What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?
Mistakes can be a good thing. They mean you are thinking out of the box, trying new challenges and pushing the envelope. What’s the best “mistake” you ever made and how did you learn from it?
Related Topics: Small Producer Challenges
April 11th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
This years mistake was a fencing Idea I had to reduce the cost of my feedlot fence from 3.78/linear ft to 1.77/linear foot using concrete,plastic and steel…keeping the project small and the cost associated with it taught me what I needed to know quick and with a bit less pain than goiing all out. The deal is like my dad told me, If everyone says it can’t be done, you’re on the right track!
April 12th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Well,lets see..
There was the year we bought feeder calves during during a 2 week cold wet spell,some got sick,3 or 4 died,spent $500
on medicine
April 14th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Folks,
I don’t know if this is the biggest mistake I’ve made, or one that I’ver learned the most from. But it is mostly true, and It did teach me something. I hope it has a lesson for some of you too.
Learning from a Mistake
Now, boys, we had a bull one time, he was big, and black, and grand.
He‘d come up to me in the pasture; eat horse treats from my hand.
He‘d let me scratch him under his chin, or up behind his ears.
He was just a one ton baby, but of folks, he had no fears.
‘Cause one day he broke out of the winter trap, got in the cedar pen.
Twern‘t far so I went out afoot to put him back again.
I walked up to him to haze him, he looked at me and arched his back.
Pawed the earth and snorted, and got ready to attack.
He took a step towards me and I whacked him on his big nose
With my old Stetson hat, and as you‘d suppose,
He shook his head then went to grazin, I pushed him back to the cows,
He went to the sale barn two days later, but I‘ll tell you right now,
That it made me feel real crummy to see him go that way,
‘Cause any unpredictable critter just isn‘t gonna stay.
And I had made him do it. But I‘ve learned from what I‘ve done.
Don‘t treat your stock like pets or your world might come undone.
But I still see guys that do it, they brag on their pet bulls.
But folks, I learned my lesson. You‘ll turn your bulls to culls.
I hope you‘ll learn from my mistake, and I‘ll tell you all that,
A cows a cow and a bulls a bull, not a puppy or a cat.
Steve
Distribute freely, just give me credit.
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:25 am
treating your stock as pets. (BIG MISTAKE) when i bought my 1st bunch of cattle there was one particular long horn bull that caught my eye at the sale barn. brought him home and he was so docile i always bragged about him. just about daily i would go down and pet him. heck once i even rode him across the pasture. 1 year after being here he had a bout with pnuemonia over the winter, he became a lunger after that. the next summer was spent with a lot of special care to keep him hydrated & his weight up. long story short late that fall he got to the point to where he could not even walk. the vet called it yonies disease at this point. putting that bull down was like putting one of my dogs down. (IT WAS REALLY HARD) he had become my buddy. ( cattle are what they are ) they are a business investment. 1. take care of them & they will take care of you. 2. treat them with some respect and some of them will actually respect you back. 3. DONT GET PERSONALLY INVOLVED
August 15th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I’d like to hear your ideas on this one, I raised a bull calf from a cow that had twins and would not take him. I kept him in our backyard because of his extra small size he had to be fed so often and wasn’t around the herd. At 4 months we put him into the herd and we had 2 cows, a mother and daughter take him since their calves were gone by this time and nurse him. We weaned him and put him with the replacement heifers we were keeping because he was so gentle and would come right up and my husband said he can’t stay unless he does a job so training the heifers to come and eat out of our hand was his job and he did it extra well. While not as friendly as him, they do come up easy to the pen and a couple will let us pet them. I’ve read the poem about the bull and wondered if we should get rid of him also. He is 1 year old and as of yet has not tried to get unruly, we’ve loaded him and all we have to do is give him a grahm cracker and he gets on the trailer and so do the girls. His twin by the way was a heifer so we assume he is sterile and he has never shown interest other than just staying with his girls. I would appreciate hearing something from someone even to my direct email address on this. vkrowe40@aol.com. His breed is Brangus bull and an Angus cross cow
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