This column will soon come to an end and I thank BEEF for the opportunity to write this column for all these years. As a result of the articles and without spending on advertising, I have had many opportunities for consulting, speaking and managing. These opportunities have led me to many people from whom I have learned much. 

Much of what I have written has been learned and borrowed from others. With no desire to plagiarize, I have written with the intent of helping others become better managers and improve their operations. I thank all who have been my mentors and teachers; but space and time won’t allow me to name them all. 

I should, however, mention a few.  Drs. James Wiltbank, Bob Bellows, Keith Gregory, Larry Cundiff and Don Adams all played an important part in adding animal science to my training in ag economics. Then along came Alan Savory, Stan Parsons and David Pratt who introduced me to concepts of better grazing, running a ranch as a business, and holistic or systems thinking and the complexity all that entails. Now, skipping many who have been very helpful and great mentors through the years, I am learning much from Dr. Allen Williams, Gabe Brown and many good farmers and ranchers about the importance of soil health and how our farming and ranching practices either move it forward or backward.

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Following is a very brief review of concepts that I have tried to present to readers and help them understand how the ideas can improve their profitability and quality of life:

Five Essentials of Profitable Ranch Management:  I have become convinced that they are the essentials.

Four areas to manage:

Three ways to improve profit: (from Stan Parsons and David Pratt)

You might be tempted to say that there are many more ways to improve profit. I will say that anything you propose will fit under these three.

Focus on whole ranch profit or profit per acre and not production or even profit per cow. Focusing on production per cow has resulted in bigger, higher milking cows which have led to lower stocking rates, lower conception rates (and/or higher supplementation costs) and fewer pounds produced per acre. Those bigger but fewer calves sell for less per pound.

Major determinants of profit:

You have probably noticed that I did not include weaning weight on the list. In a given environment, increased weaning weight always comes with a cost. The most notable costs are feed. Less notable costs are the reductions in stocking rate and herd fertility that accompany bigger and higher milking cows.

Observation skills for managerial excellence:

Excellent management is the successful combination of art and science. Observation skills combined with the ability to take corrective action differentiate between mediocre and excellent. Learning to see the conditions of animals, plants and people and then to observe the interconnectedness between animals, plants and people in an ever-broader context makes for better use of biological and business principles.

Become a systems thinker:  A systems thinker is always trying to better understand the complex relationships connecting all the pieces of nature—soil with all its insects and microorganisms, birds, wild and domestic animals, insects of all kinds; climate and its changes from season to season and year to year; the economy and market system; people and their interactions with each other, nature, climate and the economy. 

He/she understands that all of this is interconnected and, when one part changes or something is added from outside, there is never a single response; but many things change. Systems thinking, along with good integration of knowledge and ideas, enables holistic management and continually better decisions.

When all of the above is understood and interactions accounted for, a summary statement would be as follows:

For profitable ranching:

To be continued next month. For much more detail on this summary find all of my articles at: https://www.beefmagazine.com/blogger/burke-teichert

Teichert, a consultant on strategic planning for ranches, retired in 2010 as vice president and general manager of AgReserves, Inc. He resides in Orem, Utah. Contact him at [email protected]. The opinions of the author are not necessarily those of beefmagazine.com or Farm Progress.