The Realities of Ranching, Legacy, and the Future of Kansas Cattle with Ryan Locke | Ep6

Perfect. Awesome. What's on your shirt? Merck Animal Health. It's a vet med company, pharmaceutical company. Nice. Free, free hoodie. I was going to say they're not a sponsor. No, no. For you being an influencer or anything. No, I'm not on the influencer status. Perfect. Thanks for hanging out, dude. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate it. Well, welcome to the Killer Growth Podcast. I've got Ryan Locke on. I'm going to talk about his family ranch and all of his endeavors. So thanks for hanging out. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I start usually with a very difficult personal question. I think it just kind of sets, you know, sets everything up real nice. So are you good with crying on camera? Are you comfortable with? No, I'd rather edit that part out. You want us to cut that out? Okay. All right. Sounds good. We can do that. Now, we start easy. How did the family ranch begin? Let's start there. And then how did you get involved to where you are today? You know, my great grandfather, he was Eldon Locke. He was in the probably the second or third generation to piddle around with some cows. And he owned the John Deere dealership. So your great grandpa was already like a second or third in cattle? I think so. Second or third. That's cool. Back, you know, a few head, some chickens, probably some hogs, a little bit everything. Yeah. And he, at one time, he owned the John Deere dealership here. And I think it struggled to operate. And he just made a modest wage and got by, raised the kids on the place. But his son, who was my grandpa, Ted Locke, he passed away when he was 23. So there was a gap there. Ted died in a horseback accident north of town on what was known as the Ramsey Ranch, which we just acquired here last year. So it's kind of all tied back together. Yeah. So my dad, he, my grandma, she remarried to a wonderful, wonderful man. He was, Jerry McCatherin was his name. But there was kind of a miss there. We got out of the cattle business for a little while. And dad, he went to school teaching. He went to K-State and taught school in the late 80s, maybe early 90s. And it wasn't for him. I didn't even know Chris taught. Yeah. Yeah, he did. And he started leasing a little grass just at the right time and got sober and did some things that worked in his favor. And he was able to put together a pretty good chunk of land that we leased, you know, and got us going and gave us some freedom. And that's kind of how we got to this point. Yeah. And so tell me about, yeah, so I guess tell me about the rest of that for Chris. So you say leasing grass. I'm going to ask you a lot of questions like I don't know anything about the cattle industry because I don't. But you leased the grass to put heads on. Yeah. To put cows on. We were in the custom grazing business to start. There was nothing, no money, you know. Gotcha. He went and made some agreements to lease some grass. And mainly it was we'd graze it for 100 days. Like somebody from Texas, Missouri, anywhere in the country, probably Midwest mainly, would send some steers to graze weighing 600 pounds, you know, turn them out for 100 days and you could put 200, 225 pounds on them real quick. We got the best stand of native grass left in the world here. Really? In Kansas? Yeah. So you can get some cheap gains. So Dad would custom graze these cattle. He wouldn't have any ownership. Just take them in. Didn't even own the cows. Just would go. Right. And there was a decent little margin in there. But you had to have some volume. Yeah. So he just grew year after year for maybe a decade and made his living that way. Where did you come into the picture there? A little later. He purchased, him and a partner bought the sale barn here east of town. And I don't know, maybe 25 years ago. And then I'd kind of been around and wanted to be more involved. But he kind of was a little too busy. Sure. Just, yeah. But eventually I got involved and he was involved in the sale barn, which took a lot of his time and management. So he kind of started to pass a few things on. And it was still at that point primarily custom? Yeah. Primarily. We'd own a few, but primarily custom. So just as he had other things taking his time, things fell into my lap. Started getting delegated to you. Yeah. Okay. Tell me about the sale barn. So that is a place where people go to buy and sell. Buy and sell cattle. Just cattle? Yeah, just cattle. Just cattle. You know, those guys sell on a commission. They get a commission and it's a tough business. A lot of communities have a sale barn, but there's three or four in the state of Kansas that are the biggest and do the best, you know. It's very competitive and you've got to be a salesman to some degree to draw the customers, you know. Gotcha. Draw the cattle. So who are the people showing up to, because that's a whole other part of this. You go to a sale barn, who are the people showing up to buy cows? Are these like baby cows, calves? Well. Or are these full-grown, like breeding? A little bit of everything. Okay. You know, they'll sell a bottle calf and they'll sell. I saw this week they had 22 1200 to 1500 pound steers. Those things are finished, ready to go to slaughter, and usually you don't trade those through the sale barn. They trade out of a feed yard, you know, where they're finished, they go straight to the packing plant. So there's order buyers is what there is, who do the bulk of the business. There's also local farmers. So what's an order buyer? An order buyer is somebody who gathers orders and they buy cattle for other people. So they work on a commission base, typically $1 a hundred. So if they buy a six-weight steer, that's $6. If they buy a hundred six-weight steers. A hundred pounds. So six-weight is, it's 600 pounds? If they buy a 600-pound steer, they're working on a $1 a hundred weight commission. Gotcha. So they'll gather up $6 for buying that 600-pound steer. Got it. If they buy a hundred of them, that's $600. Got it. Interesting. So those guys, most of them are, there's not many young order buyers. Yeah. But they're pretty crotchety. What does that mean? It's just a competitive business. Yeah. And it's just sit in a sale barn all day. I tried it. Yeah. You were traveling a bit. It didn't work out for me. It wasn't my cup of tea. And I didn't have the success that I thought I was going to. Yeah. And I didn't want any part of it after three years. You did for three years. Yeah. Yeah. Being stuck in a sale barn. All day. So I'm sure there's some trust involved in that, so you're not buying crappy cows. There is. You got to know what you're doing, buy right. You do. Do they give you a budget or you're just spending their money? Typically, they'll give you an order and tell you kind of where they want to be. Gotcha. So they're providing some context or a list. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. That's fascinating to me. So take me through, like, from the beginning. Like, take me through the whole cattle industry from, okay, they're breeding, you've got calves, and where does this all happen all the way to slaughterhouse? Yeah. Like, I don't understand any of this perspective. So there's multiple facets of the industry that you can participate in. Okay. So we have some cows, which the cow deal, we're raising calves, we're breeding these cows, raising a calf. Usually we'll calve in February and March is kind of our time frame, and we will wean those calves in October. So they'll be alive for six months before we pull them off their mom. Okay. And once we wean them, they're kind of delicate for 60 days, you know, the health on them is. They'll get sick, and you've got to keep a close eye on them. So this morning we just shipped our steers out to wheat. I haven't seen the weights. We weighed them up at Burns, but probably weighing 675. So they went to wheat pasture. They'll go out there until sometime in March and graze. So they weaned. Weaned for 60 days. I left them at home just running out on dry grass and just shipped them. So we'll run them until March. They're already at 600 pounds after, like, seven, six months? Yeah. Jeez. So they'll graze for another 100 days out there plus, and they'll put on 200. Where? Medicine lodge area. And is that still you or that someone else? Well, no. I sent them to a guy that's grazing them for me. Got it. So he'll run them until March. Then they'll ship to the feed yard weighing 900, 9 1⁄4, somewhere in there. Then they'll feed on for probably until June, and they'll be finished. And so at the feed lot, they're just eating feed, like grain? They're in a mixed ration, predominantly corn and hay. That's kind of the final fattening. Silage, yeah. That's where all the flavor comes in. That's where the meat comes, the flesh, yeah. They'll put the flesh on them. Those home-raised calves, they will kill. It'll take them probably 16, 17 months and maybe 18. But they've been weighing 1,450 going out. So that's when they'll be finished in June, weighing 1,450. That's the steers. They'll be 150 pounds lighter, 120 pounds lighter, somewhere in there. Okay. Yeah. Is there much of a difference between, like at market, like when I'm buying steaks and briskets from a heifer to a steer, there's no difference in the meat? Well, you don't see it there. Right. But it's there? Yeah, for sure. What's the difference? Because the performance in there, you don't get the same performance out of a heifer as you do a steer. So a heifer's always docked unless she's really nice and somebody's buying her for breeding purposes. Gotcha. Yeah. So I guess I just lost you there. So you're saying I'm talking about literally when I'm eating it, is there a difference if it's a steer or a heifer? No. No difference. You're saying that they have different journeys. There could be by the size of the rib eye to some degree. Oh, interesting. Because the steers will typically get bigger. Bigger rib eye. Yeah. That makes sense. That would be about it. So then from there, they're either going to become a breeder or they're just going to get harvested, right? Usually at weaning we'll know if we want to breed these heifers. Really? How do you know? Just looks. Yeah. I'd like to say records, but our records aren't that good. So it's based off of attitude and looks, yeah. Interesting. And looks based on muscle? Confirmation, yeah. Feminism. Interesting. Just overall quality. Yeah. Something that I might see that you might not. Yeah, I'd assume. I'd just say that looks like a cow. Yeah. So a lot of people, a lot of producers will sell their calves right off the cow or wean them at 60 days. So there's also opportunity to get to buy anything you want. At any stage. Yeah. And then be the person to take them. Yeah. Because that was, I think I've talked to you in the past, why it seems like there's all these middlemen. Yeah, there is. Right? There's a lot of stages. And so you guys are doing, so your focus is the calving, weaning. No, probably, well, that's part of our business. Our main thing now is probably just buying grass cattle, running some grass cattle. And then we're pretty well in the market year-round on whether it's grass cattle or just a certain weight of calves that we're going to try and finish. Try and finish before the interesting. Yeah, because in my mind, so is that just strategy? It's just based on how much grass you got, how many units you have to decide to have someone else raise them or finish them off versus you? Why wouldn't you finish off everything after? Sometimes the profit margin is good enough to where you don't want to wait another 100 days and potentially lose that. Interesting. So how much does, because, yeah, the beef market is nuts. How much does it fluctuate? I think of oil prices, right? But is it every month? Is it quarterly? It's daily. It is daily. So just for a little perspective, it is as volatile as it's ever been right now, minus maybe a few days in the COVID era. It crashed there. But right now, these feeder cattle that are based on a 900-pound steer, their limit on the CME, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, is I want to say it's 9 1⁄4. So 9 1⁄4 times 9, that's 80-some bucks. Right. Is that right? Yeah. 9 times 9, yeah, 80-some dollars. So you can lose $80 of value on an animal a day. Wow. Which, that's extreme. Those are extreme movements. Right. But it's been on a tear up. We tore down here in the last 45 days, and now we're coming back up. So it's still very high. So who's watching all that and making those decisions in your business? Like who's making the decision to, nope, we're selling here, nope, we're going to keep raising here? I kind of oversee it, and then we all come together and try and make an educated decision. But sometimes it's just like they're quick decisions. Where, like in those stages, what's the most profitable or least profitable extremes, right, from the actually breeding to calving to then bringing them to finish on grass to then the, like who's making the most money in between these stages? Good question. In the last year and a half, two years, where we've met all-time highs and just blown through all-time highs, it's been good for a lot of people. But the