Hi I'm Mike welcome to 2020 on the ranch today we start things out in style as we
take these calves for a ride and get the one paycheck that the ranch gets each
and every year we call it sale day on our Wyoming life
previously in our Wyoming life it was then that a hail storm hit and changed
our entire plan that hailstorm lasted only ten minutes but completely took out
any alfalfa clover that was left standing long story short the herd will
be reduced we thought we were gonna have to do it last year we managed to avoid
it but this year it's written in the stars yes and this year things on the
ranch are changing a bit and we've decided not to sell our calves right
away this winter on the ranch we're rewriting the way that we do things and
trying to make improvements for the better normally calves would have been
sold already and they would have left the ranch we would beyond a winter
feeding and well we would have a paycheck in the bank none of those
things are happening this year for the first time since we've been on the ranch
we've decided to keep calves home and wean them off their moms and put some
weight on them before selling a single one next if we sold cows today we
wouldn't make enough money to pay expenses I'm not wanting to wait for a
problem to fix itself because in all reality our problem is somebody else's
solution if we aren't making the money somebody else is and if we are making
enough to cover expenses and somebody might be making too much on the other
side it's time to grow up for the calves and the ranch
hi there and welcome back to a brand new year on the ranch if you're just getting
in on the action it's a great time to join us and it's a great way to start
the year with the sale of calves it's the one big paycheck and it's one that
we've put on for the last 90 days is we weaned and fatten the calves in just a
few hours will be taken to auction and beginning another cycle on the ranch
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90 days ago we changed have we ranch here in Northeast Wyoming for the last
hundred years that our ranch has existed we sold cows in October getting that one
big paycheck and surviving on it for an entire year this year October came and
went and the bills kept piling up and the cows stayed on the ranch for the
most part some cows went off to our neighbors who buy them to finish with
their own freezers others went on to become 4h stairs to be shown and awarded
ribbons for my club my community my country and my world still other half us
were sold when the ranch was desperate for cash to help grow others herds and
even a few mucky steers were chosen to stay right here to be finished and
eventually support the ranch in the purest of fashions with their meat being
offered at the farm store and online in beef jerky
with the largest of the steers and the choice heifers gone it's time to close
the chapter on another season on the ranch sometimes around here it's hard to
keep track of where one season starts and another one ends oh yeah I think I
spent the first couple years trying to figure out when that happens but I've
kind of narrowed it down to the season ends when we sell counts and the season
starts when calves are born and that gives us a little bit of a break in
between but not anymore now it's almost right from one end to
the next it's a different feeling on the ranch this morning normally say all day
happens in October and we have a number of friends over to help sort and
sometimes even a little meal together afterwards today it's just us the cows
were sorted long ago and now it's just a matter of moving them through the
Corral's up in Daly's and closer to the truck
the 53 footlong livestock trailer will haul over 100 cows for us today our
truck driver Kachina is back this year and ready to load
giving air and I the number of calves she needs for each of the six
compartments in her truck
overall it's not too bad it's only about ten degrees but the cows are loading
just fine normally we'd have the added stress of them just being taken off
their moms but ninety days later is just a another day of moving through the
Corral's every calf is loaded onto Kachinas trailer and when the last one
is pushed in she can head down the road again going places well the same places
she's been over and over again
today we're selling camps in st. Onge South Dakota in our area there are three
different livestock auction barns within about a hundred miles of us Buffalo
Wyoming Bell Fouche South Dakota and st. Onge I often get asked if one barn has
better prices and the others but in reality it's a lot of the same buyers at
the three barns hence the reason Buffalo sells on Wednesday Bell foosh on
Thursday and st. Onge on Friday I know for a fact that I haven't made too many
friends in the in the cattle auction industry I'm sure I've said a few things
that probably went over like a lead balloon but that's just the way I feel
so I'm not afraid to say it but there is that fear that when you go in to sell
calves that somebody who's there might know who you are they might know what
you've said and that might cause a problem we'll see what happens but you
know we can always hope for the best and and prepare for the worst and it's just
one of those crazy things that we have to deal with and sometimes you have to
get in bed with the M&E em in the M&E enemy
upon arrival of the sales barn it's time to unload Kachinas trailer so that she
can get to Holland another love and once inside we can see the number of
compartments that calves are held at each traffic appeals another group all
packed in tight for safety on their ride and eager to exit probably just looking
for fresh air which might be hard to find around here there are thousands of
cattle ready to be sold today and each group waits in their own set of Corral's
all kept separate by a number of Cowboys in charge of sorting and keeping them
straight inside the sales barn we register as sellers and find ourselves
in the bleachers watching batch after batch of cattle quelle engulf along with
the hours
selling calves is always an extremely stressful time of the year here on the
ranch whether it comes in October or this year in January we need every
single penny and every single pound that we can get out of these calves and it's
just always nerve-wracking and stressful not knowing what exactly is going to
happen by the end of today
63 on the door and each hour that a cow or calf is held before the sale they're
said to lose 1% of their body weight if a calf weighs 500 pounds at the ranch
just after the 2-hour drive here he's already lost 10 pounds and as the clock
continues to run one more cattle come through and it's not much a matter of
watching the afternoon slip away as watching pounds and money going out the
window or by the time for hours and 2 p.m.
