10/02/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CD97XcHZ5/
âIâLL JUST RAISE MY OWN COW BEFORE I PAY THAT.â
Okay.
Do it. đđ
And I donât even mean that ugly.
Actually, I think everybody ought to raise some of their own food at least once in their life.
Because I promise you, youâll never look at the price of food the same way again.
Go buy the cow.
Or better yet, start where we do.
Buy the breeding stock.
Maintain the mama cow all year.
Breed her.
Wait roughly nine months for that calf.
Pray she calves without trouble.
Then start raising the calf.
Now youâve got pasture to maintain.
Fence to build.
Fence to fix.
Fence to fix AGAIN because apparently cattle wake up some mornings and choose violence. đ
Youâve got hay.
Minerals.
Water.
Vet bills.
Vaccinations.
Equipment.
Fuel.
Tractors.
Trailers.
Land.
Taxes.
Insurance.
Repairs.
And about 147 other expenses nobody thinks about while theyâre standing at my freezer looking at the price written on a package of hamburger.
Then keep that animal growing.
Through summer.
Through winter.
Through drought.
Through storms.
Through whatever Mother Nature decides sheâs pi**ed off about this particular year.
And rememberâŠ
you donât get Saturdays off because youâre tired.
You donât get Christmas morning off.
You donât get to tell the cows youâre sick.
They donât care that you worked another job yesterday.
Theyâre hungry at 6:00 in the morning whether you feel like putting your boots on or not.
Then, after all that time and money, youâve still got processing.
And suddenly that pound of hamburger doesnât look quite so simple anymore.
Hereâs the thing, though.
I will NEVER be offended because somebody canât afford our beef.
There is a difference between âI canât afford thatâ and âit shouldnât cost that.â
I understand the first one.
Lord knows I understand watching every dollar.
Families are getting hammered at the grocery store too.
Iâve said it a hundred times:
Consumers arenât my enemy, and farmers arenât theirs.
Weâre standing on opposite ends of the same food system trying to figure out how in the hell weâre both supposed to afford it.
But donât stand in front of a farmer and tell them their product isnât worth what theyâre charging when youâve never raised the first cow.
Because that package isnât just beef.
Youâre paying for YEARS before it ever reaches that freezer.
Youâre paying for somebody being there when the calf hits the ground.
Youâre paying for grass and hay and minerals.
Youâre paying for the fence.
Youâre paying for the tractor that keeps breaking at precisely the worst possible time. đ
Youâre paying for somebody checking cattle when itâs 100 degrees outside and somebody checking them when itâs freezing.
Youâre paying for the nights we worry.
The mornings we get up anyway.
The animals we lose.
The equipment we repair.
The pasture we maintain.
And the thousands of little jobs nobody ever sees.
And after ALL of thatâŠ
the farmer still has to make enough money to be there to raise another one.
Thatâs the part I think weâve forgotten.
Food cannot sustainably cost less than it costs somebody to produce it.
Eventually somebody pays the difference.
And for a long time, that somebody has been the farmer.
So the next time somebody looks at farm-raised beef and says,
âHell, Iâll just raise my own cow.â
Iâll probably smile and tell them:
âI genuinely think you should.â
Raise her.
Feed her.
Fence her.
Doctor her.
Hay her.
Spend two years worrying about her.
Pay to process her.
And then come sit on the porch with me.
Iâll pour the coffee.
And we can have an entirely different conversation about what that pound of hamburger is worth. đâïžđâ€ïž
Know your farmer.
Know your food.
Know what it takes to produce it.
đșđž America Feeds America.
**shared from another farmHER**
