The Pratts: One Marriage, Two Kids, Three Moves and the Cow Herd that Pays Their Way

Life isn’t always a direct line from A to B, and Jason and Paige Pratt found blessings abound in their journey. They detail the path that took them from the Appalachian foothills to the Kansas prairie and back again. They included lessons in generational transfer along the way. The couple shares what they expect from their cows, how they built their customer base and why they think it’s so important to get involved in organizations that will help them protect their way of life.  

HOSTS: Mark McCully and Miranda Reiman    

GUESTS: Jason and Paige Pratt and their family operate Pratt Cattle Co. near Akins, Va., with Jason’s parents C.W. and Shirley. When they married in 2011, they both brought cattle upbringings and advanced degrees in agriculture (Jason with his master's in ag business and Paige with her doctorate in animal breeding) to make their mark on the herd that had started as C.W.’s FFA project. They share responsibilities on the farm where their children Elizabeth and Garrett make up the next generation.  

Related reading:
Not Always Linear
https://www.angus.org/ajarticlepdf/0124-Pratt%20cattle.pdf

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Transcript

Miranda Reiman (00:00:03):

Welcome to the Angus Conversation. I'm your host Miranda Reiman with my co-host, Mark McCully. And Mark, I am calling you with my window open in my office. This signifies spring weather has come

Mark McCully (00:00:17):

And you can't see on my, I have a little bit of a red cast to my skin because I was out this afternoon and doing a little grass mowing and I got sunburnt today. That was kind of nice. I'm ready for it.

Miranda Reiman (00:00:31):

Amen. I had clothes on the line, window open. I see farmers doing some spring tillage around here, yet my husband also mowed the grass over the weekend here. So as much as we're enjoying the spring churn of seasons, we know that our producers out there are probably also enjoying it and also seeing probably the work that comes with that spring season.

Mark McCully (00:00:54):

Yeah, no, it is. We always say it's a busy time. It's always busy times. There's no slow times in agriculture or raising Angus cattle, but it is a bit of a, as a lot of the sales bull sales are kind of wrapping up, we're now starting. I actually just came back last night from Reno. We were out for the Western National. They had a great show out there and talking to a lot of the grownups, but the kids about the junior national and what's coming this summer, and man, it's like, well, it shouldn't be quite time for all of that yet, but it's definitely time for all of that. And kids are even starting to talk about wrapping up school, so we're starting to wind down.

Miranda Reiman (00:01:39):

Yeah, we are. And when you say wind down and yet I think in a lot of

Mark McCully (00:01:42):

Wind down, wind up, I don't know which way we're winding.

Miranda Reiman (00:01:45):

That's exactly right. And the conversations we have at the office that starts all those things that you're planning that seems so far away now they're here and we're having deadlines come up on us and it's exciting. I like it.

Mark McCully (00:01:58):

Yeah.

Miranda Reiman (00:01:59):

So today on the podcast, I'm excited to bring on some folks that I got to see in person on the ranch last June and wrote a story for the, I believe it went in the January Angus Journal of this year. But I guess for me it really stuck out because it was a different part of the world that I'm not in very often.

Mark McCully (00:02:18):

Jason and Paige Pratt from Virginia prior to my career at CAB I got to spend a little time down in that I lived in Virginia and got to travel in that part of the country. And again, to your point, it is a little different in terms of how they do some things in that part. There's some great cow country down there, some great cattlemen all through the, I always say that Shenandoah Valley down in just some beautiful country. And so we got to hear from Jason and Paige about what they're doing and their operation. They just came off a sale and so we got to hear a little about what their customers are doing, but I think it was their story that probably I thought was the most fun to hear tonight.

Miranda Reiman (00:03:01):

Yeah, I agree. Their story is just really interesting to hear how they got to where they're at today. Well, we're really excited about today's guests. They're actually guests that I have been to their farm in person and that was a fun experience. But we have Jason and Paige Pratt who both grew up as cattle kids, one in Virginia, one in Kansas, and I guess I'll let you guys tell your own story rather than try to give the entire backstory of that. But today would be at the helm at the Pratt Cattle Company. They're in Virginia, so welcome to the podcast.

Jason Pratt (00:03:38):

Well thank you Miranda. Well, we're Jason to Paige Pratt. We're kind of the managing partners of Pratt Cattle Company. We kind of located here in the Appalachian Mountains in the southwest Virginia and then a little town called Atkins. And this operation started in about 1950 was when my granddad, who was the youngest of 13 kids when he kind of got at age to go out on his own, there really wasn't any farm land left. His parents had passed away, so there really wasn't any farm left there at his home place. And so he moved into the Atkins area and started a kind of grade C dairy.

Mark McCully (00:04:21):

Did you say 13 kids?

Jason Pratt (00:04:23):

13 kids, yes. He was the youngest of 13.

Miranda Reiman (00:04:26):

If there was any farm land left, it would have to be gardens at that point, wouldn't it?

Jason Pratt (00:04:31):

That's right. He grew up in a little place called, well I should say it's a large valley named Ridge Valley, but in a small, there's a little place called the Ridge there in Chatham Hill and he grew up there and it's still there today and it's pretty steep and it's farmland that you wouldn't want to plow today. But back in the day they did do a lot of horse plowing and cultivating, so it's pretty steep terrain. We actually have a farm leased just right across the hill from it now, so it's kind of unique for us, but we're one mountain range to the south is where we're located at now. So when he left out itching to get out on his own, he moved over to the Atkins area and started a grade C dairy milked about somewhere his neighborhood, about eight to 12 cows and made his living actually doing more of the buy sell type deal.

(00:05:25):

He would basically trade cows and horses for the most part. So if he could get one sold at a premium, then he would buy back one at cheaper. And so that's kind of how he made his living. But my dad decided he didn't like to do in the trading business or the milking business. And so as an FFA project in 1964, he bought a heifer from Fred Davidson that heifer is kind of the start of our cow herd and just used a multiplier effect to kind of grow the cow herd into what it is today. So that kind started as just kind of a simple 4-H FFA project and it's kind turned into the cow herd that we operate today. And we use the BCIA bull test stations with Dr. Ike Eller back in the day and now Scott Greiner's running that as kind of our way of getting introduced to marketing our bulls and use the performance data there with that to prove our cow herd as well as to gain more knowledge as far as our cow herd there. So that's kind of how we got started there as far as with our cattle operation.

