Using The Unseen Potential

Even when people believe they could change how they graze to regenerate their pastures, they believe that costs to make the changes in water infrastructure are insurmountable. Often this can be overcome in part by simple modifications.

 Many operations can simply consolidate their current water points to be able to run their cattle as one herd. (Santa Maria Cattle Company, out of Chihuahua City, Mexico has one 4,000 acre pasture they have been regenerating grass with only one water point, and one division fence.) In instances where there are two or more water points across the fence from each other, simply incorporating them into a single water lot will increase the number of cattle that can be run in a single group. 

 Another thing which goes unseen is the amount of feed which cattle ignore. There are many plants which our fathers or grandfathers depended on for winter forage which (thanks to generations of purchased supplements) that (most of) our cattle ignore them and we don't recognize them. Amazingly, in most cases (thanks to desertification of grass) these plants are more prolific now than they were back when our grandfathers depended on them. The following two pictures are looked at as unproductive by this ranch,  yet it is an opportunity waiting to be utilized.

The cattle in this picture were ones missed in the gather because they were buried in the brush in the top picture, rather than out in sparse grass like the rest of the cattle in this pasture were doing.

The piece of brush this cow is eating is one of four different kinds of brush they were eating. Doesn't look like much, but judging by the condition of the cattle, it must be pretty good feed...which is being all but ignored by most of the cattle and rancher alike.

These three things combined, being chronically understocked, ability to combine water points to run cattle in a single group, and ignored forage plants add up to the potential to not only begin a regenerative grazing program with little expense, but to do it at an accelerated rate.

Rebooting herd instinct in your cattle after combining your water points automatically widens their diet to include the nutritious woody plants and weeds they now ignore in a way which stimulates soil biology and grass. You are now grazing more forage in each pasture, as well a more acreage in each pasture and able to increase your stocking rates.

At this point, rather than buying cattle, you can increase your cow numbers and accelerate the process by leasing pasture to yearlings. With pasture rates for yearlings running at $20 per head, per month and above, you are left with (after deducting for extra labor and water) you are left with an extra $15,000 a month (or more) for water infrastructure, in addition to  sub-soiling or bale feeding to accelerate the soil and grass regeneration process.  

By changing focus, the unseen potential of your ranch can become more obvious, and regeneration of your soil and forage base becomes a bit more simple.

Differences Between Conventional Cattle Placment and Placing to Graze As a Herd

 In conventional placing, we hold the cattle in one place until they are grazing in different directions. This means that, while the cattle are in the same area, they spread out which also spreads out the herd impact. In placing cattle for holistic, planned grazing, the object is to have the cattle mimic a herd. To do this the cattle need to be as close together as feed and terrain will allow, while grazing in the same direction to maximize herd impact and reduce selective grazing.

To do this we must first move the cattle with the least amount of stress as possible, then slow down the front of the herd until they start grazing and allow the rest of the cattle to catch up. While we can help the cattle in the back catch up, we need to let it all happen. Much of the time it will only take four or five grazing stops to have the cattle acting as a herd and grazing out together, and going to water together.

While on the Ganaderia Valle Colombia Ranch in Mexico we were working on several sets of cattle the first two days rather than concentrating on just one group. We started working on the cattle in this video on Wednesday, and by Friday they were beginning to come together as a herd. At the end of the video you will notice the cattle coming up and grazing towards the cattle at the lead and grazing as a herd.

In another few moves they will have all of the cattle grazing tightly together and be able to graze where they want, when they want, without building more fence while having their herd impact more concentrated than they do in their smaller pastures in the valley floor.

Forage Improvement Results From Holistic Herding

Back in October of 2012 I began a project of  using low stress stockmanship to herd 460 cows through a 32000 acre grazing plan. During the course of this grazing season, I did a few experiments to see how much ( if any) increase in forage I could get in areas where cattle normally don't graze. One area was four miles from the water source for the 280 head I placed for one day. I placed approximately 180 head to graze up a draw to the top of a long ridge, and let them keep going back on their own. There was another area which was sub-soiled with the Yeoman Plow just before it was grazed.

All of these areas (and more) improved, some with dramatic results. You can see it for yourself in this video!

Supporting Kids In Agriculture!

