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.

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his life and his religion.  He hardly knows which is which.  He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.  To him, he’s always doing both.”
                                                          J. Michener

This quote was on a business card given to us by a man who is planning on attending our Cheyenne Stockmanship School in May.  Since I have often heard Bud telling people much the same thing, I thought it would be a worthwhile posting in “Bud’s Musings.”

Bud and I spent an enjoyable day with Christine Ferguson.  Chris won a Nuffield Farming Scholarship for 2010.   Every year a selection of farmers from around the world are chosen to study agriculture and their industry by being sent on a whirlwind tour of the globe.  She operates a Rangland Goat operation in New South Wales, Australia.  If you’d like to learn more, check out this website  http://goatcatcher.farmnet.com.au/about/ .
Chris is the third Nuffield Scholar who has visited us in the last few years.  They have all been very bright, ambitious and innovative people and a joy to visit with.  I believe that we have benefited as much from them as they have from us.

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.

I had a phone call this morning from the man who asked the January 22 question about his dog over-working.  He said that by following Bud’s answer, in a very short time  the dog (and cattle) was doing what she was supposed to.  He said he went back and re-read the material from the webpage and realized that he had misread it.

Question:  I’m working with a 17 mo old dog .She pays close attention to my position and balances well. I try to say as little as possible or nothing at all.  She has a lot of push to the point of nipping heels after she has gathered and has them coming. ( she is a border collie) I’ve started to let her know I’m not happy with nipping and she catches on quick but I want her to learn to pace on her own. I’ve been letting her push them ( 10 yearling heifers) past me and then make her bring them back but the heifers seem to ware out before the dog so I’ve been doing this a little more through gates so she doesn’t get the continual thrill of just getting to blast on past every time.  So two questions.  Pacing and nipping.

Answer:     You want to be careful about making the dog quit nipping because if you make her quit she may not nip when it is necessary. What you want to do is let the dog learn when to nip and when not to.

You wrote “I’ve been letting her push them past me and then make her bring them back.” When trying to get the dog to slow down and start thinking, don’t let the dog push the animals past and then make the dog go get them. This will wear out the cattle and not slow the dog down as this keeps the dog excited to keep working fast.

When the dog is bringing the animals walk toward the back and this will push the dog to the front.  As soon as the dog gets the animals turned and coming walk to the back again and this will push the dog to the front again. If you do it this way the animals will not get tired and the dog can learn to slow down and start thinking.

Don’t let the dog get the thrill of blasting on past you, that’s why the advice on working a dog is to “push” the dog not to work in such a way that you are actually encouraging it to blast on by you.

When you read what is written try to do close to what is written, otherwise the result may not be even close to what you want. Remember “push” the dog to get some things not just “send” them for everything.

When I write something it always makes me wonder why anybody would read it and why  I wrote it in the first place. Then after reading what other people are writing it makes me even more confused about why anyone writes anything. Maybe it is like the person said “Isn’t it amazing that there is just enough news to fill the newspaper” as he noticed that every page was full.

What brought this on was  reading an article on the DTN (Minding Ag’s Business). Its title was “Buckle Your Seat Belts For 2010.” I’ll include some parts of the article so we can understand the thinking of people who are doing the writing. It starts out with “As the recession spreads through farm country, profits seem to be vaporizing. At these commodity prices, very few operations in either crops or livestock can project profits.” 

Then it goes on to explain how hard it will be to get credit or credit extensions. Then the solution that is given is to “Unlock the cash in your land as today’s interest rates will be the lowest in your lifetime.”  Why do we  think the solution to a problem is more of what caused the problem?  If there is no profit to be seen, why borrow on the (more…)

The dairy farmers are having problems just like a lot of people are now. At a meeting with the Justice Department’s antitrust division the issue was whether or not the largest players in the dairy industry were to blame.

It is always bad when businesses have problems but now, instead of realizing what actually caused the problem, there is the desire to blame someone else. Later in the article this is what they wrote.  “Dairy farmers nationwide are coping with historically low milk prices after a 36 percent drop in the past year to the lowest level in three decades. In 2007 and part of 2008, (more…)