Healthy or Hefty? Finding the Perfect Weight

This episode features a conversation around the topic of bull and heifer development, emphasizing the challenges of balancing adequate nutrition without overfeeding or underfeeding. The hosts discuss the nuances of seed stock production and the essential role of knowing one's breeders and producers. They also touch on effective marketing strategies, customer engagement, and the importance of maintaining ethical cattle breeding practices. 

Transcript

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Take it for a second. Welcome. Welcome to around the shoot. Daddy needs some new sludge. He sends the meatloaf. Ma Joe screams out for, get my meatloaf, Joe. Just like his empty, his coffee cup's empty. Just starts screaming. Yeah, just starts losing his shit. Holy crap. He's like, Meredith, get in here. I'm thirsty. I'm not thirsty. I'm, my body's cold. My body's needs one. I be, I'm freaking sweating. Amy bumped it up to 64 degrees back here and I'm sweating. Do you want to know the amount of chill bumps I would have. It was 64 in here right now. 64. 64. That's four. That's hoodie weather. That's hoodie. Maybe not when the air ain't moving. Dude. Corbin it's hoodie with over the ball. It's no longer cowboy hat weather at that point. It's hoodie over the head with a coat over the hood. A coat, ature ain. And Vince, Vince isn't even wearing a shirt right now. I know y'all can't see him. He's, and he's sweating. He's really, and he's actually really white under his shirt. And you know what, there's still a shady brick logo, even though there's not a shirt there and there's a pocket look at the pocket. I never mentioned, I never, I don't think our listeners realize how chiseled you are either. Oh yeah. When you go to the dictionary and look at Chisel, and you'll see a picture of me, have you seen those deals there, guys? Like tape a barbecue grate to their stomach, like, leave it there, take it off. I guess if you taped it long or if it was dirty enough, it would leave a mark. Oh, why? Why are we talking about the, I don't know. It is not on the topics we discussed. Yeah. So, all right, here to our listeners, I'm presenting a challenge to one of our, one of our co-hosts for this whole episode. For the whole episode. So last week I felt like, um, there was a, there was a two word phrase that we, that we kind of harped on last week. What was that two word phrase, Vince? R five M, that is not it. Uh, brewing Ranch. I believe it was Brewing Ranch. So the challenge actually, was it not a four word at here at Brewing Ranch? Here at the Brewing Ranch. So the challenge on the table should you choose to accept is no mention of Brewing Ranch for the entire episode. Do you accept this challenge? Not you, Vince. Joe. Joe, the challenge is for you. I'm offended. So what we're gonna, what's gonna happen, well the is from California. What's gonna happen is we're gonna try to trigger, like bait you into saying it. So thank you Meredith for brewing me a fresh cup of coffee brewing me in the microwave. Uh, thanks for getting that old stuff that should have been dumped out and putting it in the microwave for me. Yeah, I don't care. I'm so addicted. I'll drink it. Yeah, I don't know what that's about. Can't get past it, so. So what are we supposed to talk about today? Do y'all remember? I don't know. I thought we were, listen, what about the CMAs? I'm sorry Joe. I was gonna tell you what's going on here at Auburn, California. Didn't ask you would gonna get this podcast, you could get this podcast. Didn't even, do you ever remember that from Draymond? No. Anyways, no CMAs. What do you wanna talk about on the CMAs? Did y'all watch the CMAs? No. Vince, I did not. I generally don't watch'em, but I put on night, I did watch Landman. I put it on last night as a joke to see if Nate would ever say anything. But when then we got to watching Lainey Wilson singing and we just kept watching and it was, she was good. I watched her part on, on the interview. Yeah, but what about Billy Ray Cyrus and why is Liz Hurley with him? Wait, Liz Hurley, like Aerosmith's, Liz Hurley? No, no. Like Elizabeth Hurley from the British. The original Austin Powers, the British Chick. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She was also in, um, she played the Devil in some movie with, uh oh, what's his name? That's, is that something you ever want on your resume? Well, I played the devil. Yes. Well, she was, she was a pretty good devil. I can't remember. She was in, she's been in quite a few things. She's been, yeah, she's been in a lot of stuff. She's 60 years old. Oh. She looks like she's 40. She's, and she's with Billy Ray Cyrus, who looks like, yeah. A dork. And he come out there and he was like, I, I would like to really present a reward for, I mean, like, he must have polyps in his throat or something. I don't know. But polyps, he sounded terrible. Polyps, you know, some of those, they get to some of those. You can remove'em with a toothpick. Maybe we need to ask. Just get him sit. Lean back. Lean back. We're removing those polyps outta your throat there, Al. How do you, um, whoa. Do we have to, do I have to go back to AI generated disclaimers? Oh, we haven't, we haven't done that. We need one. I need one that says we are not health professionals. We do not consult Corbin for any sort of medical advice. Do, do, do on our topic. Go do one real quick on our topic and let Corbin read it. So what is the prompt? The prompt is generate a fake commercial for a non-top on a podcast. Because I don't know that we have a topic. Do we? We don't have a topic. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Do you want me to pause it? No, no, no. I'll think about how many times I was gonna say a certain two word phrase and you guys just chop it up. I'll, that's the whole podcast. The whole podcast today is we're gonna talk brew and ranch, all things brew and ranch, as if you guys didn't get enough of that last week anyway. What about landman? Let's talk Landman. Landman. What'd you think of that episode? Joe said they were just setting it up. I thought it was, I think they're just setting it up. Yeah. It was criminally boring. Well, they had to introduce his dad. They had to, they had to show you that the, the, the son was doing good. Now all hell's gonna break loose for the son. And they had to, they had to do this throwing the spaghetti scene. I mean, yeah, that was stupid. Well, she's trying to buy a house when she's menstruating and he told her not to. Have you seen she used start throwing spaghetti that happens? No, she did not start throwing, throwing spaghetti. She started throwing plates full of spaghetti. And I'm also really surprised that no one has mentioned the school that the daughter went to. How Aboutt CU Come on. Yeah, I How about that? Little shout out As soon as soon as I saw that I said that Corbin is going to be fired up. Yeah. You think that's gonna, uh, improve our sports teams? No. Uh, therefore I do not get, but on the good news is, um, she's going there because she can have a relationship with a football player. Yeah. Did you know that she's actually 28 now? I don't know. She still looks like she's 12. I think she looks older than 18. Do you think? So Joe, I think it's amazing how we haven't done a satirical ad read and what is the word that's been in every single one of these? I don't even remember. Exponentially or something. Exponential Avocado. Intense avocado. Intense baby. It's existential. And it's in this one, is it? I just sent it to you, Corbin. Yeah, yeah. No, I thought I was, I was a little disappointed. But I wonder if, uh, call in with your It'll be good. It'll be good though. Yeah. Call in with your, uh, cinematography. Cinematography. I don't know. I'll make the word up. Uh, cinema hot takes. I think Tyler Sheridan has figured out how to make these shows climax at the end. So you want the next season rather than, rather than reach their maximum. In the middle or something. That that episode was not, it wasn't, I didn't, I had a hard time finding it Interesting too. No, it was boring. It was very boring. It was boring. I, it was weird. I, I don't know. Maybe it's all gonna be set up. You know, you've got new storylines. Everything's kind of new and fresh for the new season of the show. Um, so it just, Sam Elliot starts over. I think That's cool. Sam Elliot being in there is gonna be fun. Cool. That cool. Looks like, I don't know if it was just that episode or not, but Demi Moore may be stepping up to take a bigger role in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want, like, so it's, it's kind of funny that the mom and the daughter spent time at the nursing home and the whole time. And the whole time the dad's been in one. What about, why didn't they go to see him? What about the interview the daughter had? Oh. Oh my gosh. And that woman hated her. Yeah. Amy's sitting there saying. Her mother's gonna whip her butt. Mm-hmm. Actually, you know what Amy was saying? I guarantee she was saying this sounds like all the parts I edit out of around the shoot. Yeah. In one seed. This sounds like Yeah, absolutely. Oh yeah. Yeah. But you don't know. You don't know what, what old folks home he's in. It might be way far away. That's fair. He could be, I'll be interested to figure out where he is at. Well, they gonna drive eight hours every day to see him and take him out to a strip club and then drive eight hours home and then turn around and drive eight hours back. Come on, Joe. That's not realistic. Well, apparently what's gonna happen, I also don't think he looks incredibly debilitated. I think he's got some mental stuff. Absolutely. Well, he was talking to the son. It's his old friend. Yeah. Which I could not SON, not SON. The S-U-N-S-U-N. I know, and I could, I, I can relate to that. I like the son. We're friends. Yeah, I don't like the sun. I prefer the moon. There's hotlines for that. I prefer the moon, the red moon or a half moon or a quarter moon, or the little fingernail moon. Which, which Moon Corbin do you want? Do you wanna know something? Cool. Listen, can we tell, hang on. Go ahead, Corbin. It's rained 1.34 inches today. Let me look. How much does it rained in Paloma, California. Corbin like freaking 7.4. I haven't turned on Facebook today, so I don't know what the weather report is. It says two and a half inches in the last 24. I don't think that's right. Oh, this, oh God. It's my new phone. I gotta sign into this stupid thing. I can't about Vince with his new gold plated phone. I cannot believe. Kid rock phone. Gold plated. That's what it is on the back. You tried to say it was Orange Kid's Kid Rock did send it to him. Kid Rock did send it to him. So for those that don't know, look Joe's dad, does your dad listen to the podcast, Joe? I don't think so. I'm I'm certain. David. David. Well, so David, every time it rains in Paloma, California, David Fisher lets us know how much it's rained in the last 24 hours. And I swear to you, I keep seeing, I sometimes