   As the agriculture gets older, we are having fewer and fewer young people wanting to make a career out of farming and ranching. This means it is up to the old codgers to do what we can to help those few kids interested in an agricultural career to do what we can to help them out.

    One way we can do this is by holding and sponsoring events which support youth in agriculture. On Saturday, March 30th just such an event will be taking place. The SWRRA winter series finals, and Crossroads Cowboy Gathering will have the Crossroads Finals Show and Dance with all proceeds going straight to the Benson, Arizona FFA. Setting an example for the rest of us involved in agriculture, Baxter Black will be donating his time to perform during this event. The community of Benson has shown great support for this event as well. Even the agritainers coming to this event are supporting Benson's kids in agriculture by donating their time to provide music for the dance.

For more information on this event, visit our web page. If you can't make it, and would like to support the agritainers donating their time, you can buy their cd's on the Crossroads Agritainer's Sales Page. We need to remember that the children are not our future, but what we do now, contributes to theirs!

The Bigger is More Profitable Myth

There is a commonly held opinion within the cattle industry that ranchers need to raise bigger calves to be profitable. Is this opinion fact, or is it a myth?

When I checked the market prices at Amarillo, Texas tonight, 700 pound steers were bringing $145 cwt while 500 pound steers were bringing $187 cwt. This meant (that at least on this day) a 500 pound steer was actually worth $65 more than a 700 pound steer. In reality, that 700 pound steer is costing you more than the $65 difference in market price per head.

The average amount of feed to maintain a cow (depending on whether or not she is lactating, and what trimester of pregnancy she is in) will ranch from 2.5% to 3.5% of her body weight. For the purpose of keeping the numbers round, I am going to use an even 3%.

A 1,250 pound cow will have a daily feed requirement (1250 X 0.03) of 37.5 pounds of feed. This comes out to 13350 pounds of feed per year to raise that 700 pound calf.

A 700 pound cow will have a daily feed requirement (700 X 0.03) of 21 pounds a day, which comes out to 7665 pounds of feed per year.

By dividing the difference in the amount of feed needed to maintain the 1,250 cow by the amount needed to maintain the 700 pound cow, we find that you can actually run 1.78 of the 700 pound cows on the same amount of forage as it takes to run one 1,250 pound cow. This equates to running 178 cows raising 500 pound calves on the same amount of forage as it takes to run 100 of those soggy 700 pound calves. So just how much more money can your ranch bring in with the more moderately framed cows?

Based on the above market prices, you will make $6,500 more per 100 calves on those 500 pound calves. However when you add the additional 78 calves you would raise, this adds another $72,930 which brings the total to $79,430. When you take into account the extra vaccines and wormers you will need, the total will drop a little, but you would still be putting more than $70,000 a year into your bank account on the same amount of feed and forage.

For information on my services, visit NaturalCattle Handling.com If you would enjoy a laugh or two, take a look at my cowboy humor and cookbooks at the 2lazy4U Livestock & Literary Co.

Observe, Ask and Analyze

Much of what we assume we know is a result of how much we think (or don't think) about what we experience. All of what we do with livestock is based on what our past experiences have been. Until we change how we observe and think about why animals react to us the way we do, we cannot make any meaningful changes in how we do things.

Some reactions to my last post, http://cowherdmanagement.blogspot.com/2013/01/if-bison-chased-horses-cattle-chased.html are perfect examples. Several of them were up in arms. They threw out examples of individual bison leaving a herd to chase horses and even one which apparently broke into a pen to gore some horses. It would not be reasonable to assume the entire human race violent based on Charles Manson, Hitler and Stalin, so why do we do it with the animals we handle?

It doesn't matter if we are working with bison, elk, horse or (insert breed) of cattle, other than a few individuals, their overall temperament and behavior relies heavily upon how frequently and what methods are used in handling them. The problem lies in the fact that when an animal does something we don't like (such as charging a horse) people tend to look at the behavior as an independent action rather than as a reaction to what we have done. In our eyes we may have not done anything to warrant that (re) action. However we need to take into account how the animal(s) have been handled in the past that has instilled these behaviors into them. I've run across people who own ranches (as opposed to ranchers) who refuse to work cattle with horses because “horses make cattle wild” or that horses are “too unpredictable and hard to handle.” The simple fact is, as stockmen and horsemen, we need to not simply acknowledge that an animal or group of animals is unruly or mean. We need to observe when they are reacting in negative ways and be introspective as to our actions immediately prior to the negative behavior. In order to modify the behavior of our livestock, we must first observe and recognize their behavior to the point we recognize the negative behavior before it actually happens.

