It is sad when a man's life work gets broadsided, but just as many purebred outfits have survived. I am at a point where I am reasonably confident that I will survive this mess.

98% of my income has been derived from purebred cattle. I went to work for 14 months to help out. I changed my expense pattern, lowered my costs and lowered my price of bulls, guess what? I sold out this spring of all bulls, even the 15 I expected to keep for 2 year olds.

Was it all fun and games? No, it would have been much more comfortable staying status quo and plugging along.

Can we forsee all situations like this one? No some will get caught. The point is to pay attention and don't wait until things are bad to make adjustments.

I have chatted with another purebred breeder from Ranchers.net and they are surviving too.

Number 1 thing most ranchers don't know especially purebred outfits, what are your costs? Purebred cows in my opinion should be managed as close to commercial cows in the area. Sometimes mine work harder.

That ranch Randy refered to is now a multinational(OK. USA and AB Can). Wonder how that affected the customers opinions? Didn't he used to get his beef for his wonderful beef dinner from Cargill? Now I think he would supply his own from his beef shop. I wonder what the profits are on that store?