The decision to make a change is the easiest part. It might not be easy but it’s the easiest part. Implementing the change and staying with it, even if is uncomfortable and takes some skill changes or draws opinions from people that are not familiar with the change. If what you are doing goes against the status quo others will have an opinion and make judgements. This will create some pressure, so you need confidence in what you are doing, and have a strong desire and belief in the change you are making.

For me, the real pleasures in life come from relationships with people and care and handling of animals. Enjoying and improving what nature offers us creates real satisfaction for me.

I’m not a real materialistic person, but I do have some things that I really enjoy and have had for a while that I like. I had the same sunglasses since 1997, and very seldom wear them. I have a Bolin steer head buckle that I got the same year, and have worn it every day since. I bought a real nice leather and canvas suitcase that was pretty expensive about 10 years ago, had it rebuilt once and it’s getting wore out again, but I really like it and with all my travel it is nice to have luggage. I have a leather brief case I traded Chas Weldon for riding a horse for a month about 25 years ago and have it with me today. Good trade!

I like good quality for the things I use and enjoy all the time. Once you have a certain quality and enjoy it it’s hard to go back to lesser quality so I try to stay within my means. For my self, I don’t like debt on material things. So we have not borrowed money to buy vehicles and other things that depreciate in value. When you save money and buy a vehicle, or a saddle or something that is expensive, you make sacrifices before you purchase, and it makes you appreciate what you save to buy even more. But if you borrow to buy, you made no sacrifice, and every time you make a payment you wonder if it’s worth it, especially if you can’t afford it. I think this is a big problem society today. We aren’t satisfied with what we’ve got so we just keep getting more and more and get less and less satisfaction. I hope you are not in that situation. This is why enjoying the simple things in life is so important.

One material thing I really enjoy is a good hat.

I’ve been wearing the same style hat for quite a while. Greeley Hat Works have been building me great hats for a good while. I have had four exactly the same shape and brown color, and the last one was lighter colored but the same shape. (Wife Tammy’s request, or it would have been brown too.)

I’ve been thinking about trying a different style. I deal with lots of different parts of the livestock industry, and I spend lots of time in an airplane. A big brimmed felt hat doesn’t always fit these situations. It hard to find a place to put it on an airplane, and I believe you should have your hat off in the house and in a airplane.

Some dairy and cattle farmers look at a wearer of a cowboy hat with a little suspicion. This is because the one that wears it is usually a cowboy. I don’t look at myself as a cowboy, but a stockman, but lots of people make assumptions by looks and I don’t have time to explain the difference some times.

I talked to Trent Johnson with Greeley Hat Works about this and he said he had the solution. He and I were thinking the same thing. He made me a real nice small brimmed hat. I call it the “stockman” hat. I would not doubt that your grandfather or great grandfather wore one like it.

I couldn’t wait for it to come. When it did come it was even better than I imagined.
I put it on and it fit like all my Greeleys do, like I’ve been wearing it for a long time. Then I looked in the mirror. I shouldn’t have done that. It looked very different and the change made me uncomfortable even though the fit was comfortable. It was a big change in the way I looked. I thought I made a mistake. What would people say and think? It felt great but I liked the shape and style of my other hats. This made me feel like a dork.

Wife Tammy said she liked it and thought it looked great. That support helped me through the first doubts of change. I was going to Canada and then to North Carolina and thought it work fit in those situations so I put it on and headed for the airport. No turning back now.

I was so self conscious about my hat as I got into the hustle and bustle of travel. It made me real uncomfortable. Then people started complimenting it. I have always gotten compliments on my hats from flight attendants and people I meet up with in my travels. I feel it’s part of my job to promote the livestock industry and the western way of life, and dressing western and acting western is the best way to do that. I got way more compliments than normal.

I’m feeling better, but I still haven’t had to deal with the people in the business. Gord Collier, Zoetis rep and long time friend was the first contact. He made a real smart comment about my new hat, and that was perfect because if he wouldn’t have I would have known something was wrong. It opened up the competition of us trying to one up each other for the next nine days. With his comment it allowed me not to hold back in embarrassing and judging every move he made and telling his very health conscious significant other we had a Dairy Queen blizzard and watching him squirm as he got “the look”. This hat was better than I thought. All the time I was in Canada people seemed to really appreciate it. The ones that didn’t kept their comments to themselves. As the week went on I got more and more comfortable with the change. Young people seem to like it as it’s kind of the style I see worn by some of them and older folks are reminded of the days when everyone wore a dress hat.

