Reality Ranching – From Trail Drives to the Millennium
Part 1
by Sid Goodloe
R
ecently a young man asked me how he could get into the ranching business. I told him there were two ways: inherit a million dollars or win the lottery, then ranch ‘til it runs out: Even those of us who have been in the ranching business for several decades are scrambling to make a profit. I find that a good reality check is to compare the number of calves it takes to buy a new pickup now and when I started 65 years ago. The weaning weight of steer calves has risen from about 325 lbs. to over 650 lbs. and the price has risen from 18 cents/lb. to $1.40/lb. And yet it takes almost twice as many calves today to buy a pickup as it did in 1956. So, how does a rancher stay in business when we buy our supplies and equipment at retail and sell what we produce at wholesale? It can be done, of course, but mostly by those who inherited a large piece of land or large estate and have no kids in college. Realistically, those of us who are hanging on usually have alternate sources of income. This can be recreation (fee hunting, trail rides, guest ranch, etc.) other natural resources (timber, fire wood, fence posts, gravel pit, etc.) or an outside job (drive the school bus). As a matter of fact, many of us are able to continue ranching because our land values continue to rise and we can borrow against the increased value of our ranch. The real cop-out, however, is to sell the north forty to a developer. I call that a cop-out, but can we really blame a rancher who, after 50 or 60 years of scrambling to raise a family and never really getting ahead, decides to sell a small parcel of land that might run four or five cows, for 10 or even 20 times what he paid for it? Where did this all start: What was it like in the ‘old west’? What will ranching be like in the ‘new west’? To put this in perspective, let’s go back to the days just after the Civil
Sid Goodloe
War. Cattle in Texas and other southern states had multiplied during the war to the point that a few good cowboys could put together a herd of free-roaming cattle and head up the trail to Dodge City. If they survived the stampedes, floods, Jay Hawkers and Indians, they could make a profit. There was enough demand for beef back east to
provide a good market for three- to fiveyear-old steers that could be had for a song. The female stock came here to New, Mexico, Arizona and states north all the way to Canada and by the turn of the century, the cattle boom in the West was at its peak. As an example, in the Smokey Bear District of the Lincoln National Forest, there were
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DECEMBER 2021
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