I won't see these messages until it's three days later. There's so many of'em in the last four days that it's like, I don't know if this is recent or not. I think it's rained like 12 inches where Joe's at in the last there at Bruin Ranch in the last four days. Well, don't confuse David Fisher with Bruin Ranch. David Fisher gets more rain than Bruin Ranch. Listen, have more favorable conditions. We have got, yeah, okay. We can't, we can't leak this yet, but we may be having a listener call in. No. Oh, maybe. My God, I'm still, oh my God. This will be gold. We can't leak it. We can't leak it. I will not. That's Jason. I'm still, I'm still waiting to hear back. Still waiting. He might be, he might be busy chasing, chasing robberies, chasing robbers. Cor, why do you gotta ruin everything? Oh shit. Oh, I didn't ruin anything. Chasing dad, guys. Oh. So what's been happening, Corbin? You got three inches of rain here at rafter. Five M We've had some rain as of late, and um, yeah, so I went out with a dark gun this morning and everything that looked like it might have its ears drooping a little was getting darted. I'm so, like, we normally don't have any problems, but we just have been so dry that the dust has gotten to some of these calves. And so, um, just keeping'em straightened out's kind of kind. Okay, so let's talk about that. What's, what is, uh, what is your best antibiotic for a dart that your vet would've helped you identify? D Dr. I use Drax. Yeah. Do you use Drax, KP or drax? Yeah. Kp. KP is the stuff now. Kp. Yeah. I use kp. It's a little bit more money, but Yeah. But you don't have to do two darts. You don't have to do ine. Right. So the, I usually give'em a little B12 too. Gives them a little boost. You put it in the, you don't put it in the same syringe, do you? Don't don't, don't shoot me. But you're not supposed to. So I, I'm not giving advice here. But you do give them B12. I'm just saying it works. I'm saying you do anything like that, Vince? Uh, I do, but not generally in the bigger calves, out in the pasture that I'm having the dart, usually it's, uh, like the ones within a couple of weeks old that are still by the barn and we can grab'em up, you know, if they're bad. Mm-hmm. See, B12 is just so cheap and it's more like, I don't know, just giving a jolt to their system to let that. Antibiotic goes to work, and then that B12 kind of works a little bit more immediately than the an antibiotic. But I'll tell you what, with this, the way these, these new antibiotics are, they work really good, really quick, really fast. And have you used Kersen at all? Is that a new one? No, it's generic. I think it's, uh, yeah, it's a generic of generic, but you, you, you can't, and it is, it's fine. I've got, I think I accidentally threw a bottle away because it expired because I went to the KP so I could do it with one shot. Right. How much does that, I don't have a mattress. How much cheaper is it? It's like a hundred dollars for 500 ml bottle. That's cheap. I'm kidding. I dunno how much I was like, gimme two. No, it at one time. What was it like half price or something? I think it was like half price. Well, but see, but that was when Drax was$400 a bottle. Yeah. And now Dr. Dropped their price. It was like 180. Now that they have the KP. It's back up to freaking stupid, but it's freaking awesome. You give one shot and you're done. I agree. One shot and you're done. I would like to say to our listeners, if you gain anything from that, it's whenever you go to Doc or something, you're gonna go through the trouble. Don't give'em if, if they've got, if they're sick or they've got, don't give'em a 300, don't give'em LA 300. Don't try to shoot that through a dart. It's too thick. Doesn't work. It's, you can't, you can't, can't give them enough. Yeah. You can't give'em enough like six darts. So Yeah. If you're lucky And, uh, the price, the price of this expensive antibiotic, I know it's kind of, you look at it and you're kind of scared, but it's worth every penny. Yeah. But it also, you, it's not really that much difference in money unless you drop and bust the bottle because Right. The rate that you're giving versus Yeah. You know, like Exceed, I love exceed, but you give 30, 20 to 30. Milliliters versus Is that the tan colored one, four or five? No, it looks like, um, what's that tan one? It's kind brown one. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. It's, it's kind of a milky looking. Yeah. I never thought much of that. That stuff works pretty good, does it? I never, I, well, and it's a di it's a different active ingredient than it is cheaper. Well, but it's also a different active ingredient than, um, axin. So sometimes you need a different use it instead of Yeah. Sometimes you need a little, there's a lot of guys that use new floor too. I think. I, I hate new floor, but my vet's had me using it here lately. I don't, I, he actually has me using new floor with exceed. Ah, for respiratory? No, for, they're about to die. Huh? You do both. You do both. Just give them no, here's what you do. You just give them both those shots. Just go ahead and put'em under, like just go ahead. Him die. Just do it. Yeah. So supposedly there was a study done with new floor here several years ago that it gets secreted out of there. We can't see that it gets secreted out of there. Uh, is he coming on? Is he really coming on? He just, he just got out of a meeting. Oh, that's funny. Oh golly. So it's secreted down to their tear ducts or something. And if you give it for pink eye, there's actually more healing that'll happen to the eye if it gets ulcerated with new floor. So we use that. I like Drax KP quite a bit. Yeah. But do you do the, the big dose of new floor or the little dose? Always do the big dose. I do too. Who the hell wants to get'em up in 24 hours and do it again? Oh, it's ridiculous. It's absolutely, and, and you know, that's the thing for listeners too. We aren't vets, we don't do any prescribing antibiotics. That's their job. But my opinion is. Always follow the label. Always follow the label. Like, yeah, but when, when somebody's like, oh, I got this cow. She's got foot rot and, and she weighs 1400 pounds. I gave her, I'm give her 8 28 ccs of, of la I'm like, why? Why give her 28 ccs la It's 4.5 per hundred pounds. You need to be loading her up 60. All you're gonna do is create resistance issues. You're gonna have to get her in again.'cause it's not gonna be effective for those mathematicians. For those mathematicians. That's six darts. That's a lot of darts. That's a lot of darts. Oh, Corbin Corbin's, uh, Lucy must have kicked the, the heat up to 64 degrees.'cause Corbin's getting hot too. Oh, look at the shirt baby. Whoa. Got the, around the shoot. Are you, oh, is this our special guest? I'm, this is our special guest. Hey, Randall? Yes, sir. Uh, you're live on the air. Live on the air. Listen. Can we get an update, uh, of what about what happened on ER White Road? So, uh, the culprit has not been caught yet. I've had reports from multiple states with missing mirrors, scratches on, uh, vehicles, uh, and missing FedEx drivers. But no, nobody has been blamed yet missing FedEx drivers. Yeah,'cause we had the FedEx bags there. Clean. Oh no. Why are they missing? Are they, have they been abducted? No, we can't find the, the person that run through the fence. Dad, gummy. Hey, Randall. Hey Randall. He can't hear you. Uh, Corbin's saying, Hey, Randall. Hey, Randall. Hey, Randall. This is Corbin. I can't hear. I can't hear you. Corbin. Vince can, Vince can ask for. I I'm gonna, I'm gonna relay here. Cor Corbin wants to know what do you wanna know, Corbin, have you have, have they scrubbed the scene? Have, did they have we scrubbed the scene for fingerprint? We need to know if they scrubbed the scene. Did they find any fingerprints? I'd suggest looking on the butt ice bottles, like on the butt ice bottle. Like I'd start there. This is Clay County, Alabama. Uh, Alabama. We, we do good, just have sheriff vehicles, so I doubt very seriously. They had a fingerprint kit in the, in the vehicle with'em baggu it forensic files this. So this is disheartening. Joe, do you have anything for our caller? Hang on. I wanna know if there's been any attempts. At the Christmas cash. Have there been any needs, Joe, Joe wants to know. Has there been any attempts to claim the Christmas cash? Yes. Multiple attempts, but we've not, uh, received evidence yet. I, whoa, I sent you evidence, son. I sent evidence. I need good evidence. Good evidence. I sent it. Did you, did you, did you need WIL chat space in the picture? Randall? I get it. Randall, did y'all use caution tape to repair that fence scene though? Did, what'd you say, Randall? I said it didn't look like my crime scene. It was a scene. Listen, Joe said in California they just put crime tape up to keep the cows in. Did they do that for you? No, they didn't do that and nobody fixed the fence, but me and the boys, what is wrong with Clay County? We need to do better. Can you get me the mayor's number? I'm gonna call him now. Okay, I get that. Okay. Thank you for calling Randall. Good Thanksgiving. You too. Bye bye. That was so awesome. I hope that comes through. I hope that comes through. Oh, we need to that more often. Could y'all hear you? Special request. So let's do a if, if we would've started and said, who's the first phone in guest? Randall would've had what? 21 would've had. Of the one odds he He would've had. He would've had, which is pretty decent odds, I'd say. But who would've been the lead odds, Mandy? Oh no, I tell you. Okay. I'm gonna tell a story about Landy. So I Landy, I mean, Mandy. I mean Mandy. I meant Mandy. I thought you said Mandy, but I meant Mandy. Okay. So Mandy, there was a post on Facebook and it was. Something that was kind of, I thought was kind of funny. And then I went to read the comments and Mandy did not think it was funny and I automatically shifted my opinion. I was like, you know what? That shit ain't funny at all. She's, she's persuasive, you know, she, you, you, when you think about it, Mandy's right. She's not funny. She's totally right. This is not funny. Not funny. Quit joking around. Stop joking around. Oh good lord. So Vince, what are we gonna talk about today? You know, have you guys ever wondered why we feel so pressured to overfeed animals, to get good weaning weights, yearling weights, things like that? Or do you just think people like to overfeed their animals? I think I, some people do like to over feeded their animals. Did you say overfeed their animals? 