The Shepherdess

Resources for Beginner Sheep Farmers, Dorper Sheep for Sale in Texas!

ranching for profit

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Why I’m BUILDING WEALTH WITH SHEEP.

FREE Sheep Farming E-book: https://bit.ly/SheepEBOOK

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Today’s Livestream is intended to kick off season 3 of the Shepherdess.

THIRD LENSE:

Over the past two years I have used my videos to share my story through different lenses. In my first season I shared my day to day routine through the lens of a first time sheep farmer. In Season 2 I shared with you the data behind my decision to pivot from beef cattle to sheep as a primary enterprise for my micro ranching enterprise.

In season 3 I am going to share with you the real economics behind my decision to use sheep as a means of building wealth.

I am getting ready to share with you real information on how my sheep are a wealth building tool, but none of it is true unless you can keep a sheep alive. That free e book is going to walk you through basically the 13 things you need to hedge your investment in sheep.

As I kick off season 3 with this livestream, I am going to share a story.

THE UNTOLD STORY:

I have told you before that I am a digital marketer by trade. In May of 2020 my team and I had just finished one of our largest marketing projects ever. With the money I made there, I paid off my car, I put 10 months of rent and living expenses into savings. After I had done that, I had $11,000 leftover.

At the time, I was watching the US spend it’s way out of an economic crisis. I watched the government issue consent to put TRILLIONS of dollars into the economy through various means of stimulus.

I am not an economist, but I knew that under such conditions, money in the bank would quickly lose it’s value.

So I prayed. I asked the Lord if He would show me a way that I could invest this $11,000 and have it hold it’s value, or even increase.

Specifically my prayer was “for eyes to see an undervalued asset”.

From what little I knew of investing, I knew that the most successful investors were ones that saw value in something before anyone else did and took a risk by investing in that thing before anyone else.

Being from the digital industry, being that my jobs was in an office, I naturally expected the Lord would direct me toward a company to invest in, or precious metals, or possibly even real estate.

But He didn’t.

Instead He directed my attention to agriculture… and more specifically low-input agriculture with an emphasis on soil health.

This unyielding interest was a shock to me, this was a shock to my family, but it was something I could not shake. That interest segued into open doors. The Lord provided me with the education I needed to walk through those doors.

So long story short, I took that $11,000 and instead of buying silver or crypto, I bought 26 sheep and the fencing I needed to contain them on 30 acres.

If you are interested in what happened after that, the 100+ videos on this channel are chapters chronicling various aspects from that moment in 2020 to today,

but….

Since that moment in 2020 when I prayed for an investment opportunity for that $11,000, the United State’s cumulative rate of inflation hit 15.1%, US National debt increased by 30%.

Should I have left that that $11k in the bank it would only be worth $9,500 today. 

But by investing it in sheep and zeroing in on my marketing of them, that $11K has seen an increase of roughly 40%.

Through the sale of surplus ram lambs I have sold enough livestock to cover 1/2 of that initial $11,000 investment all while my flock size has increased by 40% through the ewe lambs I have retained.  

While some are pushing silver, or gold, or real estate; it is my goal in my third season of content to encourage you through what I have seen firsthand THE VALUE of using livestock as a means of building wealth.

You have to be wise about how you build your farm and you have to know how to care for sheep, or you’ll end up like everyone who invested in FTX last year.

But the dollar alone is no longer a valid measurement of wealth. We all need to be considering alternative means of storing our wealth. Even if it is small. $11,000 is not a lot of money, but I want to encourage you that even if you only a small

If you have debt, you don’t have wealth; so do everything you can to pay it off. But if you have any cash, you need to make sure you have enough in the bank to cover 6mos-1 year of expenses, and pray for ways to invest whatever is leftover.

HISTORICALLY DURABLE FORMS OF WEALTH:

Land (REAL ESTATE), Livestock, and precious metals.  Sheep are DYNAMIC, precious metals are static.

One thing I want to bring to light is that modern America has severely undervalued agriculture. In fact we have shot ourselves in the foot with this.

