22:34

Barbacoa?

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Barbacoa. Oh, yeah. That's how they cook it. That's what they call it in the Mexican food still. But cheek meat, do you sell like skulls or anything too?

SPEAKER_03 22:43

We don't. So we're so we're a processing plant, but we're not a harvest plant.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Oh, yeah, you said that.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

And so has it always been that way?

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Yes. Okay. In 04, you know, from the original that we were just processing plant. There's a USDA inspected plant. We're a USDA inspected plant ourselves. Hadn't said that. There's a USDA plant about 35 miles from us, you know, an IHAL. I sort, ship my fat cattle every week, every Wednesday morning.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

I get that snap.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Yep. Every morning and or every Wednesday morning. And uh they harvest cattle for us. They, you know, hide them, chill them, and then they quarter them, and then those quartered carcasses come on a truck to our plant, and then we do all the processing from that point forward. And part of our you know, little agreement with them is they keep the heads. You know, there's not, they're not really, there's not really because we're getting our cheek meat, we're getting our tongue, so there's not really much left on it anyways. You know, occasionally we'll have somebody ask for a whole cow head, and I get it, but it's pretty rare. Yeah, yeah. And uh, and they keep the hides because hides is a truckload game. I mean, I guess now I don't know how quick I could fill up a truckload full of hides, it's still doing 13 as a it'd still be a little while, but since it's you know that's a numbers game, I don't I don't need the hides. And what am I gonna I mean, what am I gonna do with them anyways? Yeah, yeah. And so uh but yeah, we get quartered carcasses, and then the organs have to obviously they get pulled out of animals, so then we get our box of organ meats. Okay, you know, and that's the heart, the liver, the kidney, the tongue, the oxtail, yeah, which is the tail. Why who named it oxtail? I don't know. But that all comes in that box. And so then, so like our liver, you know, we'll do some, you know, one-pound cut-up packages of liver that we'll sell, sell the tongues whole, those are gone, quick as can be. Uh, heart and kidneys usually go into our pet food. Occasionally we get a special order. Hey, I want eight beef kidneys. Sure, here you go. And so uh and then oxtail usually sells pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

It's uh I have not had oxtail.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Yeah, so it's uh you have to slow cook it. I mean, obviously there's a lot of cartilage, but it's it's got a lot of good stuff in there. You know, when I say good stuff like the collagen and you know it's just it's good food, you know, good for you.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Well, I've heard of folks putting uh there's a group or there's a ranch out here, uh Nance Ranch, and they uh they put their organ meat into their beef sticks.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

That that I've heard of people putting in ground beef too.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

So we do we have we have uh it's called our ancestral blend, which is a pretty common name for it. And that that movement has really gained some some steam here in the last, I don't know, two or three years, I'd say. And uh I could I could see it not being a bad move in in snack sticks. Me personally, I don't like it.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

But I've I've tried it, I didn't go back for more.

SPEAKER_03 25:59

Yeah. So and that's what everybody said, well, just go make tacos or something with it. I made tacos with it, and it tastes like liver. I made tacos, right? Yeah. So I I did what I was instructed, and I I'm good on it. But we we sell it. I mean, we're I think we made this week we ground 200 pounds of the ancestral blend. You know, that's ground beef, and then we have a certain percentage of liver and a certain percentage of heart that goes in that.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

And so yeah, it's very common now to, you know, they have different names, but like ancestral's kind of a it's a very common name for it.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Well, this leads me to one of my favorite segments of the podcast. It's called the Ag Gear Hot Seat. Okay, thanks to Ag Gear, I got a shirt for you. Perfect. Uh go online, the Ag Gear, pick out your shirts, it's what I've been wearing for the past four years, and use discount code Tucker Brown. That's all caps, no space. And you'll get a 20% discount. You get a hundred percent discount with that shirt right there.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

Thanks. There we go. Beauty. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

But because you're not wearing an Ag Gear shirt today, the Ag Gear shirt would keep you cool. But because you're not, that shirt that seat might get a little hot. Okay. Uh we got some good questions for you. Uh number one, and you can pass if you want to on them.

SPEAKER_05 27:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

And number one. Do you like grass-fed or grain fed better? I like beef. No, okay, good answer. You can do pass. I like I always say when people ask me, typically, not that you didn't ask, not that you asked, but I typically say I do, I am a fan of grain-fed because that's normally the more marbled beef. But if I had a grass-fed that was choice or prime, I know I would like it too.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Right. I mean, so there is, there's quite the, you know, the sting, you know, there's, you know, grain-fed people say, oh, grass-fed's nasty. And there's grass-fed people say grain fed's nasty. I like beef when it's a good, it's got to be a good steak.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Yeah. And so And you're saying good by like marbled in quality, or okay.

SPEAKER_03 28:03

Yes. It needs to be a quality steak. And I will be the first to admit to you that 95% of the grass-fed beef out there is awful.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Because.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

Because there's 95% of these grass-fed producers that aren't getting them to where they need to be.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Because they're just lean?

SPEAKER_03 28:21

Yes. They're not, you know, because it takes longer. And it costs them more money out of their pocket. And I get it, but they're you've you've got to get them finished to that point for that to be a good product.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yeah, I think you I think your family would do that better than anybody that I'm familiar with as far as finishing cattle on grass.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

Right. And there's a lot that goes into it, you know, as far as, you know, it's not just so much buy the cattle, feed them grass, make them fat, sell the beef. You know, I we've already talked about your story, sells your product once, but if it's not a good product, they're not gonna come back a second time. And you know, people call me all the time, you know, hey, I want to raise grass-fed beef. Where are you at? I'm in Fort Stockton, Texas. And I will I will immediately tell them, hey, it ain't gonna work. Yes, so I'm sorry. Unless you want to spend a boatload of money feeding them. And when I say feeding them, I mean you're gonna have to like some alfalfa. Alfalfa, yes, something.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

And that's my next question.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

Okay, okay. You know, I like I like good beef. Okay. You know, I was raised eating grass-fed. You know, if if my friend calls me and says, hey, bring your own steak night at the house, you know, I'll run up to the plant. If we're low on steaks or empty on, you know, I'm not I'm not gonna take steak and and lose that sale. You know, I'll run to the grocery store and pick up a steak. I don't mind. I like good, I like good beef.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

And I also like you know, to take it a step further, you know, the whole I can't stand it when ag tears down ag.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Good greed.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

I mean, and so there's a lot of that. There's a lot of that, you know. There's people like, oh, grass-fed, you know, where's your overalls and where's your river boots? And it's like, man, I'm just got your ball cap on. Yeah. You know, I'm just out here making a living in a different way you are, but with the same thought process.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

All right, next question. What does grass-fed mean?

SPEAKER_03 30:19

To me or to the majority of the United States? Sure. So we are not certified grass-fed.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

And, you know, there may be some people thinking that was quite the curveball to hear right there. Like, what do you mean you're not certified grass-fed? You say you're grass-fed. To be certified grass-fed in the U.S., you can still feed, you know, some soybeans and variations of such, peanuts, peanut holes, stuff that is not grass. And why?

