AngusCowBoy said:
What do you think the next hot breed will be and why.
You could always try a whole different species. Maybe
ostriches will make a comeback. There were fortunes made and lost on that game (more lost than gained, I am quite sure).
From an article written January 29, 2001:
http://unlimited.co.nz/unlimited.nsf/default/egg-heads-revenge
There used to be a saying in the ostrich industry: "The sooner we get off the business pages onto the farming pages, the better." The reference was to the bad press coverage gained from the get-rich-quick operators who swarmed in and out of the high-profile industry, losing a truckload of investors' money and leaving the real farmers to deal with the fallout.
So what happened to those investors who paid outrageous prices five or six years ago?
Around half are said to have exited the industry, cut their losses and run. Some were lucky enough to have been able to depreciate the birds and charge the tax losses against income. Others lost their life savings. The other half have hung in there, forking out more money for agistment (rearing) fees and waiting for the export market to deliver some return.
"In the old days you could pay $50,000 for a breeding pair, now they are hardly worth catfood," says Anthony McCullagh, receiver of one of the more recent corporate failures, NZ Ostrich Corp.
That company collapsed in late 1999, owing -investors and others around $1.5 million. The -receiver said it was a victim of high costs (ostriches eat a lot) but little return (no export market had then been established). By the time the company went belly-up, market prices for its birds were approximately 1% of their value 10 years ago, McCullagh says. Any money recovered will go to company founder Graeme Clegg, who slapped a $1 million debenture over the company 18 months before it collapsed. Investors had less protection.
********************************************************
Or if you just want to farm and not run livestock, maybe something will come along to plant like the Jerusalem Artichoke. :roll:
Pyramid scheme
In the 1980s, the
Jerusalem artichoke also gained some notoriety when its seeds were planted by midwestern US farmers at the prodding of an agricultural pyramid scheme. There was little market for the tuber in that part of the US at the time, but farmers were assured it would soon appear on the commodities market. Unfortunately, the only profits were realized by the initial distributors and the first few levels of farmers (who sold their seeds to subsequent levels of the pyramid). As a result, many of the farms which had planted large quantities of the crop were ruined.
**********************************************************
My free advice is to not worry about what the next "hot breed" will be. Find a breed of cattle that already works well, and ride along on the coattails of those who have already put the pavement on the highway to success.
Punctuation marks are for sissys! 