The Rancher's Roundtable: Answering Your Frontier Queries

The host discuss recent feedback on a show-industry episode, then shift into questions, starting with pedigree building and placement, emphasizing there’s no formula and outcomes vary even among flush mates; they debate repeating successful matings, uniqueness versus replicability, donor consistency, and how business models affect whether repeat flushes “devalue” a female. On over-hyped sires, they avoid naming specifics but stress that what works elsewhere may fail under different management and culling context, urging producers to seek genetics from programs run similarly to their own. A listener's question prompts a broader discussion on who future beef producers will be, land costs, potential vertical integration, and technology like virtual-fence collars to reduce daily stress. They end with how studs select bulls mainly for what they can sell, suggest being your own stud, and encourage using your own bulls, slowing down, and focusing on longevity.

Transcript

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Okay Corbin, remember, don't say it. I'm not gonna say it. Okay. We're gonna keep it clean- Yes now that we've pushed record. Corbin, tease our episode. So, uh, f- it's been a month coming. Vince, Vince made a post on our Around The Shoot social media, uh, Facebook page, and asked for listener feedback, what you guys wanted to hear about, what you wanted to talk about. And, um, on 6/11 it looks like, I went through and made some notes on, on what y'all kinda talked about. So it's, it's been a long time coming, but we did, we have gone back and we've reviewed all of that stuff. And, uh, hopefully we can answer a few questions, and, um, this should be a lighter episode. Um, I think it's, it's gonna be fun. I think we're gonna enjoy it. Um, but it, but it, but it's gonna have some meat too. So, uh, hope- hopefully we can provide some insight. You, you two guys can provide some insight. I sure, I sure don't know anything. But, uh, um, I look forward to this episode and I, I'm glad you guys... Uh, I actually have not listened to the episode you recorded without me, but how did that go? Do, did we get any feedback from that one? It was positive. It was a different kinda episode for us. Um, Dr. Stockler came on and it was real heady. It was for the people who have a lot of technical type questions, I think she would definitely have met that need. Um, there was a lot about screw worm. There was a lot about, uh... So Vince, is it Theileria or Theileria? Because she said both and did not make it clear to me. I call it Theileria, but I'm not a expert. I don't know. It's spelled Theileria. But anyways- I can see where it'd be Thai, but thigh Thigh makes more sense to me, uh, being a Southern, being from the South. I don't know. Thigh or leg But if you don't know anything about that stuff, and especially if you're from the Southeast, Midwest, I think all producers should know. Um, but we've known about it a little bit just because of what Vince has shared about threats to his operation and just, you know, what he does to make sure that those things don't enter his herd. And then there's people that we've talked to that have had it enter their herd, and they deal with it. So I'd en- I'd encourage you to go back and listen to that episode. Uh, she stayed with us, Corbin, like almost two hours. Um- That, and honestly, honestly, I saw that it was two hours, and I was waiting until I had a full two-hour per- because I... Two hours is a long time for me to not have interruptions, and so I wanted to be able to listen to it un- uninterrupted. Um, I look forward to listening to it, though. It'll be, it'll be good once I finally take the time and, uh, put the time in. But normally- But I did get, I did get good feedback normally when we re- normally when we record, though, I've been there, so I don't, I can listen in passing, and I don't have to... But if I was gonna go listen to an episode I wasn't a part of, I would actually have to pay attention because I wouldn't know what's gonna happen. So I've also been lately getting positive feedback from two episodes ago still, um, where we talked a little bit about the show industry. I did have one bit, or I've, I've heard Some negative info on it, and, and let me just say, if you are the show person who is raising cattle that can go out and make a cow, we see you. We see you. I'm sure she's fine. I'm sure your cows are fine. You know, we don't, we don't hate show cattle. We- Keep doing what you're doing. Keep doing what you're doing. Just keep doing what you're doing. If... Like, that's what I don't, that's what I don't understand, Vince. Like, how do people think you're taking shots at... If you're happy with what you're doing, it's all good, right? That's all that matters. And we're not... And, and I don't... And I think it's... We weren't trying to poo-poo on your program, you know what I mean? No. We weren't. And, and both of you two have had kids... Well, Joe, your kids haven't shown, have they? A little bit. Showed steers and maybe a heifer here or there, but not like- But both, both of you have showed, so it's, it's like you're aware of what the situation is. And so we know that there are people out there that are doing it the way that, the way that we see fit, I guess you could say. But, but it's just more of a, a 3,000-foot view of what the show industry has become, I guess. And you know what else I'm dealing with right now is raising 19-year-olds and 18-year-olds, and I think a lot of people really struggle with self-confidence. And, and it's like just there aren't three guys hammering on your way of life or hammering on what you do. Be confident. We support you. We see you. If you're happy with what you're doing, lovely. Keep hammering down. Vince was gonna say something else, too. What were you saying, Vince? And Corbin has a fl- Corbin, could you kill that fly that's on your headphones? It's really distracting me, and it's making your- it's making your thing all pixelated. The, uh, the thing about... We've had more rain this year than, than we have in years pa- Like, we've been four years in a row drought. It rained, it rained six tenths of an inch last night, which July 4th rain, that's something that we kind of had grown accustomed to, but we've been missing all the July rains, all the August rains. The one thing about it is the bugs are thriving. The grasshoppers are not thriving. Everything else is. Fire ants, oh my gosh. Within the last 24 hours, all three of the people that live with me have been bit by fire ants. All three of them. It's unreal. Like, what are y'all... I, I think they are looking... I think they're seeking the fire ants out at this point, but it's like, oh my gosh. No, we went to fireworks last night, and, uh, and it's dark obviously, so you can't see the fire ant piles, and both Lucy and Mila stepped right into, uh, ant piles, and so it... Oh my gosh. And do you, do y'all have fire ants where you live, Joe? No. I mean, we have little red ants and little black ants, and they'll sting you and it hurts, but- No. Fire ants are the devil. Vince, do y'all have them? Oh, yeah. They're the devil, and them little suckers hurt, and they itch, and they drive you nuts, and they're aggressive. Um, there's a reason why they won't let us take hay from here to the north, because those things suck. But- Mm-hmm anyway, so the th- the bugs are thriving. We've had rain. Is it, is it just me or has it been so hot already? It's miserable. It has been so hot. I, I was looking at the feels like temperature yesterday. At 10:45 AM, the feels like temperature here was 105. At 10:45 in the morning. That makes for a long, long day. That's all I know. See, that's why I don't understand how you don't work with closed-toed shoes. Yeah. Uh- I just can't figure that out because my feet need to breathe. I, I am very tempted to... I have s- actually wore socks today. I don't know why. I'm not real sure why, but I wore socks today. Maybe that's 'cause it rained last night. I wore socks with slides today, but I was tempted to pull my feet up, stick them up here in the camera and show you that, um, where I wear my slides there, I have a tan line, um, on my feet. It's white just where the, where my shoes are and, uh, I have three pairs of them. I love them. I wear them all the time, slides. Vince, how's your tan line? I work cows in slides Mitch, how's your tan line on your feet? I don't have one. It's white. I bet y'all, I bet y'all's legs are so white. Yeah. Yeah, but you don't get stickers in your feet or like, like twigs or, I mean... Pretty good at avoiding those type of things. Gravel from mud. I just take them off. Take them off, walk through the mud, wash them off when I get back to the house Like Frodo feet I mean, I could ha- I'm... Flintstone feet maybe. Yeah, I- Oh, man. Um- Wait, I'm telling you, when I, I wear lace-up Thorogood boots every single day. Yes. Like I told you earlier, when those things come off though, they don't go back on. I cannot put them back on, 'cause you can't... They do get warm, but I cannot. I've tried to wear even tennis shoes in the evening to go, like, 'cause I told you I take these boots off, they're done for the day. So if I come on at, like, 3:00, 4:00, take off my boots and I'm waiting to go do evening irrigation or something and I go back in my tennis shoes, all I get are stickers, brambles, all sorts of stuff in my feet. Man, I should just put the boots back on. That's what I would do. But I would never. You wear flip-flops irrigating, Vince? No, I don't take... I, I, I don't go out without my Thorogoods on. I- Unless I put a slip-on boot on. Like, if I'm just running somewhere, I might put a slip-on boot on. Puts on a different kind of boot. No, it's like a- Puts on a- Grocery Outlet boot So when you went to get- Or a Dollar General boot a coffee before your sale- Dollar General did you put a boot on to go get coffee at the Dollar General? Yeah, I still had my boots on from that day. I never took them off. I'm surprised you don't wear- Well, you're still in your Thorogoods shorts with boots ever. I still have my boots on right now from this morning. We aren't allowed to wear sh- we do not... If we wore shoes in our house, it would be so disgusting. Well, my boots are clean. How is that possible? Because I have Thorogood flat, flat shoes. Yeah, you just stomp them off, Corbin. They don't have a heel. They don't collect hardly any dirt. Vince, pull your microphone closer. That's what I need. I need boots. There you go. I need anti-dirt boots Are they comfortable? Yeah. Do your feet sweat? They better be. Do your feet sweat? No, mine do never get hot. Is it because of the Thorogood boots, or is it because your feet don't sweat? No idea. That is the problem that I have wearing- I- uh, shoes like that, is that my feet just- I don't think it makes- get so sweaty I don't think it makes it to my feet, because it all comes out of my head. Head. All day long, my face- Yeah pores just pours- And I don't see, like, how you don't