SPEAKER_01 30:54

You maybe a little misleading.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

It you're telling me.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

And why, you may ask, why why can you feed that stuff and still be considered grass-fed? Because in the early 2000s, you know, when grass-fed really got to rolling and people realized like, hey, this is more than a fad, like this is a long-term thing. Well, the big money got involved, you know, your big boys, your big packers.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

And then the then the American Grassfed Association, they jumped in and defined it, you know. I'm sure there was some lobbying going on, you know, whatever the powers that be, you know, they came up with their regulations to be certified grass-fed in the U.S. And it was you can feed all this stuff. And, you know, when that happened originally, you know, my dad was like, what the heck? That ain't grass. You know, and it it was the way, I guess. I mean, it was because it is tough to do. And it was a way for, you know, the big boys to get their finger in the pot. And so we're not certified grass-fed because we disagree with the certification requirements. Gotcha. And but what we do, you know, the way we kind of explain it, you know, we're 100% grass-fed from start to finish. And so, you know, these mama cows, they have the calves. And yeah, if somebody, you know, if this guy that we're contracting with that has the mama cows, he's caking his cows or whatever, that's fine. No big deal. If that calf walks over there and eats a cube, no big deal. Once they're weaned, you know, we're not, no creep feeding, you know, you're not cubing, just the calves, you know, they're on forage only. You know, whether that's, you know, your native grasses, whether we buy a lot of cattle that get turned out on wheat, you know, after they're weaned. Uh, you know, whether it's farm stuff, you know, you planted ryegrass, wheat, hay grays or whatever, or you're feeding them alfalfa, or you know, something along those lines to where they're getting what they need. It's still, you know, grass, forage, you know, just no feed.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Not a grain.

SPEAKER_03 33:04

Not a grain. And I mean that, like I said, from start to finish. And even, you know, we carry our cattle over the winter with alfalfa. And, you know, but it's I my alfalfa is a it's a protein supplement, not a forage supplement.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

You know, we manage our pastures in a way that we have a lot of standing forage. I put this protein to them, you know, and they're gonna go, they're gonna go to eating this standing forage.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Just like a lot of guys would with a cube.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

Exactly. It's the same process, just a different product.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

You know, cost may be a little different. I'm not pouring it to them. 10 to 15 pounds ahead a day is what we're budgeting.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Yeah, and you, I mean, with winter grass losing protein, you gotta feel that somehow. Right. Like how impossible is it to finish cattle in the winter on grass.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

So that and that brings up, you know, when I talked about, you know, the guy from Fort Stockton that calls me and wants to raise grass-fed beef, your geographic location has a lot to do with it. Yeah. Now you can manipulate that sum. And when I say manipulate it, it's by farming, you know, more input. So, you know, you've got to you've got to look at both sides of the field. But, you know, we're, you know, where we're at in Grandview, we are geographically set up, in our opinion, you know, best case scenario. I can provide something green and nutritious to those cattle 365 days a year. Wow. And that's, you know, through our summer, you know, we're native grasses, you know, little blue, big blue, switch. I mean, you've been to the ranch, you've seen it. You know, we get carried through the summer and the fall on our native grasses, and then we have a lot of winter annuals. You know, every now and then I'll I'll plant a little more ryegrass, just kind of, you know, help it out a little bit. But we have a lot of ryegrass, a lot of winter grass. You know, there's just you know, a lot of veg because we don't do we don't do uh spraying, like broadcast spraying, like a weed spray of some sort. Right. And so, you know, we have just a lot of good winter annuals that you know are helping get keeping our cattle good through winter. And then when you hit that lull, you know, that Christmas to New Year's, couple, you know, to February one type window where it's just real dead, stuff's not even growing. You know, that's when we may up our alfalfa a little bit, but once again, it's a protein supplement. You know, I've got standing forage for you know the fiber needs and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

So you're I mean, we've talked a lot about the process and about the yearlands, but y'all are also one of the best grass farmers. One of the better grass farmers in the area.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

That's what that's what you got to be, essentially, is a grass farmer. You know, that ranch in Grandview, it's it's 1,400 acres. And uh when my dad got on it in 96, 900 of it was under active cultivation.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

So like some wheat or corn, wheat, cotton.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

Because it we're in Hill County. You know, Hill County, not anymore, but used to was the highest grain-producing county in the state of Texas.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

Yeah, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 36:05

It's a big county and it's deep Blackland Prairie, and I mean it's farms, farms, and farms where the houses haven't shown up, you know, because Fort Worth's approaching rather. Growing out, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

But uh probably look a little different than in '96.

SPEAKER_03 36:20

It looks a lot different. I had to run the neighborhood kids off my lake the other day, jumping the fence, coming in fishing. So the old man checks them out. Yeah, yeah. We found it on a map. Okay. But uh sorry, I lost my train of thought. But uh 900 of it was under active cultivation, and in 97 or 8, he started taking it back to native grasses, you know, one pasture at a time through the equip program in RCS. Yeah. And you know, and it I could talk for about three days on you know how to manage these pastures, but none of it'll ever make sense unless you're out there and I can show it to you. I mean, right, you know how it is. And but you know, whether it's your rotations, you know, what you're doing for your your brush control, your you know, I say weed control. What's a weed plant out of place? You know, it's got a use, whether you're using it, something else is using it, you know, you just you have to manage and work with what you got, you know. And like I said, we're not I don't broadcast spray. I'm gonna save that money. 90% of what's gonna kill is my you know, my legumes like Vitch and Singletary Peak, you know, and my native forabs to help my wildlife, which there's a whole nother ball game. We won't even get to that. That'll be the next podcast with wildlife and ranching. But uh, you know, managing those pastures to where you get your your deep rooted plants, you know, you make it through the droughts. Drought of 2011, we did not desock, did not reduce our stocking rate any. We ran the same number of cattle.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

I feel like a number of people did that, but they ran out of grass. Right. And they shipped them all. Yeah, then they shipped them all.

SPEAKER_03 38:17

Yeah, and they said, we don't have any water left, or having grass. What do you mean my cattle can't graze this parking lot out here? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

So but you're saying you did not have to desk anyway. We did not have to destock.

SPEAKER_03 38:29

And that was because of the man, you know, the long-term management getting up to that point, and then you know, the continued management from that point forward. You know, it didn't hurt us. Well, yeah, okay, yeah, it set us back a little bit, but it's not like you know, most guys, it took you know two or three years to recover back to where they were at. Yeah. And but yeah, managing your pastures and farming that grass, you know, that's we always call this our bank account, you know. You know, I'll have pastures, you know, you've seen the pasture where the solar well's at, the switchgrass, you know, it's over it. My dad's 6'5, and you can lose him out there. You know, you have to be horseback to find cattle in that pasture. Have to be.

SPEAKER_06 39:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 39:11

If you're on a ranger, you gotta climb up on the roof, you know, oh, there they are, and jump back down and drive another hundred yards, get back on the roof, oh, still over there.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

And so But we drive KMs.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Sorry. Yeah. Uh that's cool though. Like the 27 years, or I mean I guess since 26, 30 years at the same place.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

And making that big of a difference, that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

Yeah. And it's, you know, people ask you, oh, what's your stocking rate? Depends. Depends.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

I mean hate that answer. I the but it's true.