Mark McCully (00:06:31):

Jason, it's funny you talk about a 4-H project that got away from you and turned into a full cow herd. That was our story of our last podcast, Miranda, when we interviewed the Byrd family over in California, so coast to coast. These 4-H projects just keep turning into cow herd. So that's kind of fun.

Miranda Reiman (00:06:49):

And you're probably not the first people to tell us that a former dairy has turned to Angus herd either. So your dad's not alone in not wanting to milk cows either.

Mark McCully (00:06:59):

But Paige, now you're a Kansas girl. How did this Kansas girl meet this Virginia Boy?

Paige Pratt (00:07:04):

I am. I grew up on a commercial cow calf operation in Kansas. I was very blessed. My dad and brothers farm there. I guess the meeting of Jason and Paige actually took place at the Last Chance Saloon, which is kind of

Miranda Reiman (00:07:21):

Any of us that have been to Manhattan know exactly what you're talking about.

Paige Pratt (00:07:26):

You know where we were at, I actually was in Texas at the time, Jason was in Virginia. And we both came to Kansas State to campus for one week. And on St Patrick's Day I'd gone out to supper with my sister-in-laws. Jason had gone to supper with his classmates. He was working on his master's of agribusiness through an online program at K State, and it was just a by chance encounter that has led to a great blessing for both of us.

Miranda Reiman (00:07:56):

And I think the coolest part about that story is thinking about he was in an online master's program that only came to K State once or twice a year with that program, right, Jason?

Jason Pratt (00:08:07):

That's correct,

Miranda Reiman (00:08:08):

Yeah. And you were going to Texas Tech for, remind me, was it Animal breeding?

Paige Pratt (00:08:12):

Animal breeding PhD. And came up and worked with Dr. Dan Moser on some of my dissertation work and I had only come to campus one time for one week through that entire time.

Miranda Reiman (00:08:26):

Yeah, I think that's really cool. I think in that interview you called it a God thing and I was like, yeah, sounds like that was pretty well orchestrated timing. So I love that story

Paige Pratt (00:08:35):

Stacy would still call it a God thing.

Miranda Reiman (00:08:39):

And so tell me, so then that sparked a long-term relationship or a long distance relationship, obviously long-term too, hopefully, but long distance relationship.

Paige Pratt (00:08:50):

Yep. I guess we're going on 13 years of marriage this spring when we met, I finishing up my PhD and had all but defended. I moved to Virginia and actually taught one year at a small college before I was able to get a position at Virginia Tech as an extension specialist there. And we got married very quickly after, I guess after that. So in about 18 months worth of time, we were apparently on the fast track because we met, we got married, I moved to Virginia and we built a sale facility and held our first on the farm bull sale here. So it was a pretty quick path towards moving and shaking towards the goals of our life.

Miranda Reiman (00:09:39):

So you went right from the honeymoon phase to building a sale facility?

Paige Pratt (00:09:43):

Never even took the honeymoon.

Mark McCully (00:09:48):

That's also a common theme that we've heard on multiple podcasts or took a honeymoon trip to a cow sale that's frequent. That's common too.

Jason Pratt (00:09:58):

The sale facility the year we were dating.

Paige Pratt (00:10:01):

Oh, that's right, yes,

Jason Pratt (00:10:02):

And things, and actually we only, it took 14 months from the time we met to the time we got married. So we were on a pretty fast track with things, but it was kind of something both of us enjoy cattle and it's kind of our passion. It is probably in life and God's blessed us with what ability to run cattle and things. And so it was kind of just meant for us to, we worked pretty well as a team and so it's just a perfect fit for us.

Miranda Reiman (00:10:35):

So talk about your early time there then, and then what kind of happened in that next, I don't know, five to 10 year period? I guess

Jason Pratt (00:10:44):

I was going to K State and getting my master's in that process. I was working for Virginia Cooperative Extension and had an opportunity to kind come back and to farm full time and run cows full time. And so that's what I decided to do and that's kind of one of my goals in life was kind to be fulltime running cows. And so we did that and had several, we had a fall and a spring bull sale here along with selling some females if we weren't in a growing phase, we did rent land as we could. That worked out pretty well till about 2014 we had opportunity to move to Kansas and so we studied that for about a year. That opportunity came in about 2013 and we studied for a while and it was kind of a lot of logistics there of transporting cattle and equipment and things to Kansas.

(00:11:36):

And so we did that. We decided it was a good opportunity, decided it was worth, saw some expansion out there here in Appalachia Mountains, a lot of our pastures are very small, not a tremendous amount of room for expansion here. If you do expand, you do a lot of traveling in between pastures and crop, what little bit of crop fields we do have. And so we saw things in Kansas as being an opportunity we could probably expand and grow cow numbers and looked like a really just a good fit for us with things. And so we did that and partnered with some folks and we didn't actually have a production sale in Kansas, but we partnered with some folks that we sent our bulls to and marketed bulls a lot of different directions. A lot of those went into the south down into Texas and Oklahoma and things.

(00:12:25):

But that worked out pretty well for us. And around 2017 things kind of changed some of the opportunities we thought that we went to Kansas for, dried up and weren't quite as what we was hoping for. We looked around us as how could we expand in Kansas and we were just amazed at what the cow cost was there as far as trying to buy or rent land and things. And it was a lot more expensive there on a per head basis than it was in Virginia. And so we kept scratching around in the process. We had some opportunities that kind of did open back up in Virginia. I made a few phone calls to some folks that were looking at getting back out of the starting to retire, do some things, wanted to keep their land, but we were kind of looking to slow down and that kind of fit us pretty well.

(00:13:24):

And so we studied it again and we actually decided to make the move back to Virginia. That's kind of what we started at in 17. I had our sale, I guess again in 17, I guess that fall. We had a production sale here and kind of started back and doing the production sales both in the spring and the fall. And we were in a growing phase. We didn't sell many females at that point in time. We was able to kind of acquire just little bit little tracts of land here and there would come to allow us to do some expansion. And so we haven't sold a tremendous amount of females here just because we've had some opportunities to do some expanding and just seemed like things kind just fell right back into place to come right back into Virginia. So that's kind how we got moved from Virginia out to Kansas and then kind moved back to Virginia

Mark McCully (00:14:12):

Guys as you were going through that. I know, and I've read some articles on you guys talking about that transition. You had family members involved and what were some of the big lessons, and I guess as you think about folks in your similar situation, what advice do you have if a young couple that are wanting to get back and get started or again, you guys tried several different formulas and then found the piece that's working for you today, but what were some of the big learnings?

