Barn Talk - Barn Talk Q&A: Purpose of Mat Feeding, Harvest or Planting, Curtain Barns or Solid Sided Barns?

Episode Date: March 19, 2022

Welcome To Barn Talk! Q&A and deep thoughts addition. Elon Musk thinks we need to pump all the oil we can. That’s a good sign that the world is a mess. Russians, Politicians and Oil. Oh, My! We are not here to solve those problems today. We are here to distract you from all the problems for a bit. We are going to answer some questions today. Some fine and thought provoking questions put forth by our awesome viewers like you! Barn Talk Merch! 👇🏻 https://www.thislldo.co/ SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c SUBSCRIBE TO BARN TALK CLIPS ➱ https://bit.ly/3BlZnqq LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY ITUNES ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 Follow Behind The Scenes👇🏻 ● This’ll Do Farm Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/30KPBNk ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4 ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS ------------------------------- ***PLEASE NOTE*** Barn Talk is a significant break from the typical content viewers have come to expect from This’ll Do Farm. Please be advised that we will be exploring a wide variety of topics (some adult-themed) and our younger viewers (and their parents) should be advised that some topics will be for mature audiences only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are your retirement plans other than sitting your fat ass on a lawnmower with a beer coozy and just sipping on that and mowing the grass? What do you think actually are your retirement plans? Do you think you ever retire? Well, not with you two. Probably. No, I've had the blessing in my life that I have had to work. Like, I didn't know where the next dollar was coming from and I had to work, and I had to work for somebody that I didn't necessarily enjoy, and I had to do a lot of jobs that I didn't really like. And then I had the blessing of being able to do a job that I was good at and I enjoyed, and I was paid very well for, and then I was able to switch,

and I've worked for some good people. But I would have to say that today is the most enjoyable, What I'm doing today is the most enjoyable part of what my life has been. I mean, there isn't any day that I don't wake up and I'm not looking forward to that day, not looking forward to what we're going to do that day. You know, this whole thing that we're doing with this podcast and with the other channel and just the people we get to talk to, I mean, I would have never thought I'd be doing this. and it's it's the best so i'm going to do this as long as i can do it what about farming how long

you think you'll farm well until i drive into the side of the barn and so you're 90 until soyer goes all right yes or when so you're really not going to retire ever you know that's the thing i feel like you're kind of already retired in most people terms because you get to do whatever you want to do when you want to do it all of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms farms are different in type in size and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk, Q&A and Deep Thoughts edition. Elon Musk thinks we need to pump more oil.

That's a good sign that the world has gone crazy and is a mess. Russians, politicians, oil, oh my. But we're not going to get into all that today. We're going to lighten the load a little bit and have some fun. We asked you guys to send in your questions through our Instagram poll on this will do farm and barn talk if you're not following. You can follow behind the seeds on there. We post clips and you can ask your questions. But honestly, if you guys got any questions at any time,

feel free to drop them wherever you can reach us because we love hearing your questions and we'll add them to the list anytime we do a Q&A. So just keep sending those questions. And hey, maybe I'll send you some barn talk merch. Oh, wait, probably not, because I just had to fill up this beast here today and gas prices are just outrageous.

so I don't know if I don't know if I can hold up that bargain in the deal. Maybe later in the year we can maybe do something like that. But send in your questions, pay the fee. If you get any value, share it out with your friends, family coworkers. You guys know the drill. Leave us a review on Spotify and Apple, whatever you're listening. Anything helps us, guys. We're just trying to do some good in the world, trying to spread the barn talk greatness.

So we appreciate every single one of you guys. Love you guys. And that being said, you're going to give them a torque. amazing torque update there's a lot of there's a lot of shit going on with these markets commodities i mean just everything tesla bitcoin it's all it's all going nuts it's crazy did you throw oil on here yeah i threw oil on oh man that number's already it's already bad i mean it's already higher than that so uh yeah a couple things uh i put i put the bore power stocking cap away because uh we we had good weather and then it snowed today

but I didn't want to go dig it out. Yeah, I was going to say, I should have thrown that in here in the intro a little bit. It's starting to snow again. What the hell? We're in March. This is the last shot. Come on.

We're having snow today, and I'm hoping this is the last day of snow. It's supposed to be 70 by next Wednesday. This is the problem with Midwest weather. You just think you're out. You just think you're out of it. And then it just comes back and grabs you. Jack Frost just comes back and pulls you back in.

My brother called from Dallas, Texas, and he was carrying two bags. into the like the three-season porch that they have beside the pool. He was loading up the cooler at the bar because they're moving into their new house today. He wanted to make sure that he was fully stocked for recreation after they get done. They got some people helping them move. And I think he said it was 68 degrees there. You should just send them a video you just put in your beer cans out in the snow.

Yeah, I might do that. I might do that. You don't even need a cooler. That's right. That's right. Look at you, a little ray of sunshine. I know. Seriously, though, Mother Nature, I'm warm it up a little bit.

Sick of my balls being sucked up inside me. Well, it's going to be warm next week. So everybody will go from belly aching to digging all their equipment out and being in a hurry to get ready to go scratch. So we'll see how it goes. I don't know if I've given this update. Some of you may know this, some of you don't, but I bought a Jeep here at the end of the year,

well, kind of during harvest time. and I just got it back because I haven't had it for three weeks because with 4,900 miles, the transmission took a shit on it. And Stalantus dodged in their infinite wisdom, guess what? They didn't have any. They didn't have any transmissions. I mean, I guess you're not supposed to have them go out.

What's going on with all these car manufacturers? I don't know. Vehicle. I mean, these trucks, these cars, they don't come done. And then when they do come to think you think they're done, they're not, because then you'd drive. driving for well they weren't a couple months and yeah shit goes south so uh this one runs nice and smooth everything shifts supposed to be good so we're hoping for the best and it's not just jeeps either

i've had i've had a buddy tell me stories about his Chevy it's the same deal uh i felt bad about that and i talked to a guy that ordered a new three quarter ton pickup and they got it in and they called him and said it was in and that they weren't real busy that day and they thought they could get it all prepped and ready and he should just stop when he got off work and then they called him back like two hours later and they got it all cleaned up and they went and test drove it and they drove it out of the parking lot of the dealership across the road turned on to a highway made it not even a quarter of a mile and the engine just came unglued just i mean blew up blew up they had to tow it back they had to tow it back to dealership and then they had to call him and go oh yeah one of these guys

do you think it's a lack of labor yeah or just quality labor like lack of quality. I think there's so much turnover. It could be a deal where the quality control on the parts going into, like you take like a transmission, all of those parts come in to wherever the plant that's manufacturing that transmission. And I'm assuming that they go through a process where each part is checked to make sure that if they don't make that part internally and it's coming from somewhere else or even if it's made there you know everyone has to be checked to make sure there's no crack no tooth missing you know what not a flaw well probably with the shortage of labor you know they may be just being like that looks good and they don't you know they don't have

enough experience to know or they don't have somebody running that machine that they run it through and they're just running them because they got to get them out and i don't know what happened but dropped a cigarette in there on accident yeah well you know I mean, I fully expected somebody to tell me that they were going to drop that pan and there was a shop rag in it or something, but there wasn't. It was kind of silvery, though. The fluid would have a little, usually it has a red tent. It had a little silvery tent. So there was definitely things that were amiss within it, but the new one seems to be top notch.