cow-calf producer has really capitalized because they're raising the initial product and they've capitalized. But like these other guys, they maybe have capitalized on one. If they're buying grass cattle or feeding a six-weight to a nine-weight or finishing them out, maybe had a good one or two turns. And then it's kind of slipped up here over the last 45 days and maybe gave a good portion of it back. I don't know. It just depends how you manage it. Why did it go down the last 45 days? President Trump came out and he said beef prices are too high. This was the start of it. He said beef prices are too high. I'm going to do what I need to do to back them off because I'm looking out for the consumer, which is a tough line because we've all been here for a long time. But he stuck his neck out there for the majority, I guess, which I can see. But that was the start of it. And then a lot of rumors about the Mexico border opening. It's been closed for the last year. For cattle? Yeah, which was kind of 3% of our headcount. Really? Like in your personal? No, no. Just what was going on. The United States. Gotcha. They have this thing called the screw worm going on over there, and we shut the border down. Like a disease? Yeah. Like it's an actual worm? A fly. A fly. That'll just eat cattle alive. Geez. So we're trying to get that taken care of, and that's why it's been shut down. But just rumors, I think. Sure. And the funds bailing out. Getting priced in that this might open up. And the fund guys, they bail out, and it can tank like that. You know what I mean? Guys that aren't even part of the business. Interesting. But they're part of the money side of it. Well, they're playing the futures is what they're doing. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, so I think that has something to do with it. That's interesting. But it's recovering. We've been on a tear here for two weeks. So feed prices obviously affect you. There's a lot of things that go into the price of beef. There is. Like drought. Like how much of that corrects on the market side to make up for the issue of feed prices going high, drought, water issues. Like what else could there be that would cause a bad year that's like mother nature or out of your control? That's kind of why we're here right now at these prices that are at all time highs because of a large drought. Because that drives prices up. Well, it cut our numbers back. We were killing a lot more mama cows. We couldn't have a baby. And just our numbers got short, so the price got high, and the demand's been great through that. Well, yeah, if there's less supply, then demand's great. Yeah. There was a lot more to that question. Feed prices, feed's cheap right now. In the feed yard, these cattle are feeding for, like, upper 80s to 90 cents a pound. The cost of gain is what it's costing, which is cheap. How high has it been? In my time, probably not my time, but since it's been relevant to me, I remember it probably at $1.15 to $1.20. Okay, yeah. So that's 20%. Adds up pretty quick when you're adding on, what, five? 600 pounds. 600 pounds, yeah. Yeah. Dang. It does. And that goes straight to the feed. So, like, at that point, does the feed lot own the animal, or is it still your animal and you get the sale? It's still our animal. Okay. Yeah. So that's services and feed. Yeah. Like lodging, I guess. Yeah. If they're feeding a – yeah, those feed yards, they do well. Yeah. They do. How many of those are – is there a lot of that? Yeah. A bunch of feed yards. Yeah. Yeah. I bet. They smell terrible. I hate driving by the lawn. You go into Whitewater, it's like, oh, my God. Every time. It'll hit you. Sometimes it's worse, too, than others. Yeah. Probably time of year and how much they have out there. That's true. But, yeah, you're probably pretty used to it. Yeah, I don't mind. It smells like money to you. I don't know. How's – just curious on – since you've been here, like, technology, I'm curious how much technology is influencing this now or assisting or helping. Is there any things you're seeing that you want to implement or things that are coming up? Or is it – For our operations? Yeah, yeah, just – yeah. We're kind of lacking on that. But I think the drones could be something that we could utilize. I couldn't. I'd wreck that sucker in no time. Sure. Yeah, yeah. But I think, Christian, I think we're going to have some good opportunities to utilize some of that. Just for finding them, locating? Yeah. We hire Taylor Weeby, who he sprays some of our country with drones. When he can't aerial spray it with an airplane, he uses drones to spray. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So I think – What are they spraying for? Noxious weeds or any kind of weeds. Gotcha. Yeah, just to clean things up. Just for invasive species so you get more native grass? Yeah, more. Or is it bad for the cows? More native. To get you a better stand of grass, yeah. Gotcha. Interesting. Yeah, I didn't think about that. So you guys have people flying over doing that? Yeah. On your grass? Yeah, certain times of year. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. What technology have you seen beyond that that you think would make sense in the future? I think there's been a little bit of talk about some things detecting sickness and things like that temperature-wise. I think that'll be a big thing in our industry. Yeah, that's probably a big – I mean, what's your loss on average out of every hundred head? How many are you losing? That's tough. I mean, you'd sure hope to wean a 90% calf crop, but I'd like to be a little better than that. But that's from birth to weighing 650 pounds. Yeah. But if you're buying local cattle weighing 500 or 600 pounds, you would like it to be 2% your death loss. Okay. But if you're buying them out of Alabama, you'd like 5% would be a gift. Because they just got more problems over there. They got a 14-hour truck ride, and they probably came off of 68 places. Probably not 68, but just co-mingled altogether and just right off the mom. Yeah. Huh. They're fragile. Oh, they'll do that. Fragile. Yeah, because you were saying that 60-day window's already really fragile after they get weaned. Yeah, it is. And then you put them in a truck for hours. Yeah. I mean, they've been off their mom for 24 hours or two days, and they're tough. You'll get them in. They'll ball around the pen, walk and walk, and they don't want to go to feed. They don't want to go to water. It's delicate. They're just kind of a mess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So talk about cowboys. I feel like the ranching I know is the guy's on a horse. He's going