rolls around the cows may have lost up to 20 pounds each and by 4:00 p.m. as
we're still waiting for our turn to sell it's been six hours since the calves
left the ranch and they're 30 pounds lighter for every 16 to 20 calves that
we sell at this point we lost one calf and wait
since we're selling 100 calves it's just over five calves worth of ndele a loss
of over $4,000 while we just sit here calves continue to roll in and out not
being wait until they're in the sales rank and then sold as the day drags on
buyers fill their quota and start to leave leaving less and less to bid and
give better prices eventually though our calves do enter the ring lighter than we
hope for was still getting a decent price average over a dollar seventy a
pound and the cows leave the barn and head out
to another truck feedlot bound where they'll now live for the next year or so
and are fed and fattened before entering the food system they continue on from
the ranch and we head back to it not with our tails between our legs but with
the burning desire to do something better and smarter for the ranch every
year on the ranch is a learning experience this is the first year that
we weaned calves I'm sure that there's ways that we can do to make it better
next year and we'll make some changes next fall we're gonna continue to keep
diversifying our income sources more animals will be kept back for local
sales and jerky assume coming to the website in abundance so we're gonna keep
learning keep changing keep adapting so that we have more control over the
future of the ranch all right so I'm a little a little tired and a little
annoyed but that's okay the big question is did it pay off keeping the animals on
the ranch for another three months the only way to know that is to look at the
numbers now we sold right around a hundred calves of market today on
average after paying fees to the sales barn we had less while we brought home
less than $800 per calf looking back at the October market for the same sales
barn if we compare apples to apples we had a group of steers that went through
at 511 pounds they sold for a dollar seventy seven or about $900 each those
were actually the highest the highest price that we had of the day here's a
few steers back in October that weighed 507 they went for a dollar fifty six or
seven hundred and ninety dollars that's a difference of a hundred and ten
dollars for three months worth of feeding now if a 500 pound calf eats 2%
of their body weight per day or 900 pounds over the three months we spent
about 15 bucks cutting and baling the hay for that calf we spent fifteen
dollars to make the food to feed him to makes an extra 110
heifers however didn't do as well the difference in price with them
between now and October was pretty much nothing but even factoring that in we
managed to make the ranch a little bit extra money with this new strategy
although it only equated to a few thousand dollars now we take that check
we pay off a few bills that have been waiting hold back money for wages and
we're left with a couple thousand dollars per month to keep the ranch
going this was a year that we all knew was coming to the ranch when we left our
careers to help out here we never expected to be where we are now but
since we've been here Gilbert my father-in-law that gave me
the courage to do this job he passed away I promised him as he laid in a
hospital bed that I wouldn't let anything happen to his most valued
possession in the entire world this ranch life made that promise a hard
one to keep it seemed like every time I turned around there was another obstacle
that would cost the ranch money animals would would die for no reason
I'd try to save money here only have to spend twice as much over there
and as time went on it seemed to get harder
we built a family here we had responsibilities we had the
responsibility to keep the ranch going every single day and it became a matter
of moving away from the traditional ranching incomes to help support what
Gilbert found to be his lifeblood and we weren't the first people to think of it
or do it when Gilbert was alive it was oil and methane in this area that kept
thousands of family ranches going but now oil and gas is gone and we're back
to what ranchers in Northeast Wyoming dealt with in the 40s and 50s dry land
farming drought and harsh winters followed by even harsher Springs now we
feel like frontiersman not because we're out clearing the way for civilization
but because we're trying to forge forward in a new way of ranching and
trying to continue our ranch for generations to come over the last few
years we've branched out into more Gardening raising our own beef and pork
and in what was inspired by ranchers and farmers in the 40s and 50s we've even
managed to open a farm store right here on the ranch to sell directly to
consumers we haven't forgotten technology of
course and we diversified even farther this year by selling beef jerky on our
website all of those efforts made for one purpose and that's to honor a dying
man's wish Gilbert well he would have given you the shirt off his back
probably want to wash it first and we know that in order to keep ranching we
have to do things quite a bit differently to each year the ranch
budget gets tighter and tighter and with the cattle market the way it is we know
that eventually we we didn't have to make changes not only in the way that we
bring in come to the ranch but we would have to start changing the way that we
ranch all together as ranching reaches another decade and larger and larger
meat packers conglomerates and monopolies control prices quality and
quantity small ranchers and farmers are going to be seeing less and less the
only way to change anything unfortunately is with your pocketbook
now I'm not challenging anybody to change their way of spending or thinking
but I am asking people to consider the consequences of not supporting your
local farmer or Rancher in case you missed it
Walmart just this week announced that they open their very own beef processing
facility and there's no way that you can tell me that that's not going to change
prices for producers as well as consumers some say it's inevitable but
I'll say that a lot of us won't go down without a fight because to me it's all
about a promise that I made to Gilbert than my family and then do you thanks
for watching maybe a little pissed right now but tomorrow the Sun well it's gonna
come back up again the cows are going to need fed and calves will soon be on the
ground and we'll start the whole thing all over again I hope that you're able
to subscribe and come along for the ride here's to a whole new 20 20 have a great
week and thanks for joining us in our Wyoming life