SPEAKER_03 39:45

Yeah, in our country, a lot of people run, you know, one head seven acres. You know, I do, I double it. I'll tell people just for a quick answer, one to 14 acres. But, you know, the way the beef business has evolved, you know, that ranch there, which is now what we run on that ranch, is now 820 acres due to some family stuff, you know how they can go. Yeah. And uh it's my what I call my finishing ranch. I don't have anything come into that ranch that is not ready to go to the packing house. You know, because I just, you know, where we're at from a production standpoint, like they have to be ready to go. I grass-fed, you know, we have they have to be there for at least two weeks. You know, that's getting the Grandview flavor on them. What we say, because grass fed what they're eating influences what they taste like heavily. That's why all your that's why all your feed yard beef tastes the same. Because most of the for the most part, they're all eating the same thing. Yeah. I mean, it might be little variations here and there, but for the most part, they're eating pretty similar stuff. Yeah. Whereas, you know, the grass-fed beef in Grandview is not eating the same grass-fed beef in Fort Stockton.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Gotcha. Yeah, it makes sense. Right. And so I saw somebody some California place was finishing cattle on carrots and making the beef taste different. Which would make sense. Right. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

No, I I'd be curious to try carrot beef.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Yeah. Carrot beef.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

But I don't know. I mean.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Well, you're out of the hot seat. You did good. Okay. It's brought to you by Ag Gear. Go online. Get a 20% discount, use code Tucker Brown. That's all caps. Capitalized all the way, no space. Tucker Brown altogether. Uh, which leads me to uh one of my favorite segments of the podcast. And it's called the Finolio Boot. I ride I wear Fanolio boots that are out there in the Fort Worth stockyards, made in Ocona, Texas made, Texas family. I love it. Thank you. You can get a discount by using guess what code?

SPEAKER_03 41:38

Tucker Brown? Dang, you're good.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Discount code Tucker Brown, all caps, no space. Uh, you can go into the store there in Fort Worth or buy them online, get that discount. So the Finolio boot, what are you as far as I'm gonna leave it very broad for you to answer here. Okay. Um in the beef industry, what are you giving the boot? What do you what would you kick out?

SPEAKER_03 41:58

Oh, in the beef industry overall.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Yeah, you can go as niche as grass-fed, you can go as niche as grazing or as big as the industry.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

Right. What would I give the boot?

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Yeah, something you think that whether it's a a cultural thing or a mindset or a practice. Anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 42:22

I mean, I would I can I circle back to you know ag supporting ag all the way around.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

I mean, yeah, if I can.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

You just get rid of ag get hating on ag.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

Yeah, because I mean it's we're all in the same game, whether you know, we're playing on this side of the ball or that side of the ball, you know, whether you're a quarterback or running back, I mean, the end goal is the same. You know, it's to make a living, support my family, you know, be happy, and do what I love to do, you know, without you know, Joe Blow back here raising cattle saying, hey, that's wrong. You know. Just because it's different. Why is that wrong, Joe? Because that's not the way we do it. Why don't we do it this way, Joe? Because granddaddy didn't do it that way. Right. And you know, that's probably not the answer you're hoping for, but no, I think that's a good one. I mean, it's just yeah, and that doesn't that's not just the beef industry.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

That's I see it on social media.

SPEAKER_03 43:20

Oh, yeah. All the time. I see I mean, you see, I text you stuff, I'm like, hey, what's your opinion on this? Yeah. That's pretty trashy. That's my comment a lot. Yeah. I mean, it's I I don't get it. I mean, like I said, we're all we're all playing the same game.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

I've I heard it said the other day that um if you're I'm gonna use the word stuff for the other four letter word. Said if you're talking stuff, you ain't doing stuff. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 43:53

I mean, yeah, I'm not I'm not out here bashing, you know, commercial grain food beef.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

I mean, I'm doing my own thing. You know, it's it's the family business. I grew up in it. You know, went to Tarleton, got wildlife degree, went to TCU, you know, came back to the family operation. You know, this is what I grew up doing. You know, how can I better this company, you know, this lifestyle for us, you know, and just you know, take it a step further, be successful.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

Yeah, now you got one coming behind you. Do have one coming behind me.

SPEAKER_03 44:29

Got a four-month-old little girl.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Little girl.

SPEAKER_03 44:31

Yeah, Collins.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Collins Roan. Crazy, dude.

unknown 44:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Collins Rone. I didn't know it was Roan. Collins Roan. Collins Roan. Yeah. You have a roan horse?

SPEAKER_03 44:41

Uh no, not currently.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

I didn't.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

I was in charge of middle name because Kelly. Yeah. Kelly got the first name because I put up zero fight in that. You know, I was like, yeah, that's true. That's cool. And uh, you know, she couldn't, you know, she's like, I don't know, we're gonna put the middle name. And I just How about Roan? I kind of like that.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Perfect. Ah, cool.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

Four months? Four months as of three days ago.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

Quite the little firecracker. We didn't we're in our little four-month sleep regression right now. And like I said, I'm loaded a fun times, huh? I unloaded a load of kettle at 10 30 last night and you know came in the house to scream a baby for about every hour after that until I sleepy cowboy. Got up at five and headed this way.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Oh, that's awesome. Oh, yeah. I I really regret the times that I complained about being tired before having a child.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

You don't know tired.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

I don't know if I regret, but I do. I look back and I'm like, so dumb.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

You don't know tired until you got a kid.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

You hear that?

unknown 45:41

What?

SPEAKER_01 45:41

Yeah, you don't know tired until you got one, got a kid. So don't complain about being sleepy.

SPEAKER_03 45:47

Uh don't I've got a missing caffeine then. Yeah. You get to a point where it doesn't even do you any good anymore. The caffeine. I've got a buddy that they just had a little boy. They just came home from the hospital Wednesday. Yeah. I got a text at 3 o'clock this morning. Said, this is the worst night of my life. Just needed to tell somebody. I had, yeah, I had I sent him a, you know, had to get real with them there early this morning and say, it gets better.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

We need some support every now and then. Yeah. Well, this leads me to one of my favorite segments of the podcast. It's called the Bedrock Tough Question. Welcome to the Bedrock Tough Question. Brought to you by the Bedrock Truck Bed. The toughest truck beds there are. And that's why we use them. Get one today and find out for yourself. And now back to the bedrock tough question. Alright, your bedrock tough question. By the way, I'm getting a new bedrock truck bed put on my truck next week. Got that. There you go. Got my 450. I've had a regular bed on it. And I've been missing my bedrock truck bed. So I'm getting it put on next week. Mike, I think you might actually be going to getting that bedrock truck bed put on. Yeah. Weatherford. But yeah, use truck, use bedrock truck beds, you're looking for them? Love them. Love seeing them in the wild too. It's great. Bedrock tough question. What is the toughest thing about raising grass-fed beef? Or selling?

SPEAKER_03 47:20

The toughest thing about raising grass-fed beef. I would say. You know, on the on the growing side of things, you know, where you're producing these cattle. The toughest thing, I guess I would say, aside from, you know, the things you can't control. You know, Mother Nature, rainfall, you can't control it. You know, you just you have to manage, you know, your next drought starts when your last rain ended. You know, and if you're not you have to have a game plan, you know, 24-7. And but aside from that stuff, I would say that the toughest part is just getting your cattle over that last little final hump to get them finished. You know, because you can look, you know, 10 weight, 11 weight, like, oh yeah, they're big enough. You know, you've got to get them fat enough. And you know, to make that good product that we've talked about several times, yes, that that sells your product beyond your story.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

And is that done? Do you do that by is it just more time? Is it better grass? Is it moving them combination?

SPEAKER_03 48:44

Combination. You know, it could be any number of those things. You know, and I'll give you a little example. We have a load of steers, two loads, right? Started at a hundred head or so, that uh we bought uh a couple years ago. We were running them on uh the ranch that we run in Lipan outside of Weatherford. And uh, you know, they were there for, you know, they were nine weights coming in, you know, off a wheat. They got there, and I mean they were there for a year. And it's just like these dudes just ain't doing it. I'm like, what is going on? You know, and in that ranch, we hadn't been on that ranch a whole too terribly long time, you know, it's at least placed. And uh, you know, in that instance, it was a combination of genetics and the grass in front of them. You know, that the genetics, you know, that's the behind-the-scene deal, you know. You've got to have the genetics for grass-fed beef. Gotcha, you know. I mean, yeah, all all cattle are beef, but to do it on grass, I mean, just like you know, all that stuff that y'all measure, you know, your feed conversion and all that stuff. I mean, you know what bulls. Yeah, you know what bulls do it, and the bulls that do it sell more bulls that do it.