This philosophy of observing and analyzing goes far beyond just improving the behavior of our livestock. All too often the deterioration of our pastures is not noticed until it is a borderline disaster. We need to continually observe, and think about our observations.

The pasture I am in now appears to have healthy grass from a distance. However there are large areas that upon close observation have large amounts grass at the base which are gray and matted. This makes me ask myself which would be more beneficial; taking only a third of the grass as planned, or taking more grass while breaking up more of the dead plants?

Another observation I have made concerns water availability and predators. There is a theory that having more water points makes it harder on predators than having just a few “ambush” points. What I have observed is that there are more coyotes in the pastures which have a higher number of water points. Now that the observation has been made, we need to ask a question and analyze it. The question is “does fewer water points help predators by reducing ambush points, or does having more water points simply support more packs of coyotes?”

For our ranching operations to be as successful as possible, we need to observe, ask and analyze instead of simply reacting without analyzing.

For more on my services visit Migratorygrazing.com. If you like humor, be sure to check out my humor and cookbooks at 2lazy4U Livestock & Literary Co.

If Bison Chased Horses & Cattle Chased Rabbits

Why are equines the only grazing animal which seemingly enjoys chasing and dominating other grazing animals? This is a question which has baffled me for years (actually decades) yet it is an important aspect of animal behavior that people seem to miss. I bring this up because of a recent discussion on bison.

I know there are a lot of people out there who are going to counter with “My bison charge anyone on horseback,” but the simple fact is, they aren't. If they were, cutting horse trainers would not risk using bison to tune up show horses worth tens, if not hundreds of thousand of dollars. So why does a herd of bison “charge” people who are horseback? Curiosity.

When confronted with something new, grazing animals are generally either afraid or curious. If they are afraid, they will watch cautiously or flee. If they are curious they will go see what it is. If one or two of a group of grazing animals get curious about something and start running towards it, the whole herd will follow.

In the case of a horseman being “charged” by a bison herd, it is a case of a few of the animals being curious enough about something to run over to check it. The rest of the herd follows. The first thing that pops into the rider's mind is panic, which transfers immediately to the horse. Horse and rider vacate the premises with the bison following trying to see what the heck that strange thing is.

Cattle will do the same thing. A person walking across a field full of yearling heifers who are not used to seeing a person afoot, will come stampeding right up to the person and if the person runs, they will keep following. If the person stops, so do the heifers, but they may come close enough to them to sniff them.

Once I had a steer in a little group of five hundred that was insanely curious about rabbits. One morning all five hundred were running around the pivot, as a herd. I could see noting they were chasing so I rode to that pivot to check it out. When I got there they were all stopped in a big circle. When I got to the middle, the one steer was standing on a jack rabbit's leg while he was licking it. Other than standing on a leg to pin it down the steer was not doing anything aggressive towards the rabbit. On the contrary, he was grooming it!

This was not a one time affair with this steer. In the several months I had this group of cattle, I had to move them back and forth across some desert ground to some remote pivots. This steer was naturally in the lead, and whenever a rabbit jumped up in front of him, he'd take off chasing the rabbit.

There is a similarity between the rabbits being chased by that steer, and riders being chased by bison. Instead of thinking about what was really going on, they both ran like heck to get out of the way. All the bison are wanting to do is check you out, and all that steer was wanting to do was give the rabbit a bath.

The point to all of this is that bison can be worked horseback. You have to put some thought into it and acclimate them first. After all, if bison choused horses, Indians would have ridden bison and lived in horse hide teepee. 

Services I offer                                               Humor, Horsemanship & Cookbooks I've written

Low Stress Cattle Handling/Horsemanship Clinics

You cannot substitute articles and videos on reduced stress cattle handling procedures for real time, hands on experience to become proficient at handling cattle. Few of these articles and videos address the differences involved between handling cattle on foot or on a horse. Fewer still describe how, by simply changing the angle of your horse's body in respect to the cow, you can control the cow's speed and direction.