America is about to lose 1/3 of it’s farmers.  The average age of the American Farmer is 54 years old.  1/3 of farmers in America are over 64 years old. Within the next 15 years we will lose 1/3 of our farmers through either retirement or death… UNLESS.

UNLESS people like you and like me take up this mantle and on whatever scale we can and begin growing food.  First taking responsibility for our families needs, then branching out into our community, and beyond.

IF you have no land, find your local farmer.  Eatwild.com is a good place to start. You are going to pay more with your local farmer than you will at the grocery store where all of the food on the shelves is the product of industrial agriculture, but view the extra money as an investment in your future, your children’s future, and food security.  You do not have to buy all of your food local, but try and replace one item on your grocery list with a local source.

I want people to understand that agriculture is a historically proven means of building wealth.

I want people to begin investing in it with the same energy and innovation that we give to tech startups Silicon Valley.

Because our need for real food is growing faster than our need for software development.

Our reliance on GMO’s and industrial agriculture is killing our bodies and depleting our natural resources.

We are self-destructing and I believe that those with eyes to see agriculture as an undervalued asset, and the bravery to invest in it when no-one else will will be greatly rewarded.

THERE IS SOMETHING THAT I UNDERSTAND HERE:

I UNDERSTAND A VALUE IN WHAT I AM DOING THAT GOES BEYOND DOLLARS AND CENTS. And this is what you need to get into agriculture… because there will be months and years where you make very little of either one. We need to diversify as farmers, we need to be extremely creative with the revenue streams we build on farm, and the markets we pursue and establish ourselves in.

While I intend (should the Lord allow) to make a significant amount of money off of what I am doing, I would do this whether I made money or not. I know too much to do otherwise.

We need more farmers.

-the Shepherdess

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Why Meat is expensive, but ranchers are broke. | Explaining the beef cattle crisis in 2022

Why meat is so expensive The Beef Supply Chain Crisis

Since 1990, the price of ground beef at the grocery store has gone up 40% while the price of live beef cattle has dropped by 50% (figures adjusted for inflation). Why is the consumer paying big, and the beef rancher going broke? Where is all the money going?

In this article I am going to give a brief explanation of how the conventional beef industry works, why the prices at the grocery store are so high, and 3 ways you can still profit off beef cattle in 2022.

Whether you are a grocery shopper or aspiring beef rancher, the upcoming article will help you navigate the beef crisis in 2022.

Explaining US Beef Supply Chain:

In the United States there are 2.04 MILLION ranchers, 26,586 feed lots, 4 meat packers, and 355 million consumers. If you were following closely, you will already realize a bottleneck in this system. In the conventional beef industry the cow-calf producer raises a calf for 6-12 mos. The calves are then auctioned off to backgrounders and feed lots who fatten the beef for roughly 9 months. Finally, the feed lots sell the fattened cattle to meatpackers who, within a week, process and pack the beef for distribution to grocery stores.

The pricing in the beef cattle industry is largely dictated by the four meatpackers: Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef Packing Co. These four meatpackers control 80% of the United State’s beef supply. This hyper-centralization of processing, packing, and distribution is what enables live cattle prices to be manipulated and ultimately driven down.

Meatpacker manipulation is not a new thing in the United States. A web search on the “Big 5” will quickly show you that the beef industry has been battling the situation since 1890.

The margins in the meatpacking industry are huge. Kansas Cattleman Steve Stratford reported that in 2020 the Big 4’s margins on a choice steer hovered around $1000 per head. That same report indicated 500-600K head of choice steer are processed every week, giving the “Big 4” a collective gross margin of $2.6 BILLION per month.

There is a lot that goes into how meatpackers manipulate live cattle pricing, but the bottom line is that the “Big 4” have contributed to the 50% decline in live cattle pricing over the last 30 years.

Why are these packers driving US Beef rancher out of business? Don’t they need US beef producers to stay in business? Not entirely. In 2016 the USDA repealed enforcement of the MCOOL Act.