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But wait, there's more Order now and we'll throw in the extra strength reinforced barn support kit. Perfect for when your bull achieves critical mass and begins to violate traditional notions of architecture. So don't delay it Overfeed responsibly or irresponsibly. Mega feeded doesn't judge mega feeded ultra plus XXL because Y have a bull when you can have a biological bulldozer. AI is amazing, isn't it? Three seconds. Three seconds. And you've got a pretty good joke. Three seconds and, and, and they didn't really say anything. It didn't say anything, but it was funny. They just kept saying the same thing differently. Um, no. This bull debate. I don't even know where we started or where we grab onto it, but I'm starting to see pitchers, surface of bulls available later on this early winter and or late winter and early spring. And, uh, boy, it's, some of them are pretty greasy. Um, and I went through a period just for us this fall where I was just really, really concerned about the weights on our bulls. I felt like they were way behind me too. I was, me too. I send Vince pictures all the time, Corbin pictures all the time, and they'd be like, no, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine. And I, there's this weight that just weighs on a breeder's head anymore of expectations. And I think we've, we're kind of getting into this one-up or keeping up with the bar, with the Joneses of the feeding and the purebred world without really thinking about our end product user. And we're training that end product user to demand fat. And, um, yeah, I don't know. I've delivered some bulls that are kind of light this late fall that I was really, really worried about guys, I mean, really worried about. And, uh, the bulls have been on pasture and on hay after our sale. And, uh, the customers thanked me. They were excited about it. They were athletic, ready to work, thought they looked better than the sale. So maybe these are just paradigms, Corbin that we have that we think that are actually kind of fake. It's like made up in the purebred world, but when you get out into reality. Yeah, maybe the customers don't really want that. I don't know. What do you, what do you think? I think it's the breeder. I think it's, it, it comes down to the breeder. Um, so you've got, you've got pressure you feel like from all angles to, for this year's set of bulls to be as good as last year's set. And so there's so many things you can't control. Uh, you can't control a rainfall, you can't control, uh, weaning weights. I mean all, a lot of that's gonna depend on the environment. So what do we try to do as a result? We try to, um, manipulate the environment, uh, in our favor. So, you know, that's why we creep feed, that's why we feed the bulls. Um, it takes a lot of the guesswork out, which, and some, so sometimes we overcompensate, which it's great that, that we have the ability to feed the bulls to where they can, we can make'em look, um, we can make'em look the way we can look, because obviously that's what we have to sell, right? I mean, we ha we're going off of. What's aesthetically pleasing to the eye, and, and fat is a aesthetically pleasing to the eye. So it's, it's only natural. But the problem is, is that you're destroying that bull in the process. Absolute. You're ruining him. You're ruining him. And it's, and it's wasted. It's wasted money because, um, I'm gonna say that if a bull weighs, there's a certain threshold where if a bull gets to that big of a year, that weight's going, that weight's gone at the first sign of, I mean, they're gonna melt. They're gonna melt anyways. And so whenever that bull's 18 months old, whether he weighed 1200 at a year or 1500 a year, he's gonna look a certain way. Um, so I just so Vance, I know that you, especially on your, I'll call'em full aged bulls, the ones that are older than a year, um, you shared with me what their yearling weights are and you're like, Hey, don't worry about that'cause this is what mine are and you have more time maybe. Speak to how your evolution in bull development has changed over the years. And, and I wanna point to something you said to me last week where you go, man, these guys are calling with their bulls from last year and they're so, so happy. What'd you change or where'd maybe go with what you started with and what you were taught and then where you guys are now at, at your operation? Well, you know, originally you've, you get the notion that, like you said, you gotta keep up with the Joneses and you know, you look around and um, you kind of go to a lot of sales and stuff and you need to feed'em, you need to feed'em, you need to feed'em. They have to be fat. They have to be fat. And I just felt, I mean, like you were saying, it just ruins'em, like Corgan was just saying. And I just got tired of ruining a lot of good bulls and you know, it's a lot of money and yeah. I don't if somebody had, I've had people ask, want to come this summer to look at bulls, but they're not ready. And I didn't wanna show'em to anybody because my bulls don't have to be ready for sale till April. So why should I just keep'em fat just so you could show'em to somebody just so I can show'em to somebody in, in November? I don't think you should. Right. And, and I think it should be perfectly acceptable from, from a customer for you to say, Hey, uh, these bulls aren't really ready to be seen. Right. Uh, maybe what, well, what's, what do you do there? If you have somebody that wants to come in? Sure. It's hard to turn somebody. I just tell, I know it is, but I just tell'em, look, right now, they're not ready. And, uh, you know, they, I thank'em. I always thank'em for contacting us and looking just maybe, maybe you offer, say, Hey, I'd love to show you the cow herd, the, the mothers of these bulls. Right. I'll show you the calves on their side. I'll show you every other things, but Right. The bulls themselves are turned out on grass. Um, the other problem that I have with developing bulls is that whenever you go to type in a yearly weight, and that yearly weight's 1,050. Yep. Or, or 1100 pounds even, you almost feel inadequate putting that weight in. What about nine? It's a hundred. Or like, you know, even even on weaning weights when you don't creep feet or you don't take, you know, I was in a, a really bad way with a drought three years ago where we just hadn't, I'm, uh, it was the ponds were drying up. We had a hard time with fresh drinking water. We didn't have any grass. We were putting out hay in August. So, I mean, it was, it was a tough year. And if a cow weaned a 550 pound calf and bred back, she had done a hell of a job. Right. And I had to input those weaning weights and it was almost embarrassing to put those, put those small weaning weights. And I know that whenever people see, oh, his, his calf weaned at 4 98, well I can go to shops and get one that, that weed 1100. They're looking at me like. This guy has no, this guy has no business. But the reality is that the environment played a large role in that. And I just think that the con, you just have to be, you just have to have conviction. You just have to believe in what you're doing. So what do you two guys think an acceptable weaning and yearling weight are? And I, and I'm not talking about, well, on a drought year, on whatever, whatever, whatever I'm just saying, acceptable to not push'em so hard and feeling inadequate. Like he was just saying and,'cause I'm like, you, Corbin. I mean, I was entering some of my yearling weights. They were not great, but I didn't, I didn't feel the need to push'em just so I can have a weight that made me feel good. I, I've started not to pub, so in the sale book, I can tell you I'm not gonna publish yearling weights. That's not gonna be in there. I'll, I'll do a sale day, wait instead. And that, that right really covers the bases a lot more. Um. Yeah, so an acceptable weaning weight, um, I'd say to shoot for 650 pounds would be, you know, without creep. Feeding them to death without, you know, without doing anything special would be kind of, that kind of knocked the, the nail on the head for, for our environment. Is it, is it different for bulls and heifers for you? Absolutely. Threshold? Yeah. Those, those heifers aren't gonna weigh as much. No, I know that I'm saying your threshold to say, you know what, that's really too light. And so what's funny is selling full 2-year-old bulls, if I, the, the embryo calves, uh, some of those, some of those will wean at 5 80, 600 pounds on, on an 1100 pound reci, a bull that weighs 600, you'll still know, you still have the genetic potential there, whether you feed'em to 800 pound weaning or 1400 pound yearling. It doesn't matter that genetic potential is still there and it can still be seen by the commercial producer. I don't think we give the commercial guy enough credit for what they're seeing either. I think we think, oh, we can, we can hide something by getting'em fat. Right? But I think, I think they're more in tune with what's going on than what we give'em credit. What do you think, Joe? What say you? Well, I told you guys before that, um, I've told you that I almost became a math major in, uh, in college when I started out. And so my mind automatically goes to math. And Corbin just talked about, uh, you know, I just, I wanted to share with you guys some, some math perspective and, and this is really, really fast and it's on my computer or it's on my phone and then jotting it down. So if I'm, I'm wrong, I'm sorry. But just follow along here for a second. If you had a 650 pound, 2 0 5 day weight. That calf weighed 75 pounds at birth. So you subtract that out and divide it by 2 0 5, that is 2.8 pounds per day weight per day of age. What's wrong with that? I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's a pretty good number. Really? Yeah, it really is. There will be a lot of people who will advertise their bull development as a high roughage ration to keep bulls athletic, and a lot of people will say that in order to keep bulls in the best breeding, tiptop breeding condition, that they'll gain three and a half pounds a day. So if you just say 160 times 3.5, that's another 560 pounds of gain in that period, which I still would say that's pretty salty when you really, really think about it every day of that animal's life, that puts you at a 1200 pound yearling weight. So now if you add that perspective and you start looking at these bulls that are fourteens, fifteens, sixteens, seventeens in excess, there are some number calculation things that are kind of funny on yearling weight. Like I even remember in the days when we were feeding really hard where the way that the Angus Association's lifetime adjustment or lifetime average day adjustment would work, that if you used adjusted yearling weight, we'd have bulls that their adjusted yearling weight was heavier than the day they sold. And they were like 14 months. And I'm like, I don't know how this all works. Right? So what I, what I could say is, is people wanna be truthful and honest about their data. Um, I think you could break things down like this in terms of a commercial producer and say that's, that's, those are surely acceptable numbers. I would also tell you that our calves last year, we had an exceptional year, they adjusted was 755 pounds of weening. It's pretty salty. Yeah, there's nothing, nothing wrong with that. Those bulls had a lot of fighting and some issues at the feedlot, and I don't know, I