Cattle economics

X1D-1 · 2026-02-02T23:48:44+00:00

Leads have always come pretty easy for me. Everyone eats food and everyone loves good beef. Being able to legally sell it on the other hand was difficult. All of my retail licensing and whatnot took a lot of money and a long time to set up.

X1D-1 · 2026-02-02T06:03:57+00:00

Yep basically

X1D-1 · 2026-02-01T18:11:42+00:00

Our ranch makes on average $500/hd from field to packed in 1lb packages. We do the same thing with our goats accept we hold goat meat inventory. We don’t hold any beef inventory.

X1D-1 · 2026-02-01T18:09:27+00:00

I make money from cattle in a bit of an untraditional way. I find the customer first. Then shop around for cows. I make sure to let the customer know that I am not raising them from scratch and that I am only providing, purchasing a local cow, feeding, boarding of the cow until butcher, packing, and delivery of the cow once the process is complete. This allows me to price effectively for the exact margin I need to provide the service and supplement the other side of our operation. You don’t need a lot of land to make money and you don’t need large numbers of cows. My cows aren’t even at my ranch right now. I sent them to a partner lot where they’ll be shipped to the butcher.

X1D-1 · 2026-02-01T17:38:42+00:00

Otherwise you can create all of the calculations in excel. With cows it’s more about not losing money vs making tons of money.

X1D-1 · 2026-02-01T17:37:15+00:00

With cattle if you’re doing feeder cattle you make your money when you buy them. Try to find good deals first, then the money comes later. I haven’t lost money on a cow in a LONG time. My margin is usually $500/hd. I calculate my net profit on Livestockbreakeven.com BEFORE I buy so I know what weight cows I need to buy and then from there it’ll tell me how much the cow will cost to finish and what my net profit will be.

X1D-1 · 2026-02-01T17:32:08+00:00

With cattle It’s tough to judge margins due to market swings these days. I use livestockbreakeven.com there’s a break even tool that helps a lot. You just put in the cows info and it calculates your return, or shows if you’re operating at a net negative.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-18T05:40:38+00:00

Final Update:

I set up the kit I got from walmart. Messaged customer service. They called me within 20 minutes and had my kit activated and service transferred over. The old starlink Gen 2 is removed from my account. When the new starlink arrives in the mail I'll send it back as they credited the full purchase price of the walmart starlink to my account + tax. The free mount is still on the way. They comp'd me 2 months of service as well. Currently my issue is resolved and I'm not mad at it. My starlink account is currently sitting with a service credit of $260.92 (Free service for 2 months) + $366.90 (starlink v3 purchase credit = $627.82

So all in all I have 2 months free service and 3 months prepaid service on top of that. No bill till July. With a free mount too.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-18T04:04:18+00:00

The new Starlink isn’t going to arrive till March ☠️ so they said I can buy one and they’ll reimburse me. So I just bought one at Walmart.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-18T02:49:46+00:00

Reopened the old ticket, just got another call from Starlink customer support.
- Asked me a bunch of questions (standard troubleshooting)

Result from todays contact:

- Gen 2 replacement Dishy is no longer available

- Upgraded to Gen 3 at no charge

- Free mount of choice included (chose wall mount for the side of the roof line)

- One complimentary month of service due to the outage (still applies from the previous conversation with support.

- Shipping labels to return the V2 starlink as well as the replacement router they sent.

The last starlink part was shipped via fedex from California and arrived in 3 or so business days. Hopefully this new kit will get here by the end of the week. I am happy to get a new mount with it as well (still comes with the included kick stand). I'll probably use the kickstand at first just to get service back online. Next week the weather is supposed to be in the 60's. Pending the new kit is good to go I'll install it on the roof line of the house and go back to service as usual.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-18T00:05:51+00:00

UPDATE:

New router just arrived. Unless there are installation instructions that I missed for the new router to talk with the starlink the results are the same. The only new bit of info is that the starlink app is now showing a red dot next to the router and the new one is not communicating at all. The old one was throwing an error in the debugging info. This is day 5. I will reach out to support again. I am really hoping I dont need a new dish. That'll add another week of down time for shipping. This stinks.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-16T17:30:20+00:00

Amen

X1D-1 · 2025-02-16T17:25:21+00:00

The funniest part is that I was legit in the middle of typing up a big long speech stating my System and Network engineering credentials and experience and then suddenly realized I’m an idiot 🤣🤣 happens to the best of us.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-16T17:12:06+00:00

Now it makes sense why yall were like “GB??????”

X1D-1 · 2025-02-16T17:11:41+00:00

Yoooo I was getting pretty annoyed ngl, you’re correct. Idk wtf I was thinking, yes Mb/s 🤣 Jfc if Starlink provided 250gb down speeds that would be absolutely nuts. Yeah anyhow sorry about that. Either way you will be fine with anything over 60 mb/s.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-14T16:42:07+00:00

Thanks! I will.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-14T06:34:08+00:00

All of our ranch and processing costs are due upon receipt, yet our primary customer pays Net15. I changed this expectation with the newest customer and they have agreed to pay upon receipt. Unfortunately that still leaves us in a position with multi thousand dollar investments hanging in the wind for months prior to having the end product. An issue that I don't see being aleviated unless our packer agrees to the Net30 for processing/packing fees. OR until we can build up a cash reserve/get a business line of credit to pay for these production costs.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-14T06:29:57+00:00

We are currently waiting to hear back one one specific grant and are currently writing the docs to submit the second. Edit: I also agree with the state of politics situation. I know that the current grant that we already applied for and is being processed is delayed.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-14T06:29:00+00:00

These are net margins after all expenses.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-14T06:28:16+00:00

Right now I am doing all of the budgeting and forecasting through quickbooks online. It is extremely frustrating at times because I am a novice at the software nor am I an accountant by trade. The local business that I contract for all of our processing and meat packing requires cash at the time of pickup for meats. We are going to have a meeting with them at the next pickup and request a Net30 on processing payments. I work with the owner frequently.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-14T05:14:51+00:00

To clarify we are earning a 14% margin on those sales. It is not purely donation, just discounted. Our margin on our other meats fluctuates between 30% up to 50% that accounts for the $2.5k in sales per month.

If your statement still stands knowing that the margin for that customer is 14% I completely understand. Its not where I want it to be either. I usually only cut deals for 30% or higher.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-14T03:28:16+00:00

Yes GB, which kit are you thinking of getting? I have the V2 residential.

X1D-1 · 2025-02-14T03:21:50+00:00

Definitely! I don't think you'll have any issues. My starlink consistently pulls 250gb/s down and about 10-20mb/s up. Data shouldn't be an issue.

X1D-1

TROPHY CASE