For a person handling cattle horseback on a ranch, or riding pens in a feedlot, you cannot learn how to handle cattle in a reduced stress manner without including horsemanship. Low stress cattle handling is synonymous with good horsemanship, you can't have one without the other. While those teaching low stress cattle handling on foot concentrate on reading cattle and making small corrections to keep things going, many of those teaching it from horseback are still doing many of the same old things. Keeping a horse parallel to a cow, beating it to the fence and working, prey/predator relationship, and training cattle to drive.

The word natural is over used and often misconstrued. The way your cattle act right now is only their natural reaction to what you are doing. The key to low stress cattle handling is to do things in a manner which naturally gets cattle to doing what we want in a calm manner.

If we are driving a cow and keeping our horse parallel to the cow and decide we need to turn it, we start putting pressure on their eye to get them to turn away from us. When we do this we turn our horse towards the cow and they speed up and try go around us. We blame the cow for speeding up and trying to go around us, but we are the one who turned on that switch in the cow to get that reaction.

In the same situation if we are tracking the cow with a slight amount of lateral movement on our horse we can actually ask the cow to turn by taking pressure off the cow. We do this by asking our horse to speed up slightly while moving laterally away from the cow. When we do this, we are taking away both the instinct of the cow to speed up and to go around us. Instead the cow feels as if its opportunity to go around us is taken away. At this point, rather than being excited and wanting to get around us, the cow's reaction is to turn slowly (without stress) away from us and in the direction we want.

In order to take advantage of the above natural instinct of cattle, we need to develop our horsemanship to a higher level. At times we can slow a cow by simply changing the angle of our horse in relationship to a cow. Essentially, the better our horsemanship is, the more we can master low stress cattle handling. This isn't to say our horses have to be perfect, as there is no true perfection. However if we master our horsemanship enough we can take advantage of methods to handle cattle with lower amounts of stress, not only on the cattle, but on our horses and ultimately on ourselves. The easier you make things on the cow, the easier it is on your horse, and the easier it is on you.

The answer to the conundrum of how to learn both the horsemanship techniques and the lower stress reactions of cattle is to learn them both at the same time. After years of thought on the matter I have designed a clinic program which addresses both the horsemanship and low stress instincts of cattle. As learning all of this is intensive, hands on clinic sizes will be limited to a total of seven participants, including crew or owners of sponsoring ranches. To learn more of my methods and all these clinics cover visit my main website.

I am now accepting host ranches for 2012 clinics. If you are going to be running yearlings, coinciding a clinic when you receive cattle, they will be calm and easy to handle when you turn them out with no additional labor costs. If you are running an AI breeding program I can also include training on how and when to pen your cattle for minimum stress and optimum conception. If you would like to host a clinic, email me me and we will make arrangements.

Un-constitutionality of Federal Lands

The following videos are from a discussion surrounding the fact that most federally controlled lands are un-constitutional as per Section 8, clause 17 of the U.S.Constitution. Included in the discussion is how to get these lands returned to the individual states as well as reaching out and educating the public on this issue and agriculture in general.







 

AgChat and the EPA

While participating on the May 31,2010 AgChat about the EPA I noticed a a tweet mentioning AgChat, with the comment that “The fear and hate being displayed remind me of “The Simpsons movie.” The ensuing “tweetersation” is what prompted this post.

Perhaps the hardest thing to do, is explain to a person how one of their most trusted friends has been lying to, and taking advantage of them. Even harder is trying to explain to a dedicated and concerned group of people, that an organization they trust has been taking advantage of their naivety to promote their own political agenda to the detriment of what they are supposedly protecting.

At the risk of having you not finish this post, I would like to introduce you to Dan Dagget. Mr. Daggett was one of the first 100 members of Earth First, and was instrumental in establishing a wilderness area in Arizona and in 1992 was designated by the Sierra Club as one of the top 100 grassroots environmental activists. I invite you to peruse his views and discoveries before finishing this post as a primer.

