Evaluating The Generations

The main discussion, in this episode, covers evaluating cattle across stages: calves can change dramatically, with Vince focusing evaluation around weaning and later, while others also like pre-weaning and 12–15 months for bulls; hair shedding is noted as useful. Success is framed functionally as fertility, calving on time, breeding back, and weaning a big calf, with integrity-driven culling for feet, udders, and open cows, and decisions influenced by resources and herd management.

Transcript

0:02

So what do you really think of Vince? I think he's wonderful. You think he'll be listening to this at some point anyways. No. Do you see those little horses on the bed, on the bedding there? No, because now he's gone, so it's a little miniature. Like, it's... This is a inch and a half by, what would that be? It's not three inches. I mean, it's gotta be two inches. The horse? No, the little picture of Vince. Like, I have you in my full screen, but Vince's is tiny because he's not talking. I don't understand at all. It's just a little- Does yours- thumbnail at the top, right? Oh, yours, yours does that? Yes. Yes, yes. You have Apple? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh, so yours does, so, like, whoever's talking gets, gets hit to the front. Exactly. Mine, all three stay the same size all the time. So when, when we interrupt each other, it's like a remix. Oh. It's like- So it's like a- So, like, right now it's doing that. It's like you, me, you, me, you, me. Yes. Welcome to Around the Chute. Corbin, what is our topic today? Today our topic is... Ooh, I wish you hadn't asked, 'cause I was... Just put my phone down. Evaluating cattle in different stages of life. And, uh, the idea behind that was, was we spend a lot of time thinking about, you know, EPDs and different things, but what about really evaluating cattle in, in stages of life? What do we expect from them? What are they supposed to do for us in order to call them a success, and what we define that success as, was kind of what I was going for with the, with the topic today. But, uh, as of right now, where is Vince at? I don't... Do you know where he went? Well, I just wanted to say I like your topic. I like your idea. We're at this, like, uh, uh, we have... When I was in art class in eighth grade, we called it white paper block, where the teacher's like, "Just make a line on your paper. You guys are terrified to make something messed up," so nobody draws anything. And we are all hitting it so hard right now. I mean, it is difficult to find time to record. It's, it's, uh, it's all good things though, right? We're winning- Absolutely heavy calves. Mm-hmm. We're moving stuff. We're doing stuff. We've, we've got some grass. We've each had some rain. I mean, Vince is doing- I think the reality is too, we're, we're each chasing our kids around. Oh, that too, absolutely. Because you are- Vince is just chasing his different. He's cha- he's chasing his as a grown man doing a job, doing it with him. Yep, exactly. Um, you're turning yours into grown men, and I'm just playing, really. Hey, do you wanna talk about stages of life while we're waiting on him for our banter? I just thought of this. Absolutely. Like, if you talk about stages of calf- There's a correlation. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely a correlation, wouldn't you say? Well, absolutely, and I actually- And I don't, we don't need, really need to make it health-wise, 'cause that, that would be stupid, but, but- No, that, not health-wise. And also- Our kids don't look as poor at three months of age as some of these heifers that are selling for a lot of money Right. But- No, absolutely you know, the ones that are sheared to, like, their hock and they've got high dollar C, though, so that's cool. My father-in-law, um, we bought a few cows out east, and they brought them the other day and dropped them off and he said they had this red and white face thing. He said if it was 12 inches from pin to pin, that was pushing it and, and it was just thin and he said it was sheared and he said somebody spent a lot of money on that thing 'cause it had its own compartment in the trailer and somebody paid a lot of money to get that thing shipped across the country. It's amazing. Who am I to say they're wrong, I guess, but, uh, the stages of life, what, what brought that up is I've been talking to a lot of people lately and s- by now you guys would've seen my social media post about my kids kinda sending us on a little bit of a very positive whipsaw, if you will. Like, we had both of our kids, really our oldest boys saying that they're gonna go to college two hours from home, two and a half, and then one just saying, "You know what? I really wanna go see some other country before I make that decision," and, uh, was still very happy with the choice here close to home but, um, he felt called to go somewhere else and I just... You know, Corbin, um, it's funny. I'm not an over- I don't think I'm an overly emotional person expressively, but one thing I do get emotional about is pride and, and I shouldn't, but when you're just so proud of somebody. He, he asked me, he said, "Dad, would you go all the way to Texas?" And I said, "I don't think I would've been brave enough when I was your age, but I think you are and I'm proud of you for that." And, uh- That is, uh, that's a different feeling because I- that pride you're talking about, and I think it's, it's wrong to be pri- proud of your s- like, to have those prideful feelings about yourself, but when it's about your kids, I almost feel like that's your calling in life is to make yourself have that feeling. Like, because that feeling is, it's greater than selling a bull for a lot of money. It's greater than selling calves for a lot of money. Um, it's better than being able to pay the bills. I mean, that feeling of being able to help your kid through that stage of life and getting them to the point where they can be brave like your kid and just having those emotions, um, those are what I live for and I, I, I think a lot of our listeners are gonna resonate with that feeling for sure. And I think it's one of those that we need to shed some more light on just because I've had conversations with three people our age, men today, who have all said, "Joe, I'm just not interested in keeping the throttle..." Like, when you hear things like work harder, nobody's here to, to pick you up off the ground, and you need to pick yourself up by the bootstraps, maybe those motivational kind of, uh, little banners you see on Facebook posts, maybe they're not just meant for our job. Maybe they're meant for our families, where we should like, yeah, no, nobody's gonna cry for you if you don't spend time with your kids. Go spend that time with your kids. And, and when I say stages of life, we are still trying to build the highest quality product that we can. I wanna be so clear of that, absolutely. But the purpose behind it is to fund our business so that our kids can go to school, they can have families, they can know us, we can take time with them. Um, there has to be a means to an end, and cattle are my vocation and that's my means to my end. Now, we are required, I believe, Corbin, to handle that vocation in the utmost integrity, just like a mechanic shouldn't screw over somebody on a mechanic bill, or a post office worker shouldn't be sifting through the mail stealing the gift cards. I mean, you, you have an obligation to cull bad feet. You have an obligation to cull open cows. You have an obligation to do things right by your customer. Um, but I will say it's, it's funny to say this is a lifestyle. It is. It is. But it has to be a means to an end. Um- Yeah, absolutely and I, I think that's what, if you have it as a means to an end and you do it on its own merits, like that's what our commercial cattlemen need to be doing. They need to be raising a product that is worthy of profit, right? One that can go into the sector and generate income and not cost a lot of money doing it and, and you define- It's hard to, it's hard to think about it right now because, like, right now times are all so good, but I think it's, I think most of our, our listeners and our, our people that have been in this industry have been in it long enough to understand that it, it hasn't always been a profit- really a profitable deal. No. So, um, it's important for it to be. Absolutely, and there's, there's a lot of things, I mean, the most successful people I know in the beef business could probably own a laundromat and be successful. They could own a, um, I don't know, a little grocery store and be successful, a restaurant and be successful. I mean, they are driven, driven people who, who work hard and do the right things and treat people right, which, which typically when you're in the service sector of anything, i- is a pretty good recipe for success. Um- But this cattle deal, it has to work. If it doesn't work, there's too much competition for talented people in this world. Absolutely. Um, simply loving it, simply loving it is not enough if you're displacing your family. And, um, that was... The two of those gentlemen I talked to in particular today, you know, it was mostly like, "You know, I'm trying to... I feel like a dirt bag when I spend too much time on the business and away from my kids, and I feel like a dirt bag when I spend too much time away from my k- with my kids and not on the business." And I said, "Well, it sounds like you're doing that dance." Like, and there's, and there's different stages. 18 to 25, 30, I don't know, that's when you're building and going and going and going. And then you get to my kind of stage of life where I've got kids graduating quickly and moving on. We wanna be there to support them. We wanna be able to travel and go if, if they end up on some sort of team or if they have a competition. We wanna be able to fly across the country and go watch them and support them and be there for them and visit them on holidays and, you know, we may not be- Is it almost like, uh, is it almost like when they were little? Which, I mean, I, we've been friends long enough for me to remember when your kids were little enough to be little. Um, and you did do a lot of things, but with them. But I feel like a lot of those things were things you could go to and come back home and have time to do whatever you had to do. Whereas now, um, with Miles, he's gonna be moving to Texas. You had Bennett in Wyoming. Um, who even knows where Randy and Meredith are gonna end up. So, uh, now you gotta do a da- where it's, it's overnight stays. Absolutely, it's overnight. You're going across the country. Yep, yep. And, and- You've gotta get them there. You've gotta get them home. You've gotta... You've got these... Uh, and those aren't, those aren't obli- those aren't optional things as, as a parent. They're obligations. You've gotta... Those are things you gotta do. Absolutely. And I would speak to some of the parents, too, that I learned in this process. Um, and, and r- we don't need to go too far personally into my situation, but... Oh, now the dog's barking. What's the dog's name again? It's the wiener dog- Chuck isn't it? Chuck. It's the wiener dog, yeah. I don't think he sees real good, so he'll bark and bark and bark. Uh, nobody comes to my house, Corbin, nobody. Just the people who live here. So he's literally barking- He knows who he's... Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, he's probably... He might be thinking, "Gosh, where the heck is Vince? He said 10 minutes, I feel like 30 minutes ago." That's exactly what he's thinking. He's wondering where Vince is, or he's trying to get on the internet and buy some small square bales from Nate, which also requires Vince. But I just... These kids, what I wanted to say is, um, when I say what I say about these decisions, um, I absolutely think both of our boys made the right decisions Um, and they were both enrolled in the same college, and one chose to not go to that college and go to a different one. And I just feel like I've been saying to lots of my friends, uh, lately, buy the plane ticket, travel up to the college acro- you know, across town, or start younger and earlier because we, we worry or we concern ourselves over where these kids are gonna go to college and what they're gonna do, or if they're gonna go into a vocational training school, or if they're gonna go into the workforce. It's okay to start earlier and start exploring those options. We found two awesome smaller colleges when we were back at Texas Tech that I still think Texas Tech is the perfect, perfect fit for this kid, but there were two others there that we will go attend with Randy and Meredith and say, "Let's just go look at them. Let's just go check them out." Yeah. "'Cause we've heard great things," and we didn't know until we knew, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So Meredith is 14? 13. 12. Yeah, I really wish you wouldn't have asked that question. Um, I think she is 14 at the end of this month. 14. Yeah, so she's about- I don't think she's 15 yet. Yeah she's going to be a freshman. Yeah, she's gonna be a freshman. That's exactly what she's gonna be. And she's- That is crazy loves everything and really, really loves her brothers. That's why, that's why she knows the songs that we're listening to that you and I have both been kind of hot on lately. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't ro- don't rope me into this. This is your deal. You're... No. You are- I listened to it 'cause you sent it to me. That's the only reason. This one. This one. But the one that I'm gonna mention before the one I'm talking about, dude, the, the Ella Langley song, Choosing Texas, I know you love that song. Um, I don't know. Or do you love the, the ladies, the perception of the ladies in the song? Okay. Okay. Yes, I, I will admit, I'm... I... Well, I'm not gonna admit 'cause it's dumb and it's a Facebook shtick thing or a Reel shtick to say you're an Ella fella. The Theo Von. Theo has... That guy is unbelievable how he amplifies someone's message. Absolutely. I mean, he's got her at, what, three of the top 100 songs- Yeah in the country. And, and it's not just him. I mean, she's talented, but I don't know. I, I liked her story. I liked how she carried herself. I liked how she was different. And how everyone says, how everyone says that you hear talk about her says, "This is the perfect person to be put in this situation. She's the one that deserves it the most because she's the one who doesn't expect it, and she's the one who is just humble and just gonna be your..." It's almost kind of, kind of reminds you a little bit of, like, how Dolly Parton's always kind of personified herself, you know? How she's always, like, the Just so humble about everything, and that's why people love her Hey, and that gal gets it now. I mean- Yeah, absolutely like, you watch her reels and... Did you watch those director's cuts of that- How she said- She's in Texas video? Bunnies? How she said that. Like- She does not say bunnies like that. She did that on purpose. No, she knows exactly what she's doing. She knows what she's doing for sure. I mean, like, but it, it, it blew my mind her attention to detail as just, like, a lot of really great cattle breeders too, where maybe they have a talent for one thing or another, but you watch and they do a lot of things very effectively. She's out there full on directing the cast of her music video. Oh, yeah. With the extras. She's going, "I don't want you here. I want you over here." And I'm going, "Wait a minute, you're not just some gal with a guitar. Like, you are an artist that wants your self-portrait a certain way." This is... It, it kind of reminds me of, like, how, how we would be at, at our bull sales, how you would have, like... Like, "Okay, I might not be doing this job, but I sure know how I want you to do it." Sort of, like, I hate how I have that feeling about everything, but I'm like ex- I have expectations of the people that are working for me that day, you know? And it's, it, it kind of reminds me of how she's acting in that video, like, "This is my deal." Uh- It's the, it's the exact same though, because if you think about, we talked about the strokes on a canvas and all this stuff about our breeding programs. We talked about that four or five years ago and are you really going to allow somebody at one day, one very important day, affect the value of your product positively or negatively and not know exactly how you want it done? I mean, you're gonna orchestrate everything, right? You're gonna choose- Absolutely the people at the end gate, the people at the out gate. You're gonna choose the right people. Wow, Vince is here. There he is. You're gonna choose the right people to clerk your sale. Like, Vince, like, Vince's sale, right? Oh my gosh. He's got Sophia. Uh, that reminds me. That reminds me. Did you find Amy's book? No. Me- But me and Lucy have been talking because we're still going through and, uh, transferring bulls and doing things from the sale, and still needing to look up some of the paperwork. And, uh, I was like, "Listen, Amy has this stuff down to a T. We need to get on a Zoom call with Amy and she can help you through." And she's like, "We need to do that as soon as possible," because she said, "I'm 100% in because I would need... We need help with this to make it easier." Hey, we never talked about that. Amy was super stressed about that book, but if you looked at her face, she did not, she didn't look stressed the whole time, did she? No. No. She knew what to expect. Lucy w- She was steady, and she had Sophia there doing her things, and, and her mom was doing some other things, and, you know, like, they were all wearing matching shirts too, so if you weren't from there, you knew. You'd be like, "Hey, go find the ladies with the green striped shirts. They're right over here, green striped shirts." Yeah. And it just all had a lot of order, and so- Vince, we were, we were talking about basically nothing for a long time, but- Okay. We were talking about our chiltrens. We were talking about children. Corbin, do... I know you use CCI. Do you use their mar- their, uh, checkout service? No. Dude- I need to it makes everything easy. Yeah. So easy. I need to. 'Cause then, like, I, I even noticed whenever Amy was checking everybody in, she was just using CCI to do all of it. Once it's in there- Yeah it, it, like, it gives you a number, and that's your number forever. And then I, I would assume all your buyers' numbers, or all the phone numbers and contacts that are in your CCI inventory are your own, so you can- Yeah, but, but here's the deal. Like, if, if, um, who was here? Wilson. He has a CCI number, so it don't matter if he's at your sale, my sale, Joe's sale. Whoever uses CCI, he's in the system, that's his number. Yeah. So I like that too, because there's nothing like showing up to a sale for the 15th time that you've been to it, and they're like, "Well, what's your phone number?" Right. "Joe Fisher, are you the one with the C?" And I'm like, "I've been here 15 years straight" Yeah. You know? Like, I've lived in the same place, and, and I, I'll joke about it. It's not really that big a deal to me, but to some of our commercial cattlemen, it's a big deal. Right. If they don't get a book too, like- Well, the other- that's another pain in the butt thing. The other thing is, like, I think they go over, "Hey, are, is this still your address? Is this still a good phone number?" Yeah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, for sure. Just to make sure. Just to make sure- Yeah it's all, they haven't moved or whatever. And, and, and Amy can change that- Yeah on CCI's deal? Yeah. That's incredible. That's incredible. It, it's awesome, and they go ahead and email people a bill right then. Yeah, I got the bill. It's, it's awesome. We got the bill immediately. But, but isn't that something different? Isn't that something different, Vince? Like, if you look at Bill, and you're like, "Hey, Bill, thanks for coming. Uh, what's your address?" Or if you look at Bill and you're like, "Hey, Bill, thanks for coming." Right. "Are you still at 1556, uh- Correct Lone Star Road?" It'll be like, "Oh, yeah, you got me in there?" Did you, uh- "Yep, we gotcha." Did you get that weird mole checked out on your arm there? Yeah. The other thing- Get a little- The other thing too was, um, you know, you always find some kid to run block cards- Yeah to the check-in station. Oh, yeah. When she's- types it in at the block, it shoots it over to Amy, so there's none of that. You don't have to have that. It's instant. We have that. We have a ti- and, like, uh, not only the f- but the amount is sometimes different that we get from the block, and then back- Yeah to, back to the room there. So- So yeah, we're gonna- It's all done we're just gonna have to do, we're gonna have to do that. Do you ever get into that, Vince? What? Like- Somebody's like, "I know I paid 47.50, and they have me down at 4,800." Uh, years ago we had that, but not in a while. Not with CCI. Not in a while. To be, to be frank- I don't think- my- Amy might say yeah mine has always been the other way. Like people- Oh, like, "We got you down at 47, but it was 48"? saying, "Hey, man, you... Hey, we actually paid, we actually paid six for that bull, and you got us at 57.50." Ah. "No, that's no problem. You're gonna pay 57.50." So- I think it's happened once, literally one thing, one thing we do as well is I'll take, um, the sale order and reconfigure and put a blank for a price and a blank for a buyer number. Correct, yeah. And I give it... We have two other people that are sitting there writing that down as well, and then- Then you're, then you're double-checked if there's a discrepancy, yeah, we can make sure three people's stuff matches. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. So- I like that. That's good. I think that's something we'll, we'll probably do in the future, Vince. I like that. It's real simple. We keep track... Did you guys know we give away a free bull at our sale? Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So we also have to keep track of making sure that the right bidder number with the lot number goes into this big tumbler that some kid'll go draw, you know, later on. Right. And, uh, you end up with a lot of people who, God bless 'em, and we're so thankful for all the help just like you are, but they don't do this every day. Right. I mean- Right uh, they might be, you know, working in town in the supermarket or a legal paral- a paralegal or, or who knows, a nurse, right? Right. They don't do this, and so sometimes just all the numbers, you know, 47.50, now 5,000- then the auctioneer's going- Right and everybody gets- Oh, yeah, yeah easy, easy kind of a mess up. Well, and then if you have a female sale and you have a calf, an A lot, did that A lot sell with the cow, or is it a separate sale? Oh, yeah. Right. That can get confusing sometimes. Oh, man, that one's tough. I don't know how you guys orchestrate all those choices because sometimes it'll be like, well, we're, we're offering choice, but then we're selling both, and sometimes it's like, you know what? No. We're, we're selling one of these three. Right. And, and you guys are clear on how you're offering them in the sale book, but to the, to the help, they don't... I mean- Correct it can be a big mess. Correct. So- I thought that... Why are we talking about sale stuff? I told you it was weird because he brought up Ella Langley, and that's what started it all. Okay, so now let's just- Ella Langley was at the sale, and I missed it? No, let's just drop- all that and get to the song. Maybe she was hunting armadillos down by your house. Probably. She, I could see her doing that. I could see her doing that and ripping darts while she was doing it. Definitely. Um, but no, I was telling Joe and Vince earlier about this song that I heard that's just so catchy that it's caught my attention. Y- yeah, but she- Did you even listen to it? Yeah. And I found it somewhere else and listened to it again, but that's as far as she sings it. Where's the rest of the song? No, it's on Apple Music. It's a whole song. Wait, is Vince listening to the reel? Yeah. Yeah, but no. Only the- But, but here's the deal. No, when I was scrolling, it popped up again, and she was on stage- Yeah, bro singing the same thing. Well, black mode. And she just said the same little phrase, that was it. I'm like, "Where the hell's the rest of the song?" But that little phrase is what got me hooked though. I mean, like- She's got a good voice she's got a really good voice. And, um, I don't know, it's a very endearing message when you see the reel, 'cause that's how I saw it, was I saw the reel. I was like, "Ooh, what's this?" And then I looked the song up and I'm like, "Man, I like this song. This song's catchy and it's pretty good." I think it's gonna be one of the songs of the summer. But the song is called Boston by Stella Lefty. I don't know if any of our listeners are gonna look that- Boston. I'm, I'm writing it down, and I'm gonna look at the charts next week, and I'm gonna look at it this week and see if you move the needle as far as Theo Von did- I'm- for Ella Langley. I bet. You know, it'd be cool. I, I bet if I called her right now, she'd go on our podcast. We have so much, uh, we have so many listeners that, that could really bump her- Yes ratings so much. Yes. So how about this, though? How can we have so much history of music in this world, and we're still discovering people with unique tones and unique styles and- It's crazy isn't it incredible? And then I don't... I, I know we're getting into a weird space here, but, but I really enjoy going back and listening to just really old music, too. Uh, just I'm one of those people that likes... I, I go back and listen to music like Elvis and stuff like that, and then I'll listen to Hank Williams, and then I'll listen to his, Hank Williams Jr., and you go through all these different, uh, days and, like, the different times of, of life. Do you- It's crazy do you have any playlists? Or do you just- No, what I'll do- random Pandora it? What I'll do is I've got Apple Music, and so I'll go, I'll think of a song, and I'll go type that song in, and then I'll create station. And then I'll go station to station, and then I might listen to a different song, and another one might pop into my head. I'll look that up. I'll go from AC/DC to Hank Williams to different stuff all the time. Do you, do you do that, Vince? Or what do you do? I go... I've got a bunch of songs from a long time ago. Do you just listen to them on reels? No. Yeah, I just listen- Yeah. to par- partial songs. You only play a little bit of each song. Just little, little bitty bit, yes. No, like f- like I go fr- from Nelly to Mark Chestnut to The Hollies. Absolutely. Absolutely. To the Red Clay Strays, to Sturgill Simpson. All the time. All the time. Yeah. Yeah. To Nelly again. Yeah. I'm all over it. And you just named- four people within that group of five that I could sing every word of their song- Yeah but I probably- Lynyrd Skynyrd but I probably haven't looked those particular people up- in two or three years, so now they'll- they need to get bumped to the top of my list. There you go. But I can do Country Grammar by Nelly all day long. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, but you know what the first song was? It was, uh- Oh, Force One Batter Up. Have you ever heard of that song? Ooh, yeah, that's- That one's- I love that song underappreciated. Mm-hmm. It's fantastic. I feel like- No, I like Apple Music. I've been doing that for, like, three days now. Abby sent me a song on Apple Music, and does yours, Corbin, does it, like, fade in and out sometimes too? Oh, yeah. It's- Yeah super cool. I, a- and then it, I- I'm guessing it's an algorithm that exposes you to different artists that's... I told you, this one that you sent me, Boston, I clicked on it and listened and my algorithm changed and it sounded like- The rest of them Meredith's bedroom. The rest of them- Is it just random? Yeah, but the ones, like, after that song, I was like, "Ooh, I'm not vibing with any of these." I changed that quick 'cause it was, like, serious, I don't know, like, I'm sad in my bedroom. Like, depressed girl with the guitar- Yeah, sad in her bedroom and no socks on and their legs crossed. Yeah. Right? Like, this is not what I, this is not what I just heard the song before, because she's, like, all bubbly and happy to be there, and then it went straight to doom and gloom, my boyfriend left me. Well, that's not gonna get her very far. Everybody's done a my boyfriend's a piece of crap song. They have. She's- I'll tell you what, though she's not like that. I'm telling you, she's not like that. Ella Langley's boyfriend's a piece of crap song is rocking and rolling right now. That's what I'm saying, the, the doom and gloom ones, no. Oh, yeah. There's too, there's too gloom. But she's not doomy and gloomy. No, she's drinking Jack all by herself. Oh. And don't give a poop about it. No. Yeah, so- I had to say that slowly for some reason. Okay, so what are we ta- what are we talking about? Are we just gonna talk about this all day, or what? No, well, we were waiting on you and now you're here, so that's what we've been doing this whole time is- We teased it, though, like we're supposed to. Good But it feels like it was so long ago. We should probably tease it again before we get rolling. Or just get rolling. Uh, okay, but the topic, so that our listeners remember, is evaluating cattle in different stages of life. Um, uh, what do we expect those cattle to do in order to call it a success? I would like to take t- phenotype and numbers out of the equation. This is a functional discussion. So whereas we get into a lot of EPDs and, uh, the way this calf, cow moves and just stuff like that, I just wanna know what, what's acceptable as far as what a cow does in her life. And, and yeah, phenotype and numbers is gonna play into it, but we can have that discussion organically without using the numbers and the phenotype, right? I mean, that- All right that should handle itself. I mean, I've really enjoyed watching my cattle evolve in their genomics from actually quite decent to terrible over time. That's always fun. Right. There you go. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. No, no, I think, so it's funny you brought up that topic, and I actually, I really liked it, and, um, we're stalling for a middle episode because Vince and I have a couple different guest ideas, and so does Corbin, and we're trying to figure out the right guest to bring you guys as well. Um, but this one for me was timely because I'm seeing all these calves that are selling for piles and piles of money, that I'm like, man, at that stage can you really evaluate what they are or what they aren't? And Vince is shaking his head. I'm gonna press you and say, when can you start evaluating one, Vince, for- I can- Like, this one's gonna last here for a while I mean, honestly, it's, it's, it's constant. For me, it's a constant. I may, I may think that this one's gonna be the one, and then a year or two later, the one over here that wasn't even on the radar is gonna be the one. Right. Um- Yeah I'm not a guy that gets super excited about baby calves. I just, they're just calves. They're gonna... And the reason why I say that is you can get excited, but they change so much. So as long as that baby calf is growing and changing and doing everything it's supposed to do- Growing mainly at what, at what, at what age do you start to latch onto that calf being able to be, like, a l- like, being able to decipher a little bit of what it is? For me, it's more around weaning, a little bit before maybe. Around weaning. Yeah. And then, you know, you- Yeah, when they start, when they start putting on weight, uh, they're alongside their mom and they're starting to kind of look a little bit more like mom, and you kind of- Right uh, maybe they're not with mom as much and you notice them off by themselves, and they kind of are doing their own thing a little bit more, maybe a little bit right before weaning kind of. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then af- after you wean them, of course, and then watching them go for the next till they're yearlings and, you know, all those are gonna kind of change back and forth as a group. Um, but there's always a couple that you kind of find and you just stay on them. Yeah. Um, sometimes they end up letting you down, sometimes they don't You know, and then, and then what ends up happening is these ones that you d- ones that you kinda latch onto but you didn't really latch onto, but you- you knew who they were- Right uh, after five years, like, that- that's, that's the one that I- Correct that's the one right there that, that kinda... And really what it comes down to is a, is a cow breeding on time a- and- Yeah raising a big calf. I mean, that's, that's really what it boils down to, right? I mean, generally there's, there's some things about a cow that we could not like, but if a cow's raising a big calf and breeding back early, she's generally one of the ones that stays. Well, that's the whole thing. We can get so excited about all these as calves, and at weaning, and yearling, oh, you know, and even if they're really doing what you want them to do, "Oh man, they're, she was in the top three for weight, or yearling weight, weaning weight," blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, then, you know, what it really comes down to is, um, them getting bred and calving. Did they stay bred? Did they calve when they were supposed to? Then did they turn around and breed right back? Then did they wean a big calf or they wean a little dink calf? Did they have enough milk? I mean, it's just constantly revolving. And then it's like, it's like, well, um- maybe I don't like this cow's udder very much. It's like, well, well, instead of me culling this cow and just getting rid of her and cutting her head off, let me just be cognizant of that when I'm breeding her. Right. Let me just try to fix what I got. Right. 