09/30/2026
“I’LL JUST RAISE MY OWN COW BEFORE I PAY THAT.”
Okay.
Do it. 😂🐂
And I don’t 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, you’ll 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 you’ve got pasture to maintain.
Fence to build.
Fence to fix.
Fence to fix AGAIN because apparently cattle wake up some mornings and choose violence. 😂
You’ve got hay.
Minerals.
Water.
Vet bills.
Vaccinations.
Equipment.
Fuel.
Tractors.
Trailers.
Land.
Taxes.
Insurance.
Repairs.
And about 147 other expenses nobody thinks about while they’re 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 she’s pi**ed off about this particular year.
And remember…
you don’t get Saturdays off because you’re tired.
You don’t get Christmas morning off.
You don’t get to tell the cows you’re sick.
They don’t care that you worked another job yesterday.
They’re hungry at 6:00 in the morning whether you feel like putting your boots on or not.
Then, after all that time and money, you’ve still got processing.
And suddenly that pound of hamburger doesn’t look quite so simple anymore.
Here’s the thing, though.
I will NEVER be offended because somebody can’t afford our beef.
There is a difference between “I can’t afford that” and “it shouldn’t cost that.”
I understand the first one.
Lord knows I understand watching every dollar.
Families are getting hammered at the grocery store too.
I’ve said it a hundred times:
Consumers aren’t my enemy, and farmers aren’t theirs.
We’re standing on opposite ends of the same food system trying to figure out how in the hell we’re both supposed to afford it.
But don’t stand in front of a farmer and tell them their product isn’t worth what they’re charging when you’ve never raised the first cow.
Because that package isn’t just beef.
You’re paying for YEARS before it ever reaches that freezer.
You’re paying for somebody being there when the calf hits the ground.
You’re paying for grass and hay and minerals.
You’re paying for the fence.
You’re paying for the tractor that keeps breaking at precisely the worst possible time. 😂
You’re paying for somebody checking cattle when it’s 100 degrees outside and somebody checking them when it’s freezing.
You’re 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 that…
the farmer still has to make enough money to be there to raise another one.
That’s the part I think we’ve 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,
“Hell, I’ll just raise my own cow.”
I’ll probably smile and tell them:
“I genuinely think you should.”
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.
I’ll pour the coffee.
And we can have an entirely different conversation about what that pound of hamburger is worth. 😂☕️🐂❤️
Know your farmer.
Know your food.
Know what it takes to produce it.
🇺🇸 America Feeds America.
**shared from another farmHER**
