Maggie’s Funny & awesome pics, vids and memes thread (work safe, no nudity)

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No it just showed up on top of the safe. I was popping primers, so just spooked it up I’m sure
Spiders can be curious. There was a huge wolf spider (or huntsman, it was hard to see it) in the green beans when I was picking them. It was watching my hands and moved along with me about a foot or so as I picked.
 
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Well my neighbor and I are considering going together on a few cows, maybe 3 or 4 to start.

Advice me….



No freeloading. My uncle Alton who has raced two ‘68 Mustangs for 30 years recently traded into this street legal blast from the 80s. It has a mild Windsor, tubs but no full cage. He says it is a hoot to drive around. He’s down east in NC so I haven’t seen it yet.

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Well my neighbor and I are considering going together on a few cows, maybe 3 or 4 to start.

Advice me….



No freeloading. My uncle Alton who has raced two ‘68 Mustangs for 30 years recently traded into this street legal blast from the 80s. It has a mild Windsor, tubs but no full cage. He says it is a hoot to drive around. He’s down east in NC so I haven’t seen it yet.

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Looks like a fun car.
 
Well my neighbor and I are considering going together on a few cows, maybe 3 or 4 to start.

Advice me….
This advice would need a new thread. Lots of advice on getting started. Then you will have to sort through it and figure out what works for you.
Good fencing, a couple different pastures, a handling system, hay source, water source for the different pastures, breed of cows and a bunch more.
Figuring out how to split the work with the neighbor is going to be a biggie
 
A lot of good to what you say.

But in Louisiana, despite long growing season and plenty of hay, its easy to get into serious financial trouble in the livestock business.

However, the best business model I have seen was relayed to me by an old timer 40 years ago.

Grow as much hay as your land can provide. Purchase springing heifers in the fall, when prices are down. Use the hay that was grown (as well as rye grass and supplemental feed) over the winter, sell in the spring after they calve. Get those pastures back into hay production.

Prices are down in the fall when stockman don’t want to pay the costs to feed the heifers over the winter. And a first calf cows bring a premium in the spring when many stockman are willing to make an investment.

As with horses, its hard to make money in th livestock business.

Agree with all the points. The only other way is to accumulate a good cow herd on a large place that is way understocked AND have a good handling facility that you can run yourself.

My wife's side of the family has several irrigated sections. But the cost of maintaining the pumps and the irrigation equipment is not predictable. But they do cash flow pretty impressively!

I made more money off hay than anything. When I retire my plan is to buy bottomland and do hay, storing enough to sell into the next drought and find a kid to help me run contract haying for others.
 
This advice would need a new thread. Lots of advice on getting started. Then you will have to sort through it and figure out what works for you.
Good fencing, a couple different pastures, a handling system, hay source, water source for the different pastures, breed of cows and a bunch more.
Figuring out how to split the work with the neighbor is going to be a biggie

Well my neighbor and I are considering going together on a few cows, maybe 3 or 4 to start.

Advice me….

Yes what @DarnYankeeUSMC just said this should be a new thread on its own. Don’t want to get too wordy here but in short I can’t imagine making any money on just 3-4 cows.

Now lets say you have 100 rural acres but no farming, cattle ranching, horses, or any other type of agriculture production in place currently and the county tax accessor is wanting to tax the 100 acres as non agriculture resulting in a huge property tax bill then getting a small herd could make sense to keep the land as ag. exempt and property taxes low.

Or you and a few friends/family members want to each keep a calf to fill up the freezer but again only running 3-4 I still think it would be cheaper to go buy a calf from a rancher direct and have it butchered and be done with it. A lot of variables involved. Again this topic could use its own thread as there some knowledgeable ranchers/cattlemen on SH that could provide good numbers on profit margins etc.

Economies of scale are stacked against you with only 3-4 head so it would be a hobby in my opinion. That’s not bad just depending on what your trying to accomplish.
 
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Right now it's hard to get a date for a butcher to process a cow. Everyone around here are a year or more out and most farmers already have their stock spoken for.
Yes what @DarnYankeeUSMC just said this should be a new thread on its own. Don’t want to get too wordy here but in short I can’t imagine making any money on just 3-4 cows.

Now lets say you have 100 rural acres but no farming, cattle ranching, horses, or any other type of agriculture production in place currently and the county tax accessor is wanting to tax the 100 acres as non agriculture resulting in a huge property tax bill then getting a small herd could make sense to keep the land as ag. exempt and property taxes low.