Now back to making my own point. The following three example of EPA actions demonstrates just how little scientific thought goes into their decision process. It also demonstrates their disregard for allowing the truth to emerge if it challenges the validity of their “environmental concerns.”

The first scenario was in the late 1980's. BLM was reducing grazing allotments in Nevada at the bequest of the EPA because of the endangered Desert Painted Tortoise. Livestock Market Digest columnist Lee Pitts uncovered the fact that during this same time, the National Guard “rescued” over 100,000 of these tortoises from a housing development near Las Vegas, Nevada and airlifted them to Reno, Nevada for “adoption.” This begs two questions; a) If they were actually endangered then why were there over 100,000 of them in an area being developed? b) Why would they adopt them out rather than relocate them where the cattle numbers were being reduced?

The second scenario was also in Nevada, in the late 80's.

Lahontan Cutthroat Trout were discovered on a BLM grazing lease. These trout had been listed as endangered in 1970 and reclassified as threatened in 1975. Armed with no scientific evidence other than the trout were in the area where cattle were grazing, the EPA demanded that the BLM put a buffer area around the stream. The Fallon family had been grazing this BLM lease continuously for over 80 years and with no warning were suddenly forced to cut the size of their herd in half. One would think the prudent thing to do would have been to do a study on the population to see if perhaps the cattle were somehow benefiting the trout (logic would dictate that at the very least, coexisting with the cattle for 80 years there was no real harm being done by the cattle).

The third scenario is more commonly known as it basically destroyed the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest. When the EPA shut down logging in the area because of the Spotted Owl there were several things which never made it into the national media. There was more than one lie purported by the EPA. The EPA claimed that the spotted owls could only nest in old growth forest. Rather than halt logging only in the old growth forest, logging was also halted in the replanted areas. If the logging ban was decided on apolitical, scientific reasoning to save the owl, why was logging halted outside the alleged area of habitat of the owl? Yet the deception by the EPA (and media) goes deeper.

During the Spotted Owl controversy, the EPA kept insisting that the only place these birds could nest was in old growth timber. The surprising thing was the number of spotted owls found to be nesting in everything from younger trees, to power poles and fence posts. These pictures were published in various timber, livestock and farming publications, yet were never acknowledged by the EPA, ecological, animal welfare groups or the mainstream media.

The simple fact is that facts can be misconstrued to promote a political agenda. A well written lie can often make more sense to a person than the truth. This is especially true when that lie is fabricated to appear it is protecting you. When you see a question on AgChat, or statement on Twitter you feel is biased or false, question the person who wrote it with an open mind. Don't assume that just because it does not fit into the mold of what you have been taught, that it is false. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments below. If you want to discover more about agriculture, visit the Texas Crossroads Gathering's links page where we have a large variety of agricultural links!

Technology And “OFS”

Between my eight year old son asking me “How did you do it back then Daddy,” and the #Agnerd hashtag on Twitter, I've been dwelling on the pros and cons of new technology. Looking at all of the technological advances within my lifetime, one may assume that I am nearing the century mark. Surprisingly enough, I haven't quite reach my 57th birthday. All of these advances have given me a severe case of OFS (Old Fart Syndrome) when I hear about new technology.

OFS comes from remembering when black and white television was the epitome of high tech household appliances. Until I was eleven years old, I had to pick up the receiver and tell the operator what number I wanted to call (My parents number was J-111). There were several other people on our “party line” so you had to wait until the neighbor was done talking before you could make your call. Cell phones with call waiting, call forwarding, conference calls, caller ID, voice mail, internet access or any of the other eighty odd thousand phone applications (we consider necessity) were science fiction.

Today is seems most people are not only dependent, but addicted to technology. OFS has me wondering where the balance is. Is all of this new technology making our jobs in the cattle industry more efficient, or is it just restructuring our workload in a way that alienates us from what we should be doing?

We have back tags which tell us that a cow has been in heat. Then we have ear tags which tell us that an animal is running a fever. We use portable electric fencing so we can control where our cattle graze. We use a siren to call them into feed, then once they are used to the siren, we use the Pavlov's Dog response to move them to fresh pasture. If we aren't calling them and baiting them with a feed truck, we fire up the four wheelers or helicopters so we can get the pasture move or gather done “faster.” OFS tells me a man on a horse is cheaper than a man in a helicopter and can handle the cattle cheaper and with less stress, but the techno addicts can't see that.