'Cause if she's breeding on time and doing her job, sh- she's still doing her job. You, there's definitely things you could tweak about a cow, but let's just get 'em bred up on time and, and then let's change 'em as we go. Joe? I'm going to... I don't know that I'm gonna disagree, but I am gonna say I do like evaluating baby calves. And I, I mean, when I see 'em, it feels like, I don't know what the it factor is, but if they don't have it within the first week, they typically don't end up having it in our deal. And it's, when I say it, I don't know how to describe what it is because for our, for our... Anybody that's graduated a high school level judging team can come out and find these super typey, cute little things, and they typically don't grow. I mean, that's, you find that really cool bellied, mature looking, little bitty one, really, really, I mean, square made and cool, I mean, them cattle, to me, don't end up having enough gas in the tank. I wanna see some that have a little bit more cannon bone to 'em. I wanna see some that, uh, just have future in 'em. Right. And future is def- is defined by your own program. And, um, I don't know. I, that's where I wish, honestly, guys, I wish, I wish I was a little bit better- student in the Bonsma thing because I think that there are traits that those people can find that transcend beyond in terms of actual productive value. Um- Right but some of these folks that get so wound up about a fat little heifer calf at a sale or something, I'm like- She's cute, all right. She's cute. I think it's- Yeah, she's cute I think it's funny when you start diving into the Bonsma deal a little bit. It's like a lot of the things that the Bon- the Bonsma look are, are the ones that, that make it through the sort without you even thinking about them. They're just the ones that make it. Like, you look, look up at the end of the day and you're like, "Man, this cow kinda does a lot of the things they were talking about over there," and I, I just kept her 'cause she bred on time, you know? Right. It, it's, it's funny how you start to notice those sorts of things, too, about a cow over, over the years. Um, obviously there's a reason why you're latching on- How many people are flushing those kind, Corbin? How many people are flushing those kind? I don't know. I try to. Yeah. I think- But it's- I think there's, I think there's more people trying to now than there used to be, and I think social media's changed that. I think, I think that there is an increasing space of people feel- feeling validated in cows that have just hung around for a long time and done a good enough job. Um, it seems like there's still the people chasing these exceptional outliers for whatever it might be. I mean- Don't you feel like it's a little bit like a, almost like a cellphone video has kinda taken a really important space, and so it's like, uh, well, uh, instead of it being these flashy pictures, it's like, well, I, I saw a cellphone video of that cow. I hear that a lot. It's like, "I s- I saw a cellphone video of that cow and I really liked her." Um- Yeah, somehow that trumps everything. But, but it can also be very dangerous, a cellphone video, because- 'Cause if it's not good and I don't mean doctored. I mean a cow could be walking down a hill, through a ditch- Right and, you know, or something- It could do as much harm as much good, too yes, 100%- Absolutely or a photo. Yeah. You know? Oh, do you know how many pictures and videos I s- I take that I'm like- Me too. And you're like, "Oh"- That's not even close to what I'm looking at I, you sweet, you sweetheart, if I sent that, people would hate you so much- and you're so not hateable. It's, it's amazing. It's amazing and, but, but what's crazy is, like, if you're seeing those, it's hard to make, put into video what you see in the flesh. It's a, it's crazy. Right. Like, it- So maybe describe, I think both of you said at weaning, weaning is where we start to see a lot of differences. Yeah. I actually think it's a little post-weaning even. Because- Yeah you could see that... Have you ever noticed how that kinda chunky-fronted, sucking fat heifer calf kinda looks plump-fronted, and then as soon as she gets off her mother, that kinda goes away and- Yeah she starts lengthening up and prettying up? Yeah. I mean, I even noticed that about our bull calves. I think it's a hormonal thing. Nothing- They start stressing was shed off, and nothing was shed off. And you're like- Right "Why are these things not shedding?" Ooh. We pulled them off the cow, weather didn't change significantly, and they started shedding like- Their, their milk. How much do those ones, though... Though, and, and maybe I'm crazy, guys, but those ones that slick off early, they always tend to, they always tend to be the ones that keep going, that keep catching my eye, and, and they just go. Something about that hair shed deal here, uh, they just seem to be the type of cow that just thrive. I think, I think hair shed is definitely an underappreciated trait. Yeah. I think it just means, I think, uh, whatever your environment is, I think it means whatever's going on within them is doing right. Now, with that said, there's places where them cattle need to hold onto hair for a lot longer, so I don't wanna say for, like, people that need hair, uh, you know, it's different. But how many people didn't pay any attention to hair shed till the EPD came out? Probably too many. Yeah. Absolutely. Probably too many. Yep. If it wasn't... But those, but, but within my cow herd though, guys, the ones that shed off quicker are the ones that have stuck around, too. Right. So- It goes hand-in-hand I, yeah, I would agree. The, between, between weaning and you, and basically between weaning and breeding, they're gonna change a lot. But- Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But that's where I, I'm not a... I, I'm not good at the baby calf thing. Yeah, if it's a outlier and wonderful, yeah- You can see fruit anybody can see that. You can see fruit. But, uh- And you can see dink, and you can see- Yes yeah, you can see that rather quickly. But then once, once you get to weaning, then you're, you're like, "You know, something wasn't right here. Um, that mating didn't work." Um- Yeah maybe the m- maybe mama didn't have enough milk. Maybe we need to revisit her. Um, you know- And generally which ones, just for the audience's sake, which ones at weaning or a little bit after weaning, which ones are the ones you can detect that didn't really work? I mean, is it, like, the, the ones that are just kinda hound gutted? I mean, because that's generally what, what I notice a lot of- Right is, is the ones that just aren't as easy keeping and as easy fleshing. But then you also have to keep in mind how big your calving window is. Right. Because- Yeah it's very hard- Absolutely for me to... It's very hard for me to evaluate a- November next to a September. Right. And it, and it's, it's not hard for me to evaluate. I can see this one's got all the parts and pieces, but that gap where, you know what? She's probably big enough, he or she is probably big enough considering the age gap. It's 45 days. Or are you reading too much into the age gap and she's really kind of a dink? Right. That, that- Right I struggle with that sometimes. You know what I mean? And how about, uh, you know, calving in different seasons? Because I've got different, uh, you know, the fall cows tend to- Oh, yeah tend to get a little bit more extra attention, so they're a little bit easier to look at a lot of times, but then those spring cows still have a job to do too, and they deserve... So those, there's differences there too. I mean, like- Right. So if we're talking about stages, and that is our podcast, what about bull calves? When is you all's favorite time to evaluate bulls? If you own them through the whole production cycle, what, what would be your favorite time, Vince? Probably, probably yearling or later. I have so many of mine that will, even from yearling to 15 months, will change. But from wean into yearling, they change so much. Some of these that I don't give much credit to are standout. Some of them are, that you think is gonna be the shining star is, the everybody else passed them. You know, they peaked. So my, that's my... For me, for me, it's probably between weaning and f- I mean yearling and 15 months, 12 and 15 months. What about you, Corbin? Well, I, I think the best day to look at them is, is probably sale day. But, but my favorite day to evaluate them, uh, is, is in that, is in that time we're in right now, two weeks to right at weaning. Um, I really love to see the differences right now, because that, I feel like, is where, uh, my customers are at, and that's the differences they're gonna wanna see, is they're gonna wanna see that extra kick at weaning, uh, that little bit of extra fleshing ability, just that extra 50 to 75 pounds. Th- they're just gonna wanna see... That's where my customers are, is they're selling their calves at weaning due to 60 days past weaning. So right now is the time I love to look at them and I love to evaluate them, and I take a lot of weight into what they look like right now. The falls. These are my falls. I mean, our spring bull. So they're already weaned? Yeah, I just weaned them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I would say the same as both of you, and it's kind of a tie. I mean, I really, really love- actually the day before I wean them basically. Yes. Um, when they're still on- Oh the side of the cow and I can- Oh see that whole picture, and he's got- Yeah creamy milk all over his nose and- Oh rugged, and then he's, he goes and nurses on her, lifts her off the ground, and then goes over and starts scratching on a tree and digging holes in the field. Like, I love that. Um, and I love trying to challenge myself to say, "Can I see future in that one, or is that one too mature right now and done?" Um, and then my bulls don't typically look that impressive until they're closer to 15 months, like Vince is saying, that 12 to 15-month range, because we don't, we don't feed them as hard as we used to. Um, we try to transition them so that those bulls hopefully out on, out on winter grass when they're breeding cows, they maintain or even put some flesh on. And that has been an absolute art to try to figure out, and I'm not even close to pretending to have it figured out. I know that we did a lot better job last year than we have in the previous years. But I'll also tell you, it'll make you damn nervous, guys. It'll make you so nervous where you're like, "Oh, my goodness, they're so light, they're so light, they're so light." Yeah. And, and I even did that today. "They're so light, they're so light, they're so light." And we got all said and done, and they're 45 pounds heavier than last year in an environment where when we would've weaned and transitioned these cattle, it was... It's great now, but it was as tough in California as we've ever seen it. We had several months of fog. Those cattle sat, kind of stalled out. I mean, so when you wanna develop them real slow and for longevity, it's a humbling- It's hard you better go to church every Sunday. It's very hard. Yeah. It's mentally taxing. But that 15 months, Vince, don't they just start to look a little bit more mature? Yeah. Um, and, and they may be packing as much weight as some people sell their 12-month-old bulls, but it looks more real. It doesn't look- Yeah as fed on. It looks- Correct just ripped out. Yeah. Is that about how old your bulls were when you sold them? They were about 15. Those ones we were looking at? They were about 15. Yeah, they looked- Yeah those bulls