Or you and a few friends/family members want to each keep a calf to fill up the freezer but again only running 3-4 I still think it would be cheaper to go buy a calf from a rancher direct and have it butchered and be done with it. A lot of variables involved. Again this topic could use its own thread as there some knowledgeable ranchers/cattlemen on SH that could provide good numbers on profit margins etc.

Economies of scale are stacked against you with only 3-4 head.
It's been pretty crazy since the plandemic started and the current economic outlook is not helping.
 
Right now it's hard to get a date for a butcher to process a cow. Everyone around here are a year or more out and most farmers already have their stock spoken for.

It's been pretty crazy since the plandemic started and the current economic outlook is not helping.

In my area, it's bad. Finding cattle (quality beef) to buy is at least 2 years out. You're basically buying air. Then finding a butcher is even more difficult.

I found a small town grocery store in PA and I can buy most of the cuts of meat I want without paying high prices of a regular grocery store and it's a much better cut of beef.
 
Well my neighbor and I are considering going together on a few cows, maybe 3 or 4 to start.
If you are looking at 3 or 4 steers or heifers to feed out for beef for you, family and friends, that could be a good way to start. You will probably not save much over boughten beef, but you get to feed them out the way you want and they will be the best thing you ever tasted!

If you are wanting cows, one thing not mentioned was getting them bred each year.
Buy, lease, or AI (would still need a cleanup bull).
Find a neighbor with room for them during the breeding season.

And I agree, a lot of information to be shared here.

Oh yeah, locker plants are about a year out here too


The basics have been touched on.
 
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Well my neighbor and I are considering going together on a few cows, maybe 3 or 4 to start.
If you are looking at 3 or 4 steers or heifers to feed out for beef for you, family and friends, that could be a good way to start. You will probably not save much over boughten beef, but you get to feed them out the way you want and they will be the best thing you ever tasted!

If you are wanting cows, one thing not mentioned was getting them bred each year.
Buy, lease, or AI (would still need a cleanup bull).
Find a neighbor with room for them during the breeding season.

And I agree, a lot of information to be shared here.

The basics have been touched on.

Locker plants are about a year out here too.
 
If you are looking at 3 or 4 steers or heifers to feed out for beef for you, family and friends, that could be a good way to start. You will probably not save much over boughten beef, but you get to feed them out the way you want and they will be the best thing you ever tasted!

If you are wanting cows, one thing not mentioned was getting them bred each year.
Buy, lease, or AI (would still need a cleanup bull).
Find a neighbor with room for them during the breeding season.

And I agree, a lot of information to be shared here.

The basics have been touched on.
Yes buying a bull for 3-4 cows is not cost efficient but you could lease a bull as @sandhiller mentioned or go artificial insemination (AI).

With AI you would have to buy the semen straws then pay your local vet to perform the AI.
 
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I would say this as a first thing: be damn sure you like and trust your neighbor. Cattle and fences have caused more conflict between neighbors than anything I know of. I’m not joking. Your best bet is for each of you to buy cows individually so there is no squabble who owns what. Then the calves are the property of the owner of the cow. The bull thing is an issue. You can share the cost of the bull but be aware that unless you are taking every calf off of the place you will need to replace the bull every 2-3 years with a small herd. If you add in the cost of upkeep for a bull and include all the winter hay, fence repair and hole filling when they dig, you may find that AI is the way to go.

And yes, bulls will dig holes. They will throw the dirt so you won’t be able to fill it back in without extra from somewhere. If you share a fence with a neighbor who has a bull it will be even worse. And then you have the fun of them fighting in the fence and then getting out so there’s that cost. My grandfather told me when he was a kid their neighbor and his dad had bulls that would fight and tear up the fence constantly so they got together, chose one to use on both herds and shot the other one and ate it. Fence repair issues resolved.
 
Oh major point: if you have never worked cattle before: do everything you can to get calm ones. Life will be much safer as you learn. The train wrecks I could tell are legion, every experienced cattleman has them. Some funny, some horrific, but if it can happen to an old hand it will happen to you too. I don’t know of a single rancher that isn’t beat to hell.
 
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Well, I may start a thread. It is for our own beef and cost isn’t the main thing, availability is. I think beef is going to be expensive and scarce in time.


2 bushels of beans I picked this morning (measured 16 gallons when I washed em) This is half of one row. We have 1 row to go if it’ll stop raining long enough to pick em. We had a lot of rust and some cotton fungus in these plants from this morning, over 35 straight days of rain with only 2 days in there where it wasn’t measurable. 4” since Monday and forecast is more all next week.

I need to get that other row before they’re ruined.


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Well, I may start a thread. It is for our own beef and cost isn’t the main thing, availability is. I think beef is going to be expensive and scarce in time.


