The Power of Positive Thinking

[PureCountry]

I don't get on here as much as I used to, but I've been reading back through some threads the last couple days, and I'm amazed at some of the dead-end conversations. They end in arguments where two people agree to disagree, and the rest are just requests for advice and such. So, with that in mind, I'd like to throw out something positive, and if anyone wants to share, great. Don't bother typing in if you're going to try slamming someone else(You 2 kids know who you are). Share your positive stories of things you're doing with direct marketing or selling something off the farm(bale feeders), or whatever.

We're constantly working on this beef company plan, with rkaiser and another family. We believe direct marketing is the only hope for us in the beef industry, and I tend to think that smaller is better. The larger you try and get, the more you're noticed and the more influence others in the industry can have over you. cs and rk, notice I said "others", I'm not naming names, we know who they are. Building a great relationship with one of our many local abbatoirs is on my priority list, so we can get animals slaughtered when and how we want.

I'd really like to see our beef on the shelves of meat shops in the near future. If that doesn't happen, I'd really like to see them on display at the local farmer's market. If that doesn't happen, maybe we'll deliver boxed beef door to door to the customers we already have. In any case, we'd rather sell beef than calves. That's our goal. It's a goal that will hopefully afford us to not have to work off the farm, and provide our kids with a good lifestyle.

What's everyone else up to? Grassfarmer, sean, kato, willowcreek, any brilliant plans in the works?

[whiteface]

Just my two cents, Purecountry, and I always try a positive approach without being a "lay down" and getting walked on by any and all the "bullys." What worked for me was takeing a forward thinking and positive attitude and applying it to two things. Something I'm good at which is sorting through clutter and my compassion for people. And, listening to what is people need and whether or not I have the capability to provide it to them.
I did well with my cattle, both from a purebred seedstock perspective and providing a specialty type meat (no "crap" in it and good tasting) for "more demanding" type people. (They had to pay more for it since I didn't operate on volume and cost cutting).
The biggest problem I crashed into was the butcher which you addressed in your post. That I totally and completely applaud you on tackling and absolutly encourage you to pursue. In any business you need to have a list of loyal people along the way who will in fact honour your belief system and goals and work with you to achieve them. If you can put them together, you're already there. I couldn't with the cattle because of land base and taxes and couldn't with the meat because I just never got "in" with a butcher that would inspect also.
The career choice I currently follow requires much the same curriculum as any business venture might: lawyers, real-estate agents, contractors, mortgage brokers, and a few others and no-shit, if any one along the chain decides to pull a fast one or bail or anything, it could spell Jenga, so my job of course is to make sure nothing breaks and to deal with it if and when it does.
I'm hurt that you didn't include my name in asking what is everyone doing now, maybe my advice is unsolicited, but hopefully is positive and thought-provoking enough that you're able to take something out of it. That's what I do.
Good question. I as well, am always interested in what people are up to. So, let's have it!
Thanks for reading and have a good day all!

[rkaiser]

A group of European folks built a brand spankin new plant at Lacombe Alberta intending to Custom Harvest and only Custom Harvest up to 100 head per day. Multi species plant for Buffalo, Elk and Racoon's and will be E.U. certified shortly after completion. Running a test for the CFIA this week. The plant at Spruce Grove is nearing completion and the plant at Wetaskiwin is still moving along slowly. Looks like Ranchers Beef at Balzac has dodged one of many bullets that they knew were coming from those who would rather see no competition. Natural Valley is still moooooooooooving cattle. Support any one of these ventures and we will all be better off down the road. The few early connections we have made for sales are extremely positive and talk of being fed up with things that I will hold back from mentioning. More and more baby boomers becoming aware and opportunity awaits us all.

[grassfarmer]

Working away steadily with our grassfed here PC. Looks like sales will be up 40% this year but still on small volumes. We have the model refined now and plan to step up our marketing next year. The only glitch we have had was processing plants - we have just switched to a (hopefully) better one as the price increases at the other plant were getting ridiculous. We were quoted close to $600 to kill and butcher a 660lb carcase into quarters. There comes a point when enough is enough, although I do feel for the plant operators (but not the two unmentionables of course ;o))

[grassfarmer]

Oh yeah, and I'm kind of busy jointly leading up a campaign to prevent the ground water in our aquifer getting stolen by an oil comany to p@#$ down an injection well aided and abetted by Alberta Environment and the EUB. But I guess that's getting into negative talk again so i'd better shut up now.