haven't figured out all their yearling calculations good on me for not getting that in yet. To Corbin's point, we stopped putting that in there because we have a couple things going on. First of all, we don't control all our means of feeding. We have to do that somewhere else. That's a California problem, a California debacle. I can't just erect a feed lot here and start feeding my own bulls. Um. But the numbers would set forth a certain paradigm in people's minds. And honestly, I wouldn't even have the numbers by the time the catalog goes to press anyway. So we just, so Joe, do you feed your bulls in, uh, Nevada or I used to, no, I've been feeding'em in the Central Valley here lately. Um, for the past three years. Does it just require a lot of permits and stuff or, yeah, it would require permits and it's all NIMBY stuff. Nimby, not in my backyard. Um, oh yeah, you do? Okay. Until a neighbor complains. And then it just goes on and on and on. Not to mention the access to feed stuffs, you know, reliable feed stuffs we're, we're a long ways from corn. If corn's grown in California, it's usually used up by that producer, which is often a dairy. So the, the feed stuffs just aren't available. Um, and then owning the mixer wagon and all that stuff, these are all things that we just don't have access to here. But back to the bull development piece, I would love to have them myself at home. 100%. I love walking through'em. Um, we have'em here now, just feeding them hay and pasture and, um, boy, I absolutely love it because we'll go dink around with them. If somebody wants their bulls, we go gather'em. I've been taking the entire lot. There's 60 bulls there. Every time they come to the corral, we just open up the head gate, open up the tub, and we drive'em all through it. Just teach'em to just walk through. Little things like that I think are real, real good customer service points. And when you're thinking about customer service all the time, that's what got me to, and I'm not saying anything against the, the, the creep feeding world. I wanna be very careful there. If you have access to those commodities right now, especially if you're a commercial customer, if you're a commercial customer and you have access to those commodities, the cost of gain is absolutely worth it to feed those cattle, you could put a hundred pounds on a, you know, add a hundred pounds across the board. Pretty easy. 100%. And I think that the challenge quarter is when you have those commodities at your fingertips and you can see it with your eyes, is not crossing the line too far as a seed stock producer and making sure that you're providing a product that is still athletic and can do their job and last for a long time. You know, I mean, I, I definitely think we have to be careful since all four of us are, I'm sorry. Since all three of us have been in our podcast career, we, um. Sometimes have empowered listeners to use bulls that I don't know they should use. They shouldn't use to make decisions. They should, they shouldn't. We're not advocating for selling, you know, really, really thin bulls and trying to get those swapped off. There is a balance there. We do want hundred percent want to develop them. That's the goal, is bold development to develop them into a condition to service cows. I think that the rub becomes, how do we develop them, but develop them for longevity, for the usefulness of the purpose that they serve without ruining them. And in the days that we used to feed'em hard at this ranch, I can't mention anymore. We were getting a lot of return bulls, we were getting a lot of credit bulls. We were getting a lot of hurt bulls. We were getting lot, what do you say back then? Back then you'd take the bee off and call it, call it ruin Ranch. No kidding, dude. There's, there's, so we, but it took some cool pictures, Corbin. Absolutely. We took some cool pictures, man. So I think it would be really cool to actually even dive deeper into, so we've, we've mentioned how overfeeding'em can ruin them. Let's just, let's just, how somebody might say, how am I ruining them? How am I ruining them? What am I doing to'em? Blowing their feet out, messing their gut up, slicking up their gut. Like you said, I had a guy mention to me yesterday, um, he goes, well, you know when their mouths are soft and they go out onto pasture, I'd never heard it said that before, but he goes, yeah, their mouths are used to eating soft feeds. And then you go turn'em out with cows. Especially in these fall scenarios, they're eating dormant grass. Their stomachs aren't adjusted. They're probably, hopefully they have some amount of libido. So they're chasing cows and they aren't eating right. And then once they do eat their mouth's kind of sore, whatever. Sometimes when we get the first rains and this grass gets soft, you'll see the cattle just fluff right up. Well, it's because the grass is a little bit softer still. Um, I, I think the gut, the slicking up these guts, Vince, that you mentioned, can you talk on any higher level about that? Well, I don't know if I can speak to that particularly, but I will say this, um, years back, I mean, this was. 2005 ish, somewhere in there. Uh, we went and bought two bulls from a, a place that feeds, you know, 365. They, they just feed. And I don't know that it was all their fault. Uh, they may have been overpopulated and they had to feed, but when they got here, they had knee deep grass and the feed truck wasn't coming around and they would not graze. And they stood there all day long waiting on a feed truck. And it took them over a year to figure out, hmm, the feed truck wasn't coming. Well, think about, think about when those bulls go to, to, to, that are developed that way. Go to commercial guys place and, and they're, they're meant to earn it, right? And they can't do it. They can't do what they're supposed to do. Um, and then another thing we didn't even mention is, is when you're feeding these bulls really hard and they're in a feedlot and you're getting them to, you're gonna kill'em. They are gonna die. So you're gonna feed them to death, to death. They will fall over and whether they roll over on their side and can't get up and they bloat and die, or whether they have a heart attack and die, it's, it happens. And it happens a lot. A lot. So what are some indicators, I mean, that you look for in a bull that's been way over finished? Because there's a definite difference, right? I mean, you can get one that, I don't know what the numbers are, 1300, 1400, whatever. I mean, we'll see a lot of them reach those marks. But you can see a bull and he still looks fresh and athletic and good. And then you see some that are cooked. What do you look for there, Vince? Oh man. I don't know if I can describe it. I can tell when I see'em, but I don't even know that I, I mean, they're just, it's almost even like their hair coat don't look right. And like, so sometimes, sometimes you'll have this, the bull that's, that's exceptional, that weighs 1500 at a year. That can take it, take it in stride. He can do that and he doesn't look, he's not cooked. Right. But they all can't. But then the, you talk about the rest of the ones in the pen. Yeah. They can't handle it. Yeah. You might have two, two out of 20 that could handle it. Yeah. And they look like a million bucks. And you've got a great picture sitting there of them and you've got 10 of them. Are just so round. They look like if you shot'em with a BB gun, they would explode and they can't walk. That. That's another thing. I mean, like, it, it's, it screws up, I think it screws up their structure even a little bit. Absolutely. Their joints, they're gonna roll their their joints. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think, I think they get really ouchie in their joints. It's like their joints hurt a little bit. Right. And, and watch'em move. Watch em move. They don't move smooth. They don't, they don't want, they're choppy to Yeah. And they don't want to. And then another thing you notice, another, another telltale sign is if that bull doesn't wanna pick his head up, pass his shoulder blades and, and look up that bull's hurting if he wants to keep his head down. Uh, it just, yeah. And then there's, I wanna mention one about hair coat for Vince. I didn't learn this until our kids started raising show steers. The quickest way to burn the hair off of'em is high, high energy diets. Lot of corn, high protein diets are how you get cattle to grow hair. And so when you start seeing bulls in cold climates that got about that much of hair, I'm showing like a half inch. That means they've had the energy just absolutely torched to'em. And some of those, some of those outfits, some of those northern outfits have to do that because they have to compensate for such difficult winners too. And so if they don't have a layer of fat on them, then they'll die too. Well that, that's a whole nother conversation there. You know, you geography and where you're at and what your problems. Proximity to feed too. What you have to deal with. If I, well, just like Joe said, he can't get it, but what if you're in Nebraska or someplace like that? What if you're growing it everywhere? Like you're Vince, you're growing and you get as much of it's sitting at your disposal as you can. Vince, you'd be stupid not to creep feed. You'd be stupid. You'd be pissing money away. There's also, um. Well, I just lost my train of thought. Go Corbin. It was all your fault. My bad. It was your fault. No, no. I think, I think that that's why these podcasts get so boring over time though, and people appreciate how we just chop it up and we're friends and we mess with each other. And some people like an episode and some don't, but it ends up being the exact same point every episode. It's know the person you're buying from. Know what they're managing and what they're trying to accomplish and see if it fits your management or if it doesn't or if you can tolerate pieces of it and you can't because, you know, uh, Corbin mentioned a breeder's name that's very northern, has way more access to feed stuffs and different feed stuffs than I do. I still use a lot of their genetics in places Absolutely. That I believe work. And then there's other people who, who fit our management. And then you watch what they're doing and you're like, that's, that's not the kind of cow that I could feel good about selling or the kind of bull that I could feel good about selling. And so that's why I really like the breeder being the creator and the, and the creative one who can take what their eye wants to produce for their customers, go into different outfits. But don't I, I guess what I say is when you show up at a place, don't say, man, my bulls are small. Man, my bulls are light, man. My cows are thin, man, my cows are fat. Dig a little deeper. Get to know what those people are actually doing, what they do to make cattle look that way. Um, what their resources are. Maybe they don't do anything and they just run less cows per acre. Maybe they have