MCOOL stands for Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling. MCOOL “requires retailers to provide their customers with information regarding the country of origin of regulated commodities” such as beef, pork, and chicken (USDA.gov).

The repeal of MCOOL enables foreign beef carcasses to be imported, processed, and labeled “Product of the USA” simply because they were cut up and vacuum sealed in the USA. I predict a massive explosion in beef imports is coming down the pipe.

A proposition to reinstate MCOOL was introduced to the US Congress in September of 2021. If you are a beef rancher (or prospective beef rancher) I would highly recommend going here and following the instructions on how to contact your senator to support the bill.

Why is Beef so Expensive at the Grocery Store?:

The price of ground beef at the grocery store is up by 40% since 1990. This price increase has little to do with food shortages. As mentioned above, four meatpackers control 80% of our nations beef supply and there are two ways in which these meatpackers can manipulate consumer beef pricing. First, due to absence of competition, meatpackers can simply name their price. Second, meatpackers can limit supply output, thus manufacturing a supply-in-demand situation.

Each of these scenarios is stimulated by the absence of competition in the meatpacking industry.

The “Big 4” vs. “The other 20%”:

Balanced Food Supply Chain
Notice the balance here in comparison to the illustration above!

Small farmer makes up a greater portion of the remaining 20% of the meat supply chain. These small-scale meat growers collaborate with private processors to deliver meat direct to consumer. They are the saving grace of the US Food Supply Chain. Small farmers are the reason many Americans retained access to quality food during supply chain disruptions in 2020 and 2021.

The illustration below shows you the balance in the local farming system. Rather than a bottleneck of centralized processing power, local farmers work with private processors to deliver meat direct to the consumer.

The survival of the local farming system relies on the support of you, the consumer.

What can the grocery shopper do to keep meat prices from going up?:

As grocery shoppers we must find and support small growers. Go to EatWild.com for a directory of local meat growers in your area. Grocery shoppers face the same risk as the rancher. We will be financially compromised by meatpackers. Once local farmers and independent processors are gone, these four meatpackers will have complete control of meat production and pricing in the USA.

By supporting the small growers on EatWild.com you are securing a local food system and receiving a superior product. All of the producers on eatwild.com raise their animals on fresh pasture and not in feed lots. You may pay slightly more at a local farm than you would Walmart, but you are supporting a farm that could one day save your life.

How to Raise Grass Fed Beef

How to make profit on Beef Cattle in 2022?:

There are 3 things you need to do to make a profit off of beef cattle in 2022. These 3 elements and more are outlined in Joel Salatin’s Book Salad Bar Beef. I highly recommend you read this book before buying cows.

  1. Go grass based. Select cows that have been bred for a grass based system (that link will take you to an article on how to select grass based genetics). Reduce feed inputs by carefully managing your forage resource. Use rotational grazing to increase the feed capacity of your land. Create stockpile pastures to avoid hay feeding as you overwinter. Only carry as many cows as your land can support without supplemental feed (overwintering excepted).
  2. Cut out the middle man. Finish your beef on grass and sell it direct to consumer. This route takes more elbow grease in the marketing and establishment phase, but it is the only way to eliminate the middle man. Take a look at Farm on the Web marketing classes for guidance on building out a direct to consumer marketing strategy.
  3. Avoid expensive infrastructure. In today’s beef market, tractors, trucks, and expensive barns will put you out of business before you get started.

I believe there is huge opportunity for direct-to-consumer grass-fed beef sales in 2022. Grain prices are on the rise, paving the way for the price of grass fed beef to compete with grain fed beef for the first time ever. The rise in prices at the grocery store will curb the sticker shock that can sometimes accompany grass fed beef.

Warning!: As you enter the beef arena you are entering a war zone. Your competition is unwelcome. You will face policies and red tape that are designed to put you out of business. You must equip yourself to defend your turf as a small-scale beef producer.

-the Shepherdess

“The scatterer has come up against you. Man the ramparts; watch the road; dress for battle; collect all your strength.” Nahum 2:1