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Aw man, where to start?

Going to give stockpiling hay on a grand basis a shot this year. No second cut for this cowboy, unless I'm really short. I tried a 40 acre meadow last year, and I think it really brought me some returns. With all the wet this year, hay is poor, except that 40 acres of stockpiled stuff.

Also stringing up a fence all the way around my two closest hay quarters. After the first hard frost, my critters will get the boot out into the "stockpiled" hay and they chew on that stuff until the snow is too deep. I figure I'll still have plenty of stockpiled hay for fertilizer next year, while not having to start the loader until January sometime.

Put my plans on hold for breeding the "perfect" Shorthorn bulls and instead bought one of Kaisers little sawed off critters. I'm breeding my PB cows to him as well and pulling off all the worthy heifers for a breeding to butcher test. My butt still hurts where the Shorthorn Association's door knob hit it, so I plan to show them a better Durham Red.

Joining a feeder co-op this year, and I'll be pulling in as many Welsh/Galloway feeders as I can get my mitts on. This will be the first time I've ever fed out more than a few cattle in a year.

And I'm helping Kaiser where and when I can with your Celtic venture.

I think thats about it. I'm still looking for more things to do around here....

Rod

[smcgrath76]

Just finished taking the Executive Development Course put on by the George Morris Centre. It was a great business course and certainly is changing / will change our farm business. www.georgemorris.org
We are just in the process of buying our first hooks in a processor. We are haying at the moment (mostly share crop type land at this point) and we are negotiating whether or not we swath graze, bale graze or other on our land at home. We are also debating whether or not to bale some paddocks on some pasture we seeded down 20 years ago and brought back to life with fencing and care. I guess we never noticed that yellow alfalfa had gone out of style since we always had it.
We are planning some new fencing divisions to better use our winter feed resource, and double our current stocking capacity. We are stockpiling native and if the snow agrees with us this year we will be hauling feed out for 30 days or less, rather than the 70 we wound up with previously.
On friday I am pulling CIDRs and breeding cows on Sunday. We have AI'ed lots but have never used CIDRs before so that should be interesting. We have a new bull for heifers that should be exciting as well.
We are growing our cow lease business and are on a general expansion path.
I am also currently involved in setting up a new ag related business, as well as hatching a couple of new plans and experiments for the farm.
And we are teething in our house. Not all of us, just Billy's little sister and that is plenty of teeth for everyone.

[rkaiser]

I can't imagine a more rewarding year for those of us in the grass industry. Like Sean, I have heard of lots of people thinking of haying pasture land. Won't be doing it at home. Like the bale feeder vs. no bale feeder discussion - what is waste? I will just bet that those embryos will be the kind to steer the cattle industry back on track Sean.

Took an opportunity to return some ground to the good old girl who gave us all of this abundance this year. 15 acre piece of ground (now the third on our home 1/2 section "15 - 15 - 8") got a permanent fence around it to grow some more trees and supply a retreat for all kinds of species native to our area and even the one that is not truly native - the homo sapien and his family. Yes Pure Country I do consider myself part of that group. Could not have picked a better year to start a project like this. Seven, or in some places eight foot high reed canary grass and poplar growth exceeding 4 feet. Raspberry bushes and honey suckle like you would not imagine and and already signs of visitors of the non plant variety.

We have seen a major shift to production or financial management on our land in the past 30 or so years, and it is now becoming even more apparent that conventional agricultural methods to take all we can get from the land are not helping the farm gate prices or that ever so elusive bottom line. It seems that more and more folks are getting the picture - the final step is to find ways to market this new approach on our own or with the lead of those who were in the game far ahead of any of us who post on this site.