get sweat in your eyes. It does. It sucks. And how you don't even wear a hat. It makes it hotter. I can't do it. That's how shoes are for me. But you most of the time are in some sort of cab- No right, Vince? Not always. You're working outside with a bald dome? Yeah, all the time. Or in the shop fixing the cabs and f- fixing the tractors. Oh. Is it that sunburn? Tan. No, it's just tan, baby. You should see the, you should see the scabs on top of it. I do have some- There was a guy- I do have some sort of a- There was a guy who has the same haircut as Vince in front of me in church today. Yeah? And you could- Did you count his hairs? No, but you could see the line from, like, his eyebrow all the way around the back of his head to his other eyebrow, and I was like, "You wear a ball cap every day." But he wasn't in church, so he was like... He looked like, um, uh... Do you remember those, those things as a kid that you had these pouches, and it was a candy, and you'd, like, dip it in- Yes and then you'd lick it and dip it in? What are those called? That's what he- What are those called? What are those called? Dip its. They were n- They're, like, dip its or something. No. Yeah. What are they? They're not- But it's, like, the little wax stick You get a, you get a stick- The little wax stick and you lick it, you get it wet, and you dip it, and you... Yeah. That is- That's what this guy's head looked like- It's like dip its on the top. How did we ever get... Like, that is so... Fun dip. Fun dip. Fun dip. Yes. Fun dip. That's what it's called. Yep. Fun dip. And that is so gross. So let me just redip my fun dipper. That's gross. And then, and then share it with somebody. Gross. And the little st- and then, and then when you get done with the fun dip, you can eat the chalk that you dip the fun dip with. One last question about Thorogood boots, Vince. Yes. We should be sponsored by Thorogoods, because- Yes, we should I know this is the second podcast we've talked about Thorogoods on. This is... A- and we may have talked about it on the Around the Shoe podcast twice as well. They have not gone down in price. They're plenty spendy. They only last eight to 12 months, but I've not found boots that last longer. Do you wear them with or without insoles? I was just fixing to say insoles, and I've been having a lot of issues lately with my heels and my feet hurting. 'Cause you wear boots. And I got, um... I have, doctor said I have plantar fasciitis, so I got on Amazon and found some insoles for plantar fasciitis. My heels haven't hurt since. Doctor Scholl? Are they the hard plastic ones? No. They are plastic. Uh, but I had those kind that you and I, you told me about, 'cause I used those for a long time. Yeah. Um, and maybe I should've just got a new pair of those a while back, but I ended up going with, like, some Ariat insoles that were real cushy. Um, but these are just made a little different or something, but my feet do not hurt. So, uh, insoles. Yeah. Do you- You can't put insoles in Adidas Slides, dude Do you glue them in? No. What pisses me off the most is that we pay almost $400- $300 for boots almost $400 for a pair of boots, and then you gotta turn around and pay another $100 or whatever, $50 for insoles. And I think- Maybe that's what, maybe that's where I we- why I wear slides, 'cause they were 7.99. $7- Yeah, but you're gonna... Y- y- how old are you? 33? You're gonna, you're gonna think 7.99 one day. When you're 42, Corbin, you're gonna be like, "Man." Oh, fast-forward five freaking years to when I'm 42, the ancient age of 42. You're gonna have to glue insoles onto those slides. And see, I don't ride horses, so I take a lot more steps in a day because my, I, I have to do all mine on foot, yo. I have to walk everywhere. Oh my gosh. Are your toes spread like an inch apart? I have the f- Oh I have the, uh, what's been described as the flattest feet on the planet. I don't know if that's good or bad. Mine are flat as well. I got really flat feet. I don't know what that's gonna entail later on in life, but I have, my feet never hurt. I don't struggle with that. You gotta lift that arch up, man. You gotta get you some insoles. Have you- If we have any listeners that are looking for sponsorship of hard plastic type insoles, the kind that go in the oven to shape to your foot and stuff, go ahead and drop us a comment on social media. That would, uh... So in the wintertime when it's butthole cold, I wear shoes then. And I always have a problem with the insoles that come in the shoes. At the end of the day, my feet sweat even in the wintertime. The insoles come out of them, and that's a pain in the butt to get them back in there. And then they're never the same again. Once they come out, they never go in there right. They always slide in there to the toe, and then you got a bunch of stuff at the toe. So it's a problem. I don't have these problems. Why do I? My feet sweat like crazy. Because you wear slides- That's why they sweat the rest of the year, and they're freaking... Your toes are probably this wide. You must have to have a quadruple E foot. I have narrow feet. I have to wear D I don't- It'd be a B if you wore some shoes with some structure, Corbin. This is a health issue Tell me I don't have beautiful feet. You're a nasty- No, those, those are nasty- You are a nasty, nasty- You got, like, puncture vine in there My- the bottom of my boots- Ah are cleaner than your feet. I guarantee you the bottom of these dress dudes are. Hey. Hey, I wore socks today, too. Okay, let's move on from Corbin's feet. Oh, we gotta move on. I'm gonna go... So I'm just gonna go down this list. There's a couple of these questions, though, from listeners, um, that are almost a whole podcast. Thank you to everyone who reached out and, and said something either pithy or serious. Thank you very much. Um- Ooh, ooh, and sorry to interrupt, but if we don't get to it today, we're gonna do it another day, right? Yeah. We're gonna make sure- Yeah, and, like, if there's some of these, if there's some of these... I was... I tried to take the one, like... If there's one that's, one of these that needs to be a full episode, let's just b- let's just circle it today. We'll just keep talking about it. Uh, yeah, and if we don't get to all of them, we can just make another episode, huh? Correct. Correct. Yeah. Yes. Sure. Sounds good. Start from the top. So I'm gonna take Eve's, I'm gonna start with Eve's question. I'm gonna start with Eve's is because, you know... Thank you, uh, Josh Ho- Homolka for your question about pedigree building, bull cow placement in the pedigree. You know, I think a lot of people, I'll just say this because I'm usually the one that gets the flack about this, I mentioned this on a previous podcast, I do believe that reveals a lot in the animal. It's a longer conversation than is right for this, this particular setting, but there's no wizardry about it. It's not like, oh, if I figure this out, then I can put, uh, Peyton on the top of this, and I can put Resource down here, and Final Answer over here, and then whiz bang, I'm gonna sell bulls into a stud. I mean, it's, it's... And I'm not trying to belittle the question, but it's more of a conversation. Um, so I, I think- And, uh, and I think it's important to point out that just because, just because you have su- a, a success building a pedig- pedigree a certain way in one instance doesn't mean that when you breed this daughter to this bull, like, if, like, let's just say Final Answer and Bismarck, just for sake of conversation. Let's say if I bred all my Final Answer daughters to Bismarck and it worked all the time, it doesn't mean that the next time you do it, it's gonna work great. I mean, it's... So you can build the pedigree however you want to, it doesn't mean it's gonna work every time. Well, and I think one thing that, like Joe's saying too- Right and I could be wrong because I know absolutely nothing about it, is there's not necessarily maybe a definitive answer It, it might be more just like, like you said, it's just a conversation about what you wanna try to see here, here, here. But it's not like it's, well, you have to put resource here, and then you have to put final answer here, and then you have to do this, and then you have to do that And like there's a... It's not like there's a teacher sitting there with a, uh... What do they call the little things teachers used to hit the kids' hand with? A ru- a ruler. It's not like they're sitting there with a ruler, and if you don't make the pedigree the exact way you're supposed to, wha-pow, and you're like- Right not really that sort of a th- I mean, it's not... I don't think there's a wrong way to build a, to build a pedigree. I mean, if it works, it freaking works. I mean, who... Like, there's been cow- there's been bulls that I've used in the past where it's like, "Hmm, I, I, I wouldn't use him again." But then you still have that one cow that's out there that's like, man, that one cow's pretty dang good. It worked in that instance. So, uh, yeah, not exact, right? Well, and Vince is a perfect example. When I think about, I, I'd say that I really, really like my Rainfall females. I've sold plenty of commercial cattlemen Rainfall bulls that have done a great job, a great job for a lot of people, and Vince has what I think is one of the more powerful Angus bulls in the entire breed, and he's a Rainfall grandson. So if you were to say, "Hey, we're gonna make a hard line here that Rainfall's a female maker and he can't- Right do anything else," well, then we probably wouldn't have Blue Blood, right? Right. That's true. Isn't it w- it's, it's very interesting to me that you can have a bull like Rainfall who is so... The daughters are soft, they're very feminine. There's, you wouldn't call Rainfall a power bull. But then w- just one generation away you've got Blue Blood, you've got Bloodline, you got all these s- these other sons of Rainfall that are just extremely powerful. It's very interesting to me how with just one generation you can turn a bull like Rainfall into a power bull. So- Well, I think that... Go, Vince, go- No 'cause you haven't talked enough. Go. No, no, no. I was just gonna say, so I've got a, I've got a resource, EXT 714, that is a sweet cow, produces awesome stuff. Well, then I also had a resource, 714, so I did her to EXT and it's backwards. Right. I just wanna see- Yeah. 