out, checking on them. You guys are feeding them. What is this modern-day cowboy era of being a cattle rancher? What does that look like now, and what did it look like 20 years ago? I think it looks however you want it to be. We've simplified some of it seasonally. I'm not afraid to jump on a four-wheeler and get a job done that can save me an hour or two to go hang with my kids or not miss something. But during the summer, the boys, they want to get horseback, and I can spend five or six months out of the year getting horseback and doing a job. It brings a different feeling to my life, and there's a lot of enjoyment to be had for me. But doing it with the kids is the best. I'm just getting in this stage to where I don't have to be looking back all the time. I can turn two of them loose, and they're ready to go. That's awesome. So a four-wheeler is a better idea most of the time? No, not necessarily. I just feel like in some places it's more efficient for me and what I'm doing quicker. But in some places being horseback is better. Yeah, for sure. I've always been curious. Is it you yelling at the cows, or is the horse itself causing the cows to do certain things, when you're herding them, when you're gathering them or moving them? It basically comes down to their flight zone. Each animal is different, but where you are in their eye and what direction you want them to go kind of distance between you and them. But like I say, some cattle are wild, and some you've got to just drive hard. You've got to whip and spur and ride and yell and be aggressive. I see them all, obviously, they're naturally a herd animal, so they move together. Is there like a captain of a herd normally? What's the social side of it? Sure can be. If something's wild, it can throw things for a loop. Typically, if we're gathering, shipping, if we're selling or going to the feed yard or going to the sale barn, we have those cattle broke to the cake truck, the feed truck. We've simplified the gathering a lot over the last 20 years. Used to, they had wrecks all the time, all the time. What do you mean by wrecks? Just cattle blow up. Sometimes if you blow them up, you could ruin your whole day because they're not going to go through that hole that we were trying to get them through. You've got to make them hit the backside and circle them up and just hold them tight and move them up along the fence. There's multiple ways of doing it, but you can cause a lot of problems, and then some of them just won't gather. You end up having to rope them and load them, tie them down. It's just stuff I used to really enjoy. My priorities have changed. Yeah, I'm sure. You want to go home for dinner. I used to want to chase them when I was 15. Yeah, I'm sure. Man, there's so many variables there too. What's the right, like a ranch head or cowboy to heads of cattle? What's that ratio look like? How many people does it take to take care of 1,000 head? I don't have a good answer for that. In the feed yards, I think those guys, I want to say they'll run maybe a pen rider. He'll cover maybe 10,000 head of cattle in a day. They're in confinement. When you're out in the country, it all depends on are you going from pasture to pasture or are you going from county to county? You know what I mean? Distance. There's a lot of variable factors. With your setup now, how do you know when you need more help? Is it just based on the project? You kind of have your core crew that's year-round. Yeah, it's seasonal. Then we'll have things we need more help for. Usually in the summer, it'll bring a lot of stress and anxiety. I'll be like, man, we need some more help. We need to hire somebody that'll work for a month or two here, and we get things to where we feel comfortable. How important is it to you to kind of preserve some of that OG cowboy, like you're talking about the enjoyment of just being on a horseback and doing the work? It's pretty important. I don't push it like I'm about to speak about it, but I want my kids to be able to rope one and be able to just be a good hand and know what they're doing. So, yeah, we're hopefully taking the right steps to get them there, but it isn't the safest thing. Your boys are tough, though. They can take a fall. Yeah, keep moving in that direction. Yeah, cool. How similar are you guys to the Duttons on Yellowstone? Oh, shoot. I stopped watching that probably three episodes in. Yeah, Kevin Costner, huh? Yeah, not at all. Not at all. My wife kind of acts like Beth sometimes, but other than that, yeah. I've heard the comparable before. That's awesome. Well, that's a bummer you didn't say very similar, because I was going to ask, then where do you put the dead people? I was excited to know where you dump the bodies. Yeah, great show, fun to watch, but I'm like, how similar is this? I know there's probably little aspects where they actually show them actually ranching, and it's probably kind of like, yeah, that's right, but then all the drama around it, I'm sure. That guy, he knew what he was doing as a producer, didn't he? He captivated the audience. It was amazing, just the cinematography. It's just beautiful. The whole thing is just fun to watch, just to see the cowboys running around. Yeah, I don't want to have much comparison with the Duttons. Yeah, that's all right. Not a reality TV show opportunity here. I think you guys could have one. I think you'd be good. You're just over there screaming. You just got to yell at people. Screaming at my kids. Screaming at your kids, training them up to be cowboys. Do you think, how important is it to you that your kids step up into this, or do you care? Do you want them to? I want them to do whatever passion they have. As far as this is, they haven't had much of a lifestyle outside of this so far, but, man, like Wells and Ted, there's nothing better in the world for me to get to spend the day with them and work. Do labor and they enjoy it, and just go home at night. That's very fulfilling for me. I don't think Wells is going to go in any other direction, but it's pretty important to me. I'll be kind of hurt if nobody wants to come home, but I don't mind if they, I want them to do what they want to do. Yeah, you want to support them, but also it's okay to admit that you want it to happen. Yeah, for sure. That's cool. Talk about your guys' recent sale of the family ranch, and you're going into expansion now, and what were the key factors to make that decision? Because you bought a lot of acres. Yeah. Dad, he owned that place south of town. Susie and I lived on it. He lived on it. Then we had a lodge, and he bought that, man, I don't know, been 10 or 15 years