looked perfect I thought. So what about, too, something else, and I mean, this kind of goes back to getting ready for a sale, which is not what this was about, but e- even just developing, forget the sale, just developing them. Every year, every genetic... I mean, you got the, the environment that's different. Your weather's different. Your genetics are different. You can't... There's no stamp saying, "Okay, they're gonna get this much feed for this long until this day, and then we're gonna bump them to this amount of feed this long." It's so hard- And then especially if you're gonna try to get them ready for a sale and you're not trying to overdo it and blow them out, um, that- that's very difficult to do for me. It all comes down to... What it all comes down to for me, Vince, is- is what do I have to do, whether it's in culling, feeding, whatever I gotta do to get them to breed up as a wet two, breed up as a three-year-old and four-year-old to- to stay within our cow herd. That's- that's honestly, um... Yeah, sure, there's ones that do it and don't raise a calf that's good enough, and those- those are also, uh, those are also ones I try to change. But- but, you know, those ones stand out too, but- but there's more of the ones that- that just they seem to fall out due to fertility and just different- different things make them fall out. Well, to clarify, I was talking about bulls, not females. Oh, bulls. The f- the females is a whole different- It's a different game different... Yeah, it's a whole different animal. And- and that's the other thing, you can't treat them the same. You can't just... There's no one-size-fits-all thing. Right. Um, it- and- I've seen a, I've seen a huge movement in this Angus breed, a huge movement maybe to the extreme on softness and belly, giving up some frame, giving up some gas to these cattle, some length, some real-world performance. And so when you bring those things in and try to feed them, I mean, we've tried to figure out where we're... That's not where we're going and what our program goals are. I go and I see places where those cattle have been fed the exact same as cattle that maybe 10 years ago were more of your higher octane cattle, and they're blown completely to pieces. Yeah. Um, and their feet are destroyed. That's where we get into a whole lot, a lot of those other issues. But, um, it's definitely an art and it's a changing thing to develop livestock and evaluating those stages to where... You know, let's face it, fat- fat's very marketable. Is it not? Absolutely. Fat is marketable. People would much rather buy a fat one than a thin one. Um, but trying to tow that line of development instead of full retail value fat cover on them, and an animal that'll go out and do something for that next person at the next stage of their life. Um, let's- Yeah let's just kinda shift those gears a little bit. Corbin, you mentioned wet twos. What about cows? Like- Yeah, that's what I wanna get into is cows how do you... I mean, are you done at five years old basically, and you're like- Yeah "They're stuck here"? I mean, do you give passes to one that look crappy because they're 11? Um- And what are, what are you kind of thinking on evaluating cows in the mature stages of their life? Vince? I think, yeah, you're gonna like a lot of them as four-year-olds. Yeah? Um, I will say this, you know, we sell, we generally sell about six-year-olds because I usually get to weed through a lot of problems between then, and I feel like I can offer somebody, you know, something I feel re- very confident in going and helping them. But man, by the time they're five and six years old, it's really hard to let go of some of those because they just look the part by then. Yeah. And, and I'm so... We as an industry have bumped that up from five, six years old to weaning. We want them to be awesome at weaning and awesome at yearling for marketability, air quotes, but to be honest, they're probably already peaked if you want them to look like that. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Um, and then if they're gonna peak at weaning and peak at yearling, you know, the ones that are way back in the back that you don't even give much thought to, those are the ones that are awesome at, you know, five and six years old. Dad gum, he just, he just made the biggest pull ever for two-year-old bulls, and he didn't even mean to. Everyone should sell two-year-old bulls. I would, I would love to. I would agree. I would love to too. It's incredible. That's incredible. It's, it's hard to do though. It's really hard to do. Um, so on the... When you get to the older cows, Vince said you just love them. Why do you love them all? Is it because nature has sorted on them so much- Probably we've sorted them, yeah. Yeah and you've sorted on them. The stockman and nature has sorted on them so that by the time they get to eight, most of them all look the same. Yeah. Yes. That's awesome. Yeah. And I think that that's where the bondsman stuff comes in is a lot of those really, really good students can see some of those traits much earlier in life. Even- How about, how about we didn't sort for udder, we didn't sort for feet, we didn't sort for any of that, but when I go and look at my 12-year-old cows, they've all got really good udders, they've all got pretty good feet, and they're all... They all look the same. It's incredible. Even at that age, if you have a Flora, you like her. Yeah. Wasn't she a Flora Kendra? Flora something. Hang on. Katie. Katie. Katie. Flora Katie, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I mean even Flora can look that- Hey, Vince, what room are you in right now? I'm in, uh, Sophia's old room, the guest room. I like the little horses on the sheets Those aren't horses, they're elk They're elk. Oh. It's, it's just a blanket. It's a Christmas blanket. Oh, I was thinking that was a hunt- that's a hunting cabin there. No. Yeah, the hunting cabin. Where the coon hunters stay. I, I have a secret hunting cabin I didn't show you guys- That's where the coon hunters stay that's very modern inside. What did you do with the jet ski? I'm really worried about the jet ski. And we didn't cover this in a video or anything. No, there will be a video when it happens. There will be a video. All you have to do- It's in place is try to start it. If the boys would just, just wrench on it for me, I could start it. Oh, I'm gonna start it. I'm gonna start it- with some Tannerite. I'm gonna start that dude. So anyway. You ought to do that with the washer and dryer too. We've already done it. I have videos. Refrigerators, washers, dryers. So Vince is the one keeping the old appliances. Oh, yeah. We figured it out so he could blow 'em up. Well, I don't argue a lot. Uh, can we... What do you think about putting this... I mean, the argument I have is why do we have to put it all the way up in the loft? Why can't we just go put it in the field and then blow it up? Yeah. Yeah, we'll just, we'll store it up here. It's what it's gonna go anyway. That's right. So, so they go from the ground to 20 feet up, and then they end up coming back down to the ground- to go get blown up. Oh, yeah. Why can't we just nip that 20 years in the bud and just blow 'em up? Yes, absolutely. We're not gonna go reuse... Uh, we're not gonna decide that we liked our old washer and dryer- Yeah better- Right and we're gonna go buy a third one or even- Correct another new one. Correct. Yeah, we're not gonna go back to older. It's not gonna be like, "Oh, this older TV's genetics are so much better than the new ones." So on- No the stages front though, back to that, Vince, do you think that there would've been that similar type when, uh, Shady Brook was all famous and going and blowing with all the employees and stuff? Do you think the old cows would've looked the same as the old cows do now? Ooh, that's a good question. That's a really good question, and had Vince been paying more attention to cows back then, and somebody taking the time to teach him more about cows back then, possibly could answer that. But I'm gonna say I don't know if they culled on 'em as hard back then. Uh, maybe they did it harder than what I'm doing now. I don't know. But, um, the management styles were definitely different, and I would think that there was a lot of... As to where for me, I don't care what the pedigree says it is, I don't care what the EPD say it is, if the thing's a piece of crap, it needs to be a re-sip or it needs to be culled, it's gonna happen, and I don't know that that happened back then. Yeah Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it, it absolutely does. And, and I don't know... I'm trying to think, you know, my dad leased a ranch almost 20 years ago, and for... It was a 400-and-some-odd acre ranch, and for comparison sakes, um, you know, here, that ranch would run 35 cows now, today. We pulled 400 inbred Herefords off of that, that there had been no outside germ plasm influence. Wow. And this is, like, since, I assume, the early 1900s. And had I been the person I am now- Oh my gosh, you would've cleaned that up I'd have been like, "I wanna keep those. I wanna keep them." Oh my gosh. But Dad and I had the conversation. They were so inbred and s- had so much regression, even a Cavender's Angus bull on those might have blown those things apart. They might- Are you sure? Are you serious? I mean- I had a 24-foot- They were small trailer and I had 16 full-grown cows, with horns, big Hereford horns, and when I drove out, you could not see anything in the rails of the trailer, and they were just tiny. And, um- That's incredible. So what's- And how old would they have been? Well, there would've been some old ones, there'd have been some- Who knows? young ones, but I would say- Were they just running wild the whole time, though? I mean, did they get fed or tended to, or- They, they were tended-ish to. Like, they, they wouldn't... Those folks wouldn't have known how to doctor anything, and every once in a while they'd have grabbed a whole trailer load and paid some bills or something, you know? Um, and when I say 400, it was all stages and classes of cattle. Very few steers, lots of bulls. Different weight. Yeah. Yeah. A- and, and they musta had a roan gene floating around in there, 'cause they were really- Oh really heavy on the roans, which was, was odd. This is starting to not sound as good. Starting to not sound good. But the point- So did they- the point I was trying to make, though, is I don't remember any of those old cows having anything close to the biological type of the old cows at Bruin Ranch right now. Ah, yeah, I understand. Vince- Yeah, but did they not pull any of the bulls... Sorry to interrupt. Did they not ever pull any of the calves? So the bulls just grew up and were bulls roaming with the cows? Yeah, I think that's... Yeah, there would be some of that, Vince. There'd be, there'd be a, a two-year-old bull on the side of a cow, uh, her calf- Oh, yeah and maybe another yearling following around. So listen- I mean, it was- Oh, wow it was no management. I have a neighbor that does that now. I have a neighbor that does that now, but it's with Brahmans, and it's- Oh, wow way worse than you just said I mean, and now if you think about it, isn't that the coolest little science experiment you ever coulda ran? If you had it still there today, I woulda, I woulda loved to have genotyped them or something. Dude, there has to be, there has to be some kinda sort, though, because