'Cause right there- Yeah, so- Right there would be a- That's, yeah really good pe- pedigree placement test, kind of. And so here we are saying we're not, we didn't wanna talk about pedigree placement, but we go right into doing it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then, like, all right, let's, so, so let's just say we're flushing a cow, and let's just say the cow is, like, a Rainfall daughter, and you're saying you wanna make her more powerful. You flush that cow eight different ways, and you act- you act- let's say you flush her to 4404 just as a one-off, and then that ends up being, you end up making a... I, it's, it doesn't always have to be- Right you don't, like, a s- a female, you don't always have to breed a female-making cow to a power bull in order to create something good. I mean, it doesn't have to be fire and I- it doesn't have to, they don't always have to just be a direct opposite sort of a mating, you know what I mean? They, we don't have to, they don't have to just be complementary matings. I mean, you can, you can expand upon what you already have, right? Does that make sense? So let's say y- let's say you had a b- a, a bunch of these feminine Rainfall daughters and you wanted to make more feminine, you wanted to expand upon that. You can do that, too. You don't have to breed them to power. And I don't think it used to always be that way. I think what we're experiencing is each one of these animals is a unique combination of genes, just like it always has been from the beginning of time. And you've, Vince, brought up Resource so, and, and I brought up Rainfall but, um, we can talk about his brothers, but most of them are lesser known. Resource had Renown, he had Recharge. I think there were bulls, uh, there were, there were several other brothers, I wanna say one was maybe Grant or something like that. I think ZWT bought one. Um, there was Lois, there was Clark. There were these ex- there were maybe Ulysses. There were all these different brothers to Resource, and they were all a unique combination of genes. But I do believe back 1800s or even the early 1900s, et cetera, when you look through these herd books, there was a lot more line breeding and a lot more predictability in the cattle. And so you didn't have to treat them like, as, as much like they were their own unique combinations that could be so, so different. And I think it's just, I don't know that it's good or bad, I think it's just an observation of where we're at as a breed in that there's a lot of outcrossing all the time- It, I think- which makes cattle a little less predictable. Go ahead, Vince. So within the pedigree placement thing, you just touched on something that is so true. You could have a slew of flush mates that are all different- All different even, and that pedigree placement is the same in every single one of them. So... I think, uh, I think one of the things that I li- that I like to challenge myself is, is if I, if I have a flush of five, I want them to, I wanna make them as consistent as possible. Yes. And so I kind of, I like to latch onto those cows that are consistent, that do it every year. Yes. So, I mean, we're kinda getting into what you might consider donor selection at this point, but if a cow, you made her one way and she, and it's a knockout, like let's say as a, as a three-year-old you breed her to something and she makes your best bull ever. Next year you breed her some way different, she just kinda has a meh calf. What I would do is I would, I would make that cow quite a few more times. I mean, there's a lot of people that say, "Hey, if I bred her that way and she made a great one, I should breed her the same way again." Um, what do you say to that? I mean, if, if it works, do you do it again? Or do you say, "Let me breed her a little bit different to see w- just, just to see what this cow i- Like, is this cow, can she do it another way, or should I breed her the same way because it worked?" Vince, you go. No, you go. Well, it's, to me it depends what you're- Me too, absolutely what, depends on what you're trying to achieve. Because we've talked about this before, on one hand, if you just have the one, you've made something very unique. And if you go back and even if it was a natural calf, and you say, "Okay, I'm gonna go back and take the mama and flush it, and flush it or whatever," numerous times or one time to the same mating, well, now you've made a whole slew of animals, and you have deva- in my mind, you have devalued the original It's not necessarily always that way, but I'm just saying to me that's, that's how that works. Now, if- Unless you're, uh- Or you could say, "Well, now I've got 15 full sisters, and it's freaking awesome because they're all within the herd. They're all just calving, not necessarily made more donors, but they're just all out there calving, and you didn't make 'em just to sell." I think that might be, have some value to it Yeah, I would say that's, that nailed it here, Vince. If I- Absolutely because of how our business works, and we're not in the female business, and, and I saw this on full display when I went and visited Shady Brook, and, and just saw it from a unique perspective. When you see someone buy a highlighted female, especially if they're in partnership with Shady Brook or, or even outright, they do expect, um... Uh, I don't, it wasn't, it, I don't say that anything was said explicitly or anything, but it's expected that they would be able to maintain that uniqueness because they bought something special. They paid for something that is, um, maybe, uh, th- that isn't just a commodity in the marketplace. And so my business does not have that model, and so if I find one that works, I just keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it, and doing it. But you're not selling them. I- That's the difference am not selling them. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. That's the difference. If you're selling them- Yeah then, or, or you're making them just to sell, "Hey, this mating worked. I'm gonna keep flushing this cow that way. I'm gonna, I'm gonna sell females, I'm gonna sell eggs, I'm gonna sell everything-" Or let's just, let's say you're selling- then you're devaluing the original." Yeah. Let's say, well, well let's say you're in the business of selling bulls. If you're in the business of selling bulls to commercial cattlemen, and you breed a cow a certain way and it works, and it works great. Let's say it's per- let's say it's just exactly what your customer needs, pounds on the ground, females that work, whatever, whatever your goal is- Keep making them make 100 of them. Yeah. Why not? But you're gonna make females along with that, unless you reverse sort it. Yeah. Or unless... Yeah. Yeah, and if the female, and if the females are something that, that you don't want, not every- Oh, no, they could be fantastic. Yeah. All I'm saying is if you... And I'm not saying you have to do one way or another, I'm saying if you kept them all within the herd, and they're not for sale, and you're AI-ing them, and you're having calves... I mean, how many full sisters to Legion do you have? Six? I think six, yeah. Okay, but you haven't sold one of them. Nope. Okay. If you sold one for $100,000, and then the next year you sold another one, and another one, and another one, and another one, then the one that was worth $100,000, maybe she is an outlier and she just blows the others away. Or maybe these others are better or just as good. Well, that $100,000 one in my mind has been devalued. Sure. Sure. I don't know that that's right. I may get hate mail or whatever saying Vince is an idiot and he's wrong. That's just how I see it. I- Back in the day, what made 1137 so unique is she was the only one that I know about And you had to go to that place to buy stuff I kind of, I kind of like that model though. Uh, we, we don't, we don't see much of that anymore. We don't see... I mean, Joe's pretty s- I guess you could say stingy with, with w- most, but most of these, most of the genetics that you can go procure are mass-produced. Yeah. Y- like, that's one thing that I like about the Glenda cow family that we have here. You can't go, you can't go to every sale and find one, and I've found something that works in the most extreme situations, and so that's why I've kinda latched onto these Glendas, is man, um, over the years, and we can kinda get into the next question here where, where Josh is talking about the most over-hyped, over-marketed sire and stuff. But over the years, I've tapped into all different avenues of genetics, and the one that stood the test of time is this cow fa- this little-known cow family that I've put through the rigors. I've put 'em, I've bred 'em to the dumbest thing you can breed a cow to, I've bred 'em, I've bred 'em smart, I've bred 'em dumb, I've, I've done it right, I've done it wrong. Consistently, those are the ones that worked. So for whatever reason, um- No, I think, I think, um, the one thing I wanted to say closing on Vince's point about devaluing or whatever, and this is to be, uh, if we get hate mail over something like that, it's just as ridiculous as some of the other hate mail we've got in the past. But if that's what works in your market, then that is what works in your market, and what you're trying to sell and what you're doing. And, and I would actually think on the flip side, I like what I do for my market, but I think it's kinda, it's a family show so I'm not gonna say what I think it is, but it's kinda chicken-ess if you get my, what I'm saying, to go sell a female for 100,000 then go flush her mother the same way, and re-rack a whole bunch of 'em the next year. That's not being a very good steward of your customer, and it, that's just my personal opinion. And would you disagree with any of that, Vince? I think other people's business models or other people's, um, perspective on all of this is so different- Mm-hmm and that's fine. Some people's whole deal is just selling eggs Well, if they have a embryo sale every month and the same eggs are in the sale every month, and you go and you pay 2,500 a round for those eggs, what did you get that was unique and different? You got the same thing that 30 other people got. So you're saying it better be one or the other, right? It may b- better be something that is replicable and super consistent and quality-driven or unique, or- I'm just saying, for me, for me, I like the uniqueness part. Mm. Now, like I said, I've got- But there's also, there's also something to be said for being unique just for the sake of being unique. Like, just because, just because it's unique doesn't ma- mean it's worth a shit, right? Oh, yeah. I'm talking about it needs to be really good, not just some kinda unique thing. Like, I mean, if, if I have a cow and there's a natural calf, and the natural calf is awesome, and that thing goes on to be a donor, and then I turn around and flush her mom like you were just saying, the same way over and over and over, well, I've devalued my own cow kinda Because Unless, unless you keep 'em all and just But I understand that, but I, that's what I'm saying. Even if you keep 'em all, you may find one that's even better than her. Who knows? I, there's no rules to say you should do or shouldn't do or can do or can't do. It's all in whatever people want to do with their cow herd. So- I'm just saying I like pr- for me, I like to have something that not everybody else has. Now, m- I'm saying this with full sisters to a lot of cows that a lot of other people have. Right. I really, I really am right there with you. I really like to be able to say that I do it my own way, and that's something that I've latched onto. And, um, it's just something that I kinda hang my hat on is