“The biggest thing to remember is to look at feed on a cost per head per day basis and not a cost per ton basis. Some feeds might be cheaper by the ton, but cattle will have to eat a lot more to get the same benefits.”

Picture this. You take the time to go on vacation during the winter and can leave the ranch without taking the stress with you. You are at ease knowing your employees can handle anything that comes up. The best part is you don’t get a single phone call or text about frozen water lines, sick calves, cows being out or equipment that doesn’t work. While this sounds like only a sweet dream, it is attainable for you and your employees to achieve this level of training, communication and trust.

Erin McKnight ranches with her husband and their sons in the Sandhills of Saskatchewan. They rely on employees to help them keep the ranch operating smoothly but like many ranchers have experienced the negative impacts of poor communication and lack of training. The difference with the McKnights is Erin recognized these gaps and created a solution that can be easily replicated across ranches. She said, “I was a registered nurse for 10 years and our whole first year of nursing college was about communication. I thought it was unnecessary at the time but once I started working in an emergency room, I realized how important it was. Clearly communicating with your teammates builds trust and it is the same thing on farming and ranching operations.” Erin took her past experiences in nursing and ranching and created Ranch Academy – an online training platform for ranch employees and family members.

Ranch Academy is a complete guide of trainings for ranch employees that can be customizable to each operation. Examples of trainings include transporting cattle, treating cattle, troubleshooting water lines and wells, equipment safety, and power tool safety. Employees can access trainings from their phones to read instructions and watch videos to prepare for an upcoming task or troubleshoot a current one. “Nobody wants to pull up a YouTube video and fast forward to the 30-second clip they need. These trainings are short and sweet yet effective,” said Erin. Once ranchers purchase this program, they can go through and adjust trainings and directions to fit their needs and preferences.

Ranch Academy is used by a variety of individuals. From people with no ag background who want to be ranch hands to new spouses and even kids returning to the operation this program is versatile. The ability to train employees who didn’t grow up on a ranch is especially beneficial as it opens up more hiring options for ranchers.

A quality employee training and communication program is part of a good risk-management protocol. Whether you look into McKnight’s Ranch Academy or other options, remember the following quote by Zig Ziglar, “The only thing worse than training employees and having them leave is not training them and keeping them.” Investing in the time and resources to properly train your people will increase productivity, reduce the costs that come with mistakes, save time and improve employee retention.

Increasing profitability is a topic you see in every issue of any newsletter, publication and many podcasts. Cattle producers run on tight margins and many work to defy the old saying that ranchers are only profitable one out of every ten years. By far, the most common piece of advice I’ve heard and witnessed when it comes to profit is knowing your numbers.

Brianna Buseman is a meat scientist working for Marble Technologies – a company that specializes in helping packing plants improve their processes through automation. Brianna said, “Most people’s interactions with the agriculture industry are the cheeseburgers they buy or steak they grill at home. Meat science serves as an awesome way to connect more people with the agriculture industry.” On the flip side, meat science also connects ranchers to consumer demands and perspectives which can impact future production practices as well as how meat is processed.

“I encourage people with a priority breeding objective to control cow cost to use AI sires or bloodlines with high accuracy for these two traits. And for them to encourage their seedstock suppliers to collect these phenotypes and turn them into the breed associations. Over time, this will improve commercial producers’ ability to control cow cost and improve cow efficiency.”

Unlock the secrets of the Beef Checkoff in this episode of Cattle Convos! Experts discuss origins, structure, and the impressive $13.41 return on investment for producers. Learn about key marketing strategies, producer involvement, and how the Checkoff benefits the beef industry. Watch to understand how the Checkoff works for YOU!

Specialty sales and value-added programs are also great opportunities for cattle producers to participate in at auction barns. Joplin has their own tagging program but has seen countless producers benefit from breed-specific tagging programs too. Skyler said, “The more we can tell buyers about the calves, the more the value of the calves increases.” These programs are another tool to differentiate your calves and build up your reputation which is the most important piece of marketing calves. “This business is all about reputation,” said Skyler. If someone buys your calves and they are healthy and perform well, they’ll want to buy them again next year.

Lindsleys are showing cattlemen and women how to take back their time and live the lifestyle that draws many people to agriculture. They are leading by example by finding the right technology for their operations, building a team to support all areas of their business and never losing sight of why they chose the cattle business.

The foundation behind Cattlemen’s Heritage and Legacy Beef Co-op is to keep more family farms in business for generations to come by implementing a business model that gives producers a share of processing and brand profits plus it offers a more favorable pricing and delivery model.

“The whole premise behind the business is that we need more butcher education. But, we need to do it in a way that meets butchers where they are at whether that’s making the most of an older facility or a modern on-farm facility that was built from grant money after COVID,” said Jepsen.

Ranchers are resourceful. After all, they are using natural resources to produce a high-quality protein source with countless by-products. But, there is more to the story of the resourcefulness of ranchers. Cattlemen and women across the country think outside the box to repurpose materials from other industries that would otherwise end up in landfills. Damon Carson – the owner of repurposedMATERIALS – has a front-row seat and hand in helping ranchers across the country make this happen more and more each day.

Testing the feed is one thing. Raising high-quality, cost-effective feed is another. We tend to do a lot of things like generations before us, but our cows and economy are not the same. This makes it important to explore different options and be flexible with our environment and weather to raise cost-effective, high-quality feed.

Mark Johnson – Professor of Animal and Food Sciences at Oklahoma State University – discusses the pros and cons of using creep grazing versus creep feeders as well as what producers need to consider before creep grazing during Season 7, Episode 34 of the Casual Cattle Conversations Podcast.

I believe cattlemen and women are the true leaders of our world.

“The reality is that the things that are happening in rural America affect every single American dinner table,” said Reisinger. He recognizes that the factors driving this change can be viewed as both good and bad and the history of American agriculturists is rich with innovation and resilience which is something to be celebrated.

One of the main reasons Katie encourages people to learn a second language is due to the respect you create and the positive outcomes that come as secondary benefits. 

In an era where there is too much information and too little time to consume it all, how do cattle producers manage to sort through what matters most to them on top of all the day to day tasks their never ending to-do list? A small group of ranchers have turned to the RancherMind program to just this while simultaneously building a community with ranchers from around the country.

“A lot of my travel made me who I am today. It affects my management decisions and helps me come up with new ideas all the time.”

Telling the beef story is often associated with being a social media influencer or selling beef directly to consumers. These advocacy avenues are effective, but not for everyone. It’s important that beef producers and supporters find ways to share the beef story that compliments their own skillset and lifestyle. Cheramie Viator sets an example for cattle producers everywhere when it comes to advocating for our industry and creating informed constituents for generations to come with her program – Not Your Ordinary Cattle Clinic.