incredible environmental conditions. Um, maybe they just have different environmental conditions than you do, but boy, know your breeder. Know your producer. Vince, I feel like you, you figured out what you was gonna say. What about it? It wasn't what he was talking about. But what about flip the flip side to this, underfeeding them. So I about, I got myself in a pickle. You guys know this, this, this, uh, summer because I was bound and determined to not overfeed'em. I wanted to let'em do it on their own. I wanted'em to let'em get, you know, used to eating grass that the feed truck wasn't coming all the time. And, but they need feed. To grow. They, they don't have to have 20 pounds per head per day, but they need feed to grow. So there is a fine line there where I screwed up my math a little bit and we under fed'em and I just kept like, God, these things look terrible. They look terrible, they look terrible. And um, one day I was just kind of running some numbers again.'cause we do that every so often and say, okay, they're getting this much, okay, it's time to bump'em up because if you go by a percentage of body weight, which is what I was always taught to do, then you know, as they grow you gotta kind of bump'em up a little bit. And they were just falling behind and falling behind. And. There was a lot of things too. This year. We had a lot of rain early. That grass was real washy. My wing calves didn't look good, my cows didn't look good. Um, I think that was working against me some, and I also think that I was just under feeding them. And I mean, you can't starve'em. They have to have certain nutritional values to grow properly. I, I had to learn that the hard way too. I mean, I, I pride myself on turning these bulls out on grass in the summertime and letting'em go. And I do, but you know what? I started feeding them three or four pounds a day throughout the summertime. I don't care how it's 300 degrees outside, I, you still gotta get them up. You gotta keep'em moving in the right direction because what happens if you don't, what happens if you turn'em out on grass? You're gonna, they're, you're gonna stun them. It's really hard to, it, it's harder to tell. It takes a lot longer to get'em back on track. What you have to do is you have to overcompensate Yes. To get'em back on track. Yeah. And then when you get'em back on track, you're liable to cause issues with them that you're trying to avoid. So it's important to keep'em moving in the right direction too because you all, you know, you're gonna like with yours. And I'm not saying it happened because it didn't,'cause you were on top of it and you, you, you didn't let it, you didn't let'em stay behind for long. But you let'em stay, stay behind for long and then you're 90 days to sale day or 90 days from whenever you're wanting to market'em and you ratchet them things up and you go million miles of nothing. You're gonna burn'em up. Yeah. You're gonna burn'em up and you're gonna spend a lot of money. Yeah. Because those bulls can eat a lot of feed where Bring along slow. You can, you know, you're, you end up saving money in the long run. Slow and steady wins the race. Right? Absolutely. So we just had a conversation for a while about overfeeding and I would say one of my favorite cow quotes I always remember, and I don't know if it was, it was a famous book, and I think it was Phil Statler, who was a cattle trader out here, and I might be misquoting, um, who it was, but the quote was, you can't starve a profit into a cow. Yeah. And I think that that's really important. Um, I remember my beef 1 0 1 teacher talking about the building box of, of growth of an animal, and you. You need high amounts of protein in early calf development in order to get bone soft tissue and muscle growth. And so I, I think that some of these periods in the production cycle, like right now, if you're a fall caver, that cow is on the down slide now. She, it doesn't matter if you're in Auburn, California or if you are in Loretta, Tennessee or Colgate, Oklahoma. She is generally speaking on the downside. And so that's gotta give somewhere. Either the calf is not meeting his nutrition or her nutritional requirements, or it's peeling off a mom. And, um, I think that getting those animals fully developed will help with breed back. It will help with future longevity. Um, there's just a balance. I mean. Our current mode of beef production, and I tip my cap to the people to do it. Some people selling almost 3-year-old bulls developed on grass. If you've got a clientele that that works for, then wonderful. You should do that. I encourage you. But our current mode of beef production does have a feeding sector. It does have a feedlot sector, and those genetics do require, um, nutrients that aren't always found just out in the pasture to express those differences. Um, and I'm, I'm not advocating one way or another, I'm just stating what I know is fact. And so I think all of us here on this podcast, we, we try our best to keep them presentable, keep them long lived for everyone else. And then sometimes we find out we may next year want to crank'em up just a little bit more. Next year we wanna back'em off a little bit more. But I would really encourage everyone. You ain't ever gonna win the feeding race. There'll always be someone that feed'em harder than you and have a more, but you do have a shot at the longevity in this business race. If you find out what your customers need and produce that, and if those customers go gather those bulls and they look a little wore out, but like they br a bunch of cows and their cows aren't open, and then that bull comes back as a 2-year-old and he's amazing and 3-year-old and 4-year-old. And then they say, boy, I'm sorry, I haven't been back to the Shady Brook sale. That bull's still breeding cows. He's like a 4-year-old. And you go. No, you bought him five years ago and he wasn't born that day. I mean, how many conversations have you had like that Vince, I, I went to a place one time and, and there was a bull with a W on his side and I said, that bull's 10 years old. I mean, it's several years ago now, and time flies, but we wanna make sure that these bulls last for people. We wanna make sure that the females breed for people. Oh yeah. We haven't even talked about the female development side, Vince. Right. What's, what's excess adipose tissue do to the breed up on heifers? I started keeping mine thin and man, my conception rates jumped a lot. It's pretty easy, the heifers, I think it's pretty easy to shoot for a yearling weight of around 8 50, 900, which, I mean, I don't, I don't know how many I would have to hit 900. That might sound thin to some people, but I'm gonna tell you what you're going, they're gonna breed. Yeah, they're gonna breed. Yeah. So Corbin, on that topic, heifer development. Do you have some heifers that may breed at a lower weight than they weed at? Heck yes. And do you know how, so whenever I first started with the registered deal, I used to not weigh anything. And so I had no idea that I was weaning a 650 pound heifer. And then she then, and then whenever she was a year old, she was six 50, didn't gain a pound. Right? But then by the time I'm breeding her at 15 months, you know, you're, you're up there 7 88 you, so you don't realize those type of things until you have registered stock. You don't realize that you're not putting any weight on that, that heifer you're keeping. But what's the point? Why would I, well, what's the point in putting a bunch of weight on? And I'll tell you what, A little calf with sucking fat, you know the, when they get that thing under their jaw and you're like, she's trashy, fronted, and then all of a sudden she gets pretty fronted and she's grown, but she's like three body condition scores behind you go. That's the exact same weight calf. She's just green and grown instead of over fat and little. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. And I've noticed that a lot on our heifers. It's not all of'em, but there are some that if you pull out the weights, you're like. She was heavier when we weaned her that day. And maybe, and then, and then you'll have some that, that maybe they wean smaller and you're like, well, I know what her mom is and I know what her Cy is, so I'm gonna keep her around. And, and you'll wean a 400 pound heifer. And then whenever you go to breeder, she'll weigh the same as those ones that weaned at 600. You know, it's, it's funny how that that stuff sort of works itself out and stuff. The majority of those lightweight heifers, when they're four or 5-year-old cows, you'll never know they were behind. You don't know they were light. Never. Never. And that's, and that's, so that's something we run into with our ET program. We, we, you know, we, if I have the opportunity, I'll sort some of those heifer calves off and I won't creep feed them. I, you know, I'll just, they're, they're run green. I'll wean some 4, 450 pound, you know, et heifers. And by the time that thing's a cow, they actually do better. And you don't, you, I, I don't have any problems with their feet. I get'em bread. Um, yeah, but then also you can, you can starve a heifer out into not breeding too. Right. You can get'em too. Well, same thing with a bull. They gotta have nutrition. Yeah. To do all the things they need to do. Yeah. And that's what I was gonna say, like wherever you buy feed most, I don't know any place that doesn't have a nutritionist either on staff or they work with them, call'em, say, Hey, can I talk? Yeah. These, let'em know what your goals are. Hey, yeah, these are gonna be seed stock things, or these things are going to town the day we wean'em. I want to get, this is my weight. I'm trying to hit blah, blah, blah, but, and stay talk with'em because I was in constant contact with my nutritionist when these bulls were not doing what I thought they should be doing. And. He and I worked through it. We just talked it all out. He asked me a hundred questions. I told him what I thought. I answered his questions and we worked through it. So, and we're always two, three times a year I send my feed samples off to be checked to make sure they are where,'cause he runs all that on a computer. He's assuming corn is this, he's assuming my oats are this. He's assuming all these ingredients are what they're supposed to be, right? But if it was some bad corn that had been in a band for a long time, or the weevils got in it, or, or whatever, that's gonna change everything. Or if it was, uh, you know, maybe we got too much rain and the oats weren't as good as they should have been, or 150 different things. What do the wes do? What do the weevils do? Sometimes they get those, they, they eat the heart outta the corn. Oh, they'll drill a So what is that then? They're eating nothing basically. I didn't even know that they drill a ho. If you look at your corn kernels, they'll have a hole in them. Or that happens that happens like in the summertime, uh, you get'em different times. I do. And I mean, I treat, I treat my