Jason Pratt (00:14:43):

Well, probably the biggest learning is probably for me, and I'll say that I had to kind of come around and readjust. My way of thinking is when you're young and you're coming out of college and you have a lot of goals and things that you want to accomplish, you're kind of full steam ahead and you put your ideas down on paper and what you want to achieve. And a lot of times I was guilty about that. I wouldn't give it time to come along. I would kind of push it along. And that's kind of hard to go from being the young generation that's pushing a lot of times to the older generation who's just wanting to keep things going at a slower pace. They've kind of learned that it's sometimes better to walk than trying to run through things really fast and you don't stumble quite as much in things.

(00:15:36):

And as a young person, that's a little harder to learn. As I get older, I'm probably like, well was I see why a lot of those folks were slower in their changing things and slower as far as just making differences, changes in their operations as far as making differences there with that. And so that was probably the biggest thing that I had to adjust. And I'll say that was probably something that I learned with the transitions that we've been involved in is you got to make sure everybody's on the same page and kind of get that plan in place. And sometimes you got to give and take. And a lot of times as a young person, we don't give a lot.

Mark McCully (00:16:16):

Well, you've got that education and you're ready to use it, right?

Jason Pratt (00:16:20):

That's right, that's right. And you hear that saying that the older you get, the more you realize that you don't know. And that is true. And as a young person you think, oh, I know it all and I've got this taken care of. And as you get older you're like, yep, I keep learning every day.

Miranda Reiman (00:16:36):

And Paige, you looked like you had something probably to add to that. I bet you learned some in that process too.

Paige Pratt (00:16:42):

I did. I did. I would say one of the things that we've learned over the years is sometimes if it's really hard or you feel like you're pushing it, then many times it probably isn't what's meant to be what's blessed by the Lord. And so I think as we've grown in our marriage and in our faith both, that's one thing that as things just fall into place and you've prayed on it and it just comes to fruition, you learn to trust that that's what the plan is and it's a bigger plan than what you maybe have ever envisioned. I think when we first started, where we're at today versus where we thought we would be or wanted to be, it looks different and that's okay It, it's better I think than what we maybe thought it could be. So I think that that's one of the things that we would sure encourage folks to do is as things come your way, use your faith and trust that the Lord has a plan for you.

(00:17:53):

The other thing I would say is sometimes as you go through farm transitions, we have been so blessed that today I have talked with my mother-in-law, father-in-law mom and dad. And even though we have been through this farm transition and we have moved a thousand miles with all of our cows and equipment and come back a thousand miles, we also have our families intact in our relationships intact. And it's probably a mother thing, every mother just wants everybody to get along and to love each other. And so I think that if I could offer advice as well to the younger and older generation alike, it's work hard on those relationships and don't let business get in the way, but at the same time understand that this is a business and there has to be business decisions made that maybe aren't a little tough on family, but realize that usually when business is good, family is good because business allows you to be able to grow together and find success together.

Miranda Reiman (00:19:09):

That's great.

Mark McCully (00:19:10):

Well, there's so much wisdom in that and we see it, right? We see sometimes in these transitions where you've got multiple generations coming in it, you see fractures in those families and it breaks everybody's heart. And I think to what you're saying is keep those relationships the priority and let good business be good business and follow a plan and things work out. And so yeah, that's just again, so much wisdom there guys. Thanks for sharing that.

Miranda Reiman (00:19:39):

Mark. I must also note that the fact that they're still in good relationships, both of you have lived in your mother-in-law's basement or mother-in-law's house at some point, right?

Mark McCully (00:19:49):

Impressive.

Miranda Reiman (00:19:50):

Yeah, that's right. I can't remember the number of houses that were in that short span of time, but I mean that right there is a testament that you worked on the relationship

Jason Pratt (00:20:03):

And it was for longer than one week.

Paige Pratt (00:20:05):

Yeah,

Miranda Reiman (00:20:06):

That's right. Now remind me on all of these moves where the kiddos came about.

Paige Pratt (00:20:12):

So we had Elizabeth when in August of 2013, so we moved December of 14, so she was a little one and I was pregnant with Garrett when we moved. So I can say it genuinely as you're pulling out of the driveway with the last truck and trailer with your little girl in your hand and your pregnant belly, it's pretty tough. It's pretty tough. But we were, like I said, we were very blessed. I think Garrett was born in May and 10 days after was born the forecast had rain in it for days and we took off for Virginia to bring Garrett back this way to see Jason's parents. To this day, my mom just left from our spring bull sale. My parents both come for our fall bull sale and my mom comes every time. I mean she just doesn't miss a click. And so we've just been so blessed and it hasn't, certainly by no means has it ever crossed my mind that it's just what we've done. Both parents, the Christmas that we moved to Kansas, Jason's parents showed up for Christmas with vests and the vests had Johnson Farms on them and they had embroidered vests with my family's ranch name on it. And my mom has given us gifts with Pratt Cattle Company on it. And so I think it's just really cool that even though we aren't exactly where one or the other always wanted us to be, they supported us in our dreams and what we wanted to do and that means the world to us.

Miranda Reiman (00:21:56):

So naturally I gravitate towards talking about the family side of it and the move, I guess that's probably the mother in me as well. But talk a little bit about you had customers maybe that changed as you moved from Kansas to back to Virginia and some of the cattle logistics I guess.

Jason Pratt (00:22:12):

Well, anytime that you make a change, you'll have customers that embrace those changes. You'll have other customers that may decide those changes weren't exactly for them. And so you may lose some of those customers. And we did have some of that. We had some customers that didn't necessarily embrace our changes, but we also had other customers that we found other customers that embraced those changes. And so we've actually, we've seen several customers that stayed with us, quite a few that's we had built up over the years through what my dad had cultivated. And then we've actually increased quite a few customers that are new customers that have embraced some of the changes that we've made and some of the things that we did. And so some of that's because we do a little better job with some of our advertising and some of our connections because when you do come back and you made a move and you marketed bulls different for when we went to Kansas, we marketed bulls different for three years, then we came back to Virginia and so started marketing, you got to go back at it pretty hard to get the confidence back in your local customer base here.

(00:23:21):

So we had to do some things different. We've found some things in advertising and actually our advertising is pretty simple now. Part of it was working with our regional manager and working with Angus Media. I mean that's pretty much our folks we work with in targeting our customers and things of that nature, our new potential customers. It was a little difficult and you didn't know exactly what to expect. With some of our resources, we were able to kind of capitalize with Angus Media. We were pretty fortunate that everything just pretty much fell in place and worked out

Mark McCully (00:23:55):

Of the cows moving from Virginia to Kansas back to Virginia. Do you have much fescue where you're at in Virginia?

