I just never fixed any fence.
If I was smart I’d start giving speeches and having schools to teach ranchers my revolutionary grazing system.
One of the biggest advantages of my
system is you’ll start to see improvement immediately. Almost overnight
my cows started leaking out of the landscape as if they were on the
dodge from the tallow man. And most of them were. By feeding my cows the
neighbor’s grass I was able to triple the size of my cow herd. The only
problem was that if they ever decided to come home all at the same time
I didn’t have the infrastructure to handle them and was forced to sell
off a load or two.
These surplus cows became part of a
statewide, clandestine trading ring. (I should have been locked up for
the great trades I made.) I would sell my old cows to my neighbors for
only a couple pennies less than beef, knowing all the while that the
cows only had one more calf left in them at best. Then they would get
six calves in five years out of every cow before recycling them for
twice what they paid me. I have one friend who has still got cows I sold
him ten years ago for pennies on the dollar that bring a good calf to
the branding fire every year.
Through all the years of swapping cows
back and forth there has only been one minor disagreement between myself
and my trading partners. My good friend and neighbor, John, insisted
that one particular cow that had taken up semi-permanent residence on
his ranch was, in fact, my cow. This I hotly contested. The last time
she left my place she was in such a hurry she didn’t take her real name
with her but John has since affectionately nicknamed her “The Pitts
Cow.” Since that time the name has been applied to every ugly, wild cow
that comes along and I blame the vet we all share for spreading the
malady to all the ranches in his trade area.
Being trained in the Pitts grazing
method, the bag of brands known as The Pitts Cow naturally had picked up
some bad habits. Just like a long haul trucker or a livestock field man
she just wouldn’t stay home. This John would not tolerate. You see,
John operates in a different fashion than me and my other neighbors. He
actually feeds his cows when there isn’t any grass, doesn’t let his
bulls stay with the cows all year, fixes broken fence wires and culls a cow if she doesn’t calve. Can you imagine?
No comments:
Post a Comment