Top notch. Anyway. It'll be, hey, it'll be just in time to take the top off. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to enjoy those days. I'm looking forward to complaining about how hot. it is. You don't really do that. Tell them your philosophy on that. Yeah, so I hate winter and I hate

pushing snow and I hate being cold. When I was younger and I could, you know, go skiing or go snowmobiling or do fun stuff in the snow. I think I kind of liked winter, but the older I've gotten, it just looks like work. So I do my best on the hottest days of the summer when everybody is complaining. I try really hard to just think about how how crappy it's going to feel. when I've got piles of snow to move or we've got to load pigs at three in the morning and the wind's blowing out of the north and so I just am like, nope, I'm not gonna bitch about it.

And I've done pretty well. I don't usually get too. You don't. You're pretty good at that. That's something I'm gonna think I've been trying to carry of my life because I'm like, you know what, he's right. The sweater does suck. And when you look as good with your shirt off as I do, I mean, I kind of look forward to it.

Anyway. Jeez. So the markets, I'm not going to give you the hard rock solid numbers because by the time you hear this, it's all going to change. So the wheat market, it was locked level down yesterday and I think it was down today. So it might have gotten a little top heavy because the supply report came out, I think. But with the exception of that, everything else is still up. Corn's got a seven in front of it. Beans are over $17.

hogs are 100 bucks and I think the hog market's pretty tight right now feed costs are going up you know fast if you're if you're a hog feeder and you have corn if your bins are full of corn you're just out the opportunity cost but if you're out buying if you're actively out there buying corn boy it's kind of got to suck because when we get out June July those months the numbers go up pretty fast, but the nearby $102 hogs is not high enough for what your input cost is right now. And I know weiner pigs are, they are outrageous. I don't know. I know feeder pigs are probably over $100 for, if you can find them.

So I don't know, the hog mark's going to be tight. I just thinking about nitrogen, because a lot of people talked about the urea, rush is not export any urea and so last time i checked it was 855 um i'm assuming that's a ton and i look back historically a year ago it was like 355 so that's the difference wow and um i know just the only nitrogen we put on is if we decide to side dress um and that amount that amount the price is double what it was last year and i know some guys have said that they're paying triple And if you would have booked, you know, if you would have booked a little better deal last year compared now, you'd be almost triple even on liquid. And the funny thing about it is, like liquid, to my understanding, 32%, it isn't a deal where there's going to be a shortage.

I know we're pretty close to the plant that's at the Mississippi, and they're going to run flat out, and there isn't going to be a supply problem. but when nitrogen in general is as high as it is, the demand is so great, they're just going to keep raising that price. So oil, I don't know if it's $135 a barrel. Last time I checked, it was $130, and I don't know if it's gone higher today. I don't know where it'll settle today, but it's high. Pretty much the world economy has kind of built itself, or it's kind of, it'll run fine on $100 a barrel oil, and we were way cheaper than that.

it hasn't been that long ago it was 70 bucks a barrel but now you start getting to this price and I think the highest it was to 2008 was 142 143 something like that and then that was kind of the catalyst that sent the housing market down which in turn led to all the derivative problems which in turn led to all the decoupling that caused the the problems we had in 2008 so you can pretty much go and track, I think about every recession we've had, energy prices have played a part in that. So we're definitely, we definitely got problems with energy prices. So we'll just have to see where this all plays out. Tesla's cheap. Tesla is still cheap, I think. I think they're going to benefit all the problems that are out there as far as supply chains go. And there's a lot of

talk about the nickel market and access to chips and all of that. I think of all the automakers out there, Tesla is probably the best positioned because they've done the best job of locking up supply of the raw materials and chips and everything they need. And they also have the in-house people that can make, you know, rewrite software. And they make their own software. They make their own control modules, all that stuff. Bitcoin went up when Joe Biden said he was was going to work on getting a digital dollar. And then today they woke up and decided that Russia is still in Ukraine and the world's still on fire. And that didn't matter. So it's back down. It was about 38,000 last time I looked. So anyway, that's kind of where we're at.

There's plenty of time to talk about all the problems we have. So today we just thought we'd have a little bit of a lighthearted show and just answer some questions. And we got some pretty good questions. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero, more like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. Pretty much all of them ag-related. Yeah.

That's mostly our audience. Feel free to ask any question you guys want. It doesn't just have to be ag-related, just saying. You guys want to hear from us about farming? We can talk farming all day. But if you want to talk about anything else, just shoot it. Hell, it can even be, I don't know, what's your favorite food? It can be anything.

It can be anything. If you want to talk about biology, chemistry, trigonometry, I'll talk about that. The only difference is when I talk about ag, there's about a 70% chance that I'm telling you a good answer that's true and if you ask me about anything else I'm just lying. So basically, we could do a politician edition where I just answer questions that you know that I don't know and you can judge me on how good of an answer I give you. How good you look while you're telling the answer that. I won't turn red or anything.

I can tell it straight face. I believe it. Straight faced. I believe it. I believe it. Yeah, I'm going to start with you. Okay. Shoot it.