SPEAKER_05 50:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:04

And because people start to catch on, like, oh, hey, this this matters, you know, this is of course. And, you know, and those cattle, you know, it is a genetic steal. I moved them to a better ranch. And, you know, I now they're finally fat enough where they're good, they MIs, you know, I just I sorted through them every week. You know, nope, not yet, not yet, not yet. You know, there was some little bird saying we, you know, we need we need to sell one of those, you know. They've got to be good. And it's like, no, we need to wait, we need to wait, we need to wait. And finally, this this will blow some people's minds. This'll um those cattle now are three and a half years old, and they're putting good stakes on the table. There's a shocker for you.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Yeah. Yeah. It does seem like all that grain fed that has to finish before 30 months.

SPEAKER_03 50:57

So then we can go down that rabbit hole. It's not a very deep rabbit hole, but yes. So 30 months, that's your your definition of a under and an over.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 51:06

Under 30 months, over 30 months.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Hard bone and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

Yeah, if they're over 30 months, that is where the USDA deems them at risk for mad cow disease.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:15

And so then you have to pull out your SRMs, your specified risk materials, you know, your your brain, spinal cord, can't cut a T-bone, bone inribise, you know, it eliminates that kind of stuff. You know, you sell a load of calves to, you know, JBS, if they're over 30 months, they are gonna ding you back. I mean, you're gonna they're gonna eat you live on them. I'm selling my own beef. I'm processing my own beef. It just changes how I'm cutting those up. I don't, it doesn't hurt me one bit.

SPEAKER_02 51:49

Right.

SPEAKER_03 51:49

And it's not bad beef. Until you get to that five, six years old, they're not bad. That's when things start to change.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

Just get a little harder.

SPEAKER_03 51:56

Yeah, they might get a little tough, but I mean, if they're still fat, they're fat.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

Right.

SPEAKER_03 52:01

I mean, that's that's really the biggest deal is getting them truly fat and finished. And so, yeah, these stairs are three and a half years old. And still, I'm taking stakes home every week out of them, just sample and make sure, you know, still we're tough job. Still we're yeah, it's hard. Somebody's hard to do. Yeah, that's right. Quality control. So, but yeah, that'll you that may fire some people up. Three and a half years old, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 52:28

That's awful.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

Well, uh you and I went to TCU together. We did, and I always have a lot of young folks on social media's as social medias asking me how to asking me how to get in. Like, how do I get in? I want to do it, I'll come do it for free. Um, there are routes to take.

unknown 52:49

100%.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

You and I took kind of a similar one going to an undergrad and then going to TCU.

SPEAKER_03 52:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

And what were your thoughts on TCU?

SPEAKER_03 52:58

So TCU, you know, as far as you know, being in the cattle industry for a living in for a living, good point.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

Good doing this in the last trip.

SPEAKER_03 53:07

Yeah, doing this, you know, for the rest of my life, hopefully, unless somebody calls me and says, Hey, I want to give you 20 million for the business, that may change how I do things. But, you know, we'll cross that bridge if we get to it. But uh best thing ever did, yeah, you know, in reality. And the good thing what what TCU did for me was, you know, yes, I we both went undergrad. We both got degrees in the same thing. And then we both went to TCU. But both of us, you know, 90% of what we knew was what we came from.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

Yeah, what we had grown up on.

SPEAKER_03 53:46

And where TCU, you know, where that just, you know, it opened my, you know, it really opened up my mind in what I, you know, the picture as a whole. Yeah. The the all the different avenues in, you know, beef production or even sheep goat, you know, yeah, learned a lot about that too. Yeah. I mean, if you're running a ranch, you know, the the ways that other people do it, the ways that can be done, and then the ways that haven't been discovered yet. And TCU teaches you to look at all that.

SPEAKER_02 54:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:24

And then, and then on top of it, you know, the greatest thing about TCU is the people you meet. For sure. You know, those connections. I mean, I I would say, I would argue that it's weekly that I'm talking to somebody from TCU, whether it was a classmate or you know, or some other students that went through, whether they're younger or older, yeah, or talking to past professors, current professors, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

I I was trying to do the math the other day. I whenever I say tell people that they're like, Well, I can't afford TCU. And I was like, I understand not everybody has the same financial setup. I was, but if you're gonna do this, first of all, they have some stuff to help you out. If you're bought in.

SPEAKER_03 55:08

I can be the first to attest to that. Yeah. I can give you a real-world example. So when we went to TCU, I had I worked my way through Charlton through college. You know, I was I was actually working on a ranch uh in Strawn, you know, 60 miles from Stephenville.

SPEAKER_06 55:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

I was waking up at four o'clock every morning, driving to Strawn, working for several hours, driving all the way back home, going to class. I mean, whooping my butt, but I had to work my way through college. You know, I had pull loans, yeah, but I had to work my way so I wouldn't, you know, so I wouldn't come out the other side just buried. And uh, and when when I decided I was gonna go to TCU, you know, I I'd talked to, you know, professors at TCU, and I told them, you know, I was like, hey, like TCU is expensive, and you know, it's gonna be tough for me. And you know, and they told me the same thing, you know, there's there's help, there's scholarships. I didn't know how much there was until I got there. And and the professors at TCU, you know, the directors, you know, they're really great at recognizing who needs help, how they need help, and what ways to help them in making it happen. And I had, you know, I scholarships covered almost every bit of my TCU. I mean, and it was, and yeah, I had to do some work to get those scholarships, but it was presented to me. It's like, hey, here, here's this scholarship, you know, go get it.

SPEAKER_05 56:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:45

Said, all right, I'll go get it. Yeah, I'll go get it. You know, buckle down, do the work, you know, write the papers, call the people, do whatever, go knock on their door. I mean, there, and there's still it, you know, there's still there's a boatload, you know, and there's a lot of support from TCU grads on the backside that makes all that a reality and a possibility.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

Alumni association and such, yeah. 100%. Yeah. And then you look at the long-term impact. Um I paid, I like to say I got my money back in the first year. I didn't necessarily, but um very similar story, got a ton of it paid for through earning the scholarships. And then whenever I came back that year by selling bulls to classmates and people I met, I almost I paid for I didn't get that money. The ranch did trickle down effect, whatever, paid for myself to go in the first year. 100%. And then they're like, Why not selling bulls? And it's like, well, you don't okay, say you're sell buying yearlines and you mess up one load of them. That's gonna cost you more than what TCU would have cost you.

SPEAKER_03 57:57

Oh yeah, 100%. Especially now. Especially now for paying three, four, or five bucks a pound for these things.

SPEAKER_01 58:04

Well, was it a this sounds this is gonna make it sound old. It was was ten years ago, but it was I think I remember the market being around a dollar fifty.

SPEAKER_03 58:11

When we were at TCU, nothing made money. Right, right. Nothing. We ran every budget possibility. I mean, shout out Russell Carroll, his ranch has made money off growing watermelons in the plans.

SPEAKER_00 58:21

Yeah. Talk about doing everything. Yeah, I mean TCU. That's what TCU teaches you.

SPEAKER_03 58:25

Makes you feel like, hey, I can't make money in the cattle. We're gonna do this until we can make money in the cattle.

