Good evening all, Wondering if anybody has been in this spot before and what could or would be the best way to handle it. About 44 years ago my grandfather passed away and with his death the ranch we have was split up between my father, grandmother, and my granddads brother. My dad and grandmother got half,, the brother and his wife the other half. The split was not an amicable one, there was much hostility and bitterness involved. The uncle leased his half out to a neighbor who still has it today, his two daughters weren't at all interested in ranching but one stayed on the place and raised two children who also live there, they are now in their late twenties. The son of my cousin approached us with a proposal recently, he would like to buy about 25 cows and put them on their own place again partially because he is interested in ranching I believe and partially because relations have gone south with the leasee over the past decade and they would like to get rid of him. My problem is while they have 600 acres of baseland with about 150 acres dryland hay in it they have absolutely zero machinery since the neighbor hayed it all these years and threw them a few bales of horse hay every year, his idea is if his 25 could run with our cows during the winter calve out with them and we would put up the hay on shares and do shares on the cows. He has offered to do all nightcalving , and help in other ways, however, I believe he would still have to buy hay since 75 ton or so isn't going to cut it all winter which is what their place will put up leaving none for us, he is a sincere hardworking person so I don't doubt he would do his share such as calving ect, but he works as a contracter most of the time and can be gone a lot, I personally live and work about 100 miles away but am usually home 4 days a week which isn't much help daily. my father is there fulltime and most of this would fall on him but he is 75 and not in too good shape anyway. He was willing to make a go at it but I am worried about it getting dumped all in his lap a lot of the time if the cousin cant be there for some reason. My brothers are dead set against it, I went along with my dad and thought giving it a try couldn't hurt If the kid would carry his end since neither he nor his sister was even alive during the bitter split up 44 years ago , that generation are all dead now but the practicalities concern me and also he would like to run part time with our cows on some of our leased land which I am not in favor of so much. On one side I would like to help him and so would my dad but on the other I worry about a lot of things, I'm not sure he realizes what he is getting into , even with just 25 head, He would have to borrow all the money and has talked to a lending agency,not sure who, FHA or some other Dept of ag program and says they are very favorable, but I don't understand why a lender would loan money so readily when he has so little experience and in order :sure: :sure: to make his plan workable it depends heavily on the involvement of third persons with machinery , expertise, ect. I suggested to him maybe just yearlings on their place to run for the summer and get rid of before winter might be the ticket but he is set on mother cows. Just open for any thoughts, anybody been here and done that before? or know of a similar situation? Thanks