Jason Pratt (00:24:02):

So we are, so here where we're at in the Appalachian Mountains, we're predominantly cool season grasses. But fescue is one of the prominent grasses here. We're actually high enough in elevation, we're right at 3000 feet in elevation here. And so we have a pretty good mixture of orchard grass, bluegrass, lots of clovers in with our fescue. So it kind of dilutes some of the challenges you have within the ... in fescue now you just go about an hour either to the east or an hour to the south or even to the west and you kind of drop in elevation about a thousand feet to 1500 feet. And they face more challenges with fescue. Their soils are not quite as rich as ours are, don't have quite as much top soil and so more clay-based type soils that get drier. And so cattle there face more challenges with fescue than we do here, but we still have to be very cautious with our cattle and make sure that they are able to do well on fescue.

(00:25:05):

And our forages are kind of completely different than the Midwest forages. That's one thing we find in Virginia. We can ship cattle to the west, we can ship cattle to the north and get along very well. We struggle a little bit sending cattle or bringing cattle back from the west or bringing cattle out of the north here. Those cattle we do better utilizing semen or embryos and getting cattle to adapt here if they're born here, it seems like they adapt very well, but we have a hard time bringing a mature animal back into this area and getting 'em to adapt very well.

Mark McCully (00:25:39):

And an old timer once tell me, you can move cows with the sun, don't move 'em against the sun, meaning you can go east to west, don't go west to east. And probably quite a bit of truth to that. Yeah,

Jason Pratt (00:25:49):

There is. There's quite a bit of truth to that and it's amazing the differences. My grass is really kind of almost a wet, very lush. It's not quite like the Midwest grass. I remember going out to Gardiner Angus Ranch when I was in college and doing my undergrad and you go out there and you look like there was really nothing much for, I mean I've never been around that much short grass in my life and those cows stayed very fleshy and those cattle come back here and they just seem like they just can't eat enough grass here to stay fleshy. Our grass just doesn't have the nutrient value that their grass does out in the west.

Miranda Reiman (00:26:31):

So talk a little bit about how your breeding program has changed or maybe what of your dad's generation breeding program you guys have kept and maybe now that you're partnered together, what's changed in that time period?

Jason Pratt (00:26:46):

My dad, one of the things that he did, he worked with Select Sires and Roy Wallace back when Roy was running Select Sires and things and participated in their young sire program and that was probably very beneficial for us. For one thing, we got to use a lot of the new sires coming along and I'll say probably very few of those sires truly, I mean maybe one out of five worked very well. A lot of times there was young sires that just didn't match up to what we expected 'em to do naturally. But what we learned in that was to take measurements, evaluate those cattle and the evaluation of the cattle probably helped us as much as anything. And so we learned quite a bit there. So we probably don't do as much testing of young sires anymore. We do more using, I would call more proven, maybe not all of 'em quite proven, but semi-proven bulls that we feel like have enough data behind them that we feel like they're going to come and it's going to be basically we're at least going to get a base hit. And so with young sires, it seems like there's several of those bulls you'll strike out on with our operation we can't afford to strike out, so we need cattle that basically are able to keep making those base hits and we don't necessarily have to always make the home run, but if we can keep making a base hit, we kind of keep moving forward. And so we've kind of dropped the young sire part of it and we're pretty much using some bulls that have some accuracy and data behind 'em now.

Paige Pratt (00:28:15):

But I would say I think the reason, I mean we still will use some young sires because they have that accuracy built in because of those genomically enhanced EPDs and that's a difference of when we first got started, they were, DNA was very, very fresh on the scene and I think when we were testing some bulls back then it was $75 to be able to get genomically enhanced EPDs. And so now we test every calf gets a DNA test. And so that's one thing I think that has certainly helped us is that improved accuracy and a piece that we believe in quite a bit is being able to utilize that information and then also select pedigrees and programs that match our goals and how we run cows because we don't have, this operation doesn't have any outside income coming into it. The cows have to pay for the land we purchase as well as the feed bill and tractors and equipment and we're not supplementing this, we run it as a business.

(00:29:25):

And so because of that it has allowed us to be able to, I guess really find cows that work, cows that breed back on time, cows that will go out and milk and do their job and then we utilize sires through artificial insemination and then we will clean up some cows with the purchased and also some home raised calves that we think will do really well. But those genomically enhanced EPDs have certainly been able to take off in our opinion. Kind of the bottom 25% has really that's the piece that's really come up and changed in our operation is looking at those bottom bulls. We were looking at a group of bulls this spring and just said, these aren't even our top bulls. They were kind of our lower tier of bulls and that's what our upper tier used to look like when we first got started. It's kind of fun to watch how those improved accuracies and selection really change over the years.

Mark McCully (00:30:30):

You guys are primarily fall calving herd or couple calving seasons?

Jason Pratt (00:30:37):

My dad was supposed to... spring in fall, he felt like it kept the cash flow going better, having two sales a year or two calf crops a year. And so we've actually done things a little bit differently. We're going to one calving season and so currently I would say we're probably getting pretty close to almost all fall calving, when he was calving a lot of cows in February January time period there and we actually instead of most time when you want to go to fall calving, you just leave the cows open and carry 'em over and breed 'em for the fall. We've actually done with the other way on the calendar and so we've bred 'em about a week to two weeks earlier every year. And so we've got the cows pretty much now we're calving in November with what used to be the spring calving herd and I will say putting that much pressure on reproduction, you can really find the cows that can get it done.

(00:31:33):

We probably didn't go into it with that goal to necessarily find those cows that way, but they showed themselves to us. And so that's been probably one of the funnest things that we've been able to gain from that is finding those cows that really are very fertile and are able to utilize our limited resources just like most commercial cattlemen. So we run our cows very similar to what our neighbors do and so when you limit the resources and try to get 'em bred a little quicker, you do find the cows that just has a little extra fertility compared to other cattle

Mark McCully (00:32:11):

A fall sale and a spring sale. You just wrapped up your spring bull sale, correct?

