Welcome to our new website!

Episodes

July 27, 2025

236: Giovana Benitez - Keeping the Ranch, and Faith!

Wow, this conversation to me was incredibly powerful and inspiring! Giovana and her father faced difficulty that most never would have to losing family and nearly losing the ranch! Through it all she grew in her faith in God ...

Listen to the Episode
July 20, 2025

235: Seth Pratt - Generational Ranching in Idaho

Seth shares his family's story of building the family business over generations as well as the investments they have made into adding value to their animals by owning them through finish as well as a share in the cooperative ...

Listen to the Episode
July 13, 2025

234: Rusty Lee - Grazing Grain Milo

Rusty is a University Extension specialist for University of Missouri and also a farmer and rancher with extensive experience grazing grain milo. He shares all the tips and considerations for reducing winter feed costs by gra...

Listen to the Episode
July 6, 2025

233: Chris and Lyndsey - Solar Grazing

In this episode Jared Luhman speaks with Lyndsey and Chris from Shady Creek Lamb Co., who share their innovative approach to sheep farming through solar grazing. They discuss their backgrounds in agriculture, the challenges o...

Listen to the Episode
June 29, 2025

232: Keith Olsen - Low Input Crop and Cattle Farming

Keith is passionate about low input regenerative agriculture and is exploring both of those avenues on his own operation in SE Minnesota. We discuss how he's focusing on improving his land and pocketbook in both enterprises a...

Listen to the Episode
June 22, 2025

231: Sam Fryer - Ranching, Podcasting and Working!

Sam has an awesome story, he shares how he decided to separate himself from the family farm and go out on his own in order to preserve family relationships. We discuss the process of building his operation on his own and also...

Listen to the Episode
June 15, 2025

230: Jacob Gilley - Enterprise Analysis, Real Estate, and More!

Lots of good stuff in this conversation with Jacob. We discuss his path to farming, his decision to leave the off farm job, the many enterprises he has experience with and spend a while on his record keeping strategy and ente...

Listen to the Episode
June 8, 2025

229: Ben Minden - Training Cowboys and Buying a Business

Ben is founder and president of Bear Hug Cattle Company which is a non-profit that trains retiring military members on the basics required to work in the cattle industry in the west! And in the second part of the conversation...

Listen to the Episode
June 1, 2025

228: Drew Bruner - Going All in on Sheep

Drew talks about why in this particular market he chose not to invest in stockers and switch entirely to sheep. He discusses his permanent flock as well as his stocker ewe flock experiment for this year. He shares the main ch...

Listen to the Episode
May 25, 2025

227: Matthew Menke - Risk vs. Reward, Leverage and Knowing Your Busin…

Matthew shares his incredible story of turning down a dream opportunity to take over a family business because he couldn't do so profitably. He shares how he grew an ag business and eventually got back into farming and ranchi...

Listen to the Episode
May 18, 2025

226: Randal Breen - From Living in a Shed to Full Time Farmer

Randal shares his incredible story of building a farm. He now operates on over 650 acres and direct markets meat and eggs to local individuals and wholesale accounts! A story that highlights the relationship he has with his c...

Listen to the Episode
May 11, 2025

225: Alex McKiernan - Car Wrecks Can't Stop This Family!

Alex and his wife have built a diverse farm and ranch business that started with direct to consumer vegetable production through a CSA and has grown to a large ranch that does custom grazing, goat production for weed manageme...

Listen to the Episode
May 4, 2025

224: Caleb Smith - Switching from Dairy to Sheep

Caleb has a unique story to getting into agriculture, he had the opportunity to take on a 40 year land lease from a non-profit and built a dairy farm from scratch. He shares that story and also how he recently switched from t...

Listen to the Episode
April 27, 2025

223: Hayden Heigele - Changing Genetics, Calving Window, and More

Hayden felt some resistance when wanting to experiment with new farming and ranching practices on his family farm. Rather than give up, he has been growing an operation of his own on the side of working for the family busines...

Listen to the Episode
April 20, 2025

222: Doug Badcock - Building an Adapted Cow on a Zambian Ranch

Doug is building a ranch in Zambia and trying to develop a cow herd adapted to his harsh climate! He shares all the traditional paradigms he's pushing back against and where he's finding success. He also shares the story of h...

Listen to the Episode
April 13, 2025

221: Ryan Cone - Building a Business in Order to Buy a Ranch

I absolutely love Ryan's story of finding a creative way to building a large and successful ranch from nothing! He shares his story of buying and improving a medical sales business that was weeks away from being shut down and...

Listen to the Episode
April 6, 2025

220: Neil Peterson - Integrating Cows on Cropland in Iowa

After doing missions work overseas Neil moved back to the family farm in Iowa. He is working to build a diversified and profitable farm that integrates cattle on land that most wouldn't consider for anything but crops. We dis...

Listen to the Episode
March 30, 2025

219: Craig Ference - Thousands of Cows Grazing Corn!

I really enjoyed discussing Craigs operation and perspectives o things from diversification vs. specialization on a large farm and ranch, to land ownership and more. We also discuss his unique cow program which involves grazi...

Listen to the Episode
March 23, 2025

218: George Walker - From Direct Marketing to Sell/Buy Marketing

George shares his story of starting his own farm when there wasn't room on the family farm. He also discusses why he moved from a direct marketing model to sell/ buy marketing and how that has improved his business and lifest...

Listen to the Episode
March 16, 2025

217: Doug Marburger - Developing Bulls in Texas

Doug is the developer of all the bulls being sold at the PCC sale in Texas coming up on April 1. He shares his story of not being raised on a ranch and after years of working on other ranches having the opportunity to lease h...

Listen to the Episode
March 9, 2025

216: Laura Burandt - Stocker Cows

Laura has been a popular past guest back on episodes 122 and 126. Today she comes on again to discuss their stocker cow enterprise. She discusses what it is, the advantages and challenges and why they choose to have that in a...

Listen to the Episode
March 3, 2025

215: Casey Toews - Adapting Enterprises as Market Demands

Casey and his family at Fishburn Ranch took what was considered very poor land and have turned it around through management. The number of creative ways they are finding success in their operation is incredible. They import c...

Listen to the Episode
Feb. 24, 2025

214: Steve Schweitzer - Sharing his Ranching Journey

I have known Steve for years but this is the first time hearing his story of shifting his ranching focus from a high production, high input ranching to a more enjoyable and profitable ranch system. Resources Mentioned: PCC Up...

Listen to the Episode
Feb. 17, 2025

213: Dean Hunt - Ranching in South Dakota

Dean Hunt shares his story of growing the family ranch while working an off farm job. He had an opportunity to expand at a time that he wasn't sure he could handle it but shares how they made it work. He also shares his exper...

Listen to the Episode