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 58:31

I mean, that's that's the perks.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

And then it also gets you out of the out of the rut of just doing exactly what everybody else does, 100%. And finding those avenues to add some value. Like I bet there are some guys who sell their heifers to you for more than they sell their steers for. Oh yeah. And who else is selling their heifers for more than their steers? Everybody's taking a 15 cent dock.

SPEAKER_03 59:01

In a normal market, yes.

SPEAKER_01 59:03

In a normal market, in a normal market. People are starting to buy heifers.

SPEAKER_03 59:07

We're in such a goofy spot right now.

SPEAKER_01 59:09

Right. Typically, people are taking the dock.

SPEAKER_03 59:12

Yes. And in normal, and when somebody calls me wanting to sell me cattle, I say, okay, price them. And they price them. You know, they know what they should know what they need to make. If they're good producers, they know what they need to make. And they know what their extra work, you know, for the cattle for fitting our protocol. They know what those are worth on top, and they price them. And if I can pay it, deal. It's a done deal, I'll buy them. If I need to do a little negotiating, I will, but it's usually very minor. But, you know, yeah, we pay across the board on I mean, on everything. Right. Essentially. You know, because it takes more time, takes a little more work, fewer inputs. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:57

Yeah, we we talk about that a lot on the feed efficiency of what is the algorithm of profit. And that's your inputs minus or your uh profit minus expenses. Right. For a long time we've talked about the the money we've made. Rarely have we talked about the money we spent to get there. Exactly. And there's a lot of people that don't even look at that. Right. DCU teaches you to look at that. Yeah, everything. Look at everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:18

Every single thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

And if I love I love ranching, but if we don't treat it like a business, we won't get to ranch very long.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:24

100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

And I get I get on a soapbox sometimes of like ranchers feeling sorry for themselves. And I know we've been through tough years. Like I have been a part of the family. I remember the drought of 01 and when the cow that stole Christmas changed the market. Like I know we all go through that. But if you're complaining about cattle prices right now and not being able to make it, dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:49

You've got something else you need to be looking at.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:51

And I'm probably gonna fire some people up about that. But well yeah, good. If you if you're if you're make if you're not making money with the highest prices we've ever made, but fertilizer's higher, but gas is higher. I do understand. But you better be making it right.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:06

Right. What are you selling your gas for now versus five years ago? Yeah, ten years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:11

Yeah, you better be making sixteen. I remember uh James um um um um Louisiana.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:21

Louisiana? Uh why can't I think fart? Sorry, James.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:25

Sorry, James. I remember him selling his Brahmin influenced cattle for like 98 cents. Pennies on the dollar. Dude, isn't that crazy? We're not that old to say that. No, it's nuts.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

And see that and see that's an interesting point, you know, that I can get into a little bit, you know, on what these cattle are bringing. You know, it's the hardest for me that it's ever been right now. To buy. Because I'm a buyer. Yeah. And so, you know, I negotiate and I pay what I can pay. And you know, and yes, these people, you know, I would like to think they're making more money selling their cattle to me. Surely they're not, you know, doing charity. But uh, you know, it's the toughest for me right now than it's ever been, but but beef is still moving, and so, you know, yeah, I have to adjust prices accordingly to you know to close that gap. Yeah, but it is what it is. I mean, though I hate paying, you know, three dollars a pound, whatever, you know, it for a nine-weiter. Yeah, I'd have to look at that load that got off truck last night. I hadn't looked at the email to see what those cost, but yeah, it'd be high.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

It's gonna be it's gonna be high. Yeah, I used to buy, I used to be able to buy quite a few open heifers and stuff around here.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:41

We used to buy a lot of open heifers and now you can't touch them. It is at least, you know, doing for beef purposes, and especially now, you know, if you need to take them for a little longer, you know, it's it's tough.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:57

And now I have to ask this because it is what is going on in the world. Are you worried about screw worm and impacting your deal or not?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:06

I'm not.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:06

So I mean it won't affect your beef because it's not in it's not gonna be in the fridge.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:11

Right, it won't make it through the kill plant. No, it's I mean, if if you send, if you ship an animal to the kill plant with screw worm in it, you know, they're they're gonna document it. Yeah, AFIS, you know, THC, they're gonna show up at your house. Is what it is. You might get quarantined, but you know, a kill plant, USDA inspector, all they're gonna do is cut around it and send that beef on down the road because the rest of the carcass is perfectly fine. There's nothing, you know, and that's just trim off just to be safe. That's why we have the highest quality beef and the safest beef in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:40

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:40

And so, you know, nothing's gonna hurt you, but you know, in reality, what producer out there wants to send an animal to the plant with screw worm?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:48

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:48

They're gonna do what they need to do on their end to prevent that, you know, from even making it there. Yeah, it's even, you know, am I ever gonna have to deal with screw worms where we're at? Probably, but I'm not worried. I mean, and I'm prepared to alter my program, you know, to where, you know, like I said, we got other ranches that we cooperate with that raise cattle for us. I'm gonna keep those cattle far away. I'm gonna keep them out of screw worm country before I bring them to Grandview, and then they're only gonna be standing in Grandview for two or three weeks, yeah, and then they're gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:25

I mean, get the Grandview flavor on them.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:27

The Grandview flavor. Yeah. Well, that tastes like zebras. You would have an interesting coup zebras. It would it would you have an interesting deal because we would be treating screw worm basically on calves. Right. And bulls in a feet in in a development yard. Right. And you would be you would be working on 1,200 pound animals. Big boy.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:51

Yeah, my average harvest weight right now floats anywhere from 1230 to 1280, 13. And yeah, I'd be dealing with some big boys, but you know, those big cattle are pretty bulletproof for the most part.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

Yeah, I mean like where are they getting wounds at?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:08

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it happens. I mean, you know, as good as I do, it can happen in the pins, yada yada yada. But you know, is I may get judged a little bit for this one, but when I ship my cattle every week, that's my doctor in day. Now, when I say doctor, I'm not talking, you know, I got one coughing his head off, you know, can't walk. You know, that's not, I mean, if I've if especially now, you know, if if I've got a cut, got something that's gonna concern me with screwworm, we're getting on the trailer. We're gone. Yeah, I'm gonna get ahead of that. And I mean, I I don't foresee it being a problem in Gran V. Now, our other ranches that we run personally, that we have, you know, we've got some Mama Cows, and and is it gonna be more work there? Yeah, 100%. But I'm going to cross that bridge when I get to it. I mean, yeah, we've we've got a lot more tools in our pocket now, so I'm not really. Worried about it. I think, yeah, it may cause a little extra work here and there, but I we'll get ahead of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:06

I was uh you you got to pull into up to my house right whenever I was going on a Zoom call with Newsmax going live. Yeah, I was a little scared to death, and my phone's been blowing up, keeps popping up.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:20

Oh, yeah, I believe it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:21

Uh but people are worried about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:24

And they are, and it, you know, the media blows everything out of proportion. Is what it is. I mean, it's a scary thing. We've never really dealt with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:31

No, you know, our parents really haven't.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:33

No, like right there, you know, there were some tail-end cases or whatever, you know, that our dads probably heard about, knew about.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

Probably like right now. Like we have 12 or something cases in Texas.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:44

And yeah, people are scared. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's in the back of my mind, but I'm not same. I'm I'm I'm not losing sleep right now. Same.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

Well, you are.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:55

I bet yes, I am losing sleep, but that's just not over screwing. Because of a newborn. But uh, I mean, we'll which this won't sink the ship.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:07

I mean it won't sink the ship.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:09

It won't. Yeah, we've got it out of here before. Yeah. And that was in the 60s.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:13

