Episodes

Dale is a sales agronomist for Green Cover Seeds as well as a speaker, consultant, author and experienced grazier! He shares his experience building a grazing farm and dramatically improving grazing productivity, and profitability as well as soil organic matter and soil health. We talk about the advantages of a grazing system as opposed to a row crop system. So much value in this conversation, and if you want to learn more, I would definitely encourage you to check out the many youtube videos he...

Ben Beichler always had a dream of being a farmer, but with no farm to inherit, he set out to build one of his own. After apprenticing with Polyface Farms under Joel Salatin, he bought and built a dairy selling raw milk directly to 1250 families through a herd share program! His story is inspiring, and while I wouldn't recommend everybody go out and get a mortgage to incentivize you to be successful, he does have a lot of great wisdom to share in his story! Resource Recommendations: Newman Tur...

This is the second part of our conversation with Joseph Hubbard. If you haven't, I would highly recommend going back and listening to part 1 before listening to this episode just for context but also because there is a ton of value in that episode! Joseph is doing some pretty impressive things! Resources Mentioned: Herd Quitter Podcast Working Cows Podcast Ranching Reboot Podcast Grazing Conferences Steve Campbell As always, check us out at Herd Quitter Podcast on Facebook and Instagram a...

This weeks episode is part one of my two part conversation with Joseph Hubbard of Olsburg, Kansas. Joseph has a large diversified ranch made up of 450 cow/calf pairs, 800+ stockers, and 2000 sheep managed on around 10,000 acres of Kansas prairie! In part one we discuss his sheep production model both on pasture and in a feedlot setting. We discuss the EZ Care breed and rambouillet sheep and why each breed has a purpose in his operation. Check in next week when I will share part two of our conve...

Kim Maloney returned home to her family farm in Quebec, Canada to work as their day-to-day operations manager but also to build a direct marketing enterprise! Over the past 3 years of her time on the farm they have greatly expanded their beef production and marketing, added sheep and pork and have succeeded in marketing all their product direct to consumer! She shares the strategies they have used to grow this enterprise and the choice to bring finishers on to the farm rather than own cows to re...

Riley Shay is a friend of mine and inspires and impresses me whenever I hear his story! From a young age Riley has had an entrepreneurial spirit from trying to start a cow herd with four bottle calves to buying a tractor and starting a custom haying business at 16 years old. Today, at only 26, Riley has built a ranch of his own, purchasing a property not far from his family in NW Kansas and has developed an impressive herd of Registered Red Angus cows! His story is one we can all learn from! If ...

Derek started his farming journey immediately after high school when he decided he could learn better through experience and self-study than college. He gained experience working for several farmers, studied books, magazines and YouTube and used this knowledge to build his own dairy. Today he and his wife run their dairy in central Minnesota. They are impressive grazing managers and are using their herd to build soil! We discuss his journey, his grazing management and talk epigenetics in his her...

I just got home from my week long trip to Oklahoma attending the Ranching for Profit School. Each night I tried to do a quick update on my day to summarize some of the topics they discuss each day to give you an idea what the school entails. I really enjoyed my experience and if you've ever considered attending a school, hopefully this helps and I would definitely recommend attending a school whenever you can. Resource Recommendation: The Turnaround: A Ranchers Story - Dave Pratt As always, c...

In Episode 11, we talked to Jenny Drake. Today we talk to her husband to get more details on their story of moving from Indiana to the mountains of Tennessee and building a large successful grazing based and direct marketing farm there. He shares the stressful times, along with the successes and how he prioritized his marriage over his business and how that has helped lead to a long and successful marriage! We also discuss the importance of community in this regenerative ag world and how it was ...

Paul always had a love of cattle from a young age! His father recognized it when Paul could put together cattle family lines in a commercial herd when he was just a kid. However, the opportunity to take over a large family ranch was not in the cards, but this didn't stop him from building an operation of his own. In this episode we talk about his journey to building a ranch by focusing on low input cattle production and marketing his livestock at a premium. These principles allowed him to grow t...

Tyler Burkey and his wife Megan have a unique story of seeking out new opportunities and not being afraid to change course when those opportunities arise and the numbers make sense. Their start in agriculture was producing hay, they grazed covers after seed corn harvest, raised cow/calf herds in barns and today they are implementing sell/buy marketing of cows and stockers and raising them in barns and out on cover crops and stocker cattle. Lots of things to learn from in this episode. We also d...

Jordan Meyer and his wife Rachelle haven't been afraid to dive into new enterprises when opportunities present themselves. Over the years they have raised organic crops, conventional crops, dairy, beef cow/calf, stocker cattle, goat production, pastured hogs, turkeys, broiler chickens and laying hens! Today they still remain diversified raising dairy cows, beef cow/calf, stockers, goats, broilers and pastured hogs. They direct market what they can through their brand Wholesome Family Farms and p...