So somebody wanted to know what is the purpose slash advantage. of mat feeding pigs when we start pigs and how do you justify that i think by that they mean i imagine in a lot of the videos that we do that um you throw that feed on there and there's a certain amount of it that just gets pushed off you know gets wasted the biggest reason why we do that is the wiener pigs aren't really used to being in that barn they're not used to the feeder yet and so giving the pigs an advantage like giving a pigs you know, every opportunity to get feed and get used to the feed and, you know, start eating the feed out of the feeder. It gets more used to it. It gets more feed to them. And when you just throw it right in

front of their face, it's a good way to get them started. We also put it on the feeder pad. We like to put our mats right in front of our feeder pads right in front of our feeders because we feel like if you throw a feed on the mat and then the feeder pad and then there's feed in the feeder, they might like get curious and like work their way from the mat to the feeder pad to the feeder. And ultimately our ultimate goal with mat feeding and putting feet on the feeder pad is to get the pig to the feeder because that's where when they grow up, that's where they're going to get their feed and they got to get used to it. So it just it just gets them started off right because they don't know yet that the feeder constantly has feet in it. And if if you just didn't mat feed them,

it would take them a while to start growing because I feel like they wouldn't. They're not accustomed to it. They'd figure it out, but it would take them. It'd take them longer to figure out, so you're probably going to get... So we talk a lot about getting fallback pigs, and if you didn't mat feed, there would be... Yeah, there would be pigs in there that, for whatever reason, if they don't get used to going and eating, the longer they go without eating consistently, the bigger chance there is that they get beat down or they get in a... spot where they just don't eat and then they end up being a fallback pig and or they end up

dying and i'll just add one more thing to that when you wean pigs off the sow they're used to all eating at once and so when we put them in a pen there's no way all those pigs can eat at the feeder at the same time which they're not going to anyway because they don't know where they don't know that feeder is that way but when you throw that feed on that mat um for one thing that mat is probably the warmest thing in the pen. So they're naturally going to be drawn to that versus the slats are cooler. But when you throw that feed on there, they're all used to eating at once. And being able to, when you throw it on the mat, they can all go there and eat at once. So it's just one more thing that. And they like being together. Biggs like being together, eating together. They like to be around each other.

So it's nice to get them used to their pen mates. So on the part of the cost, I don't think anybody really has a hard number as to how much feed gets wasted from throwing it out of the feeder on the mat. I mean, the thing is you just don't overload the mats with feed. You got to, I mean, we only throw probably two scoops on the mat. And that's, that's plenty. Yeah, a day. That's plenty. Because if you throw over, if you overdo it, they'll, yeah, they'll probably throw something into the pit.

And within a few days, they're eating at the feeder. Right. Within a few days, when you go there, every time you go in that building, the, pigs are eating, there's pigs up eating at the feeder. And they get used to it. They get a pecking order as far as who's the boss pig that eats when he wants to eat and then everybody else lines up behind him. But even when they're eating at the feeder, they like that social aspect. So you can go in there, you know, the mats, we usually leave the mats in there until about the time overstocks go out. So at any time you could go through, go in there and you could throw

a scoop of feed on that mat. And they would all go to that mat because they like the social aspect of it. So anyway, I don't think it really costs much and I think it helps. It just helps them get started. So anything you can do to help get them started, it's a good idea. Dad, what do you use to keep the end feeder from plugging up? Mr. Maintenance. So half of our barns have chore time feed system in it and half of them have AP feed system in it. So the control boxes at the top where the motor mounts, those are different.

different and the newest barns are AP and they have the smart IR feed sensors in them. However, that's not what we use to shut the feed off. And I don't, when the smart IRs break and every single one of them will break because they're not any good. And I think that's, I think that's pretty consistent across anybody that has them. you know what you know what happens about two years is about the most that i've gotten out of any of them that are um as far as using it to shut the system off the sensors go bad and what'll happen is they won't restart so but we don't use them for that um we use a a kevin more prox switch so

kevin more is from uh fairmont fairmont minnesota is where his operation is and i think kevin came from, oh boy, they do, I think it's easy automation. And easy automation does a lot of stuff with feed mills. And that's where Kevin came from. And he has a prox switch and then he has a feed timer that works really, really good. And we have it in all of our barns from the oldest to the newest. So I don't really have any experience with any other systems. Our old barns, back in the day, we used a chore time hopper level switch, a switch that mounted right down on top of the feeder, and when it filled up, it was just a paddle switch. But everything that we've done, we used Kevin Moore's switch, and then, you know, some of them are chore time boxes as far as your

toggle switch and your safety backup, and the rest of them are smart IRs. But the Kevin Moore is about bulletproof. So you recommend the Kevin Moore? Yeah. The only thing I'll tell you is, and Sawyer knows this his timers you can set the the maxi runtime on him from zero to 99 minutes but if you're somebody that has a like a 2480

or you have wet dry feeders or you have big hoppers or you're using like the pellet auger that is slower and filling he makes when you're getting those switches like if you're picking one up from QC or hogslad or whoever you're

is dealing them. If you're in that situation, you have to ask for, and they'll ship them, but I don't think it's something that's that common, but they make a switch that instead of zero to 99 minutes, you can get it zero to 99 hours. So that's... We need to get that. I know. Sawyer's got wet dries and his, and he has...

Yeah, for some reason, my barn, when they get to be fully grown, and the feeder, or the bin goes empty or something hangs up, if the feeders go all the way empty and I switch the bin or I unplug the, unplug what the problem, get the problem fix and all the feeders are empty, and I unplug the switch and plug it back in, I have to come up there like two or three times to unplug it to get it to restart again because all the feeders won't get clear full in the first 99 minutes. So sometimes it takes two to three times. So I'd like to just get it. So once I restart it once, it will fill. Yeah. And so they make that. It's just a matter of getting it.

And the deal with yours is, yours is four, you have the box that will control four feed lines in one box. So to buy the faceplate that goes zero to 99 hours is more expensive than the one that is just a single. But we need to do it. Yeah, we need to do it for sure. Every time a bin goes empty and then you restart it, we have the conversation. We need to fix that. down to dad, I'm like, we got to fix that.

I don't want to keep going up there. What does he say every time? We'll get on it. I'll call him. Yeah, I'll get it. All right. Would you ever put up a feed mill to feed your pigs? Well, this might be coming from somebody that doesn't really know all the whole story of our operation.

Right now we contract feed for an integrator around here. And so we don't have to supply our own feed. We don't have to grind up our own corn to feed the pigs. They provide the feed for them, which is really nice. And so right now, we have no need to do that. But if we ever went and raised our own pigs, obviously it'd be a good idea to put up a feed mill or something like that so we could grind up our own feed and then feed our own hogs

because that's what you'll have to do if you ever raise your own pigs. So maybe in the future, but right now there's really no need for it. You got anything to say about that? Well, I think if you end up with like 10, if you end up with like 10 little Sawyers running around and you got an endless supply of labor, then I think you probably should put up a feet mill. Yeah, we got to figure

out how to instill work into these next generation somehow, so. That'd be a good way to do it. I thought you were going to say something about horses or something like... Don't get them, don't get any horses. Yeah. They can't work enough hours to pay for the horses. Right. Okay. Um, Harvester Planning. Which do you enjoy

more? I'll chime in on this, but what do you enjoy more, Pops? Oh, man. Um, I would say for me, it's kind of a toss-up. I think harvest, just because it's the fruits of your labor, and there's a lot of anticipation there. And I mean, it depends. I would say like this last year was one of the most enjoyable harvests that we've had,

just because for the most part the weather was good and the yields were excellent. And so, you know, when you get to fall and you've caught some rains and you think that that yield's going to be there, there's nothing better. There's nothing better than the day the combine rolls and you find out, you know,

you can walk through there and grab ears and count them and, you know, figure this out and say, oh, it should be this. but you don't know until you get in there and start it. And so I think, you know, I love spring when it gets nice and you can go to the field, but I think fall, I think harvest is more. Yeah, I'd say harvest too. It's also, there's a lot more going on in the field.

