Ask Steve Dave Farm And Cow And Ranch And Tractor And Truck Related Questions

[Sandstone Outcropping]

almost certainly re-hashing things I've posted about years ago but our dog would also haul cattle horns into the yard. you de-horn the cattle with this thing



It's a giant loud saw deal that lops them off super fast because you have to be fast because my dad is fast AF with stuff like I've mentioned. Then blood usually sprays out both sides and the entire side of the cattle working shop is just coated with spray painted cow blood as they run out. when I was in like 3rd grade my cubscout den came out to see irl farm stuff and one of the kids just got blasted with cow blood from horns. traumatized them all. and meade didn't (doesn't) have a lot of "town" kids. which probably tells you all you need to know about who gets into boy scouts. we do this indoors with heat because we run a lot of head. so the walls after the "chute" are just blood spray city USA. we have a hydraulic "chute" that traps their head, stops them from backing up, and squeezes them so they don't move.

Dad had some ginormous shears that he would use for de-horning with I was a kid. The blood spraying everywhere and the smell of branding irons would make me sick. He switched his herd to polled herefords and black angus that don't grow horns.

[pissclams]

this thread is disgusting

[meow meow]

we would dehorn with a manual iron thing that you set around the horn and then pulled the levers apart with your hands and it cut the horns off.  you knew once you did that the steers would jump and bawl in the shoot.  blood would squirt out and then you cauterized the area.  between that and the branding, don't miss those smells.

[KST8FAN]

It's like we all have cattle working PTSD

Cattle crap/snot
Burning hair/hide
Blood
Pour on dewormer
Iodine sanitizer


Tom

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

[steve dave]

It's like we all have cattle working PTSD

Cattle crap/snot
Burning hair/hide
Blood
Pour on dewormer
Iodine sanitizer


Tom

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

yeah, in retrospect it's pretty tough. I was just normalized to it growing up so it was no big deal. I probably wouldn't have an issue with it now just because I grew up doing it and lil sd has been exposed to a bit of it when we go back home. but typing it out and describing it is pretty brutal. cow farming is not all guts and blood and ballsacks. a lot of it is, but there's also getting up at 5 AM every morning to feed calves bottles that don't have cows so there's that adorable thing we have to do even when you have weights before the school day starts. pretty great "life" for a kid DAD.

[steve dave]

 

[steve dave]

another fun thing is how fuckin' expensive some of that cow medicine is. vaccines and nuflor and steroids and whatever else. our cattle working shed had a "vet room" which was just a freezer and fridge and cabinets like a pharmacy. no idea what all that stuff was growing up but my dad did. one of our cowboys got really sick so jabbed himself with some cow antibiotic onetime and told me it fixed him right up. the needles on those syringes are like the size of your arm. so ridiculous. one of our cowboys dropped a bottle of vaccine one time and it broke and it was like a trillion dollars iirc. he turned completely green had to go tell my dad what happened and my dad was cool as a cucumber to him and if it had been me I still wouldn't have re-entered orbit after he kicked my ass out into space lmao.

[steve dave]

if a cow is sick you give it nuflor. what is nuflor? it's what you give a cow if it's sick. that's all I care to know. what is ivermectin? it's what you pour on a cow for internal and external parasites. says it right on the bottle bud.

[steve dave]

not that I didn't eff up tons of equipment. I just never dropped the vaccine. I have run an implement/header into a center pivot wheel probably around 5 times. really mumped some crap up bigly. YOU SHOULD NOT TRUST ME WITH THIS RESPONSIBILITY DAD! More your fault than mine honestly. I don't want to be here. figure it out idiot.

[steve dave]

'grease these zerks every 2 hours" (zero times greased. just toss a tube of grease into the weeds on the edge of the field to make it seem like I wasn't listening to Rush Limbaugh rail against Dems the entire time). I feel like agricultural companies should plan better for this crap. I'm like 14 years old and don't want to be here. I've got like 9 million tons of equipment and like 80 gallons of diesel in my control. who actually mumped up here? not me. you can't blame a KID!?

[steve dave]

on a different note I can maximize the number of runs you need to make on a field to not make another pass between center pivot wheels. I can start cutting whatever it is and look back and say "4 passes" or whatever. The worst is when it's like "4.2 passes" and folks you can make that an easy 5 passes but nobody has time for that crap. We're doing this in a very stressful 4 passes. Wrong decision obviously. Not like I get to eff off when I'm done with this field, but you gotta try to do it. Then it gets real stressful. gotta maximize. If I could go back in time I'd tell young sd to just do a cozy 5 EVERY time.