We were doing a horse clinic and the fellow that owned the arena said he had been looking for what he called “The Dalles” hat for thirty years. Chuck had grown up in the windy area of the Dalles Oregon and that was the style worn because of the wind.
I told him where I got it and he was going to get one I hope.

So the change I made was not easy. I would have given up if I could have and went back to my comfort zone a few times. I am writing this setting on a plane, and my hat is not in my lap, but in the closet, and the flight attendant is watching it and keeps on telling me he likes it. I am headed to North Carolina to do a presentation with Temple Grandin, and it will be fun to see if she has any comments about it as she says what she thinks.

I really like the change I made. It fits my head and what I do. It’s not that there was anything wrong with my other hats, and I will sure keep wearing them, but this change fits too. As for those that make judgements on my hats and how I wear them and think less of me because I am not doing what they do, thats their decision and I can’t change that. I’ll try not to let that effect the way I do the things that improve my quality of life.

So all this discussion about my new Greeley Hat is really not about the hat, but about change. If you make a change in the way you work livestock, it may be the same as my hat story. Don’t give up. Keep trying. The longer you wear the stockmans hat (now we are talking about your hat or cap) the easier and more comfortable it will get. The style is not as important as the results. What other people think is important, positive or negative. We can influence and change people by our actions, and sometimes we need to go through the uncomfortable periods of change to get the results and rewards of change.

Staytuff Fence

I have spent the last few days at home really having fun. I learned how to build fence.
I’ve been building fence all my life, felt like I was pretty competent at it. Like many things, fence building has evolved with technology and people wanting to improve.  I had and have lots to learn.

Several years ago I was doing a colt starting demo in North Carolina, and and Lewis Sapp was in attendance. He was a Gallagher rep, and we hit it off and He and I did some work together and he taught me much about power fence. I have used it for years and really believe in its benefits.

The first place I was around power fence was the “Houlihan Ranch” and Buck sold me on it. He said you could put a stud on one side of the fence and a mare in heat on the other side of the fence and not have problems. That was a pretty good picture to understand how good it was. I put it up on a place we had in Helena, MT and it was great but I was always worried about the power being off or a short, and it required a lot of maintenance to keep it working, and not everyone wanted to do that when I was on the road.

I got interested in Staytuff fence after Lewis told me about its benefits. It makes a lot of sense for me to have a real effective, low maintenance perimeter fence that is safe and will last a long time. The deal is it is a special fixed knot on hi tensile wire that will stretch if pressured and come back to its normal shape when the pressure comes off.
I’ve been putting it up on the perimeter of our little place. It is not easy to put up. It takes a lot of skill to get it up right and you really need good braces because of the amount of pull to get it up right. This is where Lewis really taught me, and it is funny to watch a guy that is so good, get frustrated at people that are slow and having a hard time figuring it out. When you have passion and do something for a long time it is hard to understand how people don’t get it. I see the same thing with horse and livestock handlers.

The first place I put it was along the highway. When the fence was built it wasn’t real good and it had not had much maintenance, and I was always worried about something getting out on the highway and getting hit. As soon as we got the Staytuff fence up I could sleep better and quit worrying about not being a responsible stockman and landowner.

I still use single strand power fence for my grazing management on our little place. As I get time I will keep adding to my fencing ability and my perimeter fence. I am also going to use it for some pens.

I’m not the handiest guy with a tool, but I can get by with a chainsaw and a hammer. All the cool stuff I am learning to use building this fence, and the challenge of doing it right makes this a nice experience, and I think building fence is real rewarding because it goes up pretty quick and you can step back and see what you have done, and everyone else that sees it for the next thirty or forty years can see how much pride you had in your work.

Lewis Sapp has a lot of Pride.

ArrowQuip, a livestock equipment manufacturer asked if I would write something for their website. I thought I would share it here. I’m not sure they are going to use it, but it’s important to understand how much improvements have been made in animal handling by manufacturers creating working systems. All systems are not created equal, and what works for you may not work for someone else. So here are some thoughts from my perspective of what to know before you make decisions on what to use.