You got the combine, you got the grain cart, you got either semi or wagons running. It's a lot going on. It's more exciting. It's more fun to watch and do. also yeah like you said it's just to cap off the year you know it's it's a great end to what you started and the end results better than when you put it in the ground because you're not getting you're just spending money when you put it in the ground but yeah you know when you get it out you're like well I might make a dollar or two uh but um the other thing is uh I like fall I love fall weather and

it used to be football and harvest around here and like that's my favorite time of here because it's two of my favorite things. Yep. You know, it's just, and the weather's great. It's not snowing. It's not muddier than hell. Well, it can be muddier than hell. Well, it can be muddier.

Exactly. Fall, it's not terrible. It's not always that way. Will mom ever come on the show? Trish, well, she ever make it on? I would say, I would say not. I don't think that she'll ever come. If you guys don't judge her harder,

if you don't leave any mean comments about it, my mom maybe she'll come on you guys are pretty good though i don't think you would do that but i think it's the perceived chance that it wouldn't and she she's not an off the cusp she's not gonna just get on here and and just you know she's not chatty kathy she's she thinks about what she says before she says it and she there's nothing that she hates worse than if she says something or somebody makes her feel dumb. And I know this from experience because, you know, I like to flip people a lot of shit. And sometimes you've got caught in a pickle. Yeah, I've probably gone a little too far. But she's busy. She also doesn't like to get interrupted like I just did to you.

Oh, no, she doesn't like that either. No. So we've talked before about Sunday night meals. There's a lot of that that goes on and a lot of looks of I'm talking and do you have to interrupt me? Yeah. She pretty much gets interrupted constantly. Well, never, never say never. We might do it, maybe. Yeah. But it's just, I don't know, it's not looking the brightest right now. So if you're curious about what kind of woman would look at a man like me, or in her case, look at a young boy like me because we've been married a long time and go, you know, boy, I think I can fix him.

If you want to know what that takes, her Instagram is, This will do farmhouse. This will do farmhouse. And she's on Facebook. And then the mercantile is her business. She has a home decor business in the little town we live in. So check her out. Can buy stuff online.

You don't want to come to a great town that we live in. So if you get yourself in a bind and you flowers are not going to do it, you can get yourself something from the mercantile. Piss your girlfriend off or your wife off and you need something to fill the void. Yep. It's really, it's like magnolia kind of stuff. You know, if your wife likes Joanna Gaines, she'll like the mercantile because it's some pretty good stuff. I told her that that should be the slogan is nothing says, I'm sorry, honey, my fault, like a gift from the mercantile.

There you go. See, that rolls off the tongue, huh? What makes pork more profitable to produce than beef or chicken? Well, I've asked you three questions in a row. I know. I did this and I didn't get them split up right. hell I better get some some questions you do you got quite a few back right years ago what made what made a lot of people so where we live Washington County it's always been a hog southeast Iowa has always been

big and pork production and there's a lot of like-minded people that saw hogs as a way to pay the bills and the reason for that is because they're relatively fast growing and and a sow has a short gestation period. So, you know, if you have a, if you have a female pig that you breed to have a litter, it's a short gestation, the amount of time it takes from the time they're bred until the time they have their pigs, that's a short amount of time. And then the pigs grow relatively quick so you can turn your money faster. and so back when people were farroying in, you know,

barns and had small groups of pigs and all that, you could turn your money faster than you could with cattle. And then the value of the product, you got more dollars out of a litter of pigs than you did, you know, than like raising chickens. And then the other side, I think it basically was, you know, compared to cattle, you know, you have one pig die, it's not near as big a deal as you only got five, five feeder cattle sitting

around, one of them dies, that's a big deal. And, you know, that's not so much today because the volume and the money we're talking about is a lot bigger scale, but still, just the, just the, just the, the, the productivity of the animal and the rate of gain of the animal. And then the other thing is feed conversion. Feed conversion on a hog compared to cattle, it's a lot better. So it doesn't take as much feed per pound a gain as it does with raisin beef. I think chicken are a little better, but then again, you get back to what you make per chicken. Hogs are kind of right there in the middle. It's kind of the sweet spot. So, and let's face it, you know, back years ago, Lard was, Lard was the big thing. That was a big moneymaker because they use lard for everything and today it's bacon who doesn't love bacon so it's a good

deal that is i totally agree on everything you said there and i don't know if any of those are the exact reason those are the reasons i think they are there you go perfect uh soyer yes what temps do you run your finisher pigs at in your barns uh we run them 64 in the winter and and as low as we can in the summer. Yeah. Because it's so damn, I mean, it gets hot in the summer, so you run the fans, you put the curtains down if it's a hot, hot day, or whatever, and you just try to cool the pigs down as best you can.

Yeah. And there's misters. If it's really hot, you can turn on the misters and give the pigs a little bit of water on their head, and they like that. Well, so we use a temperature curve. So when we put pigs in, we reset the curve on our controllers, and then it automatically drops the temperature. We hold it pretty much flat for two weeks,

for two weeks from the time the barn's full. So we usually start pigs out at right around 80 degrees is the room temperature. And then we use brooder heaters. In the wintertime, we use brooder heaters to make like a zone heat. And that depends a little bit. in our solid-sided barns, we won't use brooder heaters unless it's a lot colder, because the problem we run into is the brooders will almost put out too much heat, and then we have trouble.

The pigs get hot, actually. So it's kind of a fine line. In the curtain barns... Okay, I'm just thinking about this question. Do you think he's talking about fat hogs? No, he is. He is talking about finishers, because he's from Canada. Gotcha.

The question came from a guy in Canada. So anyway, we ramp that temperature down, but in the wintertime, when we can get the barn to 64 degrees, we go to 64. But usually in the summer, you can't ever get it. It's just not going to get there. Because even if the curtains are open in the nighttime, the outside temperature, it may never get below 75.