bins, but still, and the bad part is the best stuff to treat the bins with. I really don't want my animals eating because it's some bad stuff. You treat'em when they're empty cattle? Yeah. I treat'em when they're empty and there's a, there's a powder you can put in it as it's being filled that is safe for you to eat. So it's not gonna hurt animals, but the wee will eats it and it expands in their stomach and it kills'em. Um, but it's so hard to get that consistent through the bin. And it's so hard. You dump it in the auger and it might get tucked in a pocket and never make it to the bin. If you try to dump it in too fast, it just clogs the auger up. It, it's, it's a little tricky to be honest. You're, you're teaching me something because I didn't know, I mean, I knew weevils. Were eating. Like I knew they, but I didn't know they were just destroying the corn and the feed. Did, did you know that Weils wobble, but they don't fall down. We will wobble. We wobble. Okay. Okay. Okay. We gotta get back on track. Alright, go. I'm sorry, this is not the Weil chat. I had a conversation with a friend today though, and he was telling me, uh, talking to me about the importance of sticking with, I don't know.'cause I don't feed kettle, I just don't, uh, it's not that philosophical. We don't, we don't all live in the havens of California, Joe. No, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I shipped my bulls off. So I don't know what this world's like other than when I was at college. Um, but this gentleman said, he goes, Hey, now I've seen some guys you have, if you are working with a nutritionist, and he says that on this load you need to be mixing the alfalfa first and then you need to put in the silage and then you need to put in the corn. More is not. More so if he says that on the mix, it's 650 pounds of corn and you're like, boy, my bulls, I went by so-and-so's house and they were a little behind. I'm just gonna nudge in a little extra corn or I'm gonna nudge it. You could tip cattle over one. You could harm their longevity too. There's a whole other host of problems. And then what this, this gentleman was telling me I hadn't even thought about because I don't live in that world, as he says, you know, if you mix that stuff different than the nutritionist has accounted for and you put the corn and you beat up all that corn and you make it basically like chicken scratch mash, and then you mix the alfalfa too long and they start sorting or whatever. I mean this whole bull and heifer development, this cow development thing. Requires an incredible amount of attention to detail. And I've told you guys between California regulation, access to feed stuff, yada, yada, a whole bunch of excuses. But one of the basic points is too, I don't have that attention to detail to give to that development to the cattle either. And so I would encourage some of our listeners, if you don't have that attention to detail or the proper equipment to do stuff, maybe you should find somebody who does, because you got a lot of money riding on that and a lot of your producers money and investing in those genetics too. And here's the thing, you don't have to go out and hire a nutritionist If you're buying the feed from somebody, they need they, they'll help you. They'll help you, absolutely. And you need to tell'em what your goals are. Hey, I'm gonna keep these back. I don't need'em to be pig fat. They can be slowly developed over time. Hey, my bulls are gonna sell in 12 months. I don't need them to be, they're gonna sell in April. I don't need'em to be fat in. July and August. I just know it's hit my mark. You know what's crazy? So selling these 2-year-old bulls, selling these 2-year-old bulls, it's amazing how quick you can get'em from, you can go from holy crap, they're thin to okay, they're gonna be there. Um,'cause I know like in the summer months, there's really, I, I don't really push bulls very hard in the summer because I don't wanna kill'em. I just, I just think getting'em so fat in the summertime, you're gonna end up doing a lot of problems, a lot more harm than good. So I don't, and then a lot of times when it finally cools off, that's when I start, start to bump'em, bump'em, bump'em. Well, I noticed, I noticed this this year, once it cooled off and I started feeding, it didn't take very long before I noticed a difference. And it takes a lot for you to notice difference when you're the one feeding them every day. Yeah. And so how about, how about the difference in those bulls and how they semen test Corbin? That's what I was fixing to say. The same thing. And, and you know, it's, it's. Honestly, honestly, bringing'em along slow like that and having them where they have plenty of room to move, it's a joy to go look at their feet. It's a joy. It's just, it's, it's so much better. So what's one of the pitfalls though, keeping'em athletic? I'll tell you a number one, they fight. Yeah. And they hurt each other. They do fight. They do fight. And they do. Yeah. If you don't want your bulls to fight, you just make'em tick fat so they don't feed feel good and they just feel like eating and then waddling over to water and then they water over to the straw and lay down and then they waddle over the feed. Well, what do we do to our, uh, what do I do to the ones I feed out? I put'em as small pin as I can and I want'em to move as little as possible. And that's because I don't want'em to get hurt. And that's because I want'em to sit there and get fat. So the best way to get one to not fight is to put it in a small pen and feed the crap out of it. So it doesn't have, it's, it's preoccupied with eating, but, you know, selling those two year olds too. I'm not saying they're done growing, but their growth curve starts slowing way down. And then you miss out on, on, you know, when you sell a younger bull. Yeah. Well then when they hit 18 months, that bull wants to go backwards. Yeah. They just do because they've got their new teeth coming in. Um, they've been out with Cal, they're just a time in life where they wanna go backwards. If you sell 2-year-old Bull, you've kind of got'em over some of those humps. And so, um, what about if you use a young bull though? You just gotta, if you buy a 15 month old bull and you turn him out, that is that I do it and it scares the crap outta me that people are not gonna listen. You know? And I do, I do it too, and it's, it's just something. I'll turn'em out for 90 days and I won't have, I won't give'em any special treatment, but whenever I get'em back up, yes. You've gotta get'em back going, get'em back in shape. I've made the mistake of, of getting them, you know, sorting'em off the cows and just kind of turning'em back out with the other herd bulls. Yeah. Instead of just tending to'em and getting'em back into shape. Um, and then they end up never really looking the part. Yeah. But then the other, the devil's advocate side of that says, Hey, the genetics are still there. Who gives a crap what he looks like? Uh, but I gotta look at him. I gotta look at him every day. So, and then when you tell somebody, look, I mean, he is only 15 months old. He probably don't need to be out with, you know, 12 cows or so, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm not gonna put'em out. Well. I don't know that I a hundred percent believe everybody that tells me that, you know, I'd really like, uh, if I had my dream, and a lot of our customers have caught onto this, is they buy basically next year's bulls this year. Yes. That is so much better. Right. So those yearlys get to go out, you turn'em out with older bulls, they kind of, you watch'em, they'll run over, they'll sniff his sheath a little bit. That old bull will kind of just be eating grass or something and he might kind of flip it some flies or something, but they never really fight. They kind of just toy around and that yearling bull's gonna breed some cows. Right. But mostly he's gonna learn how to be a bull at that new person's place. And then he's in the big leagues next year. I mean, yeah. And, and there'll be somebody who picks on this podcast if they listen this far and be like, oh yeah. You know, but I just, I've seen it enough where if these guys think about their yearling bulls and treat them like they treat their first calf heifers. That's a good rule of thumb. If you treat a young bull like you treat a first calf heifer, they will last, like you'd treat a first calf heifer, so that first calf heifers you take care of and you get bred the second year. Those, you know, those are the ones that'll end up lasting in your herd. If you don't, they're gonna fall out and the bulls be the same way. I honestly, honestly, Joe, you might be onto something that you might be able to raise, you know, if you're selling bulls, you might be able to raise them with that same thing in mind as I, I'm gonna develop'em like I'm developing egg wet too. Well, and if you think about it, Corbin, take that analogy and go have a three-year-old heifer and tell me how that goes for you. No problems ever, right? Yeah. Ever. Mm-hmm. They don't fall out at all. Like Yeah. Them, them cattle, we were, we were rolling cattle from the November herd we used to have to the fall, and so we took two years to do it. We made'em marches or we, we made'em. Springs, then we made'em falls'cause we didn't want to go all the way. And we kept the heifers from that and just bred'em as falls. So you aren't gonna breed like a seven month heifer, right? Or an eight month heifer or whatever she was. You make her like cabinet 30 months. Those were all the longest lived cows in our herd. You can, and I'm gonna tell you something, those ones that C at 30 months can flat raise one. Oh yeah. They can flat raise one. It's, I've always wondered if we need to review, review all the economics of those. Like there was this studies where a cow that Cavs at two, you know, Cali Cavs at three will never meet the lifetime production of a 2-year-old. I said, man, we need to restudy that because the investment cost of these cattle is so much now them falling out earlier. I think there's a huge difference there. What about, what about how we're really, we're really just buttholes to these cows and if they come, come up open, we'll get rid of'em. So like we will have this heifer Cabot too, and then she comes up open as a wet too, and we get rid of her right away instead of rolling her to the fall or spring. Well, what I've noticed by keeping that cow and just letting her go be a cow, I mean, what I've, what I've done is like, oh, I'm not keeping any heifers out of her anymore. I probably tried sticking embryo in her at some point. Um, she becomes a commercial cow at that point. Some of those cows end up being some of the better ones we have around, I've got a couple here that are, they raised a big first calf and didn't breed back weaned the calf. They've bred back every single time, like a clock and, but you always done a great job, but they're forever discounted in your mind. You're never, you're never gonna look. You're Yeah, but you're never gonna look at that cow, that cow's potential as a donor is done when she's showing me what she can do and she's doing it year in and year out. That might give, might, so that might outweigh that. She ra she raised an 800 pound bull calf for her first calf and she didn't breed back. Yeah. So what you're saying is, is this cow's eight at, what would that make her like six? It's like four or 12 or something. 