that it's, it's not conventional because- Right seeing, seeing the same genetics get sold, like you see the same circle of people buying genetics from each other all the time, and every time I see it I'm just kinda like It's just like at some point, at some point in my life, I just was like, "You know what? I gotta do it different. I gotta do it different." I've tried all the... I've tried to have the same cow families as everybody else. I've tried to breed 'em the same way, but, but somewhere along the line I was like, "I've gotta create my own legacy here with the way I breed cattle." And, uh, ever since I've done that, I, it's a lot more fulfilling than to just go to, to the studs and, and pick out the, the sire that everybody else is using and to pick, go to, go to the embryo sales and buy the eggs that everybody else is buying. Um, at some point it's just, it just pays to be yourself and- All right, I think that was all good. I appreciate it. We spent... We got a lot of questions to get through though, and somebody's gonna be like- That's one "Boy, that was good. That was good. Then Joe, Joe cut everybody off." But I'll start with the Josh one 'cause I, I started our intro on it and then decided to go the other way, and then Corbin just mentioned it. Um, Josh Eves is- That's one question by the way, guys. We've got 30. That's one. Josh Eves is, "Most over-hyped or over-mic- marketed sire, cow, or cow family you've used in your program. Don't have to bash them, just the ones that didn't work no matter how you used them, and then, uh, the most terminal sire you've ever used." So Josh is gonna think total cop-out. He's gonna call me. I'ma tell you what, I can't think of anyone who has the market completely cornered on being over-hyped when used in our program. There have been some that I've over-hyped that ended up not working when I thought. There's been lots of a lot of different breeders. Um, but what I've found is the best thing to do with a lot of 'em is get a lot of calves on the ground. And when you start seeing trends- S- you know, there's certain cow families I've learned even within our program that, back to our pedigree placement, I thought I knew, I absolutely knew I wanna put this cow on the bottom and this cow on the top and that mating's gonna be so cool, and then by accident it ended up happening, like Vince said, in reverse with the EXT then the resource. And I'm like, wow, this one actually worked in this direction just fine. And so I think that for the clicks, for the excitement, Amy could put together a really cool reel that is of me hammering a cow with a number or a program. Um, but I don't think that's really useful from my perspective, gentlemen. I'm just gonna say there have been lots that have not met the standard we'd hoped, and then there's been s- lots that have exceeded it, and I know that's a cop-out, but that's my answer. Vince, what do you say? He wants to say. I plead, I plead the fifth. I mean, cop-out? Yeah. Can I cop out here? No, um- You say some obscure Hereford bull nobody knows? There, there, there are some people that already know the, the bull that I don't like. Yeah, 'cause you said it three times since we've been talking- And I- and we haven't even gotten to the question yet. I have... I will say this, I do not think that just because Jim Bob over here used this certain bull and he worked spectacular, or 15 different herds use this bull and he worked spectacular, that necessarily he will work for you. So there was a bull that I used, and they were all garbage, and like an idiot, you gotta remember I was in special ed, so I'm a little thick- I keep using derivatives of this bull, sons and grandsons- And it, and it keep not working and I keep having the same problem. They do not grow. Dinky. Dinky. So- Cute maybe, just maybe I've learned my lesson. Maybe. So I'm gonna cop out too, but- But I, I- Josh Teese is gonna be like, "Well, that was so-" But I will, I will expand upon it a little bit because, because I've been on a lot of herd tours and I've seen a lot of cattle, and I think the thing that's resonated with me the most is that I've seen a lot of cattle that work within a given program. I brought a lot of those genetics home and used them from certain programs, but one thing that I, whenever I first started out that I did not take into account was the management. Yes. There's some of these sires that you go to other people's places and you see them and you say, "Man, that is a home freakin' run." Yes. You bring it home, you starve those cows a little bit, you make 'em work a little bit, out they go. Correct. If you run 'em tough, there's a lot of these genetics that you're gonna go, I mean, where are we gonna go? 90% of the people that are listening to this that are gonna go look for genetics are gonna go somewhere to look for genetics that is glitzy, that's glamory, that's, that's something that's pretty. Correct. And they're gonna take that home, and they're gonna use it, and they're gonna be disappointed. So I would encourage those people to seek out genetics, seek out the people that run them like you do. Yeah. If you're not feeding the crap out of them, don't go, go buy genetics from people that are feeding the crap out of them. So Corbin- How about that? let's not even take the feed the crap out of them part. When you're on a tour on a given day, you don't know what their cull rate was. That's true. Correct. So, so you may see this amazing whatever she is and another amazing whatever she is. Well, maybe you go back to look at their bull sale catalog, and they've sold 200 sons over the last five years, and you saw five nice cows. Or maybe they've sold 30 sons over the last five years, and you've seen 20 really nice cows. Right. Those sort of things should be taken into context. And Vince, I, I started talking just a hair before you did. All I was gonna say was I will say, sorry to say this, Corbin, I've not ever made a penny off of Glenda And the Glenda cow family just not for me? Well, you never will either 'cause I ain't selling them. Well, you didn't ask me how many Glendas I have I know how many 'cause I'm not selling them. I have zero I, I have zero. I know how many. I have zero. I know how many you got. That's why I've not made a dollar off of them. Hey, Jason Jagels, our, our, uh, friend from Nebraska, he's got some Glendas. You can ask him about them. Well, I'm sure they do really good for he and you. We're the only two. And we're... And Josh said most terminal sire ever. I mean, I think that that one would be difficult for me as well because I've used some bulls that are high carcass value bulls. I've used some high, um, growth bulls and so that defining terminal piece is interesting. Like, you mean steery females that didn't breed? Well, I've had them from all over everything, from animals that had high terminal value, like a lot of growth. I've had those as well. So again, Josh is gonna hammer on us all for this, and that's fine. Um, but I think that's what's... You know, as frustrated as I get with things, guys, though, that is still the beauty of the Angus breed. It really is, is that we can find gene combinations that work well for some people in management scenarios that don't work for other people in management scenarios. And if anything, this is a great opportunity for me to say I'm so damn sick and tired of monkey see, monkey do breeding programs. Me too. Like, I am so over it when I open up sale books and find the same thing over and over and over again and, and it's, it's causing some collateral damage in our breed, I believe, because we see commercial cattlemen coming out and saying, "These Angus cattle have bad feet." Well, some do, absolutely. But go out and see some other breeds and you'll find out right quick that the Angus breed does not have the market cornered on bad feet. Are there a mix of genes? Absolutely, and people say, "Well, I've tried this producer and this producer and this producer, and they all have bad feet." Well, guess what? They're all using the same bulls from the same sources. I mean, so- Right like, let's have some unique lists. Let's, let's do the work. Let's find out. Let's test them. That's kinda my thought. I'm gonna shift gears if you... Are you guys good on that one? I don't get to talk about terminal- I wanna go to Brother Randall's and I wanna say, Randall, I did not get the bull I did not. Um, that was, wasn't that Spencer got the bowl, Corbin, at the Waffle House? Oh, yes. Yes. The Waff- the Waffle House? What's the hell is the Waffle House? Yeah, well, Spencer got that- I can't even believe I'm giving these people- Why did he- free advertisement anymore why did he, why did Spencer... Spencer, why did you order that? That's a weird thing to order. I don't think he- Bowl I, I don't think he had as much fun observing that place as you did. Did you guys see, did you guys see the actual footage of when Randall was a kid getting a cookie out of the cabinet, out of the cupboard? Ari asked you, is that a Girl Scout Samoa or was that- No, no a Keebler? It, it was a Keebler, um- fudge round maybe. No, not a fudge round. Is it real? Is that really him? Yeah. Yeah, that's Randall. No, it's got a chocolate bottom, and then it's got the cookie, and then it's got a drizzle on top, right, Vince? Yeah, it's the Keeblers. It's the Keeblers, yeah. It's the Keeblers. Nate, Nate eats them all the time. Nate eats them all the time. But actual footage- It looks just like him. Looks just like him. Yeah. Watch him, watch that kid put that cookie in his teeth and then grab his palm- And shove it and shoves it with the palm. Oh, my gosh. Oh, poor Randall. And I don't have an update on the FedEx. I think that just fizzled out, kind of like the methane deal and the Angus deal, it just kind of fizzled out and nobody's talking about it anymore. Was, was that in Clark County or Kent County or something County? No, um- You guys are big down there on saying what county people are in Cobb, Cobb County? No, not Cobb County. No, it was- Damn it PFE Road or BME Road, um, Clayton County? No. Vince, this is what, this is what came up whenever you, whenever I clicked that link you sent. Okay. Okay. Randall actually, if I'm reading through these, has- Clay. Clay County Clay County. Clay County. Clay County, Alabama. Exactly. Alabama. Clay County. Sorry, Randall. And they like Bud Ice. Um- my favorite questions of any of the listeners put out, so this will be fun. The first part is he asks a whole bunch about the future of the beef business, is what Randall says. And this may be the end, just letting you guys know. I gotta get out of here, and this one could go on for a while, listeners. We're gonna have another episode where we work through some more of these. Um, who are the future beef producers? Uh, I'm gonna say they're fizzling out. There's probably not gonna be many of them, unless- So who are they, though? Who are they? Un- unless, uh, the other part of his question happens, the vertical integration. Do you guys think... So you, you, you both have children that potentially could