This is part of a letter from Tina, our daughter.  She and her husband Richard McConnell teach Low Stress Livestock Handling.  See their webpage at www.handnhandlivestocksolutions.com.

. . . We are finally getting caught up from the Provenza Short Course and then speaking last Wednesday! Whew! The Short Course was really great. It was nice to visit with Bruce Maynard also.   [Bud and I met Bruce when he attended Stockmanship Schools that we put on in Australia in 1999 and in 2002.  He also visited us in Texas for a One-on-One.]   He taught stockmanship stuff to the group while they were out at the experiment farm every morning doing their research stuff. . . . Bruce gave Dad full credit for everything he taught from the beginning. And, Fred Provenza mentioned Dad’s work a lot during his talks, both the stockmanship and the marketing. We thought Bruce did a very good job with what he taught. He did the straight lines, T to the gate, NOT being a predator, etc. I didn’t hear/see anything that wasn’t right from what Dad teaches. He had some great demonstration items too. At one point the group of about 10 of us were standing by this pen of lambs. He had us get in a straight line fairly near their pen, then had the ends move out into a curve around the lambs, and you could immediately tell they got uncomfortable with that. Very good demo of what the curves do mentally, above and beyond pressuring those outer animals so they have no where to go. . . .

 I have been studying your math.  Thanks for all the help you give us all.  I thought I would give you feedback.  Your explanations are clear and easy to understand.  I remember sitting in some marketing classes and people would just say their cost was a certain set amount like say $.70.  I was sitting there thinking….mine changes almost everyday.   The more weight we gained the smaller the costs became.  I finally decided these people must run 10,000 stockers or something.  Then I found myself making all marketing decisions based on my cost of gain rather than watching the market.  It was like a disease, and only when my cost got low enough would we ever consider selling.  Luckily, you picked up on this and made this rash statement and it was like getting a giant shot in rear….”if you always sold overvalued and bought undervalued, you would probably never need to even know your cost of gain.”(Bud Williams).  I realized right then that you were trying to help me see that I was ignoring the important thing and focusing on a minor issue.  I think maybe the cattle square is responsible for this because it doesn’t work really well with little or no weight gain, so it is tempting to hold on to overvalued animals waiting until it does work, meanwhile passing up profit potential.

Tell Bud that we haven’t lost but one calf since I took his first class and
that wasn’t from sickness. That calf was healthy as a horse on a Sunday and running and bucking and eating and dead the next morning. I think it must have been an aneurysm or heart attack.

This is a letter that was forwarded to us from the folks at KLR Marketing, they are teaching Bud’s Marketing methods in Australia.  Thought you might enjoy it.    Eunice

Whenever I send cattle into the saleyards, I always make an educated, conservative guess as to what I might receive.  In the past, though I can’t remember specifics, I do remember that the emotion disappointment was always in the mix.

 Well, three weeks ago I sold steers, two weeks ago I sold heifers, and yesterday I sold old cows with no teeth (surely old cows are a recipe  for disappontment!)

 Have you noticed that the auctioneer usually tries to start the bidding where he expects it will end, then someone will put in a lower offer and the bids will slowly climb back up to where he tried to start?  Yesterday with the first pen of cows he tried to start at $1.40, and it shot straight up to $1.46!  Anyway, over 55 gummy old girls we averaged $1.413, or $846 a head.  Sixteen of them averaged over $915 a head!

 Last week my agent picked up 24 cows, in calf, with good calves at foot (around 200kg) for $1000 a unit, so we’ve bought a calf and teeth for not too much money.

I was equally pleased and pleasantly surprised with the steers and heifers.  Nothing is safe in the paddock – it is all at risk at being turned into cash.

 Cheers  

We have recently moved the Castle Rock bison herd, [ 547 head], down country some 30 miles to the prairie. This was our first time to try this migration, and all went very well. We have brought them to our working facility for processing then they will return to the mountains. Thanks again for all your help, and hope to see you sometime.

Comment from a student:   Take a look at El Reno this week.  There is report of 6 #1 LM 558 pound steers that sold for $93.00  (Fleshy)  Just above them was the 557 pound steers at normal flesh that sell for $104.50  The fleshy calf cost $518.94 and the other cost $582.06   This market would have paid me $63.12 to take one pound off the fleshy calves.

This is where I totally get the “cost to keep.”  I have numerous trades where I take fat bawling bulls and turn them into thin yearling steers and loose weight doing it by putting them on cheap, mature grass.  Although I lost weight, I still made a profit.  It still cost me money to take off the weight in grass, time, skill, labor, freight and vet supplies.  But when I took them back to the sale at a lower weight than I bought them, they paid me for negative gain because I replaced them with a heavier, fat bawling bull. 

This may not make sense to anyone but me.  But there is real, spendable cash left over after each trade.

Keep smiling!  I know you mean it.

Question: . . . . after our visit to you. . .  we went home , and put your stockmanship to work for us, we are very happy for it.    We did not talk alot about marketing, but I was wondering about using cost of keep, verses BPCOG in the winter months? Ann has a article on here Q&A section that says cost of keep is bad, if your creating positive cashflow is this not what you want?

Answer:     Ann doesn’t understand Cost to Keep therefore she thinks that it has to be bad. The example she used had nothing to do with marketing.  The loss was because several died and there was only enough money left to buy what they bought.  We had nothing to do with the trade, didn’t even know it was happening. There are lots of things that don’t fit with the sale barn ticket. 

The BPCOG is just cost of gain with a profit. Cost to Keep is just what it cost plus a profit. They are exactly the same except the BPCOG is using per pound gain in weight or difference in weight and the Cost to Keep just uses the total cost whether there is a weight gain or not.
Use what works for you and makes a profit.

G’day Bud, Here is some feedback from a couple people :

Bud, the markets are interesting right now with sheep going through the roof, cattle falling  through the floor. Yet both cattle and sheep producers are doing really well who are using the Sell/ Buy system.
A cattle example is a producer sold cows and calves on a day when the market dropped for $490(not near what he expected), he took a breath and said well there must be a good buy here as well – not long before he had PTIC (bred) cows for $200 – a good profit after Cost of Carry.
A KLR Marketer was offered some lambs this week for $60 and ewes for $61 – the producer almost pleaded with him to take them as he was running out of feed and water. The KLR Marketer knew what they were worth in the market place so he took them home gave them a drink, then it was back on the truck to the market.  24 hours after the purchase they sold for $90 – not much cost of Carry there !!
The ewes were under offer last night for $120 – who says sheep are ground lice !!!
When everyone runs out of grass and water and you have carefully managed both you are in the box seat to make profits beyond reason.

Just to let you know I got the dvd’s the other day and we are working our way through them and really enjoying them. I liked reading what you have written in the last couple days about buying bred cows. That is just what I did on Monday and it really seems like it was a good move. I got a bunch for $550 average and some of them are better quality cows than we already have so I’m pretty happy with how it has worked.