4 12, 8. What, where that, it's not 365 is what I'm saying. Right, right. But she's raised eight calves and she's 11 years old. I mean, yeah. It's interesting. It's, it's a very interest me. So do you guys think, do you think as an industry we need a mind set shift? A little bit? Like we're packing so much growth into these cattle that they need extra help, whether it's minerals or development or, I don't know. I don't know what to do with this topic. Here's what I think, here's what I think just came up. What do you think? I think a lot of it's not, I think a lot of what we're having, like a lot of it is not genetic. A lot of it's not genetic. I, I mean, I know. It's interesting though. Some of it is. Some of it for sure, some is. Some of it. Some of it. Because you'll get certain cow families that breed no matter what you do. Yes, yes. But what if some of them need feed in a bad way? High performance cattle need feed in a bad way. And then you have cattle that could look at grass and just stay pig fat all the time. Yeah. And you know, if you're, if some of these high dollar seed cattle, I mean, they gotta have feed or they're gonna look like a bag of bones and, and those, I, I think those EPDs that have come up with, to get to their full potential, you have to feed the snot out of them. Yeah. And there's a lot of animals that don't. They may not have those numbers in those boxes, but when you drive out in the field and they're being treated exactly like all the other ones and they're just pig fat all the time, I mean, there's something to be said for that. So I've never been an advocate for more and more EPDs. I've been an advocate for the right ones, and I think this original premise in the seventies or eighties when they started at about a sanitized environment and a vacuum pulling environment out of it for predicting the differences in cattle. At the time was appropriate, but now we're at a place where there's been so much marketing value attributed to those numbers. We've got to get back to what can we practically do with that animal though, because maybe there's that much genetic potential locked inside of'em, but there's not enough resources for what our management is to get that out of those cattle. And then ones that are over fat at your place, Vince, maybe they need to be in a little bit more arid environment. And the ones that are thin, you know, maybe those are ones that don't, you don't have enough resources for. And we really, I just think we don't fully know all the damage that we've done to the beef business as an industry by chasing the marketing value of genetic differences. I think, I mean, it's sort of like yields in the crop world, I would guess. I'm not a farmer, but it's like, man, we're gonna get this. Whatever Bush will yield. Weed It is, but you gotta put this special ti fertilizer, then you gotta put this special fungicide. Right. Then you gotta put this special thing and you'll get there. But maybe you can't sustain all the costs associated with it. Correct. And so it's on that balance. Right. And so on that you'll never get there if it never rains. That's the thing. Yeah. The point. Yeah. And you know who, you know who ends up catching the brunt end of the, the bad end of all of that. It's the unsuspecting commercial producer. Yeah. Who's buying bulls, keeping heifers, ends up calling, having to cull a bunch of wet twos and wet threes because they don't breed back. But that's so, so that's your fault. That's my fault. That's Vince's fault. Absolutely not my fault. Absolutely. See, you can have it all. You can have that low birth and 160 growth and you buy with confidence. This bull does it all. You've now accepted the responsibility of someone potentially buying something. Maybe it does fit their program, but maybe it don't too. But how? How is that fair if US three are not the ones saying it, but the bull studs are saying it because you're not saying loud enough that it's a problem. We may not be saying that, that that's what it is, but then they read the magazines and they watch all these ads and you can have it all. Like he was just saying. But that's not fair to us. No, I think that's not fair to us that we've set that precedent. Right, and we didn't. We didn't even do it. No, I think that that's probably what I should have started with Vince, is where we could start is, as a producer, you need to not buy into that crap. Oh yeah. A hundred percent As a producer can buy into it. But even if you have an animal that is a low birth and a high growth, because genomics says that it is, then people have seen enough ads and seen enough stuff like, like that. That they think that that's what it is. What about when you go buy one of these pig fat bulls we've been talking about and he can't even go breed cows because he probably can't even pass a semen check for one for two. If he was to pass it, he's gonna go out there and breed four cows or one cow and probably be sadag. I tired. He is gonna have to go over there and lay down for three days. Not to mention when a bull, we, we haven't even said this, how a 1500 or big fat yearling bull goes and breeds a cow. He go, there's a big chance they could hurt themselves too. Yeah, because you guys long way up there for that little guy. And if he's fat than a town dog and can't even move. Yeah. But he's, and then he is not gonna hold up. He's gonna become a bag of skin and bones and you're gonna get a phone call. This bull didn't hold up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They, and, and I'm gonna tell you a secret too, they don't extend as well. No, they don't. Probably not. They don't come out of their sheath and extend like a bull that's, that's in work in shape does. It's just the libido's not there. Right. There's so many reasons against it, but we don't give a crap. We're gonna feed'em. We're gonna get'em pig fat because they're gonna look cool. And they do look cool. They do look cool. And have you noticed how a camera can take so much weight off one? That's the other problem. No. Camera adds 10 pounds. That's what I've always been, that's why I look so big right now. I'm really not this big. The camera, Vince, Vince, put your shirt back on All it camera. The camera is adding 10 pounds. If I take pictures of some of my fattest cows on my phone and look at'em and then I go look at the pictures I see on Facebook, I'm like, holy cat. She must be really fat. Like really, really, really fat to look that way. But this is the part I wanted to ask you guys.'cause I felt like we were kind of done in that vein, unless you had more. Do you feel like there's a shift, like we're moving in a positive direction or a negative direction in the purebred industry on development of cattle and seed stock and stuff? I don't know if there's a shift or if we are just seeing people that were always there that we never saw. Hmm. Does that make sense? Here's what I think. Here's what I think. Yeah. That's interesting. Interesting to think about.'cause everybody can market anything now that we have social media.'cause the people that, the people that we, you, or that I used to think did a really good job by getting'em pig fat all the time, they're still making'em pig fat. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm seeing a whole different array of people that are actually making good animals and not overfeeding them. And not underfeeding them. And I, I almost think there's a different set of people. Do you think it's, you think it's a different, you think you, we've entered a different realm. Yeah. I think the deal is, is, is I think that we're the multiverse. We're figuring out that we're the minority and we're starting to all find each other. Yeah. We're all becoming friends. We, we've entered a new multiverse. Yeah. But you know, if you're a new breeder, what's the quickest way to distinguish yourself from everyone else? Breed numbers and get'em fat. Yeah. It's not to say, look at my bulls are ready to work for you guys, and somebody's gonna go, whoa, these things are lighter than anything I've ever seen, a program I've never heard of and a set of jeans I've never heard of. I'm gonna take a risk on that. So it's like this one-up that just starts keep, I mean, I think that that's probably the hardest thing to stay disciplined as a young, or emerging, I wanna say emerging breeder.'cause some of them aren't young in age, you know? Like, how are you gonna differentiate yourself? How are you gonna get a look? Um, I think it's really, really difficult. It is. Having a sail is a absolutely horrible. Yeah, because you feel that you have to get'em fat to get a good picture, to get a good video, to get, to get people interested. They're gonna go over your neighbor's that was sail this before or after wherever and well, I was just over at so and so's and his cattle look way better than your cattle did, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's especially bad too, when you get in those places where there's, there's a purebred ranch, purebred ranch every 15 miles on the interstate. Like if you go into the Dakotas where you got, there's so many of those breed, right? And the, there's so many commercial guys all around them and they're selling, you know, that commercial guy's buying eight bulls for themselves. You go from one place to the other and you can really tell which one's ratcheting it up, which one's throwing'em the goods and, and which one's green, which ones are green and, and like, it's just really, it's really fascinating to me, the nuances. Yeah, I think, uh. I think that's tough. And I think that even social media between the catalog design, the videography, the, all those things we're putting ourselves at a valuation, we're attributing value to our programs based upon people that aren't our customers. Yeah. Like we have these theories, we're looking and we're looking for valid, for validation from people that don't matter. Yeah. People that won't write a check. People who genuinely aren't your friends. Uh, people who are okay with you being successful until you're too successful. Um, and so I, I don't know. I found that with our deal here is I just said, you know, I'm really gonna hone in on the people who make our deal run and make sure that we listen to them, that we have relationships with them and you know. There's a, um, a friend of mine is from South Dakota, TJ Gabriel, and I wanna say it was last year TJ had a big time mail snafu, like a bad, bad one with the postal service. And, and I don't remember all the details and so I apologize, TJ if I, if I bought it, but we're talking a week