This is a system that I have been working on for my situation.  I like having an alley around a round pen.  It’s a great place to lope a colt the first time, exercise bulls, and train and work animals effectively, and I and Bob Studabaker are figuring out some remote gate ideas to where I can work and sort animals out of round pen and sort by myself.  For me this is a great system for all the things I need.

Working facilities

There is much debate lately on different systems to get cattle into a chute or crush, or loaded on a vehicle for transport. There are lots of cattle loaded in the world everyday, so this is a very important subject.

I feel if you break things down into the component parts it gets much easier to make decisions on the whole.

The most important thing to remember is that the better you prepare your livestock to work, the better any system will work. Learn how to teach your animals to work properly, take the time to get them ready to work, and allow the time to work safely and effectively.

From what I can see there are four pieces to this puzzle.

Safety of humans and animals
Animal welfare
Efficiency of system
Cost
Safety

Bull riding is most likely the most dangerous activity when dealing with bovine animals. They say if you are making a living riding bulls, it’s not if your going to get hurt but how bad. This is true because of the close contact with very active and powerful animals.

Milking cows is most likely to be one of the least dangerous activities when dealing with bovine animals. Once patterned and trained to the milking routine dairy cows are safe to work around. If there is an injury it is usually a mistake made by the handler of having a body part in the wrong place at the wrong time.

These two extremes show us the better we understand pressuring animals, and the better the facilities we use for putting this pressure on, and the better our cattle understand how to work, the safer and more efficient it is.

I’ve worked lots of bucking bulls and it is much safer to not have to be in a small area with them. I have also worked with lots of dairy cows and you many times must be in with them to get them to move where they need to be pressured.

We need a facility that works for the specific animal we are working with. In some situations we will be working with all different types of animals, such as an auction facility or feedlot. We need to be able to put the proper pressure on to get the animal to work and stay safe, as well as keep the animals safe from injury and achieve the highest beef quality.

Animal Welfare

This has always been an important part of the livestock industry. Good stockman have always been aware of animal welfare. They have known that animals that are provided proper nutrition, a healthy environment, and as little fear as possible, will preform as well as genetically capable. This creates high quality of life for the animal as well as high profit potential. The highest fear point is created from excessive pressure that causes fear, and can turn to anger. This is why training animals to accept and work from proper pressure, and creating facilities that animals can flow easily from pressure is so important for animal welfare.

Efficiency Of System

Domesticated livestock need to be moved from point A to point B. If point B is a desirable place that the animal wants to go it takes very little pressure to get them to point B. The less desirable point B is the more pressure it takes to put them there. Imagine a working chute or loading chute out in the middle of a 40 acre pasture. It would not be impossible to get them in the chute, but it would take quite a bit of training and time to get them to walk into the chute. It would take a very high level of skill and time to get it done. The more animals you needed to work the more challenging success would be. The reason it would be so difficult is that we would have to create more pressure out in the forty acres than there is in the confinement of the chute. It is easy for the animal to escape our pressure in the 40 acres. If we put a 40 foot circular pen behind the chute, and put the animal in the round pen it would be easier to apply the pressure without the animal escaping us and it would look for relief of our pressure through the chute. We are able to put more forward pressure on the animal than the chute would be putting back. This would still require high skill and the animal could go through quite a lot of stress before it decided to go in the chute.

In both of these situations we need to pressure the animal from quite far behind the balance point to get the animal to go forward. The farther back you get to move an animal, the less you control the direction the animal goes. If we set up an alley and some sort of a pen that we can create and control the movement and direction of travel of the animals, we can use our pressure effectively to get the animal to go in the chute very easily. The better the system allows you to create movement and direction simultaneously the safer and more effective it becomes. It is more effective if you can create proper pressure and position for the type of animal you are working.

Cost

If you are in the livestock business for profit, return on investment and cash flow are very important. If it is a hobby, entertainment cost is the important thing.

In a for profit business, we must cost our facilities for number of animals worked. Time, safety, beef quality and life of use of facilities is important. The fewer animals worked it would seem the less facilities needed. This is important on the cash flow side, but not so on return on investment. How much is human safety worth? Bruising and injury in a poorly designed facility will injure animals no matter if you are working large numbers or few.

Good quality working facilities hold or increase in value, and many times they have a higher dollar value when sold than when purchased.

Working systems need to work. Not all systems work the same. Make sure you are getting equipment that you look forward to using and are safe doing it.