For Ranchers Who Want to Earn More Profits

Those in the ranching business or the business of raising sheep who want to earn more profits really need to shift their thinking about how they are doing what they are doing. The ability to profit at home on the farm or ranch is unhindered when the mind recognizes and becomes creative with the potential profit sources available.

Become Profit Focused Versus Production Focused

Many farmers and ranchers who are passionate about their land and their lifestyle find this comment hard to digest feeling that money should not trump sustainability and passion.

Yet it is precisely when we become production focused and lose profit focus that sustainability and passion suffer. Production is about producing quantity in order to make cash flow. Production on its own does not equate to profit.

Profit is about ensuring an enterprise is viable and workable on your ranch and therefore sustainable enough to uphold your passion. It's about knowing the cost of production and how much money is left at the end of the day. By being profit focused you will know if your enterprise can realize a profit and if it will work on the scale you are doing it at. And when it does your passion for it will thrive.

Eliminate Unnecessary Jobs

Is it really necessary to process a ruminant animals feed for them? Do the sheep really need to live in the barn? Do the cows really need to be held in the corrals all winter? Can the animals go to the feed versus taking the feed to the animals every day? Can I manage in a way that allows me to stop administering chemical de-wormers every year?

If you are doing too many unnecessary jobs for your livestock they are costing you more than you think. If you want to earn more profits eliminating unnecessary jobs is a good place to start.

While these types of changes may not take place overnight, discovering ways to eliminate practices that are not essential will save you in labour, equipment and time. It will be more difficult to shift your thinking about how you believe the animals should be tended to and how the chores should be done than to actually implement the changes.

Raise Animals That Fit Your Environment and Goal

This will go along way toward running an efficient operation and therefore aid in realizing a profit. When the animals do not fit the environment a lot of cost, time and effort will go into making adjustments for those animals.

Know Your Cost of Production

Know your cost of production and your gross margin for each enterprise in your ranching business. If you can't make a dollar on one animal you won't make a dollar on one hundred animals while running your operation in the same fashion.

If you have no idea of your cost of production you have no benchmark to help you determine what direction to go in. Your expenses will creep up and before you know it you have lost your hard earned profit.

By staying on top of your cost of production you will better manage your expenses and overheads and you will be in a position to keep a portion of the revenue you receive for your product. Your want to earn more profit will be realized.

Home | Top of page | About Us | Contact