of what this lady has down the road- there has to be some kinda sort or it's bad. Yeah, and- It's bad. Think of everything bad about a Brahman, everything bad about a Hereford, they probably had all that. And you know what's funny? Is we, we romanticize over nature will select and all this stuff- I'll bet you them cows were only calving every year and a half or two years. Absolutely. Yeah, with that many bulls out there? Because the bulls are sucking their mom and they're- Exactly. Yeah. And they're- There was, there was enough... There wasn't enough predator or harsh enough winter to kill off the low performers, and so they're kind of half starved and then they get into plenty and then they... And, and you'd like to think, oh, most of them calve in June, 'cause that's when the deer calve and blah- or fawn. No. No. It was- It's kind of... You know what? It kind of reminds you of a herd of elk, right? How you've got- It reminds you of some purebred operations right now, actually. You- Like the- Some of, some of the videos we see on Facebook, for sure. I mean, when they calve every single day of the year. Yeah. Think about that herd of elk, how, how, like, there's this big, like the one, you know, there's a 400-inch elk right there. Well, you think about this herd of cows, there's probably one that stands above the rest, that always gets one alpha to the end, right? So you think about the calves. If the previous calf was still nursing when the other was born, it probably didn't get any colostrum. Right. So then did the older one even beat it away or- Yeah. All right, so- I would imagine there was a lot of death loss. A lot of death. Have to be. Yeah. Now, uh, per unit of energy, those are the most profitable cattle in the world, right? 'Cause they weren't doing anything. They just go out and just- What if they never sold any of them or caught them or... Oh, so they wouldn't get a bunch and go sell them at one time. They would just go get some and sell them. But- Isn't a, isn't a nursing cow eating more than a dry cow? Dude, I don't, I don't know. Yes. That's what they've always said, right? I mean... Oh, absolutely. But I just don't... It, it was interesting. You know, when I went to Ranching for Profit, they talked about that. They said, "You know, what does management cost?" And talked about this arbitrary herd of cows that humans hadn't interfered with, and they had this many calves and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, "You know, that's really, really good for the teaching opportunity, but I've seen it in practice and I would as- I would say that some management would have benefited those cattle greatly." I'm gonna say that everything that you've mentioned, like, about those cows, it, it has been an advi- advocacy for management. Yeah, I would say so. I would say so. But it would also be a cool science experiment to see and go through and select those ones that have lasted a long time and been treated like crap, and then to make a herd of cows out of them. Oh, I'll tell you what- It would be cool to do that the first person that y- the first person that sold them an Angus bull that didn't kill their cows because of all the hybrid vigor, I mean, you'd be... They'd- you'd have a customer for life, 'cause those would be the coolest calves they'd ever saw in their life- Absolutely no matter how- There would be so much, there'd be so much FYNB- If they lived just exploding. If they lived, exactly. Exactly. Right, if they lived. But, uh, no, it was, it was really fun to see that and, and I brought that up just evaluating stages and stuff. Um- I don't know that there was a correlation between their mature cows and ours now, when I ask that question to you, Vince. I know that our old cows at Bruin, Bruin's still a really young business, if you think about it, 20 years. I mean- Right how many times do you really get that generational line to go down and what... We still have cows that it's only Bruin one time. You know, it still goes back to a daughter of Torque's mother, basically. And so when you think about the change that you can affect, I mean, it just takes a long, long time, and we haven't, we haven't really seen a huge difference. I think the old cows 10 years ago probably looked very similar to the old cows now. Especially when you think about, uh, mother nat- the ones mother nature sorts, and then also the ones that get sorted because of it's just not the right mating, whether you made it or whether it was a herd bull or whatever, too. I mean, there's just... It's hard to affect change because you, of the culling, because of the constant- So- culling you have to do can we take a shift back on the stages and add a different question to them? Yeah. At what stages do you remove them from your breeding population? And I, it's a trick question, 'cause I know both of you. But at birth, you don't make a decision on if this one's a bull or not, generally speaking, right? No. But you do at weaning, and you do at yearling, and you do beyond that. At each one of those stages, Corbin, what are you looking for? Um. Did you just have a safety pin in your mouth? No, it was a piece of ice. Okay. Okay. I don't have anything to drink and my, got- Okay dry mouth over here. Parched, yeah. Okay? 'Cause I've been talking a lot. You need a hall. So I was just sucking on a piece of ice. Um, say that question again, 'cause now I'm thinking about ice. Okay. So, so let's just say you're a seed stock supplier, so you are constantly culling on your herd through- Yes on the bulls it's through castrating, right? Right. Talk about your biggest cut. What stage of life do you cut the most, and then cut again, and then cut again, and what it takes- We- to fall out at each one of those stages? Weaning is generally the one where we can cull out the most. And, uh, I think at the beginning when we started doing this, we were, we were culling a, by percentage a lot more, because a lot more of them weren't good enough. But I think as I've become a better breeder and started doing a better job, we're actually selling, you know, keeping more bulls with less cows. Whereas I used to have a whole lot more cows th- in the population, as through the drought and things, we've got a lot less cows around here now, but yet we have a lot more good ones So- So now we're trying to build from there I think Vince would answer that very similarly, I'm guessing. So Vince, talk about females because you also sell females. I don't get to talk about bulls? Well, if you want to, go ahead. Go ahead. We actually, we actually, um, we band all our steers or commercials at birth because I don't... I'm only gonna do the commercial bull, I can barely sell the register bull. But here lately I have started, you know, the, the last ones born, they're always way- So to be clear, at birth, like when you're tagging them? Yes. Yes. When we're, when the later ones are born, say, say we calve September to November. Well, the bulk of our calves will be born between September 1 and October 15th, 20th. Right. Then we'll, we'll have just a, a little wad of them- Stragglers stragglers. So I started even banding some of those because they're n- Oh, absolutely they're never gonna match the others. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and they're worth more as a steer than they are. But after that, at weaning, I don't cut 'em, I just, I just get 'em gone. Oh yeah, you just- Because- you just generally you're talking about 10 cents. It ain't 10, 15 cents. And- It's not a lot and, and it's, it's, to be clear, when they get big, when they get to be a year old and you band them, it takes a lot out of them. Or even at cutting them at a, at a, um, at weaning. Yeah. They go backwards for a month, 30, 45 days, and then- So I think it would just depend- you get 'em back up on the- I guess it would just depend on how many you had to sell at a time because if you had- Right if you had 60 steers and you had 10 of 'em that you, you were gonna band to make steers that were bulls- Correct. Just- well, then you'd go ahead and band those 10 and make it a- I don't a profit or whatever. Well, I wouldn't have that many anyway. I wouldn't have that many. If you had that many, you would. Well, maybe. That's the difference is- Maybe, yeah you know, if you, if you had, if you had enough to make a difference, you know- Right 'cause whereas it sells, you know. But- I think that, that weaning we culled, there was maybe 16 and I think 10 of them were steers and the other six or maybe 12 of 'em were steers. It wasn't many. Yeah. And, and by, I mean, like I say, and by the time I keep 'em another 60- Yeah to 90 days to let 'em go down and back up, what have I- Yeah. Absolutely I've really lost money instead of just going in and taking the hit. Or you- But you're also, you're also diversified. So you're busy row crop- cropping or cutting hay for Nate or all these things. So me, I agree with you, it's picking up pennies, but I also don't have a fully stocked feed resource. I have extra grass. So I band a lot of cattle at weaning- And then kick 'em out because there's a, there's a whole group of people here, not far from here, they make their living off buying these bull calves undervalued- Right, right banding 'em, turning 'em out, and getting 'em healed up, and then package 'em together. And I have enough numbers where I can make that work. And so, you know, if I get 130-pound calf- Yeah um, I'll just, I'll slap a band on him, or I'll just cut him and pull it right, right there as we're tagging him. Um, and then certain cows, certain re-cips, you know, um, which we used to run a substantial re-cip herd, we would do the same thing, Vince, just because it could be so doggone tempting. Cow with bad foot, you know? Yes, I was just fixing to say that. It could be so tempting to be like, "Oh boy, look at that lumber she brought in." Right. Yeah. I was just fixing to say that. And then you gotta deal with that later. Yeah. Um, so but I would, I would say the majority of our sort on stages would be at, at weaning time. Right. And the other thing that's cool is, is I've developed a lot of these relationships with local people that wanna feed out three steers, and I'm like, "Hey, let me band 'em, get 'em healed up, and I'll deliver 'em to you guys." Yeah. Yeah. Cool little niche deal there. And, and honestly, if you have... you know, end up like us, you might end up with 20 of those, and you might have, uh, 20 of another, it, it doesn't take long to whittle away with a bunch of different customers. Right. And if you've... you end up with 30 or 40 cattle that kinda fit that class, and you made 200 bucks apiece by doing that, you know, that's- Right a sub- substantial amount of money. Um- Right. But I, I also would say at yearling, um, we would also have a little bit of a sort. Not a huge one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But a little bit of one, um, on feet or disposition or- Or they just didn't grow not growing. Those are the ones that are hard to band. Those are the ones that are hard to band and weight on. I've got three right now. Those. I got three right now that were just borderline, and that's something else that I've learned over the years. You always have those ones that are just teeter-tottering on the fence. Well, they may come out... They never do. They never- They never do do. No. And I pulled three, and I said, "I think these three'll be all right." One of, one of them I think was a age deal that we were