Hi Chester,
Best thoughts to you and Dad - one step at a time.
Better keep your head above water too, and don't cross any swollen creeks !!

 

Morning (afternoon for us here in the east) Chester. Hope you guys are doing OK


Stan - this is not big crop land here. The terrain just won't allow it although there is some. Western KY is more plains area and they can have thousands of acres of corn etc., whereas here a couple hundred is huge. That's one reason we are so big on livestock.


But, that being said, cattle prices are way back down after that huge run of a couple years back when I sold my herd and so are feed prices.


Much of the actual crop land here is river bottom or in the case of my farm an abandoned meander of the river. Other than that it's hillside stuff suitable only for cattle, goats, etc.


There was a fellow came through here a couple years ago and leased a lot of the tillable land for corn and soy beans. Paid well for it too. He'll be lucky if he does much more than break even on it.


If you already own the equipment you need to farm you can probably squeak by. But going out and buying several hundred thousand dollars worth of stuff is just out of the question for most at this point.


I was a small time operator with my little (50 breeders) cow/calf operation and barely managed to make the payments on my farm and what little equipment I had to purchase. Even so I had to work another job as well to be able to have food on the table to eat.


On another note, since the guy started raising all that corn and soy beans a friend of mine has pretty much lost all his bees and has had no honey to sell now for almost 2 years.

 

Howdy Stan!

 

Howdy Tracy!

 

Hey there ChesterWood....... Let us know how it goes.

Tracy, I grew up on a small operation like yours except we had more row crop acres and fewer head of cow/calf (36).
The guys that seemed to be in trouble around here are generally the guys that paid in the range of $10,000 an acre, or slightly more for some of this good cropland around here. Also the guys paying $350 - $400 cash rents. Ouch. Remember our corn got to $7 a bushel in 2012 and dropped, sucking wind ever since. We made it up in yield last year but we got lucky.............

 

A guy called me the other day about leasing my farm and we talked a bit about it. He wants to bring in feeders in the spring and pasture them to sell in the fall. Minimal cost for the weight gain. I do have some really good pasture land with excellent water available.


I may buy a few (20-25) head and throw in there too as long as they work them. $100 per head cost to them to pasture for the summer and I still have ground to cut for hay to sell.


See ya there Stan..


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$100 per head cost to them to pasture for the summer and I still have ground to cut for hay to sell ... Like having your cake and eating it too!

 

Fixed it for ya Larry

 

You guys got my respect I couldn't live the farm life , way the **** too much work

 

It's kinda like a labor of love man.


Has to be because you dang sure 'aint gonna get rich doing it around here!