Ask me another one. Oh, this is right up your alley. Yeah. This is my shit right here. Yeah. So this wouldn't be for me, but this, you have, you've embraced this and made it your own. That's right. So somebody asked if double, double wide sorting panels, aluminum sorting panels.

So that's an eight foot panel, basically. It's two, it's two four foot panels. It's a hinge. Put together. And it's got a hinge in the middle. Somebody asked if they're worth the money. I, 100% think they're worth the money. It's my bread and butter.

When we go to load pigs and I'm in the pen getting the pigs out, it's amazing because I don't need any help with that thing. That thing puts the fear of God and pigs because they don't want to mess around with you with that. And there's no need to use, like when I'm in the pen, I don't use anything but that panel and they go out fine because they have no other way to get out. And you just crowd them, crowd them and they go. And it's also really good for, I think, sorting, like when we go from nursery pigs, like weener pigs to when they become feeder pigs, and we're sorting pigs.

and we're sorting pigs out and stuff. It's nice having that double panel to, like, sort out pigs when they get to that size. Because when they get to a feeder pig size, you got to pick them up, it starts to put some wear on you a little bit. So having a double panel to, you know, get them into the corner and then opening the gate and then just letting them run out into the alley to put them in a fallback pin or whatever. It's really nice, too. But, yeah, I love them.

I love them. It's a little hard on your back at times because, you know, you're holding this, eight-foot panel out, but I have very rarely have I ever had a pig get back on me. And I'm proud to say that, unless they are absolutely crazy and they jump me, then you've got problems and it wouldn't matter if you had a single or double. But definitely. So if you're somebody that's got rear swing gates and you can pre-sort and you're trying to get the pigs out of the pen with a single panel and you know pigs get back on you a ton, then get a double because they'll never get back. on you ever yeah um and when you fold it up it's a little heavy yeah i will say it's a little bit more

heavy when you fold it back up to be you know a double four foot but just together well it makes a difference because it i couldn't do i mean i could but i couldn't load i couldn't load four loads of fat hogs with that doing what you're doing but you're six foot two two so you've got the wingspan that you can hold oh yeah it's all about wingspan yeah it is because i couldn't do it yeah i love it i per i would recommend it to anybody i mean it just really situational though because if you don't do much pre-sorting yeah because i don't use it we don't use it at all when we sort pigs right because we just use singles yeah and if you had if you were somebody that had um if you had like cargill size pens so if you had if you had pens that were 12 foot wide um then it's

not it doesn't work as well so our pens are all nine foot six on center so that eight-foot panel There's not much room that Sawyer has to cover. Yeah, just get it. Just get the panel right in front of the water cups and then they're screwed and they can't. There's no way that panel's going back. That's my goal every time. Yeah, so highly recommend buy it. Buy it if you can if you, if it works for you.

Dad, what's the best way to bring an old barn up to date? Oh, boy. Casual smoking and good insurance. That's the best way to do it. Oh, gosh. I mean, I don't know where you see. start on that. So the first thing you got to decide is... This is kind of

a good question. It is. I like it. Do you have a barn that is totally slotted? So if you've got a Cargill style barn that's partial slats, don't even go down that road because you will be, if you, it's just like pouring good money after

bad. So unless you've got a barn that's total slats, I'd say today, the way things are today, you know, we may get to a point where we may in pouring concrete pads and part of ours because we might be required to have partial pay on the oh gosh i don't know who knows somebody will won't be me though i can guarantee you that i'll be retired when that happens but um so if it's total slats then you know that's a possibility and it doesn't matter

you know back in the late 90s well pretty much yeah back in the late 90s into the early 2000s there were a heck of a lot of buildings that got built that were excuse me were um you know they were 600 head rooms or even 400 head rooms because guys were farrowing and it might be like a it might be like a 1200 head room but it might be three it might be a 1200 head barn but it might be three rooms or it might be a 2400 head barn but it's 600 head rooms that's not a big deal because you can knock those dividers out the dividers don't have anything to do with carrying the the weight of the, you know, the tresses. They're not structural.

They're just dividers. So that's not a big deal. Slats. So the first thing is, when you go look at a building, the first thing you've got to look at is slats. Because if the slats are shot, everything has to come out. The gates have to come out.

The feeders have to come out. So if you're going to go down that road, you're probably not going to put used gates and use feeders. You might put use feeders. Depending on what they are. how good shape they are. Yeah, but the gating, you're not going to take the gating out and then put used gating back in it.

So it gets really expensive, really fast. But if the slats are good, then you've got to look at gating and the feeders. Those are the next most expensive things. The ceiling, today with as many products as there are, so there's a poly, there's a poly called AgTuff, and that it's

profile or how it's corrugated it is I think you can just about get it any way that a steel ceiling would be and even if it is the old square rib steel the poly the ag tough it'll flex enough that you can probably go in and put it right over the top

and so you could you know if the ceiling's bad that's some money but it's nothing compared to slats and gates and feeders. But the other thing you got to look at is when my first barn I built, the barn itself was $525,000. And that was a 2,400 head barn. Today, a 2,400 head barn in the Midwest here

is probably 900,000. I mean, he might as well just say a million at this point. Well, I'm just saying for the building. Yeah, the site be over a million dollars. It would be a million dollars to build. So if you look at that and you find a barn, you find a 2,400 head barn that has a well, has a driveway, has a generator, has the permit,

has a maneuver management plan, gates are shot, slats are shot. What's it worth? I mean, the fact that you don't have to worry about go getting a permit and, I mean, by rights, you could put quite a bit of money in that and you're still ahead because it has everything versus build a new barn.

So you'd say, you'd say, um slats first gate second feeder's third and then you're everything else and it depends are you you know are you doing it yourself are you feeding for a con for a um integrator integrator because if you feed for an integrator chances are they're going to tell you you know we want this feeder we want this control they're probably going to want the control done unless it's you know been converted they're going to want the control done get a freaking barn talk system too from barn tools best damn barn alarm there is out there. If you don't follow us on this, we'll do Farm our Farm YouTube channel.

If you have any trouble with barn alarms and you're sick and tired of, you know, whatever you got because you can't type in your password or the signal sucks or anything, barn tools that just change the game app, just crazy. They have an app. You can change your threshold on your temp sensors. You can disarm alarms through the app. You can monitor your barn on your phone any time of day you want. want to just see what's going on. You can get a, you know, always get a phone call when a minor issue is happening.