talking about earlier, and as soon as I kicked them out and saw 'em all out in the pasture, I was like, "Pssh, they gotta go. W- next time we get 'em up, they gotta go." Yeah. So what I've started doing, Corbin, on those yearling bulls is we'll leave 'em in the feed lot, and then we'll bring 'em home and feed 'em hard for, like, 60 days, and those end up being the ones we eat. Yeah, absolutely. For sure. So I... we don't typically sell those, but we're eating a bull right now that would be that old, and I don't... It might've been a failed semen test or something. Um, absolutely delicious. I mean- Yeah there's no, like, taint to it or anything. There's plenty of marbling. You know, you- That's good. No, I've done that too plenty tender. So- What about your females Females is... This is one that's gonna be different for, that's gonna be fun t- to discuss to me I would say for me, what we've typically done is try to keep the middle cut of the oldest. And so I think that's what's scary about straight up sizing cattle is, to your point, Vince, some of those younger ones that'll size right in there with the older ones, they're probably too big for you really, um, because they just have accelerated growth and they just look the same as the one 45 days older than them. Um, and then some of those earliest ones are way too big and some of them are, excuse me, way too small. And so those I have, you know, of course now that we're in this year of plenty, things don't really apply. We're hanging on to everything that we can- provided it's not a total bane. And then we w- we'll breed them and package them up as commercials or whatever for people. Um, but generally speaking, we'll whack on those heaviest at weaning and then after we whack on the, the low, like, I, I... I'm saying low, the youngest and then the big monster outliers, um, then we just let our arm or the bull sort them. So we try to breed as many heifers as we can and then we'll sort those based on calving date and we'll calve most of them out and then try to sell pairs privately to people. Corben? I just, uh, pretty well just sort on calving, calving window. Um, as long as they stay within a 60-day calving window, I'll pretty well keep them if they're a heifer or, I mean, unless I don't, unless I put them in a sale or whatever. But I'll keep them and then I'll try to change them and, and try to make them better. And, uh, there is a... Eventually they sort themselves based on what I'm trying to do with them. So, uh, if they stay within our ca- calving window, they could stay here forever. Um, that, that doesn't mean that I'm selling a bull out of them, but I still sell steers too, right? Yep. Right. So, uh, that cow still has a job to me and there's... I have no problem... Why would I have any shame in a registered cow raising a steer? What, there's no shame in that. Right. Um, just because they're not making a bull that makes the bull sale. Um, uh, and then that heifer out of her, you know, she might not be the top end of the top end, but I, it, I'm changing them over time. I'm not trying to, to change the world in one, in one deal here. You know, I'm just trying to- What if you had- cattle that last what if you had a heifer that was on the smaller end of the spectrum that raises you the biggest bull every year, do you still cull him? Not as long as she breeds up. I'm talking about the- Well, that's a- talking about the bull. Do you still cull the bull? Oh, heck no. Well, I don't care if the cow's small I don't care if the cow's small Well, that's what I'm saying. What if it was, uh, her mother just didn't milk very good and she... Or maybe she got sick at a young age. What if she was a twin? Or what if she... What about this cow out here, 409, that I got right now that, that got bred on the cow somehow? Uh, so she calves it. She's one of my replacements. I've got her out with the bull, and she calves at the end of the bull being, you know, it's in the summertime. Right. She's supposed to be a spring of the next year. She calves in August. So what do you do? Like I, I put that cow, she's obviously stunted. Right. All I did was put her in with this fall, the fall calving cows. She stunted. She raised a calf that's gets cold, but she bred up on time to be a fall. Right. So she's a full whole calving window younger. Right. What do I care? As long as she's a cow that's raising a calf, uh, I'll keep her as long as she'll breed. As long as she raises a good calf. I don't care how good it is. I mean, it- it's probably not gonna be great, but I'll just cull it. Right. As long as it calves within my window and it matches up good enough with what I'm trying to sell, um, that cow still... Let's say she raised, let's say, let's say we sell a Dragon steers that, that averages 585, and a Dragon steers that weighs 525. As long as, as long as that steer's big enough to be in that group of 525, I see no problem with that cow. And what about you, Vince? What do you do? I generally don't cull any females unless, um... Okay, so let's say your, your, your average weaning is, let's just say 600, and your, your range is from 500 to, to 650. If something comes in there at like 4-something, they're gone. You know, they're... You can... Dramatic difference. Yeah, those ones are easier to source. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But generally, I don't get rid of a heifer because they have, they could still do a job. They could be a recip. Yeah. They could be, like you say, sort them. If they don't breed, get rid of them then. Um, if they're bringing in a calf that's too small, I generally don't give them... pay a lot of attention to it the first year. But if they're second year, third year, if they make it a third year, if they're still weaning a subpar calf, they just need to go because they're taking up space in a pasture for me. Um, yeah, right now everything's good to say, "Well, we'll just cull the calf," but I mean, if you're limited on space, then that cow's taking up some pasture space that you could have a good cow in. You could... But, but would you say that a lot of times you just put an embryo in those type of cows? 'Cause I think a lot of guys- Correct. As long as they milk. I s- you know, we always AI our heifers. Right. Everything's gonna get bred. Let's see how they do. If they seem to have enough milk, if they've got nice udder- Like, maybe it's just her genetics. She just doesn't have it. It could b- do- could be, dude. What if she got... I mean, like I said, what if they got sick and you didn't catch it? Yeah. I mean, or, you know, you mentioned twins. How many sets of twins that we don't even realize are twins because the other calf may die, but that calf still didn't get all of the nutrients it was supposed to get in the, in the womb? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I, I think also it makes us different as purebred producers too, because there's the whole herd security stuff. There's handling stuff. I mean, um, and if you have a grass-based resource, it, it depends on the year. Like right now, we're in a whole bunch of plenty, and so we, if we can cash flow our operation, we're gonna hang onto as much inventory as we can because it's not realistic- Right for us to go buy a set of steers somewhere or to go buy some, some rebreed cows or some other commercial cows. I mean, we're always looking for opportunities like that, but we gotta remember that from a management standpoint, we're bringing in an unknown. And, and for those of you who followed along on our social media or even on here, and you guys too, I mean, there's some cattle we could just plum not get gathered off this ranch. I mean, it is rough and tough, and our cattle that have grown up here, um, handle a certain way because we have a certain group of people that just know how to get stuff done. But if you get some of those sour cows that ended up at a sale barn because they couldn't be gathered and they needed a rope to drag 'em in and you turn those out here, now we've got a really big problem. So- You're never seeing again we probably, we carry more inventory than a commercial operation would to utilize our grass the best. Um, and, and we'll even do some of that with cow cows. Like a cow slips a calf and she's bony and, and, you know, maybe she milked really, really hard, we'll, uh... a- and so she's drawn down. If we've got the grass resources, I'm gonna stack as much weight onto her and sell her in like February of the next year because there's kind of a marketing hole there. But if we don't have the feed resources, you could bet every single one that isn't carrying a pregnancy is- Right is gonna go. It, it just- Absolutely it's a factor of cash flow. It's a factor of resources. It's, uh, feed resources. It's just basically understanding all of your resources. And to tie a bow on a lot of this, I think that- The size that all of us are at, the three of us, and maybe even a little bigger than we are, it seems to be the sweet spot in my mind for seed stock production because it's enough that you can have some real numbers that mean something, but you can also know them on an individual basis and have kind of an index in your mind of all those stages of development and a real intimate understanding of what you're passing on to your end user. And so I, I like that, let's just call it 75 to 350 cow number. I feel like everyone can really have a handle on what those cattle are doing and understand them and, and you're not big enough to be able to justify too many employees, so you're still having your hands dirty and having to deal with it as the manager. Does... Is that fair to you guys? Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. There's probably someone out there that can handle more than that, but, um, and there's probably someone out there that can't handle 75. Sure. Sure. But I think a- as a general rule of thumb, absolutely. Absolutely, there's a threshold for sure. Um, that's different for every one of us. I, I don't know what mine... Mine might be 100. I don't know. I don't know what that number is. Um- Well, talking about stages though- I know there's a certain amount that I can handle Talking about stages, Corbin, just the stage of maturity in my business, I used to get a lot of validity for our program using genetics out of very, very big herds because I believe they had a lot higher quality data. I've caught myself last winter and, uh, I guess starting last fall all the way to this spring, visiting a lot more small herds because once you get to know those people and how much energy they put into the product they produce and how much pride and how they understand each one of them, I think there's some real sweet spots there. Um- There's a lot of those people... But what, what it boils down to, there's a lot of those people that cull a lot harder than the ones at the top. Absolutely. I would agree. There's a lot of people that sell 30 bulls that have 300 cows. Yeah. Absolutely. And, and there's a lot of people that, that, uh, you know, have 1,000 cows and sell 520 bulls. Absolutely. I mean, so, uh, not to say that culling harder is indicative of one thing or another, I just, um, I've, in my state, I, I've grown to appreciate the smaller breeder a lot more. Me too. Well, and everybody- Because I is one. Well, everybody too, you gotta remember too that everybody is different in their point of view on this whole deal. Yeah. How many times have you gone to a place and seen calves or cows that