A Christmas gift for Horse

[grassfarmer]

I don't see how I have a dog in this fight Horse. Lease land comes up for sale on occasion and I haven't been tempted to buy any. By the time you have to keep it fenced, take the possible predator loss, truck cattle to it and back again for a short grazing season, check cattle at a distance, round up cattle off big areas of bush it didn't look that attractive to me.

Also we are not all in the same boat, what about the homesteaders that got land for free? or the guys that got here early enough to get the mineral rights versus the ones that came 2 years too late? or the guys like me that moved here from Europe recently versus the guys that did it in 1946. We all have different backgrounds, ambitions, financial positions, buy-in prices I don't see this one group of landowners being so different that we should all hate them or envy them. We all have our circumstances to deal with.

[Horse]

I dont hate anyone or envey But I do not like the gov to pick winners and loosers if there was a fair AUM charged then the price of leases would not be so much. And what does oil revenue have to do with grazing. There are 2 leases that I know of where they run 300 plus cows and when the AUM and taxes are paid they are still in the black, so my point is why does the gov not charge higher rate or no oil revenue that resource revenue belongs to Albertans no some con donor. A fellow in the redclif area told me if he turned out 300 cows and not one came back he was still making money.

[ag-boy]

we all know our cost of grasing cattle per /day /month for the season !
but none of leaseholders want to tell us the final cost, fanny he !
they all come up with stories of trucking, fencing,maintaining roads etc ! we all have same cost works out to be a $ 1 head a day,
again put the leases for bids, or sell them , not private of course!
what happened at BOW ILAND in south alberta.? we all are interested for that change to come .
our minister of agr has mention that many atimes .freedom of wheatboard and get rid off the milkquota and chicken quota !

[grassfarmer]

I don't understand the complaint that they don't sell them. They do - here is one in my area that has been on the market for a long time. If its such a great catch why isn't it snapped up already?


http://www.century21.ca/raymond.borley/Property/AB/T4T_1B4/Rocky_Mountain_House/North_Ram_River_Road/On

[Horse]

They do sell them and that is part of the problem, like marketing boards quotas were given and then they started to sell them and build that cost in the produce price, the more you get the more you can charge. I am not sure but as I remember forestery alotments are handled different from grazing leases, they dont qualify for resource revenue. As for the ram trucking and rough terrain are a big problem , there never should have been leases opened up in the foothills, last I heard was someone from coronation had the lease on seven mile , the grass is poor the season is short and the losses are high.. I could truck my cows to medacinehat if I had a lease but that wouldnt be profitable either unless the resource sector kicked in a few $ like millions. Name one business that would operate under the same rules as grazing leases. IE if I brought you my cows to pasture can I also charge you rent for your house you live in????

[blackjack]

I don't usually get involved about rumours but my father's family ran cows on Seven Mile creek to Ram River falls since the early fifties.They actually trailed the cattle home east of Rocky every fall up until the late eighties.My uncle passed away last spring so I would assume the reason for the sale.My thoughts if it was such a gold mine as Horse suggested I wonder why his family would not have continued on.

[Horse]

I nnever said it was a gold mine in fact I said there is no money to be madein that country running cows. My point was the gov is doing a very poor job of getting a return for OUR land base. It is worth way more for tourisim in fact the gov gets more from hunting and fishing lisnces than they do from AUM.I lived and traveled the seven mile from 1960 til1973 and the only cows I seen trailed was when they went over corkscrew headed for caroline at the first snowfall, and they wernt supose to.I dont know how they trailed cows the only access was from Nordeg or Caroline.

[blackjack]

I get it now Horse so all those ranchers that pasture in the foothills from Waterton to Fort St John are bad...where you ranch is good.By the way Horse if you were a hunting guide back then you would have known there was another route out.

[Horse]

Yea the north fork of prarie creek but impassabe in poor weatrer.