Dear Eunice, I wanted to send you a note as I just the other day heard that Bud had passed away. Ironically, I was putting a rather wild heifer of mine in a rather rickety corral, that I might add was definitely Not designed by Bud. Right after I hollered “EASY” at my help. Doc . . . . said to me “you knew Bud passed away didn’t you”. I was in shock and as I was pulling the calf I was thinking back on what an influence Bud and yourself have been on my life. I will never forget the quality time that I had the privilege to have spent with you fine people. Although it seems like we have lost touch I think of Bud most every time im in a sticky situation  with cattle.

Bud lives on in the lives of the many people he has touched.

. . . . I built a new processing barn with a Bud Box.  We used to use a tub.  With the new setup, working cattle takes half the time.  We never yell or shock anything – and it’s fun!

The stockmanship video has already paid for itself. I have always used horses and dogs to pen cattle. I had a man call about penning a cow and calf that was left when they sold the rest of the herd. In this instance I used to rope them because they have been messed with ( spoiled) and it has always been hard for me to drive a single or pair with no herd for security. I went to look the situation over and it was mostly open, so I walked out into the pasture and the cow and calf ran off as soon as I stepped out of the truck. I had been watching the stockmanship video and I decided to apply some of the principles and in about an hour I could get close to the pair and in another hour to an hour and a half I walked them into the catch pen that the owner and others had been trying to get them in for a couple of months. The owner didn’t believe it and still ask how I did it. He accused me of tranquilizing them. I think he thought this because the cow was so calm and quite.

From Ranching for Profit Blog   (2012/11/27)   by Dave Pratt

Bud Williams, known world-wide as the authority on low-stress livestock handling, died Sunday, November 25, from pancreatic cancer. There is a brief message on Bud’s Stockmanship website (www.stockmanship.com) that reads, Thanks to all of you for helping us make things better for the animals.

There’s no doubt that Bud’s concepts and methods made things better for the animals, but they also made things better for the people working those animals. He taught hundreds how to “settle” livestock after shipping. He explained to his students how they could apply cell grazing without fences by “placing” livestock in pastures. He taught how to move herds faster and more calmly without an army of people. He developed and taught (more…)

The family and I are in the Bryansk region of Russia working for Miratorg.  The area is close to the Belorussia and Ukraine borders.  It is part of the Black Soil bread basket of Europe.   The company is a Russian ag. company that is currently shipping thousands of head of cattle each month from Australia and US to restock the depleted beef cow herds.   We have over 56,000 hd on 18 ranches.  Last spring we AI bred over 42,000 hd in 30 days.  Miratorg has an English website with other information.   The facilities are built with a Bud Box to move cattle thru the chute.    Russians know what the Bud Box is and are doing a good job.   Miratorg is also building two new feedlots and a packing plant.    I can see the history of agriculture as I drive from village to village.  The old communist farms are barely standing. . . .

Comment: . . . .we’re dry but cattle are doing amazingly well! Here’s some of the best numbers I have ran in a while. Sold 750# yrlng steers $1.38 – $1035hd Bought 688# steer and bull calves $1.255 – $863 cost of gain plus a dime profit – $1.06!

That’s $112 profit in 40 days in the worse drought with the highest feed cost ever!  I’m so glad you taught me to look for opportunity instead of complaining about stuff I have no control over.

We have been at Rockhampton for Beef Australia 2012 week all last week and I started thinking about you both and thought I’d email and say Hi. . . . .

I realise you have a busy schedule but it is good to get in touch anyway.  We have passed Bud’s video round many friends in our area in the Lockyer Valley and they have all learnt much from them.

. . . .  often tells people about the time we visited you at Lloyd Minster in Canada and how Bud used to draft off the sick cattle each morning for treatment out of the mob into the laneway.

We admire what you both have done for the beef industry in Australia and just thought I’d like to keep in touch.

Testimonial: . . . . [husband] left the banking business two years ag o this month and we have been in the cattle business full time since then. My dad wanted to quit running cattle so we were able to lease about 1500 acres of native grass pasture from him to run yearlings. We also have cows and some yearlings on pastures that have been in [husband's] family. We had been running cattle on this acreage since 1985 . . . . .

The first year was a learning experience. We didn’t get any yearlings in until mid December as [husband] was still at the bank until mid January, the weather was bad, we had never done anything of this scale, we were together all day but we made it and before the second set of yearlings started coming in the fall of 2010, I had laid in bed at night with a small DVD player watching your DVD! It had belonged to one of our sons and was well used so it would not start from where you stopped but only from the beginning (more…)

Hi Bud and Eunice. I have been wanting to talk to you for a while but I thought I would wait and see how things shook out for us.

This has been an exciting winter. Everyone wants to talk about cows, I want to talk about feed. We have been working hard at saving our feed for the winter months to make it possible for us to carry dry bred cows if the opportunity presented itself. People were sick about seeing all the grass going to waste, and even asking if they could use it if we weren’t going to. We just told them we were letting it recover and the cows would eat it this winter. We picked up 80 or so bred cows this winter for $950, and put them out on that wasted grass. We had no idea our neighbors kept such good track of us until one said, (more…)

Comment/Question: . . . I enjoyed the course [many years ago in Australia] very much because it was such an eye opener. Handling cattle after that became a pleasure, I suppose not only for me but certainly also for the animals, instead of adversaries we became friends. I must thank you so much! Now that I am getting older and consider ‘Retirement’ as an option, I would like to pass on what I have learned from you to a young friend who is just starting a beef cattle herd, he is trying to do everything quite ‘logically’ [his logic] and I can see him making quite some unnecessary mistakes. He would not worry me so much but the welfare of the animals is a concern. And that leads me to two questions, a) are you by any chance holding a training school here in Australia again and if not, b) do you have/sell the Stockmanship School as a DVD. Option a) would be the preferred one as one can ask you questions but if not b) would be better than nothing.

Answer:     It’s great to hear from you. It’s always gratifying to hear that you were able to take things home from our school that has been helpful to you.

I’m afraid that old age has finally caught up with us and we won’t be putting on anymore schools.

We have a Stockmanship DVD set for sale for $125.00 (US funds). This video is about 5 hours long so of course, it doesn’t show as many videos of cattle work as out 16+ hour school. It is still quite complete as far as teaching Bud’s livestock handling methods. We also have a subscription based web site where Bud is available to answer your e-mail questions for $300.00 per year. We feel that people who are serious about learning from Bud can still do so buy using the DVDs and the website.