be beef producers? No. Mine- You don't think, you don't think Nate's just gonna run some cows while he farms? I- He's still- I, I don't think he wants to. All right. So that, that feeds right into- We're getting into a generation that, that's just Man, I don't know if it's worth it. Corbin, I appreciate that thought But remember the administration who was at the helm of the formative years of the generation behind us. It was a generation who on the food pyramid said, "Avoid beef." Correct. You don't want to be involved in beef. We wanna have meatless Mondays. We wanna start limiting it because it's destroying the environment. And all of these families, kids around the kitchen table are watching dad and mom work their butts off at work, come home on the weekends, take care of cattle, and there wasn't enough money. Now we have an administration that outwardly has said beef is healthy. Outwardly, beef has become, um, a protein. Protein has become something of value in, in this world, and specifically in the United States. So I think we might see a gap there. We might see a gap. You gotta remember my generation was the generation where Oprah came out and said, um, you know, just she could never have another hamburger again or whatever, and I think it was Texas Cattle Feeders sued her. Um, but the beef market plummeted and, and it took a lot of people's heads off. So I know what it's like to see that bad and then see a rebound of good and then see 2014 go up and then some bad and then, and then now see where we're at, and I s- they... Young people raised in this business now who see some actual prosperity for their hard work, who know that now they could budget, who they can have an, have a market, who they can see, you know, there's now been something approved. I just saw an executive order about regional packing houses and maybe people can start the direct-to-consumer thing. I never talk to anybody, guys, anybody who hates what we do. I don't. They love what we do. They love beef. Um, and I think that's a leadership thing. In this country right now, beef is cool, and beef is... So the future, I think we're gonna struggle to find the immediate younger generation than, say, the three of us. But the ones coming after, I think they're going to be a little bit more nimble, a little bit more excited. But, you know, guys, they're probably gonna wanna do things different than we do them. There are- Joe, if my k- Vince. If... Go ahead, Vince. There are a lot of people that go to, oh, I guess they would, you would call them health doctors. Um, a friend of mine is one. Um, basically you go and they help you get healthy, right? The big push for those guys is to eat beef. A carnivore diet. Eat a lot of beef. Yeah. Well, it's not necessarily carnivore diet, but beef is a big part of it. They're... The carnivore diet is very popular, too. I don't think you can do the carnivore diet with the fake meat, but maybe you can. I don't know. Um, but what I'm saying is A lot of those type people that don't like the, the beef or whatever in the last few years, they go to those doctors. They will pay those guys a lot of money to tell them how to be healthy, and a lot of them are telling them to eat beef. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know if the vegan movement is, is slowing down or whatever, but little bit- All of what you both just said is so perfectly true, every bit of it. That the, the market prefers beef, we're learning that. That's, that's great for our business right now. In the future though, um, if all... Like, if Nate doesn't wanna run cows, or if your ki- How is a kid supposed to get into this business? How? How? You can't afford to do it. You can't afford the land to run a cow. So, like, my ne- my Mila's classmates that don't have land, that's family does- hasn't blessed them with the abil- Like, that's why I'm working my butt off, is to give my opportunity to kids that not have, like, the... To give them an opportunity that we didn't really have, that my dad's blessed me with the opportunity to work my butt off to give my kid an opportunity. That's, that's, that's all great, but let's say Mila doesn't wanna run cows. Who then's going to? Let's say Nate doesn't wanna run cows. You can't afford to do it. You can't start from scratch. Right. Unless the people that are doing it get bigger and bigger and it turns into, um- The, the only ones that are gonna be able to do it are the Milas and the Nates and the- And that's sad to me. That's sad to me that, that a young kid that's in sixth grade right now that, that comes out here... Um, I, I invite my friends to come all the time, and they bring their kids, and I show them the cows, and I show them our way of life 'cause they're from the city. They don't see this, that sort of thing. What if those kids wanted to do what I do? What do, what do we tell them? Like, they can't. If they're, if they're from the city, they better hope their dad makes a lot of money. And that's it, and it sucks. It sucks. How do we make it better? How do we make it better for... How do we give those kids an opportunity? And I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that it shouldn't cost some money. I'm not saying they don't deserve to have some exposure and feel some of that stress. But to say that I... Let's say I wanted to buy this place I'm on now, where you're talking about a $5 million investment tomorrow How could a kid, how could a kid, how could anybody do that? How? Joe. It's cr- uh, it, that's, that's something that needs to be addressed because if s- at some point we're gonna have to make it to where young people have the opportunity, 'cause right now it's such a... They have to make their money elsewhere to just to have the opportunity to have cows. Like, uh, there's a, there's a piece of land that just sold by me the other day, and this guy works his butt off. He's, he's probably 30. He's worked his butt off just to have 20 cows, just so he could have 20 cows and somewhere to take his, his daughter to go ride a horse. Just 100 acres, and he has to pay 500 grand right out of his pocket just to have 100 cow- just to have 20 cows. Joe, what was the original question? The original question is, who are the beef producers of the future? And Vince said- one of them will have an oil rig. He's gonna have something. Um, well, I had an oil rig, if you think about it. I mean, I told you guys this story. I've told you it on seve- I've told it on several podcasts. I mean, I'm that kid with the, the cap guns and the spurs who always wanted to be a cowboy and, and we did not inherit anything except work ethic. That is all we inherited. And we worked really hard, and my parents helped put me through school, and I developed some... It wasn't that I learned special things in school, but I bought into a network of people who believed in me and placed me in a position here, where I worked for a family, and I had to be patient. You know, Abby talks about this, where she says like we've been in a holding pattern for 20 years of our life, just looking for opportunity, just waiting for it and being patient and being loyal and being faithful. And Corbin, I can sympathize with your $5 million ranch thing 100%. Um, I did some quick math here while we're sitting here. I say conservative estimates on the land to sustain Bruin Ranch, 300 million 300 million That's if you stay in California That's not a, that's not an option in Oklahoma Not an option. It is not an option here. And so I- But doing what you're d- but doing what you're doing and leasing land is not an option in Oklahoma. It's not. So- And maybe it will be, maybe it will be someday. But right now- It- it's all deer hunting and, um, there's so many other outside factors where it's just- It will be because there's no younger generation stepping up- Somebody's gotta do it to do it. Somebody's gotta do it. Somebody's... We gotta eat. And what'll happen? Vince, what's gonna happen if nobody steps up? It's, I'm gonna have 7,000 cows. Bill, Bill Gates will- Price is gonna go up Bill Gates will have, uh, us all eating fake meat, and so will Jeff Bezos. Well,.. we're recording on July the 5th, and this is gonna sound totally sappy, but I believe in the American spirit. I believe in people that find solutions, and I believe where there is a will, there is a way, and somebody'll figure that riddle out, Corbin. I- Somebody's gonna find out that the deer populations aren't as good where cattle aren't grazing and managing the lands. Somebody's gonna find out that that's a way to harvest this, this grass, and then turn it into protein for someone else, and t- sell that story in Stillwater, Oklahoma, or somewhere where there's a little bit of money. I mean, there will be a way. And so what I say when Randall Upchurch asks, "Who are the future beef producers?" I'll tell you who they are. They're gonna be tougher than hell. They are gonna be mentally tough. They are going to be physically tough. They are going to learn how to do without. They are going to learn how to sacrifice. They are going to be resilient, and they are going to be very, um- They aren't gonna be caught in ruts of what they traditionally are used to. They're gonna come up with unconventional ways to make things work. I, I really believe that. And maybe this beef industry doesn't look the way it looks 20 years from now. Um, m- I, I believe in store meat- I think the average, I think the average herd size, um, the future beef pr- I think there's going to be less people doing it, but, uh, I think the herd size is, the average herd... Vince has his head in his hand like he's mad at me. Look at him. Not mad. I, I think that the average herd size is gonna have to increase. Um, people are gonna have to work harder, which is fine. That's fine. I don't mind that. Um, I just, I just want to challenge every American, every person that's listened, how can we give the next generation the opportunity? Because I think that... I, I don't think the previous generation did a very good job of giving our, like, I was given the opportunity, but I don't think that a lot of people my age have been given the opportunities that, like... So moving forward, when I'm 65 and I have the opportunity to give somebody the, the, the chance, I might, I might think about that. Or as a whole, you know, as a whole, giving young people the opportunity. So I wanna move this along and ask Vince, are we headed towards vertical integration, Vince? If we don't start having some kids step up, young- younger generation step up and- We gotta help them though be able to do this. We gotta help the younger generation. That's what, that's what I wanna challenge everyone to do, is how can we help them? What about, Vince, do you think if there's vertical integration, and instead of owning the thousand cows, you're given a brand new pickup, retirement benefits, working for a mega company, and they say, "Here's your house. You're gonna make a nice living." Is that maybe what the beef industry starts looking like? I guess it could. Is that bad? I don't, I think that if people