[steve dave]

did I win a lot of awards for maximizing those crop passes? no, BUT I SHOULD FUCKIN' HAVE!

[meow meow]

my grandpa once stuck me in the head with the prong of a cattle ear tagger (on accident obvs).  head bled like crazy.  this of course happened at the kitchen dinner table.  why was the tagger anywhere close to the dinner table, let alone in the house?  never got that answer.

[Sandstone Outcropping]

Sorry if already covered ITT, did anyone else grow up with The Farming Game?

[meow meow]

i have played that, think my folks (parents) still have that "game"

[ben ji]

https://www.ksn.com/news/crime/kansas-accountant-accused-of-embezzling-money-to-build-house/

You can't make this stuff up.  He called the fictitious company Middle Finger Ranch.


Tom

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

In things absolutely no one could predict it looks like that is the cat ranch's accountant.....

My dad is out at the cat ranch again and mentioned he had to do some tax stuff before the end of the year....He had mentioned looking for a new farm accountant after our last one got arrested.

Ben ji - So who is the new accountant?
dad - Its the same guy, he's not in jail yet.
Ben ji - So....uhm....yeah...wtf
dad - We don't have any money he can steal so we are good.

[Spracne]

It's a fair point. Sure, he embezzles. But can he do taxes? Yes. And he's looking to cut a deal.

[steve dave]

https://www.ksn.com/news/crime/kansas-accountant-accused-of-embezzling-money-to-build-house/

You can't make this stuff up.  He called the fictitious company Middle Finger Ranch.


Tom

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

In things absolutely no one could predict it looks like that is the cat ranch's accountant.....

My dad is out at the cat ranch again and mentioned he had to do some tax stuff before the end of the year....He had mentioned looking for a new farm accountant after our last one got arrested.

Ben ji - So who is the new accountant?
dad - Its the same guy, he's not in jail yet.
Ben ji - So....uhm....yeah...wtf
dad - We don't have any money he can steal so we are good.

irl a farm CPA is an elite asset. my mom just started doing books and tax stuff for our operation. ended up going back to college and getting her accountant degree when I was a kid, becoming a CPA, and then doing books/taxes for most of the local big orgs and feedlots in the area. had an office and like 3 or 4 person staff. finally retired last year and sold the business. you can make or break yourself in agriculture based strictly on how you leverage the BIG gov socialism and tax advantages on this stuff. sucks that it's like that but it is more than any other industry I've been involved in. the government teet is large and flows if you know how to leverage it. ASCS office employs a lot of people for a reason.

[steve dave]

I'd say ag is the hardest to get into and hardest to get out of for a lot of that reason. Obviously the capital cost to start which I've posted a lot about is the biggest one but just understanding how to operate in the space is so complicated.

[steve dave]

Also need a really good attorney that specializes in the stuff. I'm not talking about like hobby acres of crop, but big'ish farming/ranching has so many moving parts. it's tough.

[steve dave]

also banker. rural banking is not even remotely the same beast as normal banking. my dad has handshake agreements with his attorney and banker on so much nonsense. we run cattle with both of them on partnerships on ground all over.

[steve dave]

and local politics. county commissioners are someone that has a job that can make or break a lot of nonsense. I'm going to do X and it impacts Y and getting that rubber stamped is pretty damn important. and below that is townships which are also important. you want something done on a road to give access to some acres being able to know that John Doe is going to approve that is critical. all these are elected positions and A) you don't want to do it and B) you need someone to do it you can assure will do what you want. My dad and other family members have been on a lot of them over the years but just don't have time to do it. Also the CO-OP board is big.

[steve dave]

I'm on the board of our ranch. if we do a big family trip somewhere we do it for work and vote on who runs the ranch and do various other work meetings that FOR SURE qualify as business expenses. so far we've voted for my dad to continue as the head but at some point I'm going to do a coup and take over this crap. irl we'll eventually vote for my younger bro who stayed home after KSU and runs the operation with him....OR WILL WE!? stay tuned.

[KST8FAN]

My earliest recollection of farm accounting was early 70s with mom and dad sorting checks for an audit on the kitchen table.  Dad was notorious for rounding checks up to get cash back.  Apparently, that was a red flag! 

Anyway, fast forward, and our former banker became our tax preparer and problem solved for the next 40 years. He also was a KStater and worked for extension in farm mgt.


Tom

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

[KST8FAN]

To SD points... we also had a legend KU lawyer in Lawrence who handled all the legal and trust stuff.  Banker, tax prep, legal, and cattle buyer.


Tom

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk