Farmerjan's journal - Weather

Baymule

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It's good that y'all got the momma cows and calves moved and worked, only a few left to be all caught up. On selling the steers for 10 cents less, that is a wise move. The other guy was not committed to buying them all and wanted to cherry pick, and weasel out on prices. Mark him off the list. You are right in selling now, as you said, sometimes holding out for a higher price can leave you with a bigger loss.

The meat packers in this country have had it too good for too long. Grocery stores are big chains and only want one vendor, not multiple small mom and pop suppliers. Joe Q Public is ignorant and wants the comfort of everything being uniform, all the same so they can mindlessly toss a shiny clear plastic wrapped piece of meat in the grocery buggy and take it home for supper. We no longer live by the seasons, we can get whatever we want whenever we want. The public has no idea of where or how meat comes from, the time involved is raising that animal or the work involved. Some ranchers have opened up their own meat markets and charge reasonable prices, some charge real high prices for their meat. The Four Six'es Ranch, 6666, has a successful direct meat business. They not only sell meat, they sell the whole story, the cowboy romance, the life on the range, they sell TEXAS. It also helps that they were featured on the TV series, Yellowstone. That gave them tons of publicity.


Small meat markets are springing up in towns, ranchers are tired of getting ground up like the meat they sell. Even in Livingston, the small town I lived in for some 30 years, now has a family owned ranch meat market and their prices are good.

When we lived in Lindale, I raised feeder pigs and had a couple of customers who wanted "better" than mass raised store bought. My customers could come look at "their" pig and I sent pictures. I never made a lot of money, but it paid for ours and my DD and family meat. I took the pigs to be processed at a USDA slaughterhouse. Now I just raise the chicken and last year I cleared $2,000. My chicken customers want to know where their meat comes from, I've had to educate them on the time involved, from ordering the baby chicks often months ahead, to the grow out process, slaughter and vacuum sealing in shiny plastic neat packages. They are happy with my home raised, home slaughtered chicken. It's just a very small under the radar operation. LOL I was rolling around in the back of my mind to build a process facility in Lindale, a small operator can raise up to 2,000 chickens a year in an approved and inspected custom slaughter facility. I doubt that I would have raised that many, but things changed, I moved and I don't really push it anymore. Still, I have a few chicken customers and that is ok.
 

Mini Horses

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I've read the Perdue plant in Nebraska is closing. Although devastating to that town -- and beef in general, as we'll see later -- it isn't going to get the same attention as the chicken plants. Those closures also involved many farmers who were left in unreal debt due to control/contracts of their grow out birds. In this scenario, the beef growers are not controlled by Perdue in that way. Our entire food supply is challenged by large production suppliers. This is crop & meats. The large, unknowing, grocery buying public just isn't getting in tune with the damaging control this is creating. When farmers are gone, so is your food -- even at the grocery store 🤐
 
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