don't step up and they can't afford it, and the reason why I say people like Nate is because he'll be third generation on this ranch. He can keep doing it. Maybe not Rodney, Randy, sorry, Randy, because if you don't... If, if he can keep the leases that you have, then Randy and the boys can do it. Maybe Myla, if Corbin has all that paid off before she has to take it- Myla's gonna have the opportunity, but my, my problem is there's not enough Mylas to go around. That's what I'm trying to say. Let me finish. I know. Okay, sorry. You got, you got these, these people have the opportunity, but if they cannot afford the land, and like Corbin, the, the old-timers around you, well, around all of us, I shouldn't just say Corbin, the, the ranchers around all of us that are retiring and not moving, there's nobody to step up and take their herds over. They're selling out. They're gonna either lease that land to a rancher like maybe Corbin or Joe or me, or they're gonna sell it, and there's only so much that can be subdivided. So these corporations maybe buy the land and then just like Joe said, they're gonna say, "Okay, Corbin," or whoever, however many people they can find, which I think they're gonna have a difficult finding, "You can't afford to ranch yourself, but we can give you all the tools to do it, and you get to play cowboy, and we're gonna give you a new pickup," and whatever Joe said. Insurance and a bunch of money every week and a house to live in. Well, maybe they wanna do that, maybe they don't. I don't know. But that, that's what it's gonna end up being because kids can't afford to go... Our neighbor, we've been wanting to buy our neighbor's farm for years, and now it's for sale and he wants 13 grand an acre. I can't pay for that farming I mean, that's just how it is. So what do we do about that? 'Cause I think that, that isn't a question on our list, but that's one- Well, that's- that's a big threat that's California people's fault for moving to Tennessee. But Corbin's- They drove up the land prices they move into Oklahoma, and Corbin's dealing it, with it with hunting preserves and oil wells- I, I can see that that don't wanna deal with liability and all that crap, right, Corbin? Another issue that we have is these, uh, these data centers are going in everywhere. Yes, there's one coming in Lawrenceburg. They're paying, uh, $12,000 an acre. They paid a lot more- Buying it up than that in Lawrenceburg. Sucking up all the water. Yep. Maybe if we get to where you don't need the land equity, and the re- the realized value of the cattle are enough that you don't need the land equity to back it, then we'll start to see a lot more people interested in the beef business. The land overhead is the biggest, the biggest struggle, is, is acquiring the land. If we can figure- It is out that aspect of it, uh- If the nation's cow herd stays smaller, prices should stay up, correct? Mm-hmm. And then, yeah, we can... I can af- i- if, if the, if the market stays the way it is for 20 years, I mean, I'll be able to... But then it, but then I turn into some mega rancher, which isn't- But- really but the problem is the market needs to stay where it's at for diesel fuel prices, for fertilizer prices- Absolutely for equipment prices, for maintenance prices, onset equipment, and so on and so forth. I mean, we all have the same issues, except for Joe. He's got a... He don't have any equipment hardly, but he has his own set of challenges. The, the other thing that I think about too as, um, if we were able to expand our operation and have more land, is not needing, um, actually has an inverse relationship to needing more equipment, needing more... Um, because if we can utilize the forage that we have and not need to farm as much, not need to do, not need to put out as much hay, not need to use as much diesel, that's also appealing to me, and that's something that I... Feeding cows is great and all, but if we could figure out a way to run 'em cheaper and utilize what we had and be able to acquire... Like, I mean, if, if, if I could get land and, and be able to just run cow- run cows on grass, um, you could be a lot more efficient and spend a lot less money. But right now, we gotta feed 'em. It's interesting we're talking about, um, uh, uh... When I go to the next question that you've laid out here, Corbin, I, uh, I have to back up and I'm like, man, we got really, really passionate on that last topic. I mean- Do you think people get this passionate about being a civil engineer or this passionate about building cars or this passionate about anything? I think that that's one appealing piece to anybody that's aspiring any sort of job, is that this is a vocation worthy of fighting for. If you can hear the passion in our voices and the excitement that we have, and not, not excited like in a positive, but what, what I'm saying is the energy that we emote, um, talking about this says that there's a lot of good about this business. I wanna back up, though, to one last piece. Vince, you said Nate ain't gonna be able to run all this and, and either Corbin or I interrupted you. I mean, I'm curious of what the operation would have to look like for Nate to want to have to do the cow thing. Um- For example, Nate, I'm not crapping on you. I know you listen. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just... I wanna know because I think it's an important picture to paint. I think he doesn't mind the cattle. I think there are times he would rather be... And I was this way when I was his age. He would rather be baling hay or bush hogging or 20 other things than to have to deal with cows. Um, I don't... Part of the th- part of the problem we're all facing is help. Yeah. You can't f- you can't find enough help, and if you could find enough help and you could afford to pay the help that you could find, then that takes a lot of labor off of everyone, and it makes things be a little more pleasurable, so to speak. You know- I- the cows are not a burden, they're a pleasure to you. You said that I know, I know we wanna move on, but I, I feel the need to, to dive further into this. How many years out of Nate's life have the cows funded the farming? It hasn't been that way, right? Mm-mm. The farming is the way you guys have made a living. If things stay the way they are- Yeah, but now th- this year there won't if things stay the way they are and the cattle are what makes the money, Vince- or Nate is not gonna say, "Well, I'm not gonna run cows and go broke farming." But he- So maybe that's, maybe that's the problem that we faced for so long, is that the cows weren't making any money. Was that you had to do all this other stuff just to have the cows. But you don't get to go spend two months running a combine if you have cows only And that's the fun stuff So he likes that work? Oh, he loves it. That's the fun stuff. I think he c- I mean, he could do... I mean, but, but let's say, let's say right, like let's say- Doing, doing both is h- what comp- they complement each other They complement each other. Yeah. Crop prices are high, cow prices are low. Cow prices are high, crop prices are low, is generally historically how it's been. There have been very few times they've both been high, and there have been very few times they've both been in the tank. And I think, uh, it might be, like if, if, if Shady Brook was a little bit different and Nate had a little bit different, uh, view of... Like, if you just ran commercial cows, which is something that... Even if Shady Brook, if the Shady Brook bl- uh, prefix went away, they all got turned into commercial cows, that's not the worst outcome in the world that if Nate just ran 250 cows, that's not the worst outcome in the world either. Um- But you still gotta get 'em up and vaccinate 'em. You still gotta do all of it.. Well, that's what I was gonna ask you, so this is a good segue. What is the work? Because I always have plenty of people who are like, "Joe, if you're vaccinating- I wanna work some or something, call. I'll help you. I'll help you, and you just feed us in the afternoon or something. Joe, when you're branding calves, just call. We'll help, you know. You want a work day burning brush, come on... You know." And so I wanna get money out of the people for this, but here's my free plug to them. We did order some freaking dog collars for these cows. And it was a lot of what you're saying, Vince. We, we identified the stressors weren't the big work days. Mm-hmm. The stressors were the little, teeny-tiny things all the time. Like, hey, yeah, we had this plan to go to- How was that? uh, Independence Day celebration, and we had some cattle out, or we needed to go check water because the neighbor said we were out of water, or the neighbor saw some vultures and you have a dead cow. I think there's gonna be some technologies that relieve some of those stressors, those little ones that are in the background noise all the time, that might make this a more attractive enterprise for people, and that's why we've invested in the collars. It's like, well, we could spend 20,000 to fence some of these ranches and still not even get close, or we could put virtual on 'em, know where they're at all the time. Um, hope that there's other doodads that come with it in the future. Uh, I don't like looking at the collars. I absolutely hate it. I hate it, I hate it. Um, but we're excited about it being A way to help us in transitioning this business to make it a little more appealing for the kids So I have a question vis-a-vis these collars because I've, I've seen them and they are bulky and they're big. W- we microchip dogs and you can tell... What's, what's, what's keeping us from doing that to cows and making it less Well, so the mo- the microchip, Corbin, I, I, we don't need to go into a technology episode, but, like, I, I would say microchip is just, like, scanning them and finding out what's there. This, this stuff, I mean, it directionally buzzes them. It, it will stimulate them, you know, like an electric- You know fence. It has a solar power on it. They're going to get more cheap and they're gonna get smaller over time. And they're gonna, they're gonna make it to where they're as big around as a dime. They're... It, it's coming. I mean, that's coming. That technology's coming, and maybe that'll relieve some of the stresses too at some point. I don't know. Um, but yeah- I think it's comfort you're right, though. You're absolutely 100% right. Whenever it comes to, to the big work days, you don't have trouble finding people, but when it comes to those little subtle things, like you wake up in the morning and the bulls got in with the heifers or something like that, that's the type of stuff that really takes it out of you, and it's really... You're on an island. You're out there in your slides running around the pens trying to get the cows sorted in your underwear at 6:00 AM because you don't want the bulls breeding your heifers. So- I know. That happened to Vince this morning. He was telling us about it. Did he? Oh, wait, he doesn't wear slides and underwear to check