Michael Hancock
In Town: Michael is a locomotive engineer and conductor with Burlington Northern Santa Fe. He’s been with BNSF for seven years, come January. “I’m on call a lot, and they call late at night, anytime. That’s sure made my life go by fast in the last seven years,” Michael smiled. Depending on what position Michael’s called in for, he’ll either be running the train as the locomotive engineer, responsible for the train’s engine, or he’ll be serving as the conductor, who’s responsible for the rest of the train.
In the Country: Michael was raised on a dairy farm in Greene County. He has stayed active with the farm, and he also raises replacement dairy heifers. “Since the markets are down, I’ve been sitting on what I have. The market falling has been an opportunity for me, though, to try something new. I used to buy the calves small, just off the bottle, and feed them out to a four to 500 weight. I’m going to feed them to a larger weight, and try to sell them larger or as bred heifers. That will, though, take more land. Right now we farm a total of 700 acres.”
Family: Mother, Laurie; brother (who also farms) Matthew; his wife Taryn; their two girls Emma and Alyssa; older sister Kim; her husband Isaac; their two boys Pierson and Rigby, and younger sister Becky, who lives in Joplin.
How have the dairy markets affected you?
“The prices (for replacement dairy heifers) started to drop about a year ago, along with the rest of the economy. If you had to sell your calves since then, you probably would have lost money. Fortunately, since I have a job in town, I was able to sit on them and wait to at least try to break even, or make money down the road when I sell them.”
What's in the future?
“Hopefully we’ll start to see better prices. On my end, I hope to continue to do the heifer deal. I’d like to see us get diversified, do more hay and crops… because with the dairy, right now, there’s nothing coming in. We were fortunate to be able to sell some hay this year, to help. Maybe in the future we’ll just go to beef cows. They’d do real well on the feed we put up.”
By OFN Staff
