middle of the night moosings - edit/poll in These titles mean nothing.

Back to the cow thing - I wonder what our lives would look like if we didn’t have any cattle. We would have to sell them over a several year period so the income would not be all in one year. Perhaps the adult cattle would qualify for capital gains - I forget how that would work.

Much of the work and stress in farming relates to the cows. We raise food for them. If we do not have enough feed or if the quality is not high enough, we have to buy it. Last spring Jim bought a lot of hay. The making of hay has become very difficult because of the excessively wet weather. I suppose if we did not have cattle we would grow more corn and soybeans which have ‘issues’ of their own.

There is also the question of fences. Cattle need to be kept where they are supposed to be. Right now a neighbor/friend is missing five cows and their calves who came through ‘someone’s‘ fence and got into ‘someone’s‘ corn field and did not come out the other side. Jim has been spending a lot of time just trying to locate these prospective beeves. They will have to show up, I would think. They might have wandered farther afield. He’s been checking the corn and the pastures. They came with a bull who was easily found and returned to where he was supposed to be.

I guess I’m saying that keeping cattle where they are supposed to be is not a simple thing. Building and maintaining fences is expensive and is a lot of work. We have the seasonal cows or more likely calves on the road problem too. Some of our cattle are on rented pasture and the landlord helps care for them. He is interested in them, it’s allowing the retired banker to have cowboy fantasies. He praises our cattle for being easy to work with.

As I’ve said many times, cattle are money. The phrase ‘all hat and no cattle’ used to describe a rancher with more pretensions than down to earth assets is a valid premise. When crop prices are low = as they often are - when they are low and yields are low too - even worse - it’s good to have some diversification. Jim will talk about being told he was ‘lucky’ to have cattle. Jim says luck has nothing to do with it. He has cattle on purpose.

So I suppose this is not something that will ever happen. We will always have cows and calves and the hopefully a not stray bull or two.

When the world traveler from New Zealand spent his year’s vacation in Iowa, he gave me some farm advice. He didn’t say to get rid of the cows. He said to get out of the commodities market. He said to just grow enough to feed the cattle and not try to guess or judge or play the corn and soybeans markets. He said we would save a lot of cash and have a more stable income.

Most people who do not eat meat do so because of real or perceived cruelty and suffering of the animals. That bothers me too. We try to take good care of our animals but their lives are like our own - bad things happen, unpredictable things happen. They do suffer, both here on the farm and after they leave. I am not ignorant of that. Many farmers won’t go to the salebarn to watch their calves sold. The check of course is good, but the pain of seeing the previous spring’s crop leave is more than they want to handle. And cows get old. Robert Frost wrote a poem about passing losses on. Meaning selling the horse before it dies. Cows are like that too.

Many of us humans leave the world in a cruel and painful way too. God gave us life and he takes it away. It’s a bargain we make when we take that first breath of air. We know it will end. We do not know what will come between the beginning and the end and we do not know when the end will come or how much it will hurt when it does get here.

For years I tried to defend animal agriculture, especially beef cows raising beef calves, as a humane enterprise. I would say that if I were to come back as an animal I would want to be a well taken care of and fortunate beef cow, raising one baby a year. They often enjoy life as much as anyone, any creature does.

But it’s a fake argument. There are many fake arguments. Maybe all arguments are fake.

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Love you all, Have a good day.

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Back again –

OK - private note poll.

Should we sell our cows and give up raising beef?

All comments and advice welcome.

Last updated August 09, 2019