It only calls you when there's an absolute emergency. So that's another way to bring up your barn up to date, I'd say. Stay up to date on your tech, you know. If there's something new out there that's not breaking the bank like barn tools, you know, spend the money and get something like that if you have problems. Yep. Get a controller that's up to date. Because this is kind of a two-side question because it's like,

okay, we were talking about the whole remodel thing, but I mean, epoxy, epoxy your slats, epoxy your feeder pads, replace your anchor bearings when they go out, grease up stuff. I mean, there's so many things that you can do. Yeah, you know, the better job that you do taking care of it on the front end,

the longer it's going to have to go before you've got to spend big money doing it. And I'll say this, you know, the question was the best way to bring up bring an old barn up to date. If I was somebody and I didn't have, if I didn't have you, if I didn't have kids that were interested in farming.

If there are not rear swing gates in that barn, put some freaking rear swing gates in that thing. Yeah, if you can do it, if you can make your barn style that way. If you're the one chorn it. Right. If you're not the one chorn it, then you don't care.

Right. Too bad, kid. You're going to have to sort them. Yeah. But I was going to say, if you've got a barn, it needs to be updated, and you're getting to the point

where you're not going to be doing and you don't have any kids, sell that sucker because you'll never get more money. I mean, depending on where you're at, I realize if you're up in northwest Iowa, there's a lot of barn sitting, but there's a lot of places right now that, holy cow, what people are willing to pay for a used barn, I'd be like, I'd be like, show me the money. Here you go, buddy. And just give me the right of refusal, so if you piss it away, I can buy it back. But anyway, I guess that's what I think.

That's a good, that's a good, uh, end in there. Uh, tunnel barn versus curtain barn. What's your, what's your opinion? Uh, this is, this is, you're very set on this one. Yeah. Uh, but I'm kind of mixed. I really enjoy, it's like you said in one of the videos we made. You know, it's nice having the curtains down when it's all nice outside and it looks great.

And the pigs love it. And it's just a better, it just feels like a better environment in my opinion. But with your, with your, with your curtain. you got your soffit that russes out, you got all the maintenance problems with the curtain that you got to deal with and fix and mess with. And you have to, we have, we use rubber mats in all our barns

and in the curtain barns. We have to, we have these awesome mat carts that we wheel down the alley and we grab the mats and hang them on the carts, but with, on our solid sided barns that are in tunnel, we have hung two by fours or two by sixes.

Two by sixes. Two by sixes. two by sixes put some hooks on them puppies and we hang the mats right on the wall. I like that a lot too. But personally, I feel like the tunnel barns, though, they actually, one, they keep heat better. So there's not a bigger, like a draft going through it as much as the curtain barns. You do have to, I'm trying to think here. Power. Yeah, power on the tunnel barns is a lot. It's more expensive. Unless you got solar like that. Dad bought solar, got solar on all his sites. I don't have solar on mine. So my power bill's kind of a little bit pricey when you got to constantly turn them fans on. But, yeah, I would say I like the tunnel better personally. I don't know. It's 50-50 for me, honestly. I could take care of either one. I like them.

but if I was the owner of the building, I think I like the tunnel barns because it's less maintenance, less money you have to spend on maintenance, less wear. And honestly, people, I think people also think that those tunnel barns don't probably get great air quality.

Truthfully, I feel like it's better air through those barns than the curtain barns. Yeah. I mean, if the curtains are all the way down, then, yeah, okay, the tunnel, the curtain barns, they,

but in the winter time when those curtains are all the way up they just don't and the tunnel barns you know the curtains there's only one curtain so it's closed all you know most of the time it breeze way better in the winter it's kind of funny because winter is where those solid-sided barns shine for us um less less heat you burn way less LP in them but then the other thing is because which is really nice at the time of that we're in right now the walls so the walls in the walls in the the in the rooms is smooth whereas on your curtain-sided barns you know the studs are exposed and you get draft in there you get a certain amount of draft you get cold moving through the curtains and i would just say to anybody if you're looking to build and you're contemplating go look at a barn go look at a

tunnel curtain uh tunnel-sided barn with wiener pigs in it or you know just got feeder pigs in in the wintertime on a cold day and then go to a solid-sided barn. And the biggest difference that you'll notice is in that solid-sided barn, the pigs will lay out, they'll just lay out smooth all over the whole pen because there's no draft. And it makes it so nice to start pigs. And if you look at a curtain-sided barn, they will definitely, they'll pile not even so much because they're cold,

they're more uncomfortable because there's, there's heat moving, there's cold moving around in there from the draft, from the air exchange, the heat exchange out of the curtains. And I don't care if you put bubble foil in it or whatever you do, you're still going to have that. And you just eliminate that in that solid-sided barn. And over the life of the barn, you're going to save, you know, at some point I'll be able to talk more intelligently. My first one is five years old, in my oldest curtain-sided barn is 11.5 years old. So as they age, I'm going to be able to know pretty well whether I'm right or not,

but my gut feeling is that I'm going to spend way less on maintenance as far as a structure goes with a solid-sided barn than I will with my curtain barns. So, yeah, if you're the owner of the building, I like the solid-sided better. But if you're torn, it really don't matter. So, when do we typically start planning around here, Dad? When it's fit.

There's really no idea. I mean, there is kind of an ideal point, but it's really not. It kind of depends on Mother Nature. And it's a gamble. So I was looking back. I was looking back through my notes. So I've got a book. I'm still kind of old school.

I have a three ring binder that I keep for every year. And I put the yield. maps in it and I put all my receipts for my fertilizer so I can go back and look at the good old days when fertilizer was cheap and long for that. But like last year, we started basically the second week of April. And I think, I don't think it matters where you're at. I mean, obviously as you go north, you start later. As you go south, you start earlier. But the kicker is, and I've had this only happened one time. But this last year was kind of that way.

We went in and we planted and then it got cold. Right. And that corn laid there and it was like, oh boy. Bad day. Yeah. But then it turned around. We got a warm rain and it came up and it was fine. But I want to say it was probably, you know, this is 22.

Probably like, I don't know if it was 2000. maybe 15. It could have been longer than that, longer than that, but we had a year where I think we started planting right around right around the 7th or 8th of April and the weather was perfect. And we got everything in

and had beans planted too. And then it turned cold and it really turned cold and it stayed, it stayed cold for a while and we weren't sure if corn was going to come up and in my corn on corn ground it warmed up enough that corn started to emerge and i had i had probably 60 acres where the corn only it came up and it only had roots on one side it it didn't it didn't root down off of one side of the off the plant and um we didn't end up replantment

And it stayed pretty good, but we had some corn that went down, and it didn't yield what, you know, it was kind of a 50-50, whether you replanted or not. And that's kind of, that's kind of the risk every year. So we have guys, and everybody knows, you know, everybody knows, you've got, everybody's got that farmer in their neighborhood that I mean, they're going. They're going before everybody else. And I mean, that's just what they do. And sometimes they come out fine, and sometimes they're out there replanting it. Yeah, all you got to do is just go into your local town, take a drive. And when you see everybody's out there, you probably should get your shit together and get out there.