2 bushels of beans I picked this morning (measured 16 gallons when I washed em) This is half of one row. We have 1 row to go if it’ll stop raining long enough to pick em. We had a lot of rust and some cotton fungus in these plants from this morning, over 35 straight days of rain with only 2 days in there where it wasn’t measurable. 4” since Monday and forecast is more all next week.

I need to get that other row before they’re ruined.



View attachment 7922826

Rain? What's that? It sounds familiar...
 
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One thing that you can do is get a few bottle calves. Farmers are usually trying to get rid of them in the cheap. They don't have time to deal with bottle feeding and the calves will be used to you as they grow. Getting a couple bull (that will need to be banded later)or steer calves and a couple hefer calves will get you going. It will be 18 months or so for butchering the steers and be breeding time for the hefers. Then you can bring in a couple more bottle calves.
Getting cows from the market is hit or miss. Some farmers are getting rid of their problems and you may be getting them.
 
One thing that you can do is get a few bottle calves. Farmers are usually trying to get rid of them in the cheap. They don't have time to deal with bottle feeding and the calves will be used to you as they grow. Getting a couple bull (that will need to be banded later)or steer calves and a couple hefer calves will get you going. It will be 18 months or so for butchering the steers and be breeding time for the hefers. Then you can bring in a couple more bottle calves.
Getting cows from the market is hit or miss. Some farmers are getting rid of their problems and you may be getting them.
This, 100%. Cows and bulls from the salebarn can be a home run or a dud. I have had both. If I’m buying a cow from the sale barn I would try to go for a bred cow. No bulls needed first go around.
 
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Plant pine trees and call it a tree farm.

Farm Bureau lists tree farms as a form of agriculture. In Louisiana, at this time, Tree Farming is the largest agriculture segment. Ahead of corn, beans, cotton and livestock (even Chickens but that is another story)
Yes what @DarnYankeeUSMC just said this should be a new thread on its own. Don’t want to get too wordy here but in short I can’t imagine making any money on just 3-4 cows.

Now lets say you have 100 rural acres but no farming, cattle ranching, horses, or any other type of agriculture production in place currently and the county tax accessor is wanting to tax the 100 acres as non agriculture resulting in a huge property tax bill then getting a small herd could make sense to keep the land as ag. exempt and property taxes low.

Or you and a few friends/family members want to each keep a calf to fill up the freezer but again only running 3-4 I still think it would be cheaper to go buy a calf from a rancher direct and have it butchered and be done with it. A lot of variables involved. Again this topic could use its own thread as there some knowledgeable ranchers/cattlemen on SH that could provide good numbers on profit margins etc.

Economies of scale are stacked against you with only 3-4 head so it would be a hobby in my opinion. That’s not bad just depending on what your trying to accomplish.
 
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I think hay farming is probably the best answer as well. Just as long as you can beat the rain. That said, hay conditioners have gone a long way to making really good hay. Now square bales really sell well, but they are a double pain for sure. First is handling them. In the 70's New Holland had a machine that would pick up and stack square bales. Never saw one so I don't know how well they worked. All's I know is that in high school, our spring and summer and fall was dedicated to hay season and corn picking season (Farmer Ward did not believe in no stupid mechanization.). We spent many an hour throwing those bales up on a truck. And no matter how many we stacked, it was never enough. This was before the days of round bales. Boy am I getting old.

On a more serious note, The second issue with square bales is they have to be thoroughly cure. Horses colic quick on moldy hay and the vet bills add up even quicker. (if one is lucky enough to get one out to the farm soon enough). Our vet taught me how to treat colic, sold us the Banamine, and taught me how to do the rest of the treatments. Saved Brenda and thousands and some good horses as well.
Agree with all the points. The only other way is to accumulate a good cow herd on a large place that is way understocked AND have a good handling facility that you can run yourself.

My wife's side of the family has several irrigated sections. But the cost of maintaining the pumps and the irrigation equipment is not predictable. But they do cash flow pretty impressively!

I made more money off hay than anything. When I retire my plan is to buy bottomland and do hay, storing enough to sell into the next drought and find a kid to help me run contract haying for others.
 
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you get a spanking for stealing a car in Mexico? I'm surprised you just don't get shot..........
Pulled over a Mexican guy my first year in law enforcement. He was drunk so I had him step out and come to the back of his car. He looked terrified and starting sobbing, I mean really ugly crying. Finished up the stop, and took him to jail.
The translator told me he thought I was taking him to the back of his car to execute him.
Apparently Mexican cops don't play around.