Applying the Soil Health Principles
Recently I had the opportunity to co-teach a Soil Health Academy in North Carolina alongside Dawn and Grant Breitkreutz, Gabe Brown and Allen Williams. While attending the 3-day academy the […]
Read MoreA Strong Gross Margin
If you’re ranching for profit, there is one way to define “a good cow”. She has a strong gross margin. In much of my writing and speaking it might seem […]
Read MoreCan Small Scale Operations be Profitable?
I often hear from people operating on a smaller scale that their limitations of size make it impossible for them to be profitable. “I only run 12 cows and operate […]
Read MoreBiggest Mistakes in Grazing Management
Too short a recovery period – When turning into a pasture ask, “Has this pasture recovered from the previous stress (grazing, fire, grasshoppers etc.)?” If not, then you need to […]
Read MoreGross Margin Inside the Cow Herd
We just wrapped up a full school in Oklahoma City. It was an amazing week where 54 people spent a week exploring the leadership of their businesses and making new friends along the way. Wally Olson of Olson Ranch and founder of Ranching FYI stopped by and discussed cow depreciation and how to make decisions […]
Winter Calving
Calving season has begun across cow-country and so have the stories of sleepless nights, calves being brought inside the house to warm up and heroic tales of battling the recent polar vortex across the country. Granted this weather was extremely unusual for some parts of the country, but for places where this is part of […]
Allocation of Overheads is a Bad Idea
The team here at RMC has been busy holding Ranching for Profit Schools in several locations. At these schools, a good part of classroom time is spent teaching and applying […]
Read MoreCow-Calf Profitability
If you could only show me one number on your ranch that directly correlated to the profitability of your cow-calf operation, what would that number be? If you follow traditional thinking you might assume weaning weight, or price received for your calves. Not it. In fact, those numbers have little correlation to profit. So, what […]
Cow Depreciation – Don’t Follow a Recipe
There has been quite a bit written about managing cow deprecation over the past few years. In simple terms cow depreciation is the reduction of value of a cow from its height of value until it is sold for salvage. I’m glad this often hidden cost is getting attention and that ranchers now see this […]
Ranching from Scratch
Can’t be done. At least that is what conventional wisdom says. I’d agree that it can’t be done, if you follow the rules of traditional ranching – running cows the […]
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