cows. I don't leave the house without pants on, or fully clothed- for that matter. Listen- I don't even wear sweatpants out of the house, nonetheless slides- I can't believe your house is cold- or go out in my underwear enough to need sweatpants. Do you know what? I go out in, in my house- That- in my underwear at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning if I take Bug out that is why Vince keeps his house so cold, is because he wears more cl- I don't... I, I mean, I walk around- No in just shorts and no shirt- No all the time. I'm not gonna walk around half-naked in my house There's nobody home Okay, what if you get a visitor that you're not expecting? They're g- nobody wants to see you in your underwear. Somebody comes up my driveway, they're gonna- I'm just saying be staring down the barrel of a gun. I'm just saying. All right, we got time for one more. One more. One last question and then I gotta run. This is a good one- Which- from Skip Leer. David Little, Dalton Jackson, Michael Ward, Brian, Wesley Woodard, Matt Hinze, Russell Schultz, Dylan- Dylan or Dylan McClain, uh, Brad Brewer, Wesley Woodward, we'll get to your questions on the next episode or in a couple episodes. But Skip Leer says, "How about how to know when to promote a bull for stud and the good and the bad of stud contracts? Everyone talks about females, but you almost never hear what it takes to get a bull in the stud." Stud's bad. I guess this is a Joe question. Me, me no like studs. I guess this is a Joe question. This is a Joe question. Oh my God, you guys, th- I should have known this was a landmine- Studs- planted here by Corbin Me no like studs Studs hate, studs hate me more than I hate them. It's not all, um, it's not all fun and games with a stud, I don't think They do- I'll just answer the question there are some things that are positive, but anyway, go ahead. Which, which thing? I'll, I'll answer the question. Just a, just answering the question for Skip. Studs buy what studs think they can sell. And that's it. It is that simple. They, they don't buy bulls that are gonna move people forward unless it's in the EPDs. They might move- So did you just in a bad way say that... Did you just in a backhanded way say that some people don't order semen on bulls that move them forward? Uh, yeah. Yeah. And they know they're doing it. But they're g- their EPDs will get a jump. So I think, uh, I think sometimes, sometimes those studs accidentally buy good ones, right? I mean, I, I think it- 100%. It is it happens that way, and, and there, there's good bulls out there that w- that we can use from studs, for sure. But I think ultimately what their goal is is to sell semen, and ultimately their goal is to sell semen on bulls with pretty good he- w- uh, EPD profiles, um, things like that, so. I do think I should clarify, I'm not talking about our friend Bob at Breeder Link. No. Breeder Link. I definitely am not talking about Breeder Link. No Breeder Link Bob. There's definitely a recipe if you wanna get your bulls into stud what to do, but you just have to have a little bit of power of observation. Just, like, look at what they're buying, and that's probably what they're going to buy more of. Um, I had the- W- were you coming up with an anagram, ana- whatever gram you- An anagram weren't, weren't we coming up with an anagram for that earlier? A bananagram? A, a bananagram. Yes. Perfect. Perfect. Cor- Corbin missed it. Corbin was gone. He was having technical difficulties. Well, I'll tell you, I went to dinner with some people one time, and, uh, all the higher-ups at Select Sires were there, as well as some of the just salespeople at, at Select Sires. And we're having dinner, and it's all good, and, uh, one of the producers asked w- this exact question: "If I wanna put a bull in stud, what do I do?" And the response, I'll tell you who it was from, it was from Brian House, and Brian said, "You need to do what works for you." And now I'll pra- I'll paraphrase what he said, too, because h- he, this wasn't a direct quote, but he basically said- If you keep just breeding for what we want, we change with the markets. We're looking for something unique and stuff that we can sell and something that's predictable. And so if you are just breeding for that, what is your program? You should be breeding for what works at, at Bruin Ranch, and then if the stud bulls come, then they come. And I don't know if that still holds true. I don't know if that holds true in even the stud Brian worked for anymore or, or any of them. But what I will say is the only people that we allow to dictate what we do at this operation are the people who write us checks. And so if a stud happens to come find value in what we do and they buy something, that's wonderful. And if they don't, then that's fine too. Um, but I, I definitely think that centering your breeding program around getting bulls and studs, um, will probably n- leave you hoping for something more than what you're getting. Correct. I think there's time better spent, honestly. Honestly, I mean, if you wanna get bulls into stud, I mean, that, that used to be a goal of mine. At this point in time, now that I've, I've... I'm a little bit more mature and I've, I've been around the block a little bit more, not a lot, but a little bit more, um, the goal's changed and, and y- I just have started trying to please different people. And, uh, I think ultimately that most people that, that are thinking about getting bulls into studs, once you... It's almost one of those things is like when you- when that quits being your goal, that's when it hap- that's when it, it's most likely to happen. When you quit trying to do it for them, it's when they... It, it's probably like, like a lotta things in life, it's, it's, it comes at the least expected time. Unfortunately, that is a lot of people's goals in this business, particularly when they're new because they say- Hey, I, hey, I've been there "If I can get a bull in the stud, man, that's gonna give me legitimacy." I've been there. Well, maybe, maybe not. And I, and I generally, I generally kept those thoughts to myself, but, but I remember having that internal thought process of, of whenever I first started AI-ing cows and I first started, I was like, "Man, it sure would be cool to have a bull in here." But at the end of the day, um- As I've matured, it's, it's almost like, uh, it's almost like you just, you realize that those people aren't the ones that are paying the bills. I mean, if they were, then, then I'd definitely change the way... And then there's also the piece to it too, where it's like when you only run 250 cows, uh, what- are the studs gonna go to you, or are they gonna go to some place where, that has 700 bulls to look at? The studs miss a lot because they don't go to all the places. It's hard, but how could they, though? I mean, they get an unfair- Uh, I would wholeheartedly agree with that, but most of them get hundreds of phone calls. "I got the next great one. I got the next great one. It's a $500 seed," or, "It's a whatever, whatever, whatever." And then the first thing they do is say, "Well, send me the reg number," and they're gonna look up the EPDs. They're not looking at the individual, they're looking at the EPDs, and then they say, "Well, the EPDs are there, the individual's gotta be good next." That's not true, because I see the stuff that they advertise. They might say it's good enough for the EPD profile it has, or they're just scouring the EPDs and finding the next great one. As a matter of fact, the studs, a couple of the studs got in the cattle business because they can breed them better than the breeders can Genex has a herd, ST has a herd. Does Select- I would say likely Select is ST, right? They're- Their ST has been selecting- Select is ST now, correct a lot of stuff, yeah. So I mean, I can't think of the bull that ST came up with, but Genex came with what Draft picked? Wizard. Wizard. Draft picked. Oh, for ST? Wizard. I mean- Yep what, what's so- And you know the piece we didn't touch on, Vince, maybe, maybe the way you and I think about studs and the way Corbin thinks about studs, that's all changed. That was a window from the '80s, '90s, early 2000s r- till about 2010. You could be your own stud now. Yes. Yes. Go take the pictures. Absolutely. Yes. Go take the pictures of his mother- Absolutely. Absolutely the females, the progeny. Go tell your story on social media. You, with a social media page and 1,500 bucks, you could be your own stud, and you could start giving people semen. Say, "Hey, you know what? I, I believe in this bull enough. Here's his EPD profile. Here's his mom. Here's some calves. Just try him, please." And, um, yeah, be your own stud if you believe in him like that. Do you wanna know what step one to being your own stud is? Investing in yourself, using your own stuff back into your pro- If you believe in yourself, use your own bulls. Yep. Fair? If you believe in yourself and you believe that that bull's good enough to go to stud and you want me to use a straw of him, you better be using him yourself. If he's, if you think he can move my cow herd forward- Correct then you better be bought in using him every year. Uh, prove it. Prove it. That, that is something- That's- that I have seen a lot over the years. People want people to use their bulls, but they're not willing to use them their self. Why would somebody else use your bull if you're not willing to use your bull? Absolutely. Amen, 100%. The Other thing is I'm not convinced that the studs have all the better bulls in the breed. I think the, a lot of the better bulls in the breed ow- people own them. To Joe's point, I think that's, that's a, that's kind of a recent... I, I think the studs really- Yes, in the last few, four or five years, t- six, eight years maybe. Oh, and even think of all the collection facilities popping up- Oh, yeah everywhere. Like- Everywhere I never heard of- And you can't, and you can't get a spot Oh, yeah, no. Vince, 10, 15 years ago, you couldn't just go take Legion and go day jump him at that guy's place at Cottage Hill, could you? Yeah. Or, or did you know of people doing that though all the time? No, no, no. We were, we were doing that back in the '90s. Oh, you were? That place has been there a long time. See, I didn't know of people doing that though here early on, and now there's, there's lots of people. I believe that's actually a good, bright spot of this breed right now, is there are a lot of people using their own bulls that are saying, "Hey, I've used this or that, and it's failed, and here's one with just as good a number profile that I raised myself, that I can trust the cow." And I mean, I'm not gonna take the flowers, but maybe it's been folks like us and podcasts like us that have said, "Go use your own bulls. Invest in your own bulls." I don't think there- "Try your own bulls." I don't think there's very many people that I know that don't use their own bulls at this point, and when we started five, six years ago, there wasn't very many that were. I would agree with that. Well- I