ago. And the Myers family here in town gave him the opportunity, which we've been doing business with them for 30-some years, and they have been just wonderful and are a big part of our journey. And we had the opportunity to buy this place up north of town from an absentee owner out of Nebraska who we had a good relationship with over eight or nine years. We'd just been tending to this land, taking care of it, and leasing part of it. And it was just an opportunity to where we, you know, he offered it to us, and we all talked about it, and we're like, man, no way. You know, that's just not doable. And how many acres is it again? The original place was 6,000. So we didn't end up with all of that, but we ended up with a few thousand. And one day Christian was like, man, I think we ought to sell the ranch. And it kind of spurred us all into thinking that way. The ball got rolling. And it just we went with it, and so far it's worked out. We were able to we got Chase involved, Christian, me, dad, and then our business entity. So we ended up splitting it over kind of five ownerships, you know, but it allowed us to expand our acreage. And Susie and I buy into the place, and all of us, where it was just. Kind of a cool reset for everybody to come in. And go into the next stage of transition. So hopefully here over the next decade we can maybe buy dad out of the acreage he has. However it plays out will be fine. But, yeah, kind of a step in the transition period. And your parents are building out there. Are you and Susie building out there as well? Yeah, we are. We're going to be across the road from my parents. So, yeah, we're excited. It's all over again, just a different spot. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a little farther away. A little farther. Yeah, enough room now. Yeah. So it works. Yeah, we're getting going. I promised one of my coworkers that I would ask this question based on a documentary he had seen and I had seen about global warming. He wanted me to do it in a funny way of like, are you the problem? Like, is it you guys causing global warming? But there was this whole documentary on cattle being like one of the biggest carbon outputs, you know, in our intake of beef. And I'm sure that doesn't ever really affect your industry. But I was curious. Like, is there anybody, like the anti, what's the acronym I'm trying to think of? Oh, man. Yeah. We live in the wrong spot for that. Right, exactly. You know, but if you go out west or over east. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, those people. There's a lot of hate for that. There is. Yeah. And, I mean, I think it's oversold, you know. It's all about who's giving you this information to some degree. I don't have any doubt that we do contribute to it. But probably not as bad as what is sold. But, I mean, I don't want to be a vegan, you know. You don't want to be a vegan. No. I like brisket a lot. Yeah. We got, yeah. What a great source of protein we're raising. Oh, yeah. It's the best. There isn't a better source of protein. No question. There's people on carnivore diet, you know, that have gone all beef and fixed a lot of stuff. Yeah. Which is interesting. Jordan Peterson is one of the guys who had an insane amount of health issues. And he went to strictly plain beef. Like, no salt, nothing. Just ate beef for like three months and solved a lot of his problems. Is that right? Which I thought was super interesting. That is interesting. I can't imagine like my body processing only beef. I know. Like three meals a day. Yeah. And nothing else. Yeah. I feel like you need some fiber. I don't know how that would all come out the other end. Yeah. It would be tough. Yeah. What's your favorite cut of beef? I usually, I'll go with the ribeye usually. Yeah. I mean, a filet is, I don't complain about a filet either, you know. So, yeah. But I like ribeye is my favorite. Yeah. Same. Yeah. A good ribeye. I feel like I've dialed in the ribeye. Do you? I reverse sear my ribeye. So, I smoke it for like 15 minutes. Put it on the primo or something? On a pellet grill. Yeah. Just put it on like 185 degrees, smoke it until it gets about 100 internal temperature. Yeah. And then I just sear the heck out of it after that. Do you? On the grill? On the grill. Yeah. On an infrared or I'll do it on a cast iron pan. Yeah. Almost kind of try and burn that fat a little bit. Yeah. That's pretty good. You know, on the edges. If you sear it, then slow cook it, you lose all that crust. Yeah. You know, like the crust makes that ribeye. Like if that fat's all crusty. It does. But I swear that's the best ribeye to date I've ever had is every time I do that. Yeah. It's just slow cook it, get it all, get that. And some of that fat that might not tenderize or render out nice on a quick grill. Yeah. It always does. Like almost all the fat is very edible if you slow cook it first. I'd like to eat a steak you cook someday. Yeah. Maybe I'll provide them. Yeah. I think that's a good idea. Okay. I'm in. I want to know. No. No. You weren't invited. You weren't invited, Tyler. That sounds good. No. I've made some pretty big fans of a ribeye. I'll eat a filet too, but I just like fat too much. No. No. The amount of fat with meat is like... I know. But the tenderness of the filet is just... It's great. It is. Yeah. Yeah. But you're right. You can have a real... It's hard to ruin a ribeye, every part of a ribeye, but you can ruin a whole filet. You can. You can. You can ruin a whole filet. But a ribeye, you're always going to find something good in there if someone cooks it real hard. You'll find something good. Yeah. Talk about the ground aspect of sustainable ranching. You're doing a lot to this ground. Is it going to work forever? That's a good question because I don't know that we've... Looking back, we haven't used it this hard, I don't feel like, for centuries. Yeah, sure. Maybe the last 60 years is when maybe it got as aggressive as it did. That's something that into my 30s that I started seeing a lot more. When you're 25, those things aren't relevant to you unless you just... Right. God gave you a certain way of thinking. Yeah. But over the last decade, I've been like, man, we use this place too hard. It needs some TLC and some love, or it needs sprayed and it just needs taken care of in different ways. But this country, man, it is hardy. It recovers if it's not overgrown in cedar trees or if you give it a chance. But you got to give it a chance to let it recover. We've gone through three years of drought and we broke out of it in a big way this summer. Oh, yeah. This spring, this summer, all the way into the fall. Some of the