different thoughts

[cakadu]

You're right grassfarmer. Look at how quickly all those .dotcom companies fell by the wayside after millions of dollars had been invested in them by venture capitalists and people wanting to get rich quick.

I don't think there is any one way for an individual to get rich - it is what you make it. There is an old saying - Your life is what your thoughts make it.

They may not be readily apparent yet, but there is a silver lining in all of this. I am a firm believer in things happening for a reason - we might not know what that reason is at the time, but we do eventually realize what it was.

Many have chosen to hang on and hopefully they can make it. We moved our lambing season to start late April early May this year for several reasons - (1) we didn't want to lamb in the cold and thank goodness we didn't this year because January was brutal, (2) lambing in January and February would have meant that much more feed to buy to sustain the last 6 to 8 weeks gestation plus feed all those newborns and (3) to see where the market is going to end up.

We're no different than most, we're hanging on because we are hoping for a brighter future. With any luck and some good management decisions, we will weather this storm.

[cowman]

Well, I guess I'm hanging too, but for different reasons...hoping the darn price will rise enough so I can bail without losing my shirt!
And actually a whole lot of people have lost big time...like everyone who sold his yearlings this spring? I don't really care how you did the math you never made no money feeding calves this winter!
And the fact remains that this will be the year when the chickens come home to roost? Time to pay up for all the losses of the last year?
How many people have prepared themselves with a plan for survival? How about throwing in a few scenarios that could happen? Like drought? Or maybe another Mad Cow? Or our basic inputs skyrocketing? Not very nice thoughts but extremely possible?
If you don't have a plan then you will have an extremely difficult time coping when things go wrong?
Now perhaps your plan might involve cashing in the old RRSPs or subsidizing the cattle with other income or maybe getting out there and selling your beef on the niche markets. And that is fine if you love them so much you can't live without them! We all do strange things for the ones we love!

[cswilson]

Of course were all thinking of the different scenarios but if you constantly plan for armgeddon you won't even get out of bed in the morning-as for profits made on calves the guys who dumped on that 60 cent market definately lost but what about the guys who sold at 1.05 plus. One of my larger A.I. customers sold 475 yearlings at 750 At 1.04 thats $330 a head more than he'd been bid a month before. A pessimist would of dumped at 60 cents-lets face it when things are at the bottom up is the only way their going. Not a whole lot different than 1996-grass cattle were in the tank but if you bought them you were paid very well.

[cowman]

That is true their was a price spike where people made some money. And in reality prices at times last fall were fair. But you had to be lucky! Up one week down the next up the next and back down. Pretty hard to guess?
Now suppose the border opens and it rains like crazy...why I'll look like a genius! On the other hand if the border stays closed and it gets dry I'll look like an idiot! Thus is modern management? Maybe better to take your money down to Vegas and bet the roulette wheel?

[cswilson]

Cowman I'm sitting on and calving out 190 heifers that I didn't get sold lol. Maybe I better get fittted for that dunce cap-I wonder some days lol.

[cswilson]

Cowman I'm sitting on and calving out 190 heifers that I didn't get sold lol. Maybe I better get fittted for that dunce cap-I wonder some days lol.

[Horse]

Grassfarmer that is the biggest lie ever told that they arnt making any more land . In the past 30 yr they have pushed the frontier back and opened up millions of acres take for example the land west and north of REd Deerit used to stop at leslivele and didnt go more than a few miles north of Rockey only a few small lumber operations now look at it Droyton valey was a big mud hole with oil under it Manning I worked on the railroad in 62 it was all swamp and bears now millions of acres high level was not on the map and so on so you see they are making more land . Go to Brazil or allmost anywhere and land is being made .

[grassfarmer]

You have got to realise how limited the potential to expand is surely? Yes there are a few places in the world where land is being cleared but farmland is being depleted, eroded and abandoned around the world quicker than new stuff is being cleared. Then take the urban sprawl that covers huge areas every year not to mention all the areas to be set aside for "wildlife corridors" and leisure activities and you realise how quickly we are running out of land. Today we feed a world population of 5.7 billion where we fed only 3 billion in 1960 - this is projected to rise to 8 billion by 2050. Ok, you can argue we are technically creating farmland where there was none before but the expression I used meant that the world wasn't getting any bigger

[cakadu]

One also has to take into consideration what this land that is being cleared is actually going to produce.

If it is going to be forced chemically to produce relatively marginal crops at best, then what is the point in trying to open it up? There might very well be a reason it was left to scrub brush and lodgepole pine. Is it going to be yet another case of forcing the land what it was never intended to do?

Once again, just because we can do it...should we be?