Yeah, with way less. That like I said earlier, that was you know, that was in the days, oh, we got screwworm, let's pour gasoline in that hole. That'll deal with them. Or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:25

Yeah. Or that purple paste that everybody.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:28

Oh, yeah, the the salve, the sludge, or whatever. Oh yeah. My dad talks about that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

I hear I hear him talk about it. Uh well, this leads me to uh one of my favorite segments. I've got a lot of favorite segments of the pod. And it's called uh it's called the Ben Tag Pod because now you get to ask a question. Oh, you get to host the show. Perfect. And it's the Ben Taggart Podcast right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:50

Welcome to the Ben Taggart Podcast. So, Tucker.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:56

Thank you for letting me come here, by the way. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:58

Having a lot of fun. So I always hear you say, you know, and not just you, you know, the Brown family as a whole, the R A B, you know, the whole family, not just the Browns, you know, the whole family. Okay. You know y'all live and strive for keeping the ranch and the family and the family and the ranch.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

You've done your research.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:22

I want to ask you, you know, tips, tricks, do's and don'ts of keeping the family in the ranch and you know because I know as good as the next person that working with family can be tough sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:44

It it can lead to some to some bumps that are pretty difficult to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:48

Especially when you have differences of opinions, and it's just, you know, just some insight on that. You know, how how you know, yeah, everybody, you know, how you've made it work, but just like what are the kind of shining stars like that?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:03

Sure. That's a good question. Uh, because yeah, you coming from a family ranch, you know some of those wrinkles and bones.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:11

Me, my mom, my dad. I now have a sister that's recently stepped back into the family business. And so now there's four of the five involved in the company right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:19

And we're all in the same when we're in the office, we're all in there together right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:23

Wow. Yeah, that's a challenge. Could be, can be. Right. Probably is sometimes. The family deal, um, what's worked best, what's worked best for us, similar to like you talked about your drought plan. You're having that plan 24-7, you're thinking about it after your last rain. We are that way with the secession planning in talking about it before most people wait until grandpa dies and they assume how it's going to go. They get together, they fight, they sue, they lose the ranch, they lose the family.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:57

They get to that bridge and it's already on fire.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:59

Yes. And my grandparents did a really cool deal where they were passing down shares of the ranch to their four kids, my dad and his three siblings. They were passing down shares that were considered gifts. There was low enough value to not get taxed.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:18

But they did that over 20 years, 30 years, to so the the ranch was being slowly passed down. Uh, they were giving dividends just enough to pay the taxes on ownership. And that way that was not a burden to the family.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:34

At the you know, at that moment, it wasn't just a I mean, yeah, out of left field.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

Yeah, by the way, here's your taxes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:42

By the way.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:43

And then you have to sell it. Yeah. Like a lot of places that had that death tax, have to sell it whenever that uh sell some of the land just to pay the tax. Right. So they were they were given a dividend to pay enough to pay those taxes. And so over 30 years, they were able to pass that ranch down outside of taxes, uh, like not the tax on the transfer, just the tax on the ownership. Right. But so they were able to get outside of that tax on the transfer by doing it by a gift. There's a ton of ways to do it, but the best way that I that we have found to do it is always bringing in a third party. Because just like best friends or just like family, we know how to get directly to each other's throat with emotion. And uh, but the cool part is that most of the time, most of the time, thankfully for our family, we all wanted the same thing, and that was to keep the ranch and the family, and the family and the ranch. Not all families have that. Sometimes they got one that a lot of people just want the dollar signs. Yeah, they got one that doesn't want anything to do with it. And there are ways to get around that.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:42

Right. That happens. I mean, it's normal.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:45

Yeah, there are ways, there are ways to work with that through a third party. Right. Also, I think those decisions are all also, or those conversations are also started best off of the ranch or out of the headquarters, whether that's on a family trip to a bull sale or a family trip to a vacation, and asking the and and it's weird because it's a weird question. What are we gonna do when you die?

unknown 1:12:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:08

That's what that's what they hear. Right. And so asking rather than like asking that, and obviously you're not gonna ask that, but how do you ask a question in a way that your parents, your grandparents will listen to it and jump in? And I always think it's like, where where do you see the ranch in 20 years?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:30

I love asking that question. Where where do you see us at this point?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:33

Yeah, where do you see us in 10 years? Where do you see us in 20 years? Yeah, what about 30 years? And then they start thinking, like, man, 30 years, I don't know. I won't be around in 30 years. Uh-huh. And so then you you're able to talk about the vision that they have for it, because nobody really talks about their vision to each other. And the communication is extremely hard. So starting that conversation, where do you see the ranch? 20 years. But then having that conversation, then once you get it started, then it's much easier because the first step is that hard conversation to have about what do we do. Because it's weird, it's awkward, we don't talk about it. But then the other thing I always say is that whenever you are emotional is what makes the conversations difficult. And if you can come in with data analysis, business decisions based on data, money, and business, then those decisions are much more black and white than if it was an emotional answer of like, well, I love the horses. I don't care if we're losing 30 grand a year. I love them. But then if you come in, you're like, hey, look, I love the horses too. Which it's different for now, like the horse thing has changed completely. It's changed a lot. And it's not like that. Yeah. But to a lot of places that that happens. So it's like, well, I love having horned Hereford cows. And that's what we're gonna do. Even though we get less at the market for them, we get less here for them. I love them. And then you can come in and be like, look, here's what the dollar signs say. And what's our goal?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:08

Is our goal if we make a decision based on our goal of keeping the ranch and the family and the family in the ranch? Clearly, that's not a good answer. Like, clearly, that's not a good route to take.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:18

And uh, that's just a I like to hate on my horned Hurford buddies.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:22

So somebody's got to do it. Yeah, somebody's got to.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:25

Yeah. I get it, they have their place. Oh yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:29

Uh but whenever you come into it with the dollar signs, it's like, hey, well, you have a reason for where you're coming from, it makes more sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:36

It's you know, because then it's less straight to your throat. I know you hate them.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:40

Yeah, it's not an attack.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:41

It's it's yeah, it's not an attack, it's just like, hey, here's the data, here's what here's what this says. And you and I both want to keep the ranch. This will help us keep the ranch.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:49

That's where that's where I think those parties, those those conversations are really good. And there are a lot of third parties out there that help navigate those conversations. They'll have those conversations with you, they will ask those really hard questions. And if so, if you are that scared to ask those questions, there are third parties that'll do it for you. Get the family in the room, ask those hard questions. Because once the conversations are had, then everybody's kind of held accountable too. If this is the route we're gonna take, everybody's on the same page. It's like, all right, well, you're accountable for making this work until then, or you're accountable for letting us know if this is no longer working. Once you're able to hold somebody accountable, just like an employee in their job, when they're able to be held accountable, they do better. And I believe the same thing with secession planning.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:40

Were you looking for something else?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:41

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:44

It's gotta work on business like we still it's gotta make sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:48

I mean got to.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:51

Unless you are a millionaire and just want to lose some money, need a tax write-off. That'd be nice. There's a number of those around.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:03

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:04

Especially now. Yeah. But if you think it can't happen to you, you don't have to look very far to see it happen to your buddies or your family's friends.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:14

Oh yeah. And you don't, I mean, it's it's the stuff you don't see coming. Just really wreaks havoc on things.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:21

Uh yes. Yes. Especially when it starts losing money. Like if everybody's in, the drought comes or 2017 comes and cattle aren't making money, then people are like, we gotta get out of this. Right. Gotta be in it for the long game. Mike and I talk about the long game a lot on making things work and what the plan is and how do we get there.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:43