would agree with that the other thing is, it's... The bull that I was talking about that was gonna remain nameless earlier that was a train wreck for me, he has sold Ain't no telling how many offspring they have, and stuff out of my herd bulls worked better within my herd than those did. So it's not just because a stud has it doesn't mean they're the greatest bulls ever. And just because it's the number one used sire for any given year does not make him- Correct does not make him worthy. Correct. A better question might be what makes... What... How does one become the number one? Like, how does 10X come about? Like, it- it's wild to think about how there's so many different options, and we latch onto one, and everyone's using just that one. It's wild to me to think how one can be used so widespread like that. Right. I don't know. It's... Out of... Think of how many studs there are. They each have 40. Y- I mean, you're thinking out- out of 400 bulls that get used, I guess you take commercially, I, I... Like, heavily, um, how does w- just one, like, clearly come out of that? And they're generally, at the end of the day, those, those bulls that are on that top 20 sire list, how many of them, how many of them would you touch with a 100-foot pole? In hindsight, not very many of them. It, it always happens that way. But you know, that's changed, honestly. Okay, Joe, you think back to the, to the '90s, a lot of those bulls, I, I would say there were bulls on there that we shouldn't have used, but this was all pre-genomics, pre lots of EPDs, and those, the few EPDs we had were strictly data I think those bulls were a whole lot better bulls that we got, we were, that were the top 20 bulls than today's bulls that are the top 20 bulls when it's all genomic data driven and people are using them strictly for the data Think how many years- My, my opinion only Think, well think- another thing about it is from the difference from, from what you're talking about, that time period, think how many years a bull would stay on that list. The shelf life is so short now. It's so short. It's so very rare. Like you think about a bull, let's just, let's just name Collie. I don't even, I don't even... But let's just, okay, let's just say 10X. How many years was he at the top that it wasn't very long? Two, two years? Longer than it should have been. Longer than it should have been. I mean, it didn't... Oh, I mean, two years maybe? But think back to the time Vince is talking about. How long would EXT have been on that top 20 sires list? Long time. 10, 15 years? Long time. Right, right time. Joe, Joe, what are your thoughts on all that? 6807. Um- Am I wrong in what I said? No, no. And I actually think we have... I mean, this is a way bigger direction than I wanna go, but, um, a way different direction and a bigger topic. But, uh This train has headed down a track that those of us who see the problem, it's, it's like the Titanic. It's like if you wanna miss that iceberg, you gotta start turning at full speed. And there's some people that are pulling alarms and whistles saying we've gone too far too fast and we aren't getting some things right And even if we changed right now, think of the cattle still in the pipeline. Oh, yeah. I mean, and, and I hear it from the new c- commercial customers I get all the time, there's people who are still on those rails and on those tracks and, and you used the '90s but my mind automatically goes to the mid 2000s. Yeah. Even in the mid 2000s, but we were working off a equity of a cow herd that had a lot more, uh, predictability in type and predictability in production and actual performance. And then as we started pushing this generation interval so much faster, which genomics aren't the only technology either, gentlemen. I mean, some of the other technology would be, um, IVF, ET. And yes, those things were used back in the day, but not by every single young person or you- new b- I, I... I'm, it's not exclusive to age, young programs who wanted to upstart quickly and go, go, go. You know, one of the things I wanted to ask you, Vince, way back and, and I forgot it and now I'm remembering, is it just because we're old or does it seem like, and we're not old, but does it seem like there's more young people actually in the purebred business than when we were the young people in the business? I felt like there weren't very many my age in the early 2000s. Or did you just not know them? Or did I just not know them? Exactly. Because social media has connected so many people. Information moves- Right so much faster now. Right. But like when you see these online embryo sales you mentioned and stuff, and all the technology, I'm like, man, there's, there's lots of opportunities where I see tons of new programs with a, with a social media budget that all of a sudden we didn't know nothing about them and now they're having female sales averaging 15,000. Right. And so, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing or a good thing, I'm just saying it's a thing. Right. So when you mention the, I don't know what the cause was, but you could have, 20 years ago you could have picked a lot of bulls off of the top 10 list and made cows out of those bulls in multiple environments. Right. Now I look back on, a- and I even think, uh, I think back at like the 2010, 2008, '09 Genex catalogs, man, they just were so cool. Oh, yeah. There were so many- Yeah great, great bulls in there. Mm-hmm. 'Cause you had the good ones from the late '90s mixed with some of those from, from, from right around that same time period. I mean, you had Net Worth and then he was still sharing a book with Some of those bulls from the early two th- you know, 004 and Net Worth were in the book at the same time 004 was on the freaking... He was the big picture from, was it, like, 2002 or '03 until '05, '06, '07? I don't remember. Correct. For many years, many years. I, I guess it would've been more like 2003 or '04, 'cause he's a '00. But I mean, he was there for a long time, and then after him- But then- he got replaced by Final Answer just because he was the Caviness brother, right? Um- And then, and then you fast-forward to 2000, God, I ca- I don't know what year, 2012, 004 was still... I mean, maybe he wasn't, but many years later, he was still in that catalog and they were still selling buckets of semen on him. Well, and if you look at the stack of 004's pedigree, that pedigree is the pedigree Vince is talking about from the late '90s and 2000s, where you could pick any of those animals off the list and they made some cattle that worked. Yeah. So, you know, this kinda ties a bow on, like, a lot of what we've talked about today, because if you wanna think... I think there's so much opportunity for young people if you can stay committed to what you're doing, because your mistakes can be sold by the pound as a profit right now. I think it's a good time to slow down. If you wanna have high-quality con- If, if you have, if you have good quality control and a good, good goal, you can do what you want in this beef business. Absolutely. I do believe that. Now, are you gonna be able to go out immediately and buy new pickups and buy a 100-acre farm and buy a new tractor? No. No, you're not. Are you gonna go on a lot of vacations? No. You guys, you, you actually gave me crap about going to Italy in the travel podcast. I t- I told you guys we'd been married 20 years and not taken a vacation at, for an anniversary. So you're gonna have to be patient and look for your spots, so. And that's not to say that if you go back and use one of those bulls we're talking about, that you're not gonna have a sort on them. But- Yeah, there's a sort but they do make really good cows, way more good cows than today's sires, in my opinion. When you- Why? And that's not- get the rational or gen- That's also not- thinking saying that any of the new cows can't make good, any of the new sires can't make good cattle. That's not saying any of the new sires won't be there, like, uh, I mean, we've been talking about, like, a 004 or a Net Worth or an EXT or a Re- now the latest one in my mind is Resource, and, and he's not without his issues. I mean, they've all had some issues along, but it just seems like the newer sires Have a lot of issues versus way back in the day. They fought it out You know, I think, I think we could dumb this down real simple and say that we could solve a lot of the problems that we're having and a lot of these issues if we just focused a little bit more on longevity. Yes. Yes. Just a little, just, I mean, let's just make- 100% a cow last a little bit longer. 100%. Um, way- To your point, Corbin, calm, slow down. Slow down. Like, you, you mentioned it. You mentioned it about we move so fast, the shelf life. You mentioned the shelf life. The generational return. Yeah. Slow down. It's hard to slow down because if you slow down, you feel like you're getting left behind. You know what'll happen when you slow down? Um, Abby actually turned to me, I don't know if anybody's here on this podcast anymore, but we were in the arena and we were riding horses, uh, this was Friday night, I guess, and, uh, Bennett was there with a million other things to do, but he chose to be there. Meredith was there, and then Abby and me, and Meredith and Bennett. And one of those horses was, like, just a little bit broncy, and so Bennett got on her first and kind of tuned her up before Meredith got on and, and, uh, while he was doing that, Abby stopped and, and she... I'm not gonna just over-embellish and say that she had tears in her eyes, but it was almost. She said, "This is everything we've worked for. When we first got married, I said I wanted an arena and I wanted my family riding broke horses in it, and we are here. So let's just stop and enjoy it and be thankful. Be thankful." So slow down, be thankful, you know, hug your kids, tell your friends you care about them. I mean, that's, that's why we love this business, Vince, isn't it? Yeah. It's the world's most flexible, not flexible job in, in the business because- Do you guys know that, uh, today I took my one-year-old on her first... I took her on a four-wheeler ride today, and that was one of those moments you're just like, "This is pretty cool." Yeah. And she was just... She was loving it. The dog was running beside us, and it was just one of those times where you're like, "This is why we do it. This is cool." Yeah. It's cool to get to be out here. I see cows on my right, I see horses on my left. I've got everything I ever wanted right here. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty cool. If you wanna find the... You wanna find the good, you'll find the good. If you wanna look for the bad, you'll find the bad. Every day. That's right. You gotta look around. Be thankful for what you have. You got anything to close out with, Vince? No. I was just gonna say, we made it through five questions. That's good. How many, out of 30? So we got a few episodes left. 15. Yeah. Yeah, we got a few. All right, gentlemen, I'm gonna head out of here. All right, peace out.