Jason Pratt (00:32:16):

That's correct. So our fall bull sale's on Black Friday, so while the women are out doing their shopping, the men or the cattlewomen can come and do their shopping here with us here on Black Friday. So that works out pretty well for us. It kind of cuts into Thanksgiving a little bit for us, but it is worked pretty well for us. A date that most people don't have selected as far as for cow sales, our cattle sales on their calendar and then the first Friday in April was kind of when we selected to do our bull sale and that Friday sales work pretty well for us. We do it two o'clock in the afternoon so folks that want to work in the morning, most of our bull customers are part-time farmers that run 30 to 50 cows for the most part. And so most of 'em work an off farm job and so they're able to kind of do that and come to the bull sale. And so it works out pretty well for us and that we kind of had that time to pretty much target customers at that time for a spring turnout. So basically when they're ready to kick those bulls out, that's kind what we targeted that sale.

Paige Pratt (00:33:22):

The last few years we've added the females into the fall sale. We didn't do that for a while just because we were building and growing numbers and we've been kind of to the point where we've been needing to go ahead and move some females. So the Black Friday sale always has the females in it and then the spring turnout sale is just the bulls. But API and Angus Media always help us get all of our marketing ready. That's something that Reese Tuckwiller has been really great working with us and helping us find different avenues to be able to improve our marketing and I guess as folks start to, young folks or middle-aged folks, as you start to go out on your own and market your bulls, that's something that Reese has been a great asset to us to work with. And I mean I had broken my leg one year and I'm the person who usually takes the pictures and does the video in and I don't even think we called him. I think he called us and said, Hey, can I help you out? And I guess that's something, we really appreciate his extra effort to helping us be successful.

Miranda Reiman (00:34:41):

I know this is going to sound a little bit like it's a brag on our own team, we appreciate that, but I saw how beautiful you guys' sale book this year was and so it took me tracking down a couple of to figure out which designer it was and Jenna said, oh, they just sent in the best photos and they're so easy to work with. So I guess it's kind of back at you is what I'm saying. Most of us doing this job appreciate

Paige Pratt (00:35:01):

 Thank you

Miranda Reiman (00:35:02):

Appreciate that too. But I guess when you talk about a broken leg ahead of a sale, that probably is an exclamation point just because I know how involved, I mean you guys don't have a lot of outside help, A lot of, you are running a lot of the operation, so you were a man down in a pretty slim staff.

Jason Pratt (00:35:21):

So we are pretty slim staffed. It is pretty much all this is pretty much a family operation and some of those may not be necessarily all blood, but they're family friends that pretty much they become family and so it's a limited staff but pretty much this is, I would call it almost, it's a one man show for the most part and then everybody else kind of fills in where they can. This past year my niece has kind of come on board and helped us with the feeding of the bulls and things. So it's kind of where it's at right now. So labor here is very limited and very, we're challenged to get labor that's interested in working as the hours that's required in agriculture in general. And also we have a very competitive pay with the job opportunities here and things. And so we actually probably have more job opportunities for people here than we actually have people that are available. And so it kind of makes it a little limited for folks as far as for agriculture jobs. And so we rely pretty much on family for the most part with our labor force and our kids are now starting to get old enough to start chipping in too as well.

Paige Pratt (00:36:42):

That's one unique thing that I guess we do here is we're pretty labor intense, especially on the bull side of things. We feed bulls all but two weeks out of the year we wait about two weeks. We're right in the middle of that. It's really nice. But we feed bulls by hand out of buckets twice a day and we usually have 60, sometimes 65 bulls that we're developing. But our customers, they really enjoy docile cattle. My 8-year-old was out feeding tonight with me. I mean he weighs 85 pounds and the buckets 27 and he is shimmying up to the bunk helping me feed the few bulls we do have yet to deliver. And so when you have a little fella and our daughter is 10, she helps us feed as well. So that's one unique piece is the bulls are usually gentle and you'll look at our videos and our son is usually the one walking behind the bulls and helping us video. And so I guess that's something that's a little bit different. Most people would call us crazy for that because it is a lot of labor, but it's something that's allowed us set ourselves I guess apart and different and allows us to be able to market some bulls to folks who genuinely appreciate an animal that's easy to handle.

Miranda Reiman (00:38:11):

So maybe instead of marketing it as help wanted, you should have it be CrossFit for country kids or something and you might get people to pay you to come feed the bulls.

Jason Pratt (00:38:22):

I'm going to tell you in the fall, in the fall we have both our, well with the bulls we sell in the fall and spring here, and so it gets a little congested here and so we'll have about 120 to 130 bulls on feed and you start handling that much feed per day in a five gallon bucket on the back of a, and we use a side-by-side to haul that out to the feedbunks and things and it gets a little bit and we feed twice a day too. So we kind of found that to be our best way to get cattle developed or the bulls developed the way we want 'em to do as far as being grown slow and trying to shoot for about three pounds a day. And so when you start kind of hauling that much feed out to those bulls at five gallon buckets, it's quite a workout

Miranda Reiman (00:39:09):

Here you thought you were getting rid of dairy farmer hours. That's what I was saying. Not really, jokes on you grandpa.

Mark McCully (00:39:17):

Maybe talk about your bull buyer, your commercial bull buyer that was at your sale here last week. Talk about, you talk about disposition and the importance of that. They're probably buying, you mentioned probably buying one bull a year or one bull every few years. So talk about what their priorities are and the kind of bull that you need to build for that demand.

Jason Pratt (00:39:42):

So being where we're located, we need a little different bull than the majority of Angus breeders here. Basically in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. Those five states market cattle just a little different than most of the country. Either cattle are sold one at a time or they go a lot of times through feeder calf sales where they're evaluated. We give 'em a frame score and so that's a small medium, large, then give 'em a muscle score of ones or twos and that. And so when those cattle get divided up into the categories, then we also divide on weight. So there's kind of about three different evaluations that they go through there. We find that most of our customers want to make sure that they don't get any cattle in the short pens. And so a lot of our customers who are primarily, their biggest goal is to sell the feeder calves and then that's the primary goal.

(00:40:39):

And so a five frame bull around here is very hard for us to market. And I hear a lot of folks in the western part say they need a more moderate frame bull to survive in their area as far as for their forages they have for us here, we need more of a six and a half frame bull. That's kind of our bull that we're able to market very well. We also want to keep calving ease in check. There don't necessarily have to be the real super calving ease, the heifer bulls, they used to be, we need a good mixture of both heifer and cow bulls, but as long as we stay primarily under three pounds or under we and keep the calving ease direct high or towards that eight, we get along very well marketing those bulls. And then our folks, they do sell 'em by the pounds, so most of 'em focus on weaning and year, that's when most of these calves are marketed.