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:44

Big fans of the long game. At the end of the Ben TagPod.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:50

Uh one more question. Okay. Similar to that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:56

As far as working with family members. You know. Any any insight into, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:10

Making them work like making it work better.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:12

Yeah, you know, avoiding the inevitable, you know, you know, you're gonna have bumps and bruises and hiccups here and there working with family. I mean, it's natural, but I mean how do y'all work through disagreements as a family? The immediate family, you know. I mean, yeah, I say that's a pretty loaded question when I say the immediate family, because there's many avenues of the RAB overall.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:35

Yeah. Well, we have given um we have given each other obligations and people who's in charge, so who makes that final decision? So if there is a disagreement, there's always somebody, like we already said, that the buck stocks with Ben. And even though you and your sister are disagreeing, buck stops with you and it's your decision. You can talk about it, but it's your decision. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:02

And that's how we do it. So my brother, he's in charge of the horse program. Makes sense. I'm a little more in charge of the cattle program. By no means am I the manager of it anymore because I get to do a little more of this. We change things around to let me do more of this. Um, but I'm on the cattle side, he's on the horse side. So when it comes to cattle and we're working them or gathering them, and we have a disagreement.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:25

Yeah, he may have some input and you'll listen, but ultimately, you know. Ultimately the responsible person that was initially decided upon. Yes, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:38

That responsibility laid on me, so it is my responsibility. Which doesn't stop the fight.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:44

Oh, yeah, yeah, but because the fight argue about it later.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:49

Exactly. But it also holds people accountable because then if nobody's in charge, I always heard it said like if you get one person to feed your dog, the dog gets fed. But if you have seven people in charge of feeding your dog, your dog doesn't get fed. Your dog doesn't get fed because somebody else is gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:04

To me, cheese, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:07

And we think that's the same in ranching. So we have one person in charge of our trailers, we have one person in charge of our can-ams, we have one person in charge of our bulls, and they may they may call help and send get other people to help them or do it for them, but they are in charge of making sure it happens. So if we have a trailer breakdown, we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:25

Yeah, you can't, it's not, you know, you're not pointing the finger at everybody and mad at everybody. It's you know, hey, this is your responsibility, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:34

Yep, this is your responsibility. Why isn't it greased? Why do the trailer lights not work? And so then that helps that person hold everybody else accountable because they're like, hey, hey, do not treat that trailer bad because I'm gonna get that if you break it. Yeah, so that's that's helped us appreciate those issues.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:57

I love that answer, you know, assigning one specific person for the ultimate final. I mean, and that you know, how you come up with that person can be discussed. Yep, you know, and it should be discussed. Oh, yeah, 100%. It yes, it needs to be discussed, you know. They there may be some some knockdown and drag out, you know, to come to that answer, but you know, it's gonna happen somewhere. But once you got, yeah. No, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:23

That's good. It's worked pretty well for us. We're always looking for we always get challenged by college students whenever they come in and from AM, from Tarleton, from Tech, from a number of other places.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:33

Let me get my book out here. Yeah. It says we need to do this. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:38

Yeah. So we have to, it's fun to have those college groups because they do challenge us, and it makes us think about well, why do we do it that way? And if we don't have an answer for it, after they leave, we're getting together, we're like, oh. So what is the answer to that question?

unknown 1:20:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:56

Um, but it it definitely makes us think about makes us think about why we do the things we do, who's in charge of what? Do we need to change? Yeah. We're all right changing. But ch challenging, being challenged with questions is a good thing, and some people see it as a bad thing. I think it helps us.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:13

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:14

I'd agree. Didn't you come out? Did you come out with Tarleton?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:18

No, that was they started coming out after after. Yeah. There was I think quite a bit before me, and then there was after.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:26

They just didn't want you to go.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:27

Yeah. So this dang grass fed guy, he's not invited.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:32

Yeah, it is funny how you're either you're on a team. You're either team grass-fed or team grain fed. I'm team beef. Team beef. I love that. Me too. Typically, I am gonna grain feed my grass my beef.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:46

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:47

But uh I'll eat I'll eat a grass-fed if it's choice of prime.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:50

Oh yeah. I've sent you a many pictures of prime grass-fed steak. There's gonna be some non-believers when I when they hear that.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:57

But you got you got the proof.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:59

I've sent you many of pictures.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:01

You got the proof. Oh, that's cool. Well, if somebody was asking advice on I'll let you go two different directions. You can take one or both. Getting into the cattle business or getting into the grass-fed business.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:16

So getting into we can do both. Okay. Getting into the cattle business. Your first one, two, three, four, maybe ten jobs are gonna be miserable. Those are the jobs you need to take to get your foot in the door.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:37

So you're saying I can't start as a camp man at the sixes?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:40

So let me give you a little example that just bugged me. My wife and I, she wanted to start watching the the Dutton Ranch. Yes, that one. I was gonna call it real plight.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:53

You know, we judge these shows as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:55

I get to watch one, of course. Just like a doctor would do with Gray's Anatomy. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:00

You know, and Rip or whatever, he's now working at the he's now gonna manage that other ranch. And now granted, he has you know the experience, whatever, for what that's worth, but you know, he signs on at $11,000 a month, you know, right off the bat, you know. Uh-huh. And I'm like, I turn my wife, I'm like, great, now there's gonna be people watch this show that think these ranch managers are turning out $132,000 a year. Turn down the free house, you know. We don't need that, you know. That's you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:33

Now I'm gonna have to watch it so I know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:35

You gotta go watch it, you know. She offers eight, a house and a truck, and he says, I don't need the house, but make it 11. And she doesn't even bat an eye. Okay. Now granted, yeah, it's TV.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:45

But still.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:47

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:49

So, but it, you know, and I have people, you know, call me, message me, you know, hey, you know, you know anybody that's hiring, you know, I want to get in. And it's you you have to take something you don't really like. I mean, it is what it is, but it's just you gotta suck it up and you gotta learn. And you meet the people. Now, if you do the schooling first, you know, go get a degree, do whatever. But if you go to TCU or Texatech or you go down to Ain't in Kingsville, you know, whatever, you know, in you know, the ranching, the ranch management schools, yeah, if you do the schools, you're you're already gonna be a major leg up. Yeah, of course. You know, and you're gonna meet those people, and those are the people, you know, that you can get jobs with. But even if you don't do that, you know, you just went, you went to Tarleton and you got a degree in whatever, you know, just basic animal science or you know, just cold call people, you know, I don't care what I do when I do it, get a job, get the experience, get the phone number, you know, for your next job opportunity to call, say, how's this person working? You know, will they be a good hire? You know, you have to work into it. I mean, and getting in the cattle business, not coming from anything, it's tough.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:08

I mean, I I mean, we were blessed, we were born into it, but my dad was not.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:14

And so now again, things were different in the 70s and the 80s, yeah. But you know, his first cow note, don't you think that was a you know scary deal. Yeah, you want to, you know, his his dad saying, Do you want me to co-sign on how big of a note? You know, you want to do what?

