You’ve heard this before: Every farm and ranch is a system. Soil health, animal health, plant species, weather and climate, equipment, fencing, possibly a few stock dogs and horses and the people running the show all play a part in that system. Then you have markets and interest rates and input costs, and other financial stuff, which affects the ranch-level economics. And a host of other external factors, but you get the idea.
You, as the rancher or farmer, are like a conductor, directing an orchestra through a complex piece of music. Some days you might feel more like the ringmaster of a circus. Or, maybe a rodeo clown on a really bad day working cattle. But the point is that the people doing the work, and making the decisions, are at the centre of the whole system.
To that end, we’ve had Kelly Sidoryk writing about working with family in a ranch business for a while now in her Depth of Field column. In our January issue, she’s covering a different approach to running meetings, which could work well for families in the middle of succession planning, for example. It’s called the “delegated meeting process,” and has people take on a different role for each meeting, so no one gets tired of chairing, taking notes, etc. … It’s a great way to build capacity, and generate ideas (although there are situations where it’s not ideal, and she covers that, too, in her column). Sidoryk and I meet regularly to shoot videos for her column, and she mentioned that she learned of this approach from a ranching family, so it’s already being used at the grassroots level. Just a reminder that you can find those videos online through the QR codes at the end of her columns.
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Speaking of succession planning, our field editor, Melissa Jeffers-Bezan, has been working on a succession planning series. The first piece is in our January issue, and it covers peer groups and succession planning. Producers interested in this idea might join a peer group that is laser-focused on succession planning, like the one run by Backswath Management. Or they might find others going through the same thing by joining a mentorship program, which is what Andrea van Iterson found through the Canadian Cattle Association’s mentorship program. These are just two organizations — there are other mentorship programs in agriculture, and there are other types of organizations that may offer opportunities to hook into a network of people in the midst of succession planning.
There’s always more to learn on the production side of things, too, and the Beef Cattle Research Council has plenty of free resources online. Reynold Bergen mentions several in his column, Research on the Record, in our January issue. In addition to those mentioned in his column, the council has several online calculators, covering everything from valuing salvage crops for livestock feed to figuring out break-even bull prices. Find them at beefresearch.ca/tools/interactive-calculators. If you’re in the middle of calving, or thinking about the approaching calving season, you might want to check out the council’s Calf 911 resources, which cover everything from spotting dehydration in calves to resuscitating calves (for example, don’t hang them by the hind legs — it’s counter-productive). All those resources are online at beefresearch.ca/producers/calf-911-resources.
The council is also looking for information from cow-calf producers to develop better information for producers across the country — you can find the survey at beefresearch.ca/survey.
Here at Cattlemen, we’ve collected quite a few articles related to herd health over the years, so we’ve selected the top ones that are still current and added them to our Herd Health page. On that page, under “Scours,” you’ll also find my interview with Dr. Claire Windeyer, which informed the scours article in our January issue. If you have the misfortune to be dealing with scours this year, or want to brush up beforehand, there are a few other articles on scours, as well as articles covering bovine respiratory disease, parasites, reproductive diseases and vaccine management.
Rodeos are fun, but I hope you don’t have too many of those days on your operation this year. However, problems always arise, and it’s often a matter of getting through the crisis, then figuring out whether it can be prevented or managed better next time. Whatever you end up dealing with in the coming months, odds are that you’re not the only one with that problem. Do a little digging, and you’ll likely find others who’ve been through it, and hopefully some resources to help you through. If you think it’s something we should be covering, shoot me an email at [email protected].