(00:41:36):

We have a handful of customers that still focus or retain ownership on those cattle and market them on the grid and so they'll actually retain 'em, feed 'em, and most time it's in Kansas or Nebraska. So with those folks we still focus on carcass ourselves. I still think that one day down the road, no matter whether you're retaining ownership or if you're just marketing your feeder calves, we're going to have enough data and ways to track cattle that we're going to pay you based on how those cattle perform as far as on the grid and on the rail I should say. And so I do think it's important that we keep the marbling and keep the ribeye size and the carcass weights in check on our cattle as well as trying to make 'em being calving ease and having quite a bit of growth. So just kind of having that well-rounded all round bull is kind of our target. That's what we focus on is trying to have it all, but it's a little difficult to do that, but that's what we focus trying to have everything.

Mark McCully (00:42:39):

The graded feeder calf sales are a very unique part I think of your customer base, isn't it? And board sales and things like that. Those are again very, they've been going along.

Miranda Reiman (00:42:50):

I had never heard of 'em before until I started working for Certified Angus Beef and I was like, that's a whole 'nother world over there. Over there. I say I had never heard of 'em. Yeah,

Jason Pratt (00:43:02):

It's very different because most of our customers are small and so it's very tough for 'em to make a tractor trailer load lot of cattle by themselves. And so what happened years ago and was is they tried to commingle cattle put together trying to get close to that 50,000 pounds or make it to where a customer could buy those cattle and put three or four different groups together to make a tractor trailer load. And so it was just a way to increase revenue for producers. And that's what all of us in this business are trying to do is find ways that our customers can basically increase revenue. And so things have changed a little bit here. It's not quite like it used to be. We're actually doing some commingle sales that are where the cattle get, they're actually commingled prior to the cattle actually being sold.

(00:43:53):

And there's several groups in Virginia now that they wean those cattle together, they feed 'em together and then they'll market those cattle in several different tractor trailer load lots. And that's worked very well for those customers. And so it's not quite the bring 'em into the sale barn and do the sorting. And so we're starting to see more of that happen, but it's just any way that you can go out there and just increase the revenue for these customers and try to attract the people to buy those calves and you're not just selling 'em one calf at a time, you're trying to sell 'em groups of calves at a time.

Miranda Reiman (00:44:28):

One thing I noticed when I was at your guys' place, in fact I think Jason, when I called you first and said I was going to come up for an interview, the first thing you said was, now know that we're like a commercial... I think you specifically were mentioning that you run like a commercial producer, but I think you guys have a lot of that heart for the commercial producer because you do think a lot like a commercial producer even in the way that I think you guys are analyzing some of your, how you run your cows. I mean I guess you mentioned that cow cost and Mark and I have talked about that before, that not everybody knows their cow cost to run in a certain place and those kind of things. Where did a lot of that come from? Was that something you learned from past generations? Was that training you got in college or just the way that you think about things?

Jason Pratt (00:45:15):

When you want to do this full time, you pretty much have to figure out how to make it work and especially if you don't have any money outside the farm to basically lean on, you have to make sure that you are able to basically pay the bills and have a little bit of money left to put the food on the table as well and things. And so that was just kind of things that we've learned. Extension was probably a good resource with that trying to use at that time our extension had had farm business management side of it. And so I really kind like that. I have an animal science degree, but I'm probably more of an ag econ person than I am animal science as far as what my interests are. I really look at and weigh a lot of options and also if you want to purchase land, you have to try to figure out, especially if you just can't go pull it out of a savings the counter or sell something else to buy that land, you've got to figure out how to get those cows to pay for it.

(00:46:16):

And your banks are now requiring it more. I mean it's not quite as easy to go a loan. You got to be able to prove to 'em that you can pay it back. And so that's where I got a lot of that thought process from. And I had some good mentors that I've utilized in the past that's showed me that and gave me some lessons on what I needed to look for and things. And I think when you called and I told you, I said, now I just want you to understand that there's not any board fence or the whiteboard fence around here and things because when you pull into our driveway, we pretty much look just like a commercial cow operation because our cows have run very similar and things. We just have the pedigree and some data as far as what our cows have done. That's the only difference between them and a commercial cow.

Paige Pratt (00:47:07):

I think one of the things that makes us unique there is we don't make an single excuse for a cow if she doesn't. I think it ties into that commercial cow feel. Yeah, we've moved our cow herd a week to two weeks ahead for our spring, but I think our calving interval on the dams of the bulls 356 days on average. And so that's a piece of it too, is you could have the biggest calf in the weaning pen and it really, and our top selling bull, and it really doesn't matter if you don't breed back on time. And so that's something that's a little bit different than I think that we believe in. The other thing is we have old cows at our place and old cows really aren't sexy. I don't know if you know that or not. They usually don't give you the best EPDs and they aren't the latest and greatest sire because they're maybe 12 or 14 years old, but those old cows pay the bills, those old cows make money and those old cows allow us to be able to make bulls that we hope will in turn make females that last a long time in our commercial cowmans operation.

(00:48:27):

And so the only other thing I would say that maybe makes us a little unique is as we look at the data and we look at the cows and they have to calve, the other thing that we had to work pretty hard on in the beginning of our marriage was the idea that we are going to look at these cows seven days a week and I really don't like ugly ones. And so when we first started dating, we would go through the sire list and I mean Jason would find the pedigrees and the EPDs that would work and then I would look at the pictures and we would negotiate pretty hard and we would take a pretty long list and it would be pretty slim by the end of both of us picking it apart. But that process has become a lot easier as we both I think have agreed on the type of cattle that we want to raise, the type of cattle we think will be successful in that feeder calf pen for our customers and cattle that have some middle and some muscle and some things that we both kind of like.

(00:49:36):

So we're asking those cows to do quite a bit, quite frankly. And I think we're really, sometimes you don't get to turn generations as quickly and your EPDs aren't as high when you run cows like that. But I also think, I guess it's worked from us from the ability of being able to remain in business and be profitable so we can hopefully pass this on to that eight and 10-year-old if they want to be engaged later on and run this place.

Miranda Reiman (00:50:11):

I think that another thing that we talked quite a bit about was even the time period in which you grew up in agriculture probably shaped a little bit when you were kids of 1980s. So that's kind of learning to counter to do all your figuring probably was taught early on as you guys were watching your parents kind of keep it together through that.

