Somewhere early in their career development, many veterinarians develop a sense of responsibility to tell their cattle clients how they should be running their herds. I would like to think most of us eventually get over this tendency. However, it’s a common enough malady, and even though we may strive to overcome it, occasionally it is a tempting trap to fall into. 

Case in point, I had a client once with a mature bull that contracted a venereal infection of Campylobacter fetus, and as a result did not settle the majority of his cows. This syndrome is more commonly known as vibriosis or “vibrio.” From a medical and economic standpoint, I viewed this as a major problem. Vibrio is functionally very similar to the more well-known and prevalent syndrome trichomoniasis, or “trich.” 

The chief difference between the two is that vibrio is caused by a bacteria, and can therefore theoretically be treated with antibiotics; whereas trich is caused by a protozoan for which we really have no good treatments. Both syndromes tend to establish chronic infections, especially in mature bulls, and the risk of future catastrophic breeding failures was high even with treatment. As such, I strongly recommended against attempting to treat this bull and tried to convince my client he should cull him.

It turned out that my client did not want to cull this bull, the reason being that this bull was a favorite of his granddaughter’s. His granddaughter lived on the ranch with her parents, and he went to great lengths to involve her in the day-to-day operations and allow her to see how management decisions played out. 

I admired his devotion to family, but to me this seemed like a silly reason to take such a huge risk on the reproductive future of the herd. So, I persisted in trying to convince him not to treat this bull. It was at this point that he fixed me with a firm, icy stare and said, “Todd, I’m raising kids here, not cows.” 

The next generation

I tell this story to illustrate a point that may get lost in the day-to-day grind of trying to keep red ink off the ledgers: the chief export of the beef industry isn’t beef; it’s ranch kids. Raising high-quality beef is critical for the national food supply and to keep cash flowing for producers, but I would argue the most important thing the beef industry really produces is a new generation of young people with firsthand knowledge of the delicate connection our society has to the land, and how hard work and stewardship keep that connection intact. 

As the number of farmers and ranchers needed to feed society has dwindled, raising new generations of ranch kids has become even more critical. When the United States became a country, the majority of its people lived and worked on farms. By 1900, the proportion of U.S. citizens employed in agriculture was approximately 15%. By the end of World War II, it was down to approximately 5%. Currently, less than 1% of the U.S. population is employed in agriculture. The trends are similar in other developed countries as well. 

There are several factors that have contributed to this shift. While the beef industry is not immune to these factors, it does seem to be uniquely resistant to them. Vertical integration, mechanization and commodity economics have greatly decreased the number of people needed to produce crops, hogs, chickens and milk. However, believe it or not, the number of people needed to maintain the nation’s beef herd has stayed relatively stable. 

According to the U.S. Census of Agriculture, in 1940 roughly 550,000 farms in the United States kept cattle mainly for beef production. In the 2022 census, that number was closer to 650,000. Compare those numbers to dairy operations. In 1940 there were more than 4.6 million farms that kept cattle mainly for milk production; today there are less than 25,000. To be fair, the number and size of beef operations has fluctuated somewhat. 

For example, in 1900 the number of beef cattle operations was closer to 1.5 million, and the number of beef operations has come up and then back down since World War II. Nevertheless, these numbers indicate an interesting trend. Beef operations can persist when more traditional farming enterprises are forced either to consolidate or fold.

Much of this may be due to the fact that ranching is better suited to being a supplemental form of income than dairy farming and other similar operations. Most of my former beef clients had at least one source of income from off the ranch, and there is recent survey data showing that only a small minority of beef producers in the United States own cattle as a sole source of income. 

Kids and cows

One former client in particular comes to mind; he and his wife operated a busy plumbing business in a small town in southern Alberta. He called me out to preg-check one day in the fall when the wind was blowing (which is pretty much every day in Chinook country). My client’s sons and a couple of their friends were there helping process cows through the chutes. I got a real kick out of their youngest son who was tasked with applying the ivermectin pour-on to the backs of bred cows. 

I was standing next to him, and I made it clear that for the ivermectin to do its job, he needed to cover the entire back of the cow from head to tail. I also told him to err on the side of giving too much rather than not enough. I didn’t need to tell him twice; he made sure every pregnant cow that came through that chute got her proper allocation of ivermectin. The trouble was, he wasn’t quite tall enough to point the pour-on gun downwards towards the cows’ backs. This — combined with the wind ­— meant a lot of ivermectin ended up being shot over, instead of onto, the backs of the cows. My client, who was standing on the other side of the chute, got positively drenched in ivermectin. There are all kinds of things that ivermectin has been touted to cure, and if my client had any of them when he woke up that day, I doubt he had them when he went to bed.

For his part though, my client took it all in stride. He and his wife had spent a lot of years building up their plumbing business, and he had only recently been able to dedicate more of his time to ranching. I have met very few clients who have demonstrated the sincere desire to become better ranchers quite like my plumber friend, and I think sometimes he worried he wasn’t measuring up. 

But the whole time I was there, I kept hearing a voice in my head saying, “I’m raising kids here, not cows,” and I just smiled because I could see that he was doing just fine.

I’m fortunate to daily interact with many of the young people who are products of the beef industry. Despite what is often touted on social media, kids with an agricultural background form an outsized proportion of veterinary students, especially at land-grant schools like Kansas State University. I have friends who teach in other educational programs ranging from kindergarten to doctoral programs, and they tell me lots of horror stories about the malarkey they put up with from their students. 

Maybe I’m not paying close enough attention, but I just don’t seem to have the same problems with veterinary students — especially the ranch kids. Not all of them end up going back into beef practice, but I know they are a blessing to society wherever they end up.

So, for all you cattlemen striving to hone your craft and up your game, remember while beef may be what you sell, the most important thing you produce likely walks around on two legs. Whether your own kid or a hired hand, don’t lose sight of the fact that some of America’s finest members of the upcoming generation, were crafted by cattlemen.