[kato]

When we used to grow grain we'd finish our steers, but over the years just couldn't see the return from grain that we could with cattle on the same land base. Around here, if you're a grain grower you've got to be big to justify the machinery. Besides, we didn't like being grain farmers. A field of wheat just didn't make our day like watching calves play. ;-)

Since we don't grow grain, we've gotten away from finishing steers, with the exception of doing it a few times to sneak our way past a market crash.

We've adopted a policy of contrariness. To us, that means doing everything we can to not follow the pack. When others are getting out, we try and get in. Some of our best moves have been accompanied by someone saying "Your doing WHAT?". LOL

We've been contrary in our calving as well. We are well aware of the benefits of late calving, but in the past couple of years, we've seen benefits in early calving that we'd never think we would see. Those big 700 pound fall calves are becoming a niche market themselves. They are getting harder to find. Since we're set up for winter calving, we'll stick with it. Another benefit of the trend to later calving is that we can find all kinds of light calves to background now. Where it used to take a couple of months to fill the pen, it now takes a couple of weeks.

We feed screening pellets, so the only labour involved is phoning the feedmill. This allows us to feed more cattle. We graze corn, so even with winter calving our cows are only in the yard for 90 days.

I guess in a nutshell, we try and stay flexible and be ready to move if we see something coming up in the markets that might work for us.

[smcgrath76]

Randy,
I think the difference is that good grass managers have more grass than managers benefitting from moisture alone.
I know we have had people look at our place, particularly after 2002 when we had 3/8" of rain in 5 months that recommended spraying, fertilizing, reseeding, etc. and we still had more grass than most people do this year.
With fence and patience we can easily double our carrying capacity. Grass can be pretty exciting stuff.

[PureCountry]

It sure is Sean. I've had some of Randy's heifers with mine and some cows, too, for a total of 48 head on a half section of pasture in the river valley, and you can't tell anything's been there at all. It's a real treat to watch this year.

[grassfarmer]

Kato, you hit the nail on the head there
"We've adopted a policy of contrariness" sums up what all us mavericks replying to this thread are doing. I love it when my neighbours all think i'm crazy. I think it is the road to success, life is exciting being on the edge!

Randy, Why do you need a permanent fence to create a wildlife and habitat sanctuary? Can't you achieve all these effects within your current dynamic of banked grass, rotational pasture, non-hay cutting etc? If you can't what are the impediments in your system to wildlife and trees thriving?
Our wildlife are thriving so well I thought we had a cougar living in an area of bush last week. Strong smell of tom cat all through it, no deer to be seen and even the coyotes were quiet for the week. Does that sound like the effect of a cougar?

[PureCountry]

Sure does Iain. We've had some around Hardisty now for a few years. Find tracks in the river valley maybe once or twice a year. Some folks got pictures of one right on the edge of town last summer, and a couple friends of mine saw one run across the golf course earlier this spring. Makes you think twice about checking fence on foot in the old river hills by yourself unless your packin'.

[PureCountry]

Almost forgot....Whiteface, my most sincere apologies for not including your name in my original post.(And any others who found themselves offended, disgruntled, or burdened with feelings of loneliness or thoughts of rejection)

[rkaiser]

I guess I neglected to tell the whole story Iain. Two of the three areas have water bodies and we are attempting to create bird habitat, nesting ground, and grow some trees. No matter the time of year that you graze a paddock you will risk destroying new growth trees. You are right about most wildlife, but some birds and things like squirrels and I will even argue deer will come to areas never trodden by our domestics. I mow trails through some of these areas with my lawn tractor and it is always a sight to see a little whitetail use the trail to explore the area.

The third area will be used as a woodlot for our outside wood burning heat source. Lots of spruce in the area (not much left in our whole part of the county) and I have yet to see even an extremely well managed coniferous paddock produce new seedling growth like a fenced out one. One area just beside this new one was fenced to stop any grazing in two separate projects in the past. Incredible seedling development at both stages.

Don't worry Iain, I am not suggesting that anyone else do such a thing, just one of those things that I do. It is also a place to go and simply feel good about as in the title to this thread of Darcy's. Call it my spiritual retreat - especially when negotiating with Encana; whose lease road borders the side of this place, or as day of battling the unmentionables.