Yeah, so anybody that watches this will do videos, you know that our neighbor, David, David Zezer, heat plants. He plants are corn for us. And, you know, he'll always, we'll start messaging each other. And he'll want to know, you know, do you see anybody going or whatever? and then he'll message me and he'll be like, oh, somebody's going. Somebody's out, you know, so-and-so's going, but I went out and I checked my ground.

It's not dry enough to go, you know. And then the next thing you know, he's over here, he's over at my place, and he's out scratching. And, you know, sometimes he'll be like, oh, I think you could go. I think you could go. And I'm like, all right, well, let's go.

So it's good to have, it's good to have a slave driver that's pushing you, you know. Yeah, there's a window there. but it would make a difference if we were farming 5,000 acres instead of farming 400 because our what I always tell people is you know a lot of people don't realize you know they don't know anything about how much ground you farm or how little people that aren't in ag and like my wife and i'll go you know we'll go out for dinner we'll go somewhere and somebody'll say oh i figured you'd be planting by now and i'll you know i'll just tell them i'm like well i have the luxury

that I can be the last one to get started, and I can still be the first one done, because David, he is a go-getter, and when he starts, I mean, it's on like Donkey Kong. Yeah, he wants to get it done. And we'll be done. We'll have all the corn planted in two days, two and a half days, and we'll have all the beans planted in a day. Yeah, there's really no, we're not really pressured. No. But there are guys out there that it matters.

So it really does matter. Yeah, well, when you've got to make the most of every day that you've got, get it all in in a decent time. And, you know, the agronomy of it is we've seen that earlier is better. Your corn's going to yield if you get it in in that optimum time. And so that's why you've got bigger equipment and fast equipment. So I guess you kind of asked the wrong, well, you asked us when we do it, but we're not really pressured. Yeah.

Maybe someday. I think we do it. We go as soon as anybody's going. Right. We just get done a lot sooner than everybody else because we don't have that much to do. Yep. this is this is yours yeah what's the

throw it up lob it up for me let me fucking nail it what is the most important thing to do as a first generation farmer there's so much you could say there first I would say be creative first thing that you can the best thing you can do as a first gen farmer

and most important is be creative and think outside the box best you can because what you're trying to do is something that's pretty difficult. And we've had Grant Hilbert on the show. That guy, it works his ass off. And he got very creative on how he was going to become a farmer.

And he has became a farmer because he invested in a Bitcoin mining farm. He bought Bitcoin very early on when it came out. And he started a YouTube channel called The Squad that's literally all about, farming simulator, you know, doing videos about farming simulator. Staying towards his passion, but it wasn't actually farming. And now, today he has his own personal YouTube channel, where it's just his name, and he's actually farming. And he accomplished his goal of actually becoming a first-term farmer. So he got thought really outside the box, dedicated to it. And so I think creativity is huge. I also think, in that example as well, Grant didn't go into

farming and think, well, I'm going to grow this farm just stay in a farmer. I'm going to grow my first generation farmer. I'm going to grow as a first-gen farmer by just making all my money in agriculture. No. Grant did not do that. And I encourage a lot of first-gen farmers probably to not try to make all their money from farming. You know, you get into real estate, learn investing, side hustle. You're going to have to work your ass off and figure out how to just just accumulate wealth. You're going to have to figure out how to make money and make it a lot of it because it takes a lot to run a farming business.

So I think being creative and finding a way to make outside income off the farm is necessary. Like so it's vital. Yeah, I think that's key. And to your point, this question is kind of wide. So I don't know if you're, so if you're using the premise that you have to, that you are a first generation farmer. So somehow you are, you are farming.

You already made it. So if you're already, if you already have the opportunity to farm and you're asking how to be successful at it, outside income streams is key because the return on that, farming is not, it's very capital intensive. But what my point was that I don't care what community you're in. You know, here we're in southeast Iowa.

If you're a young kid and you want to make money, you can chore hog buildings. You can power wash. You can help load pigs. You can probably help some other farmer that's older that doesn't have help. If you get yourself a skid loader and a grapple bucket or a dirt bucket,

you can probably make money digging, cleaning out fence rows, cleaning out fence, tearing out stuff, buy a dump trailer. Yeah, I mean, it's all back to that creativity, being creative. And, you know, maybe you don't just be a row crop operation. If you're just trying to do row crop, maybe you get creative and do livestock too. I know that's a lot to take on, but, you know, it's just being creative. Build a brand, sell some live, some meat direct to consumer.

I don't know. there's so many things you can do. Trades are huge right now. The trades are huge, and I don't care what anyone says, the trades are only going to get bigger. The demand is only going to increase more and more. If we get freaking virtual reality goggles on every human in America, no one's going to know how to fix anything.

And so the ones that do are going to get paid drastic, just insane amount of money. And I believe that, and I think less and less people are going into trades. So, you know, maybe go to trade school, learn a trade. I got a, there's a guy that I'm on, on a commodity board with, and he, he's a, he really is a first generation farmer. He worked for another farmer, and, um, he saved up enough money to build a hog building. He contracts feed, he contract feeds for a guy, but then he's got, he, he rented part of the ground from this guy that he used to work for, but he and his wife have a pumpkin patch.

And I mean, she, I, they, they, I think she's the, the social media part of it because i don't even think he has social media but they have done a great job of marketing that and i mean to tell you i think they make enough damn money off of that thing in the fall that pays a hell of a lot of bills and i mean i i wouldn't know the first thing about doing it but they're young and they can plan a lot of pumpkins and they know how to make it look good yeah i mean there's what it comes down to is you got to make money you got to make some freaking money and it's going to have to be outside the farm and nobody's going to hand it to you. No. Definitely. And you understand that if you're a first-gen farmer. You know you're not

going to get a hand out. Yeah. You just got to get creative and find a way to make some outside income. Hell, we're sick. I'm the sixth generation farmer. And we're trying to find ways to make some outside income. Yeah. You know, it's, I encourage anybody out there that's farming, make some outside income. It's one, it's good for, you know, it's good to, to have it as a backstop if anything ever happened to the farm economy. You know, if something drastically happened, it's good to have that. And it's also good because it can help grow your operation, too. So, yeah, that's my advice to any first-gen farmers out there.