In the feedlot, we are using high tech antibiotics so we can mass treat cattle on arrival so we won't have to pull sick cattle in their first few days on feed (regardless of the fact over half wouldn't be getting sick in the first place). Then we use ear tags which tell us if cattle are running a fever or not by turning on a bright red light when cattle are running a fever. These high tech tools allow us to not just spend less time observing cattle but to hire less experienced labor as managers figure all the help has to do is pull the cattle by the tags rather than the symptoms.

Besides making us dependent on technology to keep our feedlot cattle healthy, it is adding to input costs rather than lowering them. Bud Williams has proven time after time that feedlots can reduce their antibiotic inputs, as well as morbidity and death losses by as much as 50% by simply changing the way cattle are handled. Wouldn't it make more sense to simply change the way we handle cattle than adding to input costs?

When it comes to education, rather than hands on experience, we take multiple choice tests on a computer hooked to the internet. It is actually possible to receive a diploma (through a university) in reduced stress cattle handling without ever seeing a cow up close and personnel. To make it even more interesting feedlots are making cattle handling videos and computerized classes available to teach their employees better cattle handling procedures.

Once again, OFS raises it's ugly head. Proper handling of cattle is largely an intuitive task. It becomes even more so when we put the cattle handler on the back of a horse. Thinking we are actually teaching people to become effective at reduced stress cattle handling is like having a pilot who has flown nothing but single engine planes a multiple choice test on the internet and turning them loose in a Stealth Bomber...It isn't going to work. The only way you can truly teach proper cattle handling is by a combination of instruction and closely watched hands on experience.

The amount of new technology we have, and the things we can do with it are pretty amazing. We do need learn to balance between the old and the new. We need to ask ourselves two simple questions to see if the new technology is actually beneficial, or if we are using it to satisfy our own techno-addiction.
1. Will it actually reduce input costs in the long run?
2. Is adding the the new technology the most cost effective way to achieve the end result?


If the answers to number one and two are yes, then perhaps the new technology would be something to use. If not, then we need to recognize that we are only feeding our own techno-addiction.

The Power of "I Can't"

"It doesn't matter if you say you can, or you say you can't, you're right."
Many years ago I read the above quote, and it stuck with me. I don't remember who the quote is attributed to, but the simple wisdom of it has stuck with me through the decades.This self fulfilling prophecy really applies when you are considering different management techniques.

In drought conditions like much of the southwest is currently under, ranchers are culling herds deep to save grass. When you mention following an intensive, rotational grazing program the first thing out of their mouth is usually "I can't." This is of course followed by a myriad or "reasons" as to why it will not work on their ranch. The "reasons" range from water systems to how rough their ranch is, or how much brush, to their kind of cattle.

This brings me to my own saying. The only difference between a really good reason, and a poor excuse, is if you are listening to,  or telling it.  The "reasons" you give after spouting off the phrase "I can't" are only the excuses you give for not trying methods which may keep you from reducing your herd in a drought. When the first reaction is "I can't" you are not thinking of the positive possibilities, but the things which will only hold you back.

Conversely,  a person who says or thinks "I can" when approached with a new method to improve their situation will find a way to get it done. Again, this is a self fulfilling prophecy. When you say "I can" you are going to learn all you can about the new method so you can implement it for your situation.

The most efficient and effective way to manage your grazing at anytime is by herding your cattle through a holistic, intensive rotational program. You may need to make some changes in your water system, but for the most part the changes are rather simple, and relatively inexpensive for the benefits received. It will allow you to utilize grass more effectively, and in many cases allow you to graze areas of your ranch that usually aren't grazed at all. When the rains do come, this method will promote faster growth of grass, especially in tsabosa flats where the grass has become gray and matted.

Training your cattle to graze as a tight knit herd is simple. It is all a matter of whether you say "I can" or "I can't." If you want to keep your cow numbers up in this combination of drought and high prices, it may benefit you to adopt the "I can" philosophy!