On this weeks episode we take questions from listeners and ask them to Kit Pharo. A few of the questions he answers are: - If you were starting from scratch today, what would you do? - Why don't more producers use composite bulls when most are not breeding registered cattle or show cattle? - AI or Bulls - Heat tolerant bull program - Cactus Feeders calf buy-back program - What percentage of bulls tend to make it to the sale As always, check us out at Herd Quitter Podcast on Facebook and I...

In a recent PCC discussion group there was a conversation around where is the ideal location to run cow/calf pairs in the United States. Overall, every area has advantages and disadvantages, but Jim Gerrish who has a unique perspective having worked with ranchers in 43 states and visited ranches in 49 states has his views on some of the best places. We discuss this as well as why it's important to break out land investments as a separate business from your operating entity. Resources Mentioned:...

In 2019 Landan took over his family's ranch which had been managed in a high input, low profit manner for a number of years. He immediately worked to make changes improving grass management, buying low input genetics, reducing direct costs and overhead expenses and as a result has shown a profit every year since starting. Definitely an episode worth listening to if you have the desire to make a more profitable ranch and a better lifestyle. Resources Mentioned: Ranching for Profit Jim Gerrish ...

Brian Alexander, also known as the Red Hills Rancher on social media joins me to discuss his history in ranching and his ranch in the Red Hills of South Central Kansas. We talk about fire, grazing management, succession planning and much more! If you haven't heard of it, be sure to check out his podcast the Ranching Reboot Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts! Resources Mentioned: National Grazing Lands Coalition Stockman Grass Farmer Ranching for Profit Holistic Management Cleared Hot ...

To often people are convinced that finding success in agriculture is impossible because they can't find opportunity in their back yard. Andrew and his family were unwilling to accept that they couldn't run a profitable ranch business and did what many of us would never consider and sold their land in Ohio and moved to Oklahoma to start a new ranch in a new environment that was more suited to their cattle production goals. In this episode, Andrew shares how they came to the conclusion that moving...

Will Harris is one of those people that I have looked up to as long as I've been involved in this regenerative world. He's got an amazing story of transitioning his farm over from commodity livestock production to a regenerative, diverse, direct to consumer business. The market millions of dollars in grass fed and pasture based meats and poultry raised on their 3200 acres in Bluffton, Georgia. They have improved their soils, taking them from 0.5% organic matter to over 5% and they have regenerat...

Jason joined me again to follow up on our conversation from episode 52. We discuss further the idea of reducing inputs and how it relates to veterinarians. We also discuss principles that apply to being a successful cattle producer, principles like developing cattle that are adapted to your environment, calving with nature, advancing your herd genetics through strict culling, and so much more! Resources Mentioned: Book of Proverbs Alan Nation Gordon Hazard Dave Pratt As always, check us ou...

Doug Peterson has an extensive history working in the NRCS for over 32 years, consulting for Understanding Ag, and owning and operating his own grass farm in Missouri. We discuss what he learned through his career, and go in depth on the principles of soil health and how they can be applied in a grazing farm. And we discuss his own grazing operation and how he has improved his grass management and has an adjustable stocking rate which allows his to graze his cows through the winter. Resources M...

Jason Salchow is a custom grazier, bull developer and veterinarian from Missouri. We discuss his shift to custom grazing as a primary enterprise for his farm, how he began developing bulls for PCC, and what that process looks like. And then we just touch on the topic of how low input philosophies apply to veterinarians, although there is more to come on that topic in a future episode! No doubt that there is a lot to learn here in this conversation! As always, check us out at Herd Quitter Podcas...

Jason Rowntree is a professor at Michigan State University in their Animal Science Department studying low input beef production and regenerative agriculture. He shares how they have increased production on their grasslands, reduced expenses and increased profit on the beef farm and also shares the exciting and important work they have been doing around carbon sequestration in grasslands! Resources Mentioned: Grassfed Exchange Understanding Ag Savory Institute As always, check us out at Her...

Luke Perman and his family run Rock Hills Ranch in North Central South Dakota. He shares why they have the diversity of enterprises they do, from cow/calf, to stocker to a custom sheep grazing enterprise and how each of those enterprises add value to the whole ranch. We also discuss the social aspect of a ranch management from engaging your employees, to being intentional about how the ranch impacts your family. This is an episode everybody can benefit from! Resources Mentioned: Ranching For P...

Louis Martin knew very young that he wanted to be a ranch manager, and recognized early on that there is a big difference between managing cows, and managing a business than runs cows. He took every opportunity to learn from skilled mentors and advisors, and educated himself on the keys to business management rather than just animal science. His career took him from managing ranches in Texas, to Utah and finally landed himself in Colorado where he today manages over 75,000 acres of leased ranchl...