Going Around In Circles
Rotational grazing doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for at least two reasons. One reason it doesn’t work is that, rather than rotationally graze, most people rotationally overgraze. They get overstocking and overgrazing confused. Overstocking happens when you have more animals than you have grass to support them. Overgrazing happens when you keep animals in a pasture […]
Overheads Are Fixed!
What would you have to do to increase profit in a business where you couldn’t control costs? You’d have to increase production per animal, increase the number of animals you carry and hope for higher prices. These are the strategies most ranchers have followed, and Universities have recommended, for generations. It’s a logical approach if […]
The 3 Secrets For Increasing Profit™
There are three, and only three, ways to increase profit in any business. Stan Parsons called them The 3 Secrets For Increasing Profit™ and introduced them to Ranching For Profit […]
Read MoreYou Might Be Ranching For Profit If …
You might be ranching for profit if your spouse doesn’t have to work in town so you can have health insurance. If you are making a profit you ought to be able to pay yourself whatever it would cost to replace yourself and the business ought to be able to provide a benefits package, including […]
Monuments to Tax Avoidance
We have our end of the year tax appointment next Monday. That reminded me of a ranch I visited a few years ago. The owner’s son showed me around. As […]
Read MoreWhen is a Dollar Not a Dollar?
Dan Airely, a behavioral economist at Duke University conducted a silly experiment with serious implications. The experiment involved money, Coca Cola and college students. Dr. Airely stocked dorm room refrigerators with one of two things. He put a six pack of Coke in some. In others, he placed a paper plate with six crisp one […]
Scraping By
I received the following email from a young rancher last week: Dave, I am a young rancher and have grown my herd to over 100 cows over the last four […]
Read MoreThe Value of Gain & Grass
Wally Olson is a rancher from Vinita, Oklahoma. He has a profitable cattle trading enterprise based on the Sell/Buy marketing principles popularized by Bud Williams. At the foundation of Wally’s operation is an understanding of the value of grass and the value of gain. Wally is quick to point out that he doesn’t limit his […]
The Nine Calf Cow
I just read an article written by an ag economist on the value of bred heifers. He wrote that a crossbred heifer producing 9 consecutive calves in her lifetime is […]
Read MoreStocking Rate Rant
A Ranching For Profit School alumni sent me a paper published by the Society for Range Management on calculating the optimum stocking rate. The authors crunched 14 variables through 1o equations to reach the conclusion that the optimum stocking rate is somewhere between a low rate that maximizes per/head performance and a higher rate that […]