Posted on 10/14/2013 3:19:18 PM PDT by yoe
That cow/steer is probably still alive, it is standing up. And the cattle in this case were still probably in summer pasture. Cattle hadn’t been sent to market yet or moved to winter pasture. Even in that case, there aren’t barns big enough for many of these operations. We didn’t keep cattle in barns except cows we knew were going to calve or calves. The rest of them were on open range, ranches bigger than cities as I explained the other night.
Stand your Ground GOP...No Funding for Obamacare....the Unsustainable, Unaffordable Care Act.
Life is risky.
People don’t understand the size/scope.
We have some horrible weather here....but we get to our beef with something to fill their bellies...and we chop ice to water them.
I'm not privy to exactly what happened up there....but we've had bad, bad weather here...and not get those types of losses.
FWIW-
Agreed. Maybe they should get out and see where their food comes from occasionally.
Seriously, Nervous Tick, you haven’t an idea about this business. My family doesn’t take government handouts and has zero subsidies for their ranching business. These are family businesses that span land the size of major cities in the US. All run with just a few vehicles and a minor profit margin, usually put into building fence line or replacing the worn out vehicle that is used to haul feed to the cattle, buy gas, put clothes on the kids.
One rancher I heard here on the local news, said that the cattle were on summer pastures and there were just not enough trucks and time to get them moved. This was a really unusual storm.
Yeap. Summer pasture, rain, wind, snow. Deadly even in winter pasture.
>> My family doesnt take government handouts and has zero subsidies for their ranching business.
You’re not part of the problem, then. Good luck.
People don’t understand just how fast this storm came up and how vast these ranches are and how rough the terrain is. Ranchers care about their cattle. This is heart breaking.
You might not have enough memory to go back, but were you affected by the blizzards in 2005 or so when the National Guard airlifted feed into the cattle because there was so much snow the ranchers couldn’t haul food. That affected SE CO and NE NM.
Were you affected by the blizzard in 1976? I was just a child but still remember snow over our house, I didn’t go to school for weeks, no way to get buses to us. National Guard brought us food, feed for cattle that survived. I remember walking over fences, trees. That was NE NM.
Most of these people are not part of the problem. Don’t let this magazine or a few whiners color your view of these people.
>> Dont let this magazine or a few whiners color your view of these people.
Noted, and I’ll keep my eyes open. I’m sure the overwhelming majority of them are good people in a tough situation.
I do know this: farm subsidies are a significant part of the government spending problem.
As are asinine ethanol subsidies consistently lobbied for by the corn belt states.
Corporate welfare is every bit as damaging to our long term survival as is individual welfare.
Let the market work. If raising cattle in the Dakotas is on the balance unprofitable without government support, then the Dakotas is not the place to raise cattle.
It’s harsh, but it’s the truth.
FRegards
If ranching is not profitable in SD or anywhere else it has been historically done, it is not due to weather events like this, but rather government regulation in every aspect of the business world - regulation on care of the animals to taxes on the gas needed for the pickups and trucks.
In CO, the Dems passed a requirement that rural electric coops invest more in renewable energies, driving up the cost for energy for small ranchers and farmers. They don’t let them pull their water from the ground, and now force them to pay more for their energy so that big city critters can pat themselves on the back for saving the environment.
So while we may complain about the subsidies that “farmers” get are too much, the actual numbers in the past have included things like food stamps (just reading that was 80% of what we think of as farm subsidies).
And a good portion of what farmers are getting in subsidies is being taken from them in taxes and other operating costs imposed by the government.
I agree — get government COMPLETELY off our backs.
Completely.
I don’t raise cattle — but I raise forage crop in a county in Texas where cattle outnumber people probably 50 to 1. We don’t have blizzards — our problem is we don’t have precipitation period for too many months out of too many years.
I do have some skin in the game.
FRegards
Idiots.
Cattle will drift before a storm. I’ve seen lots of them facing south against a fence in the Oklahoma panhandle when storms came through from the north.
This was an early storm. Most cattle would still be on pasture for a few more weeks before being moved to a sheltered area.
And while we’re on the ag issues in the Dakotas — here’s another problem.
Those loveable jackasses with their Scandinavian socialist roots elect too damn many marxist sh!tbags to national office.
Very strange for a people that depend on oil and ag for their livelihood. You’d think they’d get a clue. But, no.
They’ve made their own bed in large part due to the ‘rat bastards they have sent to Washington.
Unfortunately they have helped screw us ALL with their insane Northern European folly.
We Texans don’t suffer quite so much from that form of shooting ourselves in the foot.
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