bluestem was over the hood of the truck and it feels really good deep down in my heart. Yeah, to see it come back. Yeah, just to see it thriving. In that drought, were there periods where you were not grazing areas? Mainly because of pond water. We'd run out of pond water. There's nothing to drink. Yeah. But it rained just enough to keep us alive on the grazing. That's nice. We were very fortunate and blessed to get through that the way we did. So now we're at a point in time to where we need to repay the country to some degree. How do you do that? What is that even? Better care, lighter stocking rates. It might be some money out of your pocket at this point in time. Lower profits potentially. Yeah, but if you take care of it, it's going to take care of you, right? Love it. Yeah, that's interesting to me. I've never really understood the cycle of the grass and the seasons. But talk about the water cycle. In all the years you've been doing this, droughts are always going to come. But is there any pattern? That's the first drought I've ever seen that impacted us. It's just always rained in this part of the country. Always had enough. Yeah, and maybe when I was little. I'm sure we had some droughts, but that was the first one that I'd been impacted by. So I don't put much into the weather patterns. I know there's something to them, but it's just not somewhere I spend much of my time. Every other year, it just seems like every other year you have a good year of rain, you have a bad year of rain, and then we just had no rain. Yeah, we got it all this year. Made up for all of it. We did. On the ranching cattle side, people investing into this commodity. I don't know what you would call it. It's beef. Commodity. I see a lot of people, they'll buy some heads, they'll invest in some heads. How can someone get involved in cattle and invest that's not in cattle? Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. That is a challenging question for me to answer. Or maybe you don't. It's not that easy. I mean, you've got to have somebody you trust, or you really do good research. Like Dutton, Lucas, he's one of the few. He got in, is raising his own beef, doing a few little niche things. Man, sorry, you said Dutton. I was thinking like Yellowstone. I'm like, you only watch three episodes. How do you know so much about? But I think just, that's tough. I'll tell you, Sam, we, an older acquaintance and I, we put together an investment group where we have like 30, 32 partners on who all threw in some money. And we started feeding cattle. And so it's, I think it's not that I'm the right guy, but just teaming up with somebody who has some experience and can, you don't have to go through those initial licks. It's just cost too much, you know, to have major problems. So talk about that. That's super interesting. So you, 32 people came in, put money into what? Yeah. This mentor of mine, he had just gotten out of the feed yard business. He'd retired and all the years he had all of his, his nieces and nephews and brothers and cousins investing in pins of cattle, you know, and he wanted, still wanted that opportunity. And we got together and he, we both kind of brought in half of these investors and we were going to use the money we put together up front to, as equity and finance on top of that. And we, his main deal was kind of buying 600 pound heifers, usually out of Joplin or Alabama and putting them on feed and making them weigh 1250. And that was kind of, kind of the base business there. And so I was able to start out as the manager of that company and still am. We're going into our fourth year and it's been a really cool opportunity for me to increase my growth in the cattle business. You know, just learn a lot about things I didn't know and gain some experience. So we. So essentially you're able to take all that capital and do stuff at scale more economically. Yeah. We, these, we finance at the feed yard. You know, they'll go three, $300 a head down and they'll finance the animal, the rest of the animal. So if you put, you give them $300 a head down, they'll, yeah, they'll pay for the animal. Yeah. They'll finance the feed. Wow. Yeah. So that's kind of how we operate that business. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I mean. It gives you some opportunity to run some numbers. Oh, I bet. Yeah. I mean, we'll keep the volume. We'll kind of keep 3,000 on feed or on grass usually year round somewhere down there. Okay. Gosh, that's a lot. Yeah. So. And how much of that are you doing yourself? Is there more than just one service provider of that, like on the grass side? Are you doing all the grass as well for that company? Or is it kind of split off? I kind of oversee all the grass as well. You do? Okay. Yeah. Cool. Is that a common venture, a group of people to raise money to go into cattle? I've heard of it before. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't say it's common. Yeah. Because I think usually when that happens, you know, it's probably somebody that's going to take your money. Yeah. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. And I think Mike and I got in it because we have an honest reputation. Yeah. Perfect. And we were dealing with people we knew. Yeah. So there's a lot of probably bad stories. But when we got into it, the timing was great. Yeah. Because we just, we were kind of at the end of a tough cycle and coming in. Yeah. It's been going on. Yeah. So we'll see what happens when we hit the downturn. Right. Because we're going to, you know, eventually. Well, and setting clear expectations, especially when you're essentially raising money for a venture like that. What, like how did you talk about that to everybody? Like, did you say this will be our X? This will be like as far as just a return on. You know, the nuts and bolts was like, we're after, we're trying to have a 15% return on our investment year after year. And we're going to, we're going to manage our risk to where we're probably not going to hit many, any home runs, you know. Gotcha. Yeah. It makes sense. Yeah. And we try and not get kicked out of the game either. Yeah. You know, on the bad years. So just, and that was kind of based off of Mike's experience in the feed yard for a lot of years, but it, yeah, like just managing your risk and not letting things get away from you. But it's tough because you, when you buy these cattle, there's not always a margin in them. You know, a lot of times they're in the red on the purchase, you know, and you got to work your way out of that. What's next? What's the biggest risk in the cattle business? I feel like everyone's going to eventually, they're going to buy the beef. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I don't know that I, that I could say there's one. I mean, all the old timers would say drought, weather, you know, volatility of the market. Just the market, just it, some crazy things can happen just to like COVID, you know, it just tanked it. You just don't know. You got to have your back covered to some degree. So COVID tanked it, but did it come back pretty quick during COVID? You know, I remember. Because a lot of things tanked and popped up so fast. I think it did. It was a couple months, I believe. But, uh, yeah, but it, it, I remember it dropped hard. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of stuff did. Yep. Uh, yeah. So like future small, like you guys would be not a small operation. I would. Midsize. Yeah. Medium. Uh, for the small ranchers. What does this look like? The same age? Is there going to be a place for small ranchers you think in the next 10, 20 years? Or is it going to be all midsize and big? You all, all you hear about, like, you know, the, the pork industry, it booted all those producers out. Yeah. And then the dairy industry, it all went corporate and, or you were just running thousands and thousands. And I hope that's not the case. We're, we're, you know, but year after year, the small producers, the number of them gets, it gets smaller every year. Yeah. So that's kind of the direction we're going in. But like this year, it's been awesome for like, if you had 10 cows over the last decade, I would, the margin, there wasn't much margin, you know, and it was just tough. But this year, if you had 10 calves to wean, weighing 600 pounds, you could, those calves could make 12 to 1500 bucks a head. I mean, margin. Yeah. So those guys can really capitalize this year, you know? Yeah. But, uh, but for, for one, for two good years, there's going to be eight tough ones, you know, where you're going to have to create your margins somehow. Yeah. It's interesting. The, the volume demand, the demand and supply side of this probably does help the small guy and hurts the small guy. Because if big industry comes in and just starts leveling everybody, well, the market's oversaturated, I'm assuming, right? Yeah. But you also have to have the right conditions, the right grass. So location probably favors you guys a lot too, right? Like this is a great place to raise calves. Yeah, the Midwest. Right. You know, the red in Western Kansas, you know, not all of them, but, uh, yeah, middle of the country right here. Yeah. Yeah. This is a great place to be. Um, uh, if you were to grow significantly again, what would that look like? Are you happy with where you're at? Oh, I think just every year it's, uh, if we can turn a profit, I'm looking to run more cattle the next year, you know, increase my line of credit. It's been tough going from last year, the last two years, because the price of cattle has gotten so high in used to, you were given 1200 bucks for a six way steer. Now you're right now we're giving 2500 bucks. So you can't, unless you increase your line of credit, you're not able to run the same numbers, you know? So, but I'm just, I've been aggressive, you know, it's, it was tough for my wife to get into this business and be like, why, why are you asking for more money? Why are you asking? You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. We worked through this delicately. Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I'm, I'm all about being aggressive and I want to, uh, have a lot to do when the next generation comes in, if we can make it that long, you know? Yeah. Well, and you're a competitive guy. Yeah. Yeah. Um, how does that help you in this industry being competitive? I don't know. Early on, you know, I think it probably hurt me more mentally because, uh, I was worrying about things I didn't need to, you know, but like, I think I've kinda, I've kinda just tried to focus on our own family and our own business and nothing that nobody outside of it over the last few years just to, to, uh, have a clearer mind and not, not that I don't want to be competitive, but I don't want to, I don't want to stay up at night, uh, fighting over those things, you know? Uh, so I've, yeah, I've tried to, uh, kind of go away from that mindset and just. Focus on you. Yes. Your business. Yeah. Do the best that can be. Yeah. Yeah. Like you are, um, what, what was the worst, uh, and obviously it probably happened during the drought, but what was the worst year you've ever experienced and why? And, and it can be a combination, right? But in the business, in this business, was there a year you were like, I don't know if I'm going to do this next year. Has it ever come to that point for you? No, no, it hasn't. Um, there's, I think probably my worst years have came on, on poor marketing decisions that I've made, you know, like getting hung on the wrong end of a trade, uh, trying to hedge some cattle and it go a different way than you think it was going to go. And just living in that trade for six months and like all you let this on the table and, uh, you didn't make any money this year and you just, it could swallow me up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's been my biggest, uh, thing I've battled in my head. Yeah. Yeah. Just the losses. Yeah. Yeah. Which are going to happen. And, and this winter, you know, uh, this previous winter, February, first week of February, we had a nasty storm and we just got up on that place north of town, spread some cows out and there's no break, no wind break, you know? And, uh, it was like, I don't remember, it maybe got down to negative 20 or 30. Yeah, it was real cold. And it was maybe four straight days and the wind was blowing a little bit and our cows just started calving. And, uh, we were just, we had truckloads of dead calves. I mean, it was bad, you know, it was bad, but, uh, so that was pretty tough, but we worked our way out of it and the markets helped us and just thankful to be where we are today and looking back on it, like you, God gives you challenges, doesn't he? No matter what, you either come through them or you don't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The best day. What's the best day? Oh man. What's Ryan's best day every year in the business? Probably, probably, uh, kicking out with the boys to up in Chase County to gather a set, you know, and, uh, get out, head out before daylight breaks and trot to the backside, you know, a few miles and have your kids with you and get them gathered and shipped. And just, that's, that's probably the best day. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. I like marketing something or, you know what I mean? Just like being there in life and sucking it all in, you know, that's what I like. Do you like sitting behind the desk? Oh, I hate it. And that's where, that's where we, that's where the business struggles, you know, there needs to be more desk sitting. My emails, I need to check my emails when I leave here, you know, cause I've kind of neglected them for a few days. Yeah. So that's the struggle. Yeah. But that's what could, could get us to the next level too. You know what I mean? Yep. Yep. Yep. Build new habits that unfortunately aren't as fulfilling. Isn't that true? Uh, but in the longterm they will be. Yeah. That's part of your building your legacy and building something for your boys is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Especially with the now having 32 partners, I'm sure that's changed a lot of what you're. Yeah. There's a lot of management. Yeah. That, uh, a lot of the management is dealt with outside of me as far as the day-to-day bookkeeping, but I've had to, it's built some new habits. That's been one good thing for me. One of the great things for me about that is just, uh, staying on top of the business. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And accountability does not hurt. You know what I mean? Like I, I think that's a good blessing in disguise when you have, you have somebody looking over your shoulder. Yeah. Yeah. And you're able to do stuff and do, and it's so easy to not like coming from a family business to then doing that. I'm sure that's a completely, yeah. You're going to be at the dinner table and be like dad, brother and whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Look at that. But yeah, when you've got a lot of different minds looking at something. We put a committee advisory together of six people, you know, that I will have a monthly zoom call with. And so those guys, uh, it's perfect. Yeah, it is. There's accountability. I bet you've grown a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I have. It's been great. Well, what's the legacy you hope to leave behind? Oh man. You know, I just want to leave my kids with a, with a good, honest reputation and a work ethic. And just, I want to, I don't do very good job at this, but I want to impact people. I want to grow in that way. And I want, when I leave, I want some multiple people to be like, man, he was, he was good to me. He did something special for me or he went out of his way and he was, he was always nice to me. You know? Uh, that's what I want to be. Why do you say you're not good at that? I feel like you're impacting people. Just being intentional about it daily. You know, you get in my lifestyle, I'm sometimes around a few people or the same ones all the time and you get on the same path with them. Like whether you're riding in the truck and not saying four words or you just get, you stay down the same path and I got to break out of those paths. Get on a podcast, get in front of all five of our subscribers. You know, you're branching out, right? I am branching out. Look at you. I am. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but yeah, for real. So it's, it's been fun to watch and, um, uh, this is awesome for me to, I definitely don't fully understand it, but like it makes a lot more sense now that your whole industry is so always been so confusing whenever I'm sitting with Christian or you, I mean, I think last year we were sitting on a golf cart and I was asking you a ton of questions and I remember leaving that golf course more confused. Not that you did a bad job. It was just like, I kept uncovering all these different aspects of the business and, and yeah, my background is business, but not, not like that. It's just a very different niche. That's I came into this thinking, man, this is going to be a wreck. Sam doesn't know anything about the business. He's, he's not going to know how to ask any questions. He's going to be so bored. You did a really good job. Thanks. Yeah. I was really excited about this for me. Good. Good. Now I was excited about, I was too. I told Susie, uh, she called a little bit ago. I didn't answer cause I didn't know, want her to know I was here. I told her two weeks ago, she's like, she made some snarly comment like you on a podcast. So we Susie, Susie's like, it should be me. Not you. Right. Let's be honest. Yeah. Well, the two reasons you came to mind and I'll wrap this up. But when you guys put out that video about selling your family ranch, uh, I loved your segments in that video. Thanks. And that was like, I told Tyler, actually, that was a number two reasons. One, your family's very important to this community. So I think it's cool to hear these stories. And then two, I was like, man, I'd loved hearing Ryan talk about his heart for the ranch. And the way you talked about it was just, it was very deeply connected. And my favorite people tend to be people that don't want attention. Uh, but yeah, when they start talking about something, it's pretty easy to tell what they care about and you're not playing any games and you're very, uh, you're just a straight laced guy. That's pretty easy to talk to. I appreciate that. And that's a great podcast, uh, guest to have. So, uh, you know, you did great too. I won't hold you up very long, but I, I was watching two of your previous episodes, Levi and Nate. And, you know, I was thinking there was a lot discussed about the community and you yourself. And it's just, man, I watching those, I just felt blessed. You know, those two guys, Nate comes from Wichita, wants to be a part of the community. Levi moves back and it's a great place to live. It was a great place for me to grow up. And I just, I want people to know how proud I am. We have our struggles obviously. Everybody knows that, but I love it here and I'm, I ain't selling out. No, no, no. I love your passion for the high school, for athletics. It's obvious people talk about that in the community. So you are giving back there and making a difference there. And, uh, I, I agree. Like I, when this podcast started, I'm like, there's like some really cool people in this area, you know? And we should all learn about them. Right? Like, like there's a lot to be said and you, I guarantee you just said a lot of stuff. A lot of people were curious about and answered a lot of questions. And, um, but yeah, I agree. There's a lot of amazing stories to be told and you're one of them. So thank you. Yeah. Thanks for hanging out. This is an honor. Yeah. No, same. Appreciate you. All right, dude. Go, go rope some cows and return some emails. Yeah. Work on those emails.