Jason Pratt (00:50:34):

I think both of our parents, they started out just kind of very similar to us. We probably had a better start than they did for sure, but I remember Paige's parents talking about it and my parents for sure, I remember, I think the first pickup truck we had was in 87 that I can remember. We've had an old rundown, just old truck that you probably wouldn't want to take it very far. You was afraid it might fall apart. But other than that we had two cars and things. So it was very, very modest the way they grew up. And so they was watching pennies. And so I think our parents instilled with us to be good money managers I should say, and to watch our pennies and try to take those pennies and get as much as you could out of them and stretch 'em as far as you can and things.

(00:51:19):

And so that was probably where we learned that. And I even go back to part my grandparents, I remember my grandparents, they were pretty much tight as a bark on a tree. They didn't spend a penny hardly on anything. And I look around here and that was probably something right in the area we live in. A lot of folks who were farm families, it was all pretty much small farms, might be 50 acres, but they all grew a little bit of tobacco back in the day and that was kind of their cash crop that they used to buy a lot of their goods and things they had with their farms. We rented a farm not too long ago and I was amazed there was no gates on the place other than the, as far as bulk gates, as far as pipe gates that you see around pretty much everywhere except for there was two on the entrance of the farm and the rest of 'em were either pallets or wooden gates that the gentleman had made.

(00:52:12):

And so I was kind of amazed he used every little bit of resource that he had as far as with that, but very little of it was bought that you see a lot of times today we buy tubs and working chutes and things of that nature, but all his was pretty much hand stuff that he had built out of lumber and things of that nature. And it was all pretty much the resources he had from his operation there. And it was kind of amazing to see some of the things that maybe something came on a pallet and he used the pallet for different things in his barn and it was just pretty amazing to see how those folks utilized every bit of resources they had.

Paige Pratt (00:52:47):

When I was growing up, we were the kids of the eighties and I remember you got one pair of Payless shoes per year and if you took it out to the mud puddle, you were at the sink washing it hoping to get it dry before you went to school the next day. And I remember about the first pair of Nikes I got as a sixth grader playing basketball. It was a pretty special time and reward to be able to get from my parents. But I think that certainly our ability to live below our means and find contentment with being here and being together and with our family is something that was very much a blessing from both of our parents that they gave us was the idea that you didn't have to go out and do things or buy things in order to find happiness. And so I guess that's probably one of the things that keeps us going the same direction together is that shared commonality of how we want to live and what we want to make our priorities be. And I think we both have parents to thank for that. We watched them live that life themselves and find a lot of success and happiness by simply living below their means and also being very content and happy with that.

Mark McCully (00:54:16):

Sounds like influence of a saver generation in there too, I'm guessing. I mean, I grew up, I assumed you always washed out tinfoil. That's just you multiple, multiple, multiple times. I don't know. We probably bought one roll of tinfoil a year and we just rinsed it until it finally I guess disintegrated. I don't know, but but I can't help but think your commercial customer sees that too and would appreciate that and appreciate the fact that hey, these cows are making an earning. They've got to make their way, which means they're going to produce genetics that come into their herds and make their way and don't need to be subsidized and keep 'em in business, which I'm sure that's what they're looking for.

Miranda Reiman (00:55:01):

One other thing that I wanted to touch on tonight before we wrap up and things. I know that you guys have been fairly involved in your state organization and I think in Farm Bureau as well. Is that right? Or some other organizations? Talk a little bit about why you feel it's important to be involved in those organizations outside of your farm and ranch right there.

Jason Pratt (00:55:24):

Well, we have been involved with everything from our local cattle and organizations all the way to the state organization. And we think it is important to be involved. If you're not involved, it is pretty hard to keep things moving forward. There's been somebody that came before you to get these organizations going and get 'em representing you as far as cattle producers, and let's just face it as cattle producers, we are very small minority of people nowadays. And so very few people have the privilege of being from the farm background that we have. And so as people are making decisions for us in our state capitals as well as on a national level, we have to have a voice and be part of that. And so that's part of the reason that we have joined our countless groups to Farm Bureau to the Agribusiness Council being part of them.

(00:56:23):

It's important that we have a voice out there kind of making sure everybody understands that we are raising cattle that are going to eventually be on somebody's plate and it's a nutritious source to get a good protein. And so it is a delicious protein as well. But it's important that we share with them our story of what we do and that we're not here harming the environment, that actually what we're doing is a great way to make sure our land stays productive and we don't let it grow up. And because in our area, if you leave land fallow and don't use it for the year of grazing, it'll pretty much just turn into trees and things. And so by using these cattle, it helps us to graze and keep the open, actually the beauty of our land as far as when you go up and look down from the scenic outlooks and things, if it was all trees, there wouldn't be quite as much to look at there and things. So by having those open pastures, but it's important we make sure people understand that when we're out there on a tractor in the road, we're not just trying to slow down traffic, we're actually going and making feed or delivering feed to cattle and are planting crops. And so there's reasons we're out there and have 'em understand what we're giving back to the community as well. So

Paige Pratt (00:57:46):

I think that the policy side is really something that Jason and I are both passionate about. I don't know, as you look and study in the United States, we've seen mining and we've seen manufacturing go to other countries. I mean, we had trucks sit on lots with no chips. When we had COVID, we had some empty grocery shelves. I don't know that you could get a laptop or a cell phone without another country pretty engaged in the process. And here in Virginia, we ship logs to China, they make it into furniture, and we ship it back cheaper than we can make it here in the U.S. And so I think one of the things that even if you don't agree a hundred percent of the time with whatever organization is there representing you, if you can agree 95% of the time, that's a lot more likely to cover your interests than all the other organizations, maybe even combined.

(00:58:47):

And so we feel like maybe if we don't agree all the time, but we agree 95% of the time, then we need to support those organizations that are representing us because this generation that is coming on has never known their furniture to come from the United States. It's never known the vehicles are being imported. And I'm afraid that they'll be okay with their food being imported also. And I think from a national security standpoint, if we don't produce our own food, we won't need a terrorist attack. They'll just sit at the port and shut us down. We will starve. And so I hope that as folks decide whether they're going to stay at home or whether they're going to get up really early and work really hard to try to be able to make it to things that matter to all of us, hopefully we can go out there with a unified voice rather than split voices to be able to have policy that allows us to keep food produced and raised here in America, America for our citizens with the same idea in mind in regards to environmental regulations, lot labor regulations. If we don't expect another country to abide by the same rules that we do, then all we do is put ourselves out of business.

