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!
Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Reducing Input Expenses
In my last two posts, I discussed how much money you can be throwing away through poor cattle handling procedures and the true worth of your cattle after inflation is taken into consideration. While changing your cattle handling methods is an easy fix, trying to cut other inputs can seem to be insurmountable. However it can be easier than you can imagine.
If you have more than one full time employee for every thousand head of cows, or two thousand head of yearlings, you are over staffed. If you practice reduced stress cattle handling methods, and get through your cattle once or twice a week, the only time you should need extra help is when you are branding, weaning, shipping, or preconditioning.
Nearly everyone spends more time in their pickup or on four wheelers than they do a horse. In many cases (especially if your ranch is in rough country) you really can't go any faster in a pickup than you can on a horse. Even if your roads are in good enough shape to go faster, why burn the fuel and tear up an expensive truck or ATV? I recently talked with one rancher who runs 1,500 pairs, plus a few hundred yearling heifers. He is running three employees and burns up over 1,000 gallons of gas and diesel each month in three pickups checking waterlines. That is an expense of nearly $4,000 in fuel before you figure in wear and tear on the trucks, flat tires and an extra full time employee.
I have run 2,200 yearlings plus an additional 150 pairs on 50,000 acres with no help and burned less than 45 gallons of fuel a month (with the exception of running to town for mineral or other supplies every other month.) The amount of fuel NOT burned amounts to 820 gallons a month. At $3.40 gas this amounts a reduction in input amounts of over $30,000 a year in fuel expenses alone.
Your wheels are turning, and you are thinking of all of the longer hours you will be putting in without your pickup or ATV. When running the above ranch, I ran the waterlines on a motorcycle Saturday morning and was off the ranch by noon. I would do a quick run on Monday morning just to make sure there were no new leaks. During the week, I was seldom home later than 5 or 5:30.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or email me.
Labor
If you have more than one full time employee for every thousand head of cows, or two thousand head of yearlings, you are over staffed. If you practice reduced stress cattle handling methods, and get through your cattle once or twice a week, the only time you should need extra help is when you are branding, weaning, shipping, or preconditioning.
Fuel Mechanical Maintenance
Nearly everyone spends more time in their pickup or on four wheelers than they do a horse. In many cases (especially if your ranch is in rough country) you really can't go any faster in a pickup than you can on a horse. Even if your roads are in good enough shape to go faster, why burn the fuel and tear up an expensive truck or ATV? I recently talked with one rancher who runs 1,500 pairs, plus a few hundred yearling heifers. He is running three employees and burns up over 1,000 gallons of gas and diesel each month in three pickups checking waterlines. That is an expense of nearly $4,000 in fuel before you figure in wear and tear on the trucks, flat tires and an extra full time employee.
I have run 2,200 yearlings plus an additional 150 pairs on 50,000 acres with no help and burned less than 45 gallons of fuel a month (with the exception of running to town for mineral or other supplies every other month.) The amount of fuel NOT burned amounts to 820 gallons a month. At $3.40 gas this amounts a reduction in input amounts of over $30,000 a year in fuel expenses alone.
Your wheels are turning, and you are thinking of all of the longer hours you will be putting in without your pickup or ATV. When running the above ranch, I ran the waterlines on a motorcycle Saturday morning and was off the ranch by noon. I would do a quick run on Monday morning just to make sure there were no new leaks. During the week, I was seldom home later than 5 or 5:30.
Additional Benefits
The first benefit is one you may not have thought of, your health and stress level. You, or your employee will remain healthier, both physically and emotionally, riding a horse than bouncing around in a pickup. Second, your cattle see you and will be calmer when you go to gather. This also means you see your cattle and know where they are, reducing or eliminating going back out to gather remnants at shipping time. If you plan your riding carefully, you will be checking your fences regularly and keep them in a better state of repair.Direct Cattle Management
As I have pointed out before, using reduced stress cattle handling methods can increase ADG's with no added input. If you are running pairs, time your calving season to coincide with green grass. If you are in an area of cold and snow, this can cut your feed bill by two-thirds. You can either sell your excess hay or adjust your herd size to make up for the difference. Once again, this goes with the principle of reducing inputs while increasing income. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or email me.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
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
Video chat rooms at Ustream
Monday, January 17, 2011
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!
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!
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