out and customers did not have catalogs shut down if something bad happened. I don't know if they lost a box or several boxes, but it was a mess. And I know because we share a catalog design artist and, and they were doing everything they could. His sale did not miss a beat. His sale did not miss a beat. He picked up the phone, he text some people, he called some people, he had some, uh, I think they got some overruns made and some actual catalogs. Maybe he printed some on paper and handed them out sale day. But when you really dive into those things, I think we need to really explore. Are we building these catalogs to appease our own ego? Or are we trying to message to our customer? And, and I'll tell you guys, that's something that I've waffled in in our deal. I take a lot of pride in how we put together our catalog, and I've had to say, is it a messaging piece to our customers or is it something that I'm looking approval for from my peers in the business? And, and you've seen a big time shift in our catalog since I've said it's a messaging piece to our active customers. We do stuff differently than we used to. And, um, I don't know. I guess I, I feel like, uh, Corbin, you really, really did that. We use the same kind of, we use the same artist and they're good at telling our story like that. And, and Vince, I, last year you made the move just on your cover, I think, um, was just kind of a nod to the history. And then you talked about your dad and stuff. I really encourage people, if you do sell a program and you sell a story, tell it. Yeah, use, use your messaging to tell that because you're selling more than a fat bull on a page. You are selling more than that. I want them to, I wanna try to be personal. I want everyone that, that looks at our catalog and we're kind of off in the weeds here, but that's okay. Right? Oh, yeah. I want every person that looks at my catalog to come away feeling like they know me better than they did going in. And I feel like they, they know our breeding goals by looking at our catalog. They know who I am as a person. I want them to see my family and realize that we have more in common than they might otherwise think. And I just, I, I think that resonating with them in that way is, is one of the main goals. And also showcase, you know, it's also a point of reference for when they're buying bulls too. So you have to keep that in mind too. But, uh, well, we, I think we all three have very similar taste in cattle. I think we all three have very. Different catalogs. Mm-hmm. And even though you two guys use the same person, and I don't even, I don't think that any of it's bad. Um, I think, like I heard a few, uh, several people tell me, well, Joe didn't even put any pictures in his catalog, but he didn't need to. Over here, I almost feel the need to take pictures. Yeah. And put'em in the catalog. And then footnotes, footnotes and footnotes and I I, and support pictures of the mothers and the grandmothers. And, you know, it can be a lot, you know, I take pride in, in trying to describe the animal more so than say, Hey, this is what she sold in progeny, sort of a deal. And that that gets old that, oh, this is the a hundred thousand dollars daughter or son of the, it's gross. Let's just gross. It gets old. It really gets old. And at some point it's just, especially, especially when we're selling commercial bulls into, into that. Correct. I mean, what does the commercial guy care that you sold a hundred thousand dollars daughter out that his sire or that the sire was a top selling bull as a such and such 25 sale or whatever? Who cares who care? The good specimen or not think, describe, let's do a footnote, footnotes episode. Well, I think the footnotes should say everything that you can't see in the catalog or you can't see in person. And so that's how I use them. And for my commercial guy or or woman, they want to know things that are gonna have value to them and absolutely. I think that some people though, in how they market, there are expectations set. Like if I buy this heifer that has from this family tribe that has had these accolades financially, that is my goal is to sell her in a female sale later or her embryos. So that's where the expectation gets set, and that's why people do that now. Do the expectations that you set forth match your customer. I think that that's when you get all those things to match and jive, then you get to the differences that Vince spoke of in our three catalogs that, um, you know, I don't feel like either of the three of us would ever say we want a customer to show up and buy our top bull that we don't share morals or ethics with. Um, we want them to buy into our family, not as a shtick, but as a glimpse at who we are and our commitment to the products we produce, right? And so if, if you don't value those things. We aren't gonna chase you off, but we hope that over time we attract a lot of people who value the same things we do. And you know what? I think those people, Corbin, invest themselves longer term into your program and they root for you and they want you to be successful because they know that you want them to be successful too. For a long time, you said to me, um, your customers start to look and resemble you. And I, I never really understood what that meant until I started taking the time to really invest into my cust into the customers that come buy bulls and really take a step back and look at who that is. How many of them wear gym shorts and slides to your sale? They don't do that. They don't do that. But I will say that a, a lot of them don't tuck their shirts in. A lot of'em. Don't shave every day. A lot of'em wear dirty hats and t-shirts and they're just blue collar people. Um, not many suits and ties. Walk into our, walk, into our, well, and I stole that from my partner Tim.'cause he observed that at a simile sale one time. He just said, he goes, man, so-and-so's, and I won't say the guy's name, but his customers started looking like him. Like he's one of those guys that has the glasses down on his nose, and he's a big, he's a big data guy, and they're looking into data and he is like, his customers weren't looking at the bulls. They're looking at all the data and all the things he wrote and yeah, that's, that's who you'll attract over time, right? Yeah. I mean, Vince, what you're saying is if you come to my sale, you're gonna see a bunch of six four fat guys. Pocket tees, is that what you're saying? She on them? Yeah. Yes, yes. And grinder holes on the belly. Oh yeah. I, I threw those shirts away the other day and I was torn. I put'em in the garbage and get'em back out and put'em in the garbage. I what if I need them one day? So how about this? I gotta go pick up horses in Idaho in the morning. I'm leaving super early and I gotta go breed some cows right now. But we've, we have not touched on one of the most important parts of this episode. What, how about the brilliance in marketing? That was around the Colorado on the, around. That was funny. That was funny. The what? His post, his reel, our first reel, Colorado. I, I made, uh, there were some customers requesting because Nate opened his big fat mouth. About my truck being nasty. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Is this a spoiler? Not customer. Not customer. Is this a spoiler alert? No, I did, I was making a video and he made me stop. He said, you're not gonna get the, you're not, you're not gonna get the full nastiness with the way you're doing it. So I quit making the video. I mean, did, did Blake say, Hey, will this camera pick up smell? No. Blake wasn't there. Blake wasn't there. But, um, the people want a Shady Brook video. The people demand, they demand, they demand a video on the way to the bistro where Blake is showing you the last picture of a semi or tag cutting project. The people are demanding. Vince, we can, uh, jump the railroad tracks on the way to the bistro. That would be great. Gentlemen, I hope we didn't beat around the bushes too much. I think we covered some fun stuff. Anything Vince you felt like we missed? No. Well you know what we should have talked about was breeding cows because we're all breeding cows right now. Maybe next time cow protocols we could probably talk next. We probably still could next time. I think it might percent. I'm, I'm not, we just seeded yesterday so I'm not breeding for another couple weeks. So if you just seeded yesterday, you'll be ordering semen in 17 days.'cause that's what I do. No, I got caught with 20 cows in heat and no semen for them'cause I'm a bone head. Okay. You and Colin Davis. Joe, he just texted me. I bought, I don't have any semen. Mike Pepper. I bought a bunch of junction semen if you need something, Joe. Conjunction Junction a bunch. I bought a bunch, like four or 500 units. Four, 500 units. 288. Good Lord. So I was snooping around on that. I was snooping around on that. Bud KO's, uh, registrations of which they aren't all complete yet, by the way, but I was snooping around this morning and found some junction. 1 24 son of 30 15 stuff in there. Yeah, yeah. He sold the sun to Ross last year, remember there's, yeah. And there was another one too. So, yeah. Interesting time to What if I told you Bud bought some junction semen with me, like partnership? Well, I only got a, I said, I said if I bought all this, do you want something? He is like, well, heck yeah, I'll take half of it. So that's what happened. So you got, you got, I actually at 560 units. No, I bought 288 and he took a hundred. So I actually lied, I actually lied about every single bit of that. But to. I talked to him for like two, two minutes and 16 seconds this morning. Is it me or is it me or is Bud real high energy? Oh my God, he's pretty high energy. The dude has a lot of energy. It is Bud High Energy because I, that's what I picked. High energy. They were freeze. Brandon Bulls today and he is high energy. With one hand. Yeah. With one hand. He's like, ah, geez. Broke my arm. Guess I'll have to use the other one. My new titanium knee. I never got to ask him. Did he just have like rotator cuff surgery or what was his deal? He smooshed him. The cow smooshed him. Was his arm in the cow? No, his arm was in between the gate, the pout gate. Oh wow. And come backed into it. Crushed him. No way. Yeah, no it did. He's not supposed to lift over 20 pounds for like, I think he said, I don't wanna lie. He's a long time. There's no way he's listening to That is so hard. That is so hard. A long time to not a long time pick away. He's not. But no, right now, I don't even think he's supposed to move it right now. Don't him and Scott eat that much hamburger for lunch. That's what I'm saying. Bernie was telling me they eat like two, three pounds of hamburger every lunch. Oh my God. That's the best time to get ahold of him. This is a round Bud Al's place now around the ALS with Corbin, Vince and Joe. Uh, all righty. Are we outta here? We're outta here boys. Take it away. Tumor. Catch y'all next time. We will see you next time around the shoot.