Mark McCully (01:00:13):

Well said. And I applaud you both for your leadership and your involvement. And man, I love your rule of thumb there, 95%. If you could agree with 95%, to me, what a smart way to go about this. I think too many times we get so wrapped around the 2% or the 5% that we don't agree on, and then we throw rocks at each other. But I think your rule of thumb is a really smart one. And I think it's one I'd love to see maybe more of our industry adopt of, Hey, if we can align on 95%, let's unify a little better. Because I think all of those things you just outlined very, very well are so critical and things we've got to be unified and have a unified voice on. So I applaud your involvement, but I applaud your approach and I bet our listeners will too.

Miranda Reiman (01:01:05):

Is there anything that we haven't asked you about that you guys were hoping we'd touch on? They're trying to read each other's minds right now in case you're wondering.

Mark McCully (01:01:13):

They're like, do we go there? Do we ask for this

Miranda Reiman (01:01:14):

Baseball signals or, yeah, that's right. Well, we always end on a random question of the week, so if you're ready for the random question of the week,

Paige Pratt (01:01:24):

We're ready, let's hear it.

Miranda Reiman (01:01:26):

I want to know, in all of your moves when you were unpacking boxes, what were the first things that had to get unpacked? What were the things you couldn't wait to? I'm guessing you've got different things.

Jason Pratt (01:01:39):

Well, that could be very interesting because I think there's still some boxes over here in the garage right behind us that were packed up and we moved to Kansas and we didn't unpack 'em in Kansas, and we still have not unpacked 'em since we gotten back to Virginia. So they've been there for almost 10 years now. So it is kind of amazing how much stuff, but we as Americans kind of accumulate that we really don't need. And so we probably have some things in our garage that we don't need and we probably need to go through and take time to sort through it and get rid of. But it is kind of amazing. But probably for the two of us, I would say it's amazing really. If you have your cell phone, your wallet, and probably your laptop computer, you can pretty well get everything else done because the rest of it you can find very easily. But those are the three things that are very critical to kind of keep going in today's society. For

Miranda Reiman (01:02:36):

Sure. Same things, Paige? Yeah,

Paige Pratt (01:02:40):

Jason's aired all of our dirty laundry out for everyone.

Miranda Reiman (01:02:43):

It's okay. I had the exact same thing when we moved from South Dakota. We got married while we were still in college, and so I had been living in a trailer house. Mark had been living in an apartment, we lived in a rental house. And when we moved to Kansas right out of college, he said, I used to be able to move every single thing I owned in the back of my pickup everywhere I went. And then we got married and it took a U-Haul, a pickup, a van and a car, and by the time we moved here, it took a semi trailer to move us all here. And we've still got stuff that moved from South Dakota to Kansas too, it'll be a time capsule, right? When I finally get to opening it up, it'll be a time capsule.

Jason Pratt (01:03:22):

You open this box, you're like, why did I even have that?

Miranda Reiman (01:03:26):

It'll probably be animal science notes or something, right? And binders, right?

Paige Pratt (01:03:30):

Yes, that's right. Yes. We actually did move, it's pretty funny that you say a semi-trailer because we did have boxes in the jail of the semi trailer for a couple of those. It moves back and forth to Kansas, but I would simply add coffee pot to that list. Jason's not a coffee drinker, but if I have my laptop, my and cell phone and a coffee pot, I'm in pretty darn good shape.

Mark McCully (01:03:56):

That's a good addition. That is a good addition. That's an essential. Yeah,

Paige Pratt (01:04:00):

It's an essential.

Miranda Reiman (01:04:02):

I like it. Well

Paige Pratt (01:04:03):

Just need a mountain dew, but I need a coffee pot.

Miranda Reiman (01:04:06):

Well, I assume that there you guys are kind of where you feel like you're meant to be for a while and probably not planning more moves that you have to have that out at the ready. But I was just curious what you'd consider your essentials.

Jason Pratt (01:04:21):

I'm not for sure. I think we moved enough times. I'm not sure we'll move anymore, but it seemed like each time you move, you're like, man, we just keep getting more and more stuff around here. We've been very blessed with the moves. A lot of those presented opportunities that we probably never imagined, and some of those opportunities we thought we were going to get weren't necessarily the opportunities that we were able to capitalize on. And so it's been unique and I think looking back on it now, you question why things kind of happened the way they did. You think what? I don't know why, if we had to go through all that, but when you sat down and kind of looked back over it, they were all good learning experiences and things. We were able to gain quite a bit and led the opportunities that we hadn't have made that move or done that took advantage of that opportunity. We wouldn't have got the blessings that we've received. So it's been very good for us.

Miranda Reiman (01:05:15):

Well, that's been great having you guys on. I know that the listeners are going to enjoy this one and hopefully learn a lot from you guys too. You probably have kids to get to bed yet at this point.

Jason Pratt (01:05:26):

That's right. That's right. We've got two little ones to grab. We didn't leave 'em here close. They have a hard time sitting down. They're very active, so we got to run back with my parents, just ride up the road and grab them.

Miranda Reiman (01:05:40):

We have 4-H presentations to finish up yet tonight, so we've got somebody giving a presentation tomorrow on how to care for a bucket calf. So that's next thing on my agenda. So we will let you guys go and get the kids, and I'll get back to my kids here. And I guess Mark, you can go watch a basketball or baseball game

Mark McCully (01:05:58):

Yeah, I'm empty nester, so I'm not sure what I can Yeah, I'll get into email

Miranda Reiman (01:06:02):

That's right.

Mark McCully (01:06:03):

Well, we appreciate you guys coming on tonight and sharing your path and sharing your story. I know to me it is really, I can't help but think there's listeners that are maybe in the same shoes that you were or get a lot of inspiration from your journey and your faith, and we appreciate you sharing that with us tonight and all the things that you're doing down in Virginia. I love that country. I think it's beautiful country and it's a bit unique, and I appreciate you sharing some of that uniqueness of your customers and the cattle that you run down there. It's been a lot of fun and hope you enjoyed it too. And maybe as always say, I hope you'll come back on another time and we will get an update of what's going on down in Virginia.

Jason Pratt (01:06:48):

You bet. Well, we greatly appreciate the invite and we've had a good time discussing, kind of telling you what all we have done and what we're doing with our operation, and so we've really enjoyed it.

Speaker 5 (01:06:59):

I'm happy to report those 4-H presentations got done and all the kids made it to bed. If you feel like there's a lot flying by in this busy spring season, you're not alone. I'd encourage you to go subscribe to the AJ Daily where you'll get a daily dose of the top ag headlines and all the important news in the Angus breed. Visit angusjournal.net to learn more. Of course, you can always catch us here on the podcast to get your Angus news on the go. Until next time, this has been the Angus Conversation, an Angus Journal podcast.