One term we have started using in the past few years is “all natural.” That’s one way of saying, “I didn’t want to go to the trouble of getting them in and vaccinating them.”
I know I just made the blood pressure go up on some cattlemen selling their cattle with no hormones, but I don’t think that is without any shots. Instead of saying my boys were ornery, I should have said my boys are just very active.
Another thing that has changed in the past 30 to 40 years is that most big bunches of yearling heifers are now “guaranteed open.” When I first started buying feeders for feedlots, they did not pregnancy check their heifers. I remember one call I got from a feedlot manager who said, “Look and see whose heifers you bought that brands with a T.” I looked and told him who I bought them from. The feedlot manager said, “Don’t you ever buy his cattle again, even if he has the best steers you have ever seen.”
He said they were having several calves a day. He said you can’t get that good of conception even when you are trying.
My third son sold his calves at the sale last week. I had bought them for him and just bought as many as we could for $50,000, so, yes, I had some plain ones on there as we bought 58 head. Naturally, when the plainest ones came into the ring, some of the buyers said out loud, of course, when I would hear, “I think that kid needs another order buyer.”
So I said, “I would be glad to let you buy them and take them to your house and run on your wheat and grass. Then the poor kid can finally run some good cattle.”
By the way, five of his steers brought $1,917 per head, and eight heifers brought $1,746. Not too bad for him. Not sure about for me?
At the sale the other day, one buyer, who is about 70 years old, said to another buyer, “Age takes care a lot of things that church gets the credit for.”
Editor’s note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the view of High Plains Journal. Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