Adjusting Today's Prices

Nearly everyone is happy about record high cattle prices. A lot of investors are looking at cattle as a "good investment" right now. However when you really look at input costs, you are receiving less for calves today than you were in the late 1970's

In 1979, I worked for a rancher who sold his calves for $125cwt. At the time, a new four wheel drive pickup was about $10,000 and a "high paid" cowboy made $500 a month and beef. Day work was expensive at $50 a day. Hay was roughly $45 a ton and gas was well under $2 per gallon.

Today's calves are bringing roughly $58 per cwt more, less than a 50% increase. Many cowboys are now starting out at $1,500 a month, or three times higher. Day labor has doubled at $100 a day. That four wheel drive pickup now costs $40,000, or four times as much. Hay costs over a $100 a ton (more than double) and gas is getting close to $4 a gallon and in many places, diesel is already over $4 a gallon (again, doubled). This does not take into account not only higher land prices, but higher property taxes as well. This means, after figuring input costs, your cattle are actually worth less than they were in 1979. If cattle were even keeping up with labor costs, today's calves should be bringing $3.75 cwt.

I can think of a number of things that 90% of cattle operations today could do to lower input costs. Most of these ranches could do to increase stocking capacity and the total pounds of cattle shipped from their ranch while lowering input costs. What are you doing to increase the efficiency of your cattle operation without increasing your input costs?

Results of Viral Ag Experiment

As some of you will remember I wanted to try trending @4H through the ag related cowboy gathering Texas Crossroads. This experiment to see if we could consciously trend an agriculture related event on twitter, but if it was possible for the different factions of agriculture to band together and have a louder voice.

We may be able to blame part of it on the weather and the rolling blackouts around much of the country, but only a small part of it. How can we explain that out of nearly 200 tweets, this experiment received only 20 RT's and of those 20, only five of them came from the several hundred that knew about this experiment ahead of time. Of the five, three of them were from a high school student who is interested in agriculture. The remaining RT's I made myself from my other Twitter account.

As I have mentioned before, we are a minuscule part of the population. Compared to the people and organizations dispensing negative and often false information about agriculture we are like a whisper in the wind. We cannot afford to be fragmented and expect to reach the general consumer in enough numbers to really make an impact.

If we don't find a way to band together and get our voices heard, the Agricultural industry in this country will go the same way as the steel mills, textile mills, and auto factories. A big step in this direction is already being taken with the USFS proposal to sell off all of its 193,000,000 acres and yet barely a whisper from people in agriculture.

US Forest Service to Sell off 193 Million Acres

The National Forest Service has announced plans to sell off its 193,000,000 acres of federally owned land. Government attorneys have argued that precedence for federal ownership of land has been set, showing the federal government has the authority over these lands. We can show that the precedence used to prove the legality of federally owned lands was flawed by asking one simple question:

Why did the federal government adhere to the stipulations of Article 17 under the Powers of Congress in all statehood expansion east of the Mississippi River?

For those of you not familiar with this section of the Constitution, it says:

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;

The precedence set of allowing territories to become states and NOT withholding large tracts of land east of the Mississippi River would indicate that the federal government is NOT allowed to hold interest of large tracts of land within a state.

The fight needs to be taken to the federal government on a three pronged attack. First disprove that the precedences used to support the government's claims that federally owned lands are legal. Secondly it needs to be pointed out to the Supreme Court in (historical terms, not legal) that the founders of our country, and the drafters of the Constitution were trying to create a government which would not own large portions of the country. The third prong of attack is using someone who is versed in the English language at the time the Constitution was written to describe what the article means in today's language.

By approaching the matter in this way we can prove that the government was acting beyond its authority when it withheld lands from the territories when granting statehood. That precedence used showing the federal government has the authority to control multi-use or recreational lands was false. It will also show that the intent of Article 17 in the Powers of Congress section was purposely written to prevent federal ownership of land.

In actuality, this proposed sale could prove to be an opportunity. The attorney generals of every state having USFS or BLM controlled land should be banding together on this fight. These states should be suing to have all land held by the federal government, falling outside of Article 17, returned to possession of the states. This would allow states to receive the income now going to the federal government for grazing, mining,logging and National Parks.

If you would like to read exactly what the powers of Congress are, click here!