Obviously, you got to learn farming too, but there's YouTube for that. There's the Barn Talk podcast. You can shoot your questions here, you know. Obviously, you got to do those things, but it gives you an idea. I mean, I'm not, I'm being dead ass serious about YouTube. You know, there's a lot of farmers out there. They're posting their stuff. Just watch it.

see oh well then ask questions okay dad last but not least yeah i think that's this the last one yeah i think what are your retirement plans other than sitting your fat ass on a lawnmower with a beer coozy and just sip it on that and mowing the grass what what do you think actually are your retirement plans do you think you ever retire well not with you two probably uh no i you know I haven't really Well, I can't say I haven't really thought about it. But, um, so I'm 50. And I have kind of a weird, I think I have a weirder outlook on that than some people because

I always think back, uh, my dad. So my dad married late and you can go back to an earlier podcast to hear that whole story. But, um, I was born when my dad was 52 years old. So my dad's goal, when I was, was born was to live long enough to see me graduate high school. And he never really retired. I mean, I guess you could say when he was 90. Yeah. I mean, he pretty much just, you know, he kind of had to because he kept driving into the barn and had a heart attack loading pigs. And it was time to not do all that. But, you know, he loved what he did. And I think that's, I think that's the,

you know that's that's a that's a that's kind of like a buzzword is oh well if you do what you love every day you'll never work a day in your life well that's kind of bullshit because uh when we had to get up when i got up at 2 30 this morning so we could go load weiner pigs and we had to load one load a wiener pig so i literally got up at 2 30 Sawyer picked me up at 10 to 3 we went up there it took us 20 minutes to load 470 head of um um overstocks feeder pig and then what do you do? Then what do you do? And so,

3.20. Yeah, so that felt like work. It just did because your day shot and all that. But I would have to say, I've had the blessing in my life that I have had to work. Like, I didn't know where the next dollar was coming from, and I had to work, and I had to work for somebody that I didn't necessarily enjoy.

and I had to do a lot of jobs that I didn't really like. And then I had the blessing of being able to do a job that I was good at and I enjoyed and I was paid very well for. And then I was able to switch. And I've worked for some good people. But I would have to say that today is the most enjoyable, like what I'm doing today is the most enjoyable part of what my life has been. I mean, there isn't any day that I don't wake up, and I'm not looking forward to that day, not looking forward to what we're going to do that day. You know, this whole thing that we're doing with this podcast and with the other channel,

and just the people we get to talk to, I mean, I would have never thought I'd be doing this, and it's the best. So I'm going to do this as long as I can do it. what about farming how long you think you'll farm well until i drive into the side of the barn and so you're 90 until soyer goes all right yes or when so you're really not going to retire ever you know that's the thing i feel like you're kind of already retired in most people terms because you get to do whatever you want to do when you want to do it if you want to pack up and go on vacation tomorrow i could hold down the fort while you were gone yeah yeah and you'll be the same way in 10 years will you do less like less

will you worry about having to get our, you know, books to the accountant? I'll probably have to worry about that or marketing the grain. Probably not. You don't have to worry about that when you want to fully retire, quote unquote. But will you always get in the tractor? Yeah. Will you always sit down and do this podcast? Yeah.

Will you always go fix something in the hog barn? Eh. Oh, you will. Probably. You totally will. The other part of that equation is, so is your mom. because farm wives have a different, they have a different experience.

Or anybody's wife has a different experience. So some have their own career and that career is different than if you are a farmer. Now, some of them work on farm, and in that case, they may have the same view of it. Tricia, my wife, she has her own career and her own things that she enjoys doing. doing but she does not look at that as something that she's going to do forever it's something that

she enjoys but at some point she will probably sell that business or just sell everything out and be done with it and then you know she's going to be wanting to go she's going to be wanting to do whatever she's going to want to do and so that plays into she's going to drag your ass along for the ride well right i mean you know it may be a deal where she wants to go she doesn't want to be here for the winter. And I don't really mind, but I do like... Well, we're going to have to shoot this bitch on Zoom? Zoom.

We'll zoom it. Okay. Whatever. All right. I don't know. We'll shoot six episodes. Dang, dang, dang. And then I'll bolt and come back.

I don't know. All right. Whatever. Heck, I may have my, I'll have my neural link. And I can just go, just tee up, you know? You have your virtual reality goggles. You'll just be here. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I'm kind of rambling, but, I am very blessed. I think anybody that's farming, you're blessed. If you're lucky enough that you are in a business and you're able to work with your kids, and, you know, it has its challenges, and not everybody gets along all the time,

but like I tell Sawyer and Clay, I will totally be on board of getting involved in the deals and giving them my advice on the deals and scheming the deals. I just don't want to be on the hook for the deals. And so as we transition, we're just going to have to transition. And I will probably be,

I'll probably be an advice giver of the board, and I'd like to get my dividend check every month. But other than that, it's going to be up to my boys to run the deal. And I think that's how it should be. I don't want to be one of those guys that, you know, is I don't want to be one of those guys that's telling my things,

35-year-old kids what they should be doing. I, you know, if at that point, it's your deal. You know what you're doing. You can ask me whatever you want, and I'll tell you what I think, but at the end of the day, it's your deal. You do what you want. Thanks for that.

Yeah, you're welcome. You're going to just have, I don't know, it's hard to say. It's hard. You're going to stay farming until you can't, and you're going to be involved, but you just, what do you mean by the on the hook? You don't want to have your name on the paper

to take on the dad or what? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I'll gladly spend. I want to do, I want to do like you guys did when you were kids. I want to spend your money on shit that I want with no, I don't have to worry about. Oh, that's fine. The kids will get it. The other thing is, though, like people have ideas of what they want to do. Like, guys, you know, generation before me, you know, they get old and they want to buy a vet and they want to drive around and they want to go to car shows or they want to go down. They want to get a winner. house in Arizona or they want to do this. You know, maybe I do, but the thing is, the truth of the matter is there is on any given day, there's no place I'd rather be than out puttering around on the farm doing something. So unless that changes, I don't know. My retirement's not going to look a whole lot different than what it is now. I don't want to have to be loading pigs and I don't want to have to be, you know, doing stuff that I'm going to get up and not be able to walk the next day. but yeah as long as I'm I mean it kind of is like it you don't if you love what you do and you're

lucky enough to do it with the people that you enjoy being around it's not really like work what do you what do you always say you know my worst day farming is better than almost any day working for somebody else I I will tell you that I and that's not I've worked for some great people and I loved what I did but man there is nothing you know there's nothing better fulfilling your own destiny or something about it it's the better do not do not do you know it's the best you know your own thing. It's the best. Yeah. I agree. And having all of you listen and comment and know that you got our back, that's the best too. That is the best. We are, make sure you pay the fee, guys. Share the show if you got any value from this and hope we answered your questions well. Hopefully

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