SPEAKER_05 1:25:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:32

And, you know, you just take that leap, but you know, aside from borrowing a bunch of money, you know, because it's hard to go find a lease place, whatever. But you know, call feed yard.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:42

Dude, I tell people there's every feed yard out there needs help. I promise you. They're like, I I just can't find anybody that has a job. I'm like, first of all, BS, because I've got 10 feed yards right here that are looking. Yeah. They're always looking. They will train you. You stay there for two years, and I promise you. There's the next thing. I promise you, you will have places to go ranch.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:04

100%. But that's that's what you just said out there, stay there for two years. Yeah. I think that is very important. Is you know, just because you don't like it, you better stick it out. Get a little experience, get a little time under your belt. Because if you just start hopping around until you find, I mean, that shows up. You know, the fourth guy you call is wondering why you were only at these other three guys for two months. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that you stick it out. I mean, it may not, it's it may not be what you want to do in the end, but you gotta get the experience and you just you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:40

You're also competing against other people who are doing that.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:43

100%. You gotta make yourself stand out.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:45

You're the only one that can do that. Yeah, you're competing against guys who are willing to go to the feedback. Yeah, exactly. And who are willing to go to a some sort of ranch management school or willing to take that cruddy job that they found on Facebook. Yeah. Only like that's who you're competing against. Only you can do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:04

You use in yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:05

I mean, you can't. I feel like this is a good spot for uh uh life advice or favorite Bible verse.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:13

So uh favorite quote, I've already I already said it once in this podcast, is this won't sink the ship. You know, and we're I guess overall, you know, this could be a conversation for another time, but we're you know we're also in the chicken business, pastured poultry, you know, across the that's why you change from beef to meats.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:37

Correct. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:38

And so, you know, across all of our companies, you we have close to 40 employees now. And you know, and that's what I deal with every day is phone calls. You know, hey, this is broken, hey, this is wrong. What are we gonna do about this? You know. And I like it when somebody comes to me with their solutions instead of just the problem. Problems, but you know, we can't every employee can't be, you know, the greatest thing ever, but we can work we can work them towards that, we can help them. But you know, we come up with a solution, and then you know, even if they're still worried about it, you know, this won't sink this ship. We will make it through this. You know. And the next quote, you know, that I said before we got this started was my favorite problems are solvable problems.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:27

We're gonna solve, we're gonna find a way. And even if it's, you know, even if we gotta take a major change, you know, we're gonna solve it.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:36

The that reminds me of uh, I don't know if you've seen Farmer Froberg on social media. He's down in bits and pieces.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:43

Don't go to quizzing me.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:44

Yeah, no, he's but I liked what he says. Dude's a genius when it comes to business. But uh he he's like everything we do, every problem we have, we look for a profitable solution. And that's what your deal kind of reminded me of. And that's why whenever they had trouble getting labor to pick their strawberries, they changed it to where they charged people to come pick their own strawberries.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:04

That's the way to do it now. There's people in Grandview planting strawberry fields for people coming pick it together.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:08

Come and self-pick.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:09

Yeah, that's crazy. And that's what my wife, her dad, is a uh he's a farmer in South Texas, and he used to grow a bunch of vegetables. He doesn't really anymore, you know, he's kind of getting a little tired of it, just doing more, you know, corn wheat. But he plants sweet corn every year just to give away to friends and family. Wow. And I told him we were down there a couple weeks ago. I was out in the field picking sweet corn. I sent you a snapchat of that. Yeah. And uh, because we always bring a bunch home, give it to a bunch of friends. I said, Mark, so why don't you sell you know tickets for people come out here and pick their own sweet corn? I don't jack with that. And I'm like, that's the future. It's opportunity, profitable solution. And he, you know, he plants five or ten acres of it, which you know doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're talking about pulling two ears of corn off of one corn stalk and ten acres, that's a lot of corn. That's a lot of corn.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:00

That's a lot of work. No, that's good stuff. I like those quotes. Uh my wife and I have we actually Michael and I have uh started going to this. Would you call it a Bible study?

unknown 1:30:12

Uh accountability group.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:14

Accountability. It's like a it's like a Christian accountability group. So it's been pretty cool because there's like eight of us that talk out problems and praying for each other, and uh it's been really unique, different than any other Bible study, I guess I could say we go to, which has been really cool. So if you're in Throckmorton and you're looking for that, come on. And then um my wife and I have been studying the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, which has been really cool because I like the way that Jesus is a storyteller and he always talked in Proverbs and like or not is it not Proverbs, what is it? The parable. He always talked in parables because he he wanted to make I think it's because he wanted to make people think. His story of uh the seed being thrown on the road versus into the soil, and then you gotta think about what does that mean. Um you know, if we're the seed and we're going to the wrong place, we won't be able to grow. And I think Jesus wanted to make us think. And so I love already love stories, but now I'm getting into like Jesus' stories on the Sermon of the Mount. It's pretty cool. Gotta check it out.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:23

Yeah, you dig a little deeper than you know, which growing up hearing those, you know, sitting in church listening to those. Uh-huh. You know, now you're just like, oh man, there's a lot more to this.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:31

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:32

It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:33

Well, thanks, Ben. We got a yeah, you got your ag gear shirt?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:39

Do got my egg gear shirt. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:40

Yeah, thanks for making the drive over here. And so if you're wanting some burgundy pasture meats, where do they go?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:47

Okay, so we have our little retail there in Grandview. You know, that's bur that still has Burgundy pasture beef name on it. Okay. You know, if you were if you were in driving distance, you want to type it in, and you want to see the plant. You show up at the plant, I'll show you the processing room. Now don't I don't need a thousand people showing up, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:05

It's gonna happen. This podcast is huge. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:08

In reason, you know. I I have nothing again, I have nothing to hide.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:12

And, you know, and I'll also show you the ranch. You know, people.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:16

Yeah, y'all do some tour and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:17

Yeah, we do some. It got a little bumpy there in COVID. Everybody's scared to come out, whatever, but you know, we'll I do I always give employee tours, you know, because my employees, they're selling my product, you know. They gotta know. They need to be able to explain it and say, I've been there. Great idea. Seeing what it is, what it ain't, what it should be, type deal. Yeah, and they can sell that a little better. But uh plant grandview, little retail store in Fort Worth called Burney's Local off West 7th, and then store in Dallas, Burgundy's Local, corner of Ross and Hall. Uh, we have online sales. Please don't judge my website, it's ancient. We're in the middle of revamping everything because we just expanded the beef plant, and so we're you know, we're really starting to take some big steps and grow here, so we're redoing online and shipping, but I can ship anywhere in the U.S. I've shipped to Kotzebue, Alaska before. Wow. So I can get it to you. Now in the summer I can't really get it to California without it going getting hot. That's challenging. That's challenging. Burgundy pasture beef.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:15

Say it again. Burgundy pasture beef.com. Then you used to do some kind of like truck send around a truck or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:23

So in the early days, we home delivered our product. My parents, and then when I got a driver's license, I was home delivering product every weekend, every Saturday and Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:31

Yeah, talk about making it work.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:33

Oh, and that's what you know, we got our name out there, and that's how we learned where to build our retail stores.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:38

Where the people were.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:39

These this is where we're doing so many deliveries. We need to build a retail location in this area. You think they're in Throckmorton? Uh, I mean, yeah. Surely you could sell beef around here. You do already. A little bit. Well, I doubt I'll sell much grass food bees in the world. Yeah, that may be a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:56

That may be a challenge. Ben Taggart, thanks, dude. Honored to have you here and thanks for driving out. We gotta go get some tacos, huh?

SPEAKER_03 1:34:02

Yeah, we do. Love being here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:04

Yeah, I do. You've been listening to the Registered Ranching Podcast, you heard it. Burgundypasturebeef.com. Ad quitfight mag. Spread the word. Thanks for tuning in. Give us a five-star review. Really helps get the word out. Um check out the last podcast we have with Dr. Chris Woman. Over to Schoolworm. If you're looking for more information, you go to schoolworm.gov. Check out that map. Um but hey, thanks for listening. Thanks for hanging around. Let's call y'all forget that less than y'all.