Trending @4H Tonight through Saturday

We are trying to make @4H the Texas Crossroads Cowboy Gathering held tonight through Saturday night trend on Twitter. Crossroads donates all proceeds to 4H and the Christian Homeless Shelter here in Van Horn Texas. If you want to help, follow, mention and RT @Texascrossroad on Twitter. You can view this event on the browser below or at http://www.texascrossroadscowboypoetry.org



Video chat rooms at Ustream

Viral Ag Related Event...An experiment in Social Media

Unicorns and cowboys are mythical creatures and hamburgers are made in a factory. Livestock producers beat on their animals which spend their lives in cages so small they can't turn around. We know that isn't true, but enough people do believe it that many of us have turned into the agrovate posse. While we may be making some progress against HSUS and PETA, are we really making as much impact as we can? The six hundred dollar question becomes: Are we really educating unknowing, or are we mainly preaching to the choir?

If all of our efforts were really hitting pay dirt, it would be showing up in mainstream media and possibly in a trend or two on Twitter. Even the big stock shows don't attract that many non-ag people. I have an idea of why this is. To the average person, agriculture is boring, and those of us involved are a bunch of ignorant rednecks. The second reason is answered in a simple question. Would the average person rather spend a week at the Smithsonian or Disneyland? I would wager the odds would be in favor of the latter.

The next question is, can we come up with an agricultural event that is educational, yet entertaining enough for the average person to attend? If we can come up with such an event, do we wield enough social media clout to make an event go viral? Could we get an event to trend on Twitter, or spread on Facebook enough that it would possibly make national news? It would be an interesting experiment on the power of social media, and one we could do fairly easily.

February 3rd through the 6th I put on the Texas Crossroads Gathering, a small cowboy poetry gathering in Van Horn, Texas. There are a few things about this event which makes it unique. First, we actually live-stream video to the internet. Second the entertainers are not paid (the event is a small, but growing talent show.) Finally, all money raised from this event is donated to the local 4H Club and Christian Homeless Shelter.

When you stop and think about it, the majority of these entertainers are either involved in agriculture or have agricultural roots. Much of their material is derived from their experience in agriculture. True to form for people in agriculture, they also go out of their way to do things for other people. Several of these poets and singers are going out of their way to come early so that they can drive even farther to give shows to schools in Valentine and Sierra Blanca Texas.
When an entertainer goes on stage, I tweet their name and website url if they have one. Then I post it on Facebook. I do it again when they go off stage. By simply clicking the button to RT on Twitter or the like button on Facebook you are adding to the traffic the event receives. Twitter actually makes it easy to do. If you open the profile @texascrossroad in the right hand side of your twitter browser, all of the tweets in my timeline will show up there. This allows you to miss Crossroads tweets in your timeline, but still having them available to "RT."

We have the nucleus for an experiment in social media marketing. By combining all of the agvocates and their followers with the cowboy entertainers and their followers we can see if we can get this event to go viral. Between mentions and RT's on Twitter, and posting the live video on Facebook walls and blogs, we may be able to do it. Why do we want to do this?

If we can do this with a small event in Podunkville USA, then we can think about a series of events in urban areas to inform the general public on agriculture. It shouldn't be too hard to come up with a program which would inform and entertain. We also have a near perfect social media hook. The hashtag #kamikazecow.

As the entertainers will be judged to see who goes into the finals show, I decided to hold a Calcutta Auction to help some of the entertainers while raising money for the 4H Club and Christian Homeless Shelter. Bidders will have four choices of what to do with their winnings (and that choice along with the winning bidder's names) will be announced at the end of the day performance on February 5th. They will have the choice to donate to the 4H Club, the Christian Homeless Shelter, split their winnings between the two, or be greedy and keep it (Of course that last choice will be announced as well so I doubt if anyone will take that option)

So that bidders will have an idea of what kind of talent they are bidding on, participating entertainers will all perform an original poem, song or story with the same title...The Kamikaze Cow.
In case you are wondering, the title was inspired by an event a friend of mine had with rank cow high up on a ledge.

If you have any thoughts on this, leave a comment, then tweet it and post a comment on Facebook. Lets see if we can truly publicize an agricultural event using social media. If we are successful, then lets see what kinds of agricultural events we can design to bring in the John Q. Consumer!