are in a sale and you're like, "I woulda culled that thing"? Um, I mean, and people may look at my stuff that way. I don't know, but... And I'm not trying to be judgmental of those people, but I do think it has to do with your maturity level within the heart, within doing this. Yeah. And your standards. And, you know, we, a lot of people could, and, and I've done it in the past too, you can excu- you can come up with excuses for, to keep a bad one that has the right pedigree or the right EPD package or what- well, her recip wasn't good enough, or well, she got sick, or well, that one's got a long toe because it got a injury. Well, well, well, well, well, well. I mean, but at the end of the day, if you're gonna stamp your name on a cow or a bull that's gonna go out in the world, it, it, you should have some good standards, in my opinion. You know, I think it's, it's just a, it's, it's a good practice to just cull that one. Just let her be gone, because eventually you'll get there. The numbers will get there. Y- you just gotta do what's right at the time, and I think that's a hard decision to make sometimes because it's like, well, I could sell a $10,000 bull out of this cow, or I could flush her and I could make more of them out of her. But it's easier to, uh, you know, or in the long run it's just better to make the decision that's harder maybe sometimes. Or I can't cull her because I gave 50 or $100,000 for her mama, so I can't cull that calf. Yes, you can. You have to. I think you said something really impactful, Vince, when you said, you know, "What does your name mean and what do you stand for?" And, um, I spent a, a period of my career breeding for the picture, and now I've just changed when you take the picture. Right. Yeah. You know, you take the picture on range land of the cow with a strapping calf on her side Absolutely Um, for, for my customers- that has value. Now- Yeah the beauty of this Angus business is, like you started your comments, Vince, there's a lot of people that don't have that as a goal. Um, and, and there's room for them, too. Correct. Absolutely. I just hope that they message what they're saying all the time, and I think some people say, "This one has a whale belly, so she is the biological type that'll go out and just convert on range and kill it." And I kinda wanna be like, "You know what? You don't know that any more than anybody else." Like, just- Did she have her whale belly 'cause she was out on range or 'cause she was over here getting the snot beat out of her? Exa- exa- Right exactly. Yeah. Exactly. But, um, listen, have we cut this one up enough? I'd say so. I, I don't... I wish we coulda had a little more pizzazz or... But I, I think there's gonna be a lot of good information to clean out of this. Pizzazz. We're all tired. Little fa- Oh, dude little pizzazz. I, I am beat. Hey, my allergies are whipping my butt today. I was gonna ask you when we got off the air, your nose even looks swollen. Dude, 'cause I've been rubbing it. Do you see it, Joe? Do you see his nose? Oh, I wasn't gonna... I wasn't gonna guess what was going on there. Like up here, Corbin. Up here, it's swollen. My allergies are whipping my butt, boys. That's- I can hardly breathe sitting- Okay, listen, go get you... My brother told me this, and I told him he was full of crap, but I did try it and it's awesome. Go get you Mucinex nose spray. Oh, yeah? Does it work? It is freaking awesome. I'll have the worst- Do you use nose spray at all, Corbin? No, I take Zyrtec, but here's the problem I've been having is usually I could take one and it'd be... it'd make my allergies go away, but I've been having to take two, and it's just making me be so tired. I take Xyzal, Singulair. So today I just took... So today- I'll work knowing we had a podcast, I just took one, and I'm just... I'm, I'm half tired and half allergic, so. Hey- So you take, you take Zyrtec, Vince, and you take a nose spray? No, Xyzal. Xyzal- Xyzal Singulair, and the nose spray. Holy crap. But I only do the nose spray when I go to bed, because my CPAP machine, it... I would just be super, like right before I go to bed, I'd be super congested, and I'll take that and within five minutes it will be s- crystal clear. Oh. That's the Mucinex one. Yeah. That's what I need. It is nuts. I'll be darned. That's what I need. It's- See, I just have a- I take the- How long does your... How, how long do you guys have allergies? All the time Really? 'Cause I just have more of like a- Mine is strongest right now re- Yeah, like when the weeds are blooming- Yeah sometimes it's really bad. Yeah. Mine's the strongest now, and it's really bad, uh, brushing horses. Like, if I'm- Oh getting ready to put a saddle on or something. Dander? Is it dander or something? I think it's probably pollen- Pollen from the oak trees or something, and the- Oh rye grass is in there. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, I use, uh, I think I use, I use Zyrtec, and then I've been on some nose spray f- just from Costco. Flonase? It might be Flonase. Got a green top. If I don't take that... Yeah, if I don't take that stuff too, um, it's bad. It is really bad. Honestly, Flonase is supposed to be better, but it doesn't give me relief instantly like the- Like the Mucinex? Yes. It is awesome. And I'll tell you what, don't touch your eyes. Do not- Oh, hell touch... No, that's... I'll even take my glasses off, and I'll poke them with the corner- Yes of my glass. Oh my gosh. Do not touch your eyes. Oh, I do it all the time. But then once you do- I do what about once you do? Oh, it feels so- Awful dadgum good. No. Clint, I'll show you sometime. No. But it'll get to burning. Oh. It'll just start burning. And then your skin gets freaking- And you can't stop it. It's just a bad deal. Like, your skin gets chapped. I'll show you one time next time we- My cheeks are chapped, and my nose is chapped from rubbing it. It's starting to peel. Mm. Clint, next time, next time we stay in an auto parts store together- I'm gonna show you. I got a scar right here at this tear duct from when I was a kid that I just rubbed it and rubbed it and rubbed it raw and ended up getting a cut there and everything. It's just like... Because it feels so good, but if you stop, it feels terrible. Um- But also I think it's fair to point out that where we live in southeast Oklahoma is supposedly, like, the, the capital for allergies of the world. I don't know, man. So- That Morton County's got something up there. Do they have it? Some sort of ragweed or something. That didn't even bother... Oh. Oh, Morton County. Morton County. Oh. What time of year was this? It w- it was, um, summertime. Summertime. This ragweed was blooming up there on tour one time, and I was about dead. And my tour host was a very gracious tour host, but he is very allergic to that ragweed, and he got to a spot he couldn't get out of the pickup. Wow. Yeah. Did I tell you about my trip to New York that time? I didn't know you'd been out of whatever county it is you live in- Listen ever. No, never. Um- Other than d- down to Clay County maybe one time- No, I've never been to Clay County in Lawton or... What? So we, we go to... Listen, we go to- You've never been to... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We can't gloss over this. Wait, wait. Never, never been to Clay County. Wait, wait, wait. No. You've never been to Randall's? No. Nope. Ugh. Okay. I am flabbergasted. Okay. New York. New York City, I wanna hear this, 'cause then I gotta- So- go haul some cattle. Um, no, not New York City. Went to Trowbridge and Garrett- New York City uh, Garrett And who had a, who had a, uh, 810? Prospect Hill? Prospect Hill. And dad's like- So how old, how old? Circle what, what year here. Um- Early 2000s yeah. Probably like 2008, '9. Yeah, yeah. This is with Tony. This is with Tony. No, dad said, "Go up there to these sales." I said, "Okay." Whoo. So my buddy comes with me from down the road. I haven't flown since 9/11, and I'm sitting up there and- Oh, this is soon after Amy, according to Amy, everybody gets on a plane's gonna die. You're- Was she with you? you're gonna die. No, she wasn't with me. You, you're by yourself. You pulled someone- No, me and my buddy went. Oh, you're by yourself. And so- He lives down the street and I'm, I never, ever got nervous flying. And, and I'm sitting there waiting on the plane, and all this crap Amy says is just running through my head, and I'm like- I'm starting to get a... So I'm starting to get a little nervous. Well, the, here comes a priest. I'm like, "We're good. There's a priest on the plane." Exactly. Anyway, we go- God's with us we go up there. No, he was just- We get to rent-a-car. We tr- we, we treat it like it's a race car everywhere we go. Had a big time. Had a, had a ball. The Garrett deal, it was in this little block building in 10,000 degrees. Um, the, the... Who'd you say the other one was? Prospect Hill? Prospect Hill, yeah. 810 was laying over there about to die with no water, no shade. And I fi- I found somebody and told them, "Look, she ain't got no water, and she's over panting." Anyway, we get to Trowbridge's deal, and my allergies are messing with me, so... No, no, it wasn't allergies. It was heartburn. I was having terrible reflux. So this girl, lady from Kentucky's up there, and she's like, "Here, here's some Prilosec." So I said, "Okay." I pop one out. She said, "No, no, no. Just keep it." I said, "I don't need it." "Just keep it." "Okay." So we sit through the sale, go to the airport. We get to the airport. I go through the thing. Beep, beep, beep, beep. And I'm like, "What?" So I got all my stuff in the little thing. My little shoes are going, my big shoes are going through the thing. My buddy's over there. I'm like, "Get my stuff." They pull me aside and put me in this glass box. See, that's something that's- And everybody, everybody that was at the sale was watching me. JP's over there going, "Hey, can I have your seat on the plane?" So look, dude, every time... I'm, I'm empty. Like, I got nothing in my pants. This dude, every time he wands my butt, it goes off. And I'm thinking- "What did I eat?" "I'm fixing to drive home." I'm looking at my buddy, Casey. I'm like, "Get my stuff. We're fixing to drive the rent-a-car home." You will escort me out of this building. You are not fixing to go hunting for whatever you think I got. So I finally stuck my hand down in my back pocket, 'cause I was just patting it, and it was that stupid Prilosec- of that aluminum paper on the back. Dude, I hand it to the guy and he wands it, and then he wands my butt and it don't beep again. He hands it back to me. I'm like, "I don't want that thing. It's caused me a lot of grief here." That was a bad experience for me. This is a great story about allergies. This, well, I, I was- I, I was actually thinking it was my allergies, but it was heartburn. I'm sorry. Same thing. Oh my God. Why... We need to splice this and put this on the front- for our banter section. Yeah, absolutely. How is it we could have a podcast with you for almost five years and never heard the aluminum butt story? Dude, I was getting nervous. They had their little rubber gloves on and everything. I was like, "We're not doing this." Oh, my God. "It ain't happening." Like, I'm glad Amy's not here. Yeah. It ain't happening, captain. It is not happening. All right. I'm gonna go haul some cattle. Be safe, y'all. Thank you guys for coming on here. Take it away, Tumor. Catch y'all next time.