Neighbors

"Beef or dairy? Red or black? Original breed color or color driven by customer demand? Put up your own hay or buy it?  Use a bull or AI?” These are some of the personal preferences addressed by four generations of the King family on their farms near Ava, Mo.

Looking at high land prices, rising operating costs and easier ways to make a living may make young people look another direction than farming when deciding their futures, even when their hearts are connected to the land.
Advice-givers who don’t understand that connection — and maybe even some who do — may support a choice in another profession. “It can’t be done,” they say to those seeking entry to agriculture.
But while others are preaching pessimism, Jack Miller offers encouragement.

"If you take a young horse and start it out right, with the right attitude, you’ll have a good horse the rest of your life,” explained Rita Schmidt of Shoal Creek Ranch in Mountain Home, Ark. “That’s what we do here with our horses,” she added.

The commercial turkey industry has undergone dramatic improvements in growth and feed efficiency since 1920s when U.S. turkey growers produced one turkey for every 29 people. Today, the National Turkey Federation indicates that the average American downs about 16.9 pounds of turkey – a near 108 percent increase since Norman T. Findahl III, (hereafter, Norman) began working as a poultry grower in the late 1970s.

"Gelbvieh calves are small, but grow very quickly. Gelbvieh cows are excellent mothers and are good milkers, too,” Brenda Shealy said. Brenda knows her breed, thanks to a second chance at a life on the farm.

A fourth generation dairy farmer, Mike Meier has been milking “forever.” Four years ago he was thinking of quitting. At that time, they were a confinement dairy. It took three men working all day to keep up. All the equipment used for feeding the cows was wearing out and too expensive to replace.

At the end of a long, winding road is happiness and fulfillment. At least for Dr. Dale and Diane Kunkel, owners of Kunkel Farms and a healthy herd of 200 mostly Red Angus momma cows in Newton County, Mo., it is.

When visiting a doctor’s office, it is not uncommon to hear about the importance of good nutrition — the value of vitamins or the merit of minerals — and a visit to the office of Doctor Shannah Cassatt is no exception. The only difference is that Shannah is a veterinarian. At the Country Care Clinic, balance is one of Shannah’s biggest concerns.

J.R. and Shirley Little, have a very pretty home, with a neatly manicured yard snuggled cozily in the middle of 306 acres of lush Bermuda grass pasture. Between their Decker Giants, a Rat Terriers breed that has become nearly extinct, and a busy cow-calf operation, Jim and his wife, Shirley have a lot to tell. Jim grew up on a farm down in Mena, Ark., down by the Washita River, his dad raised Hereford cattle, and Shirley was raised just outside Nashville, Tenn., on a farm. They also taught school, Jim was an agriculture teacher, and Shirley was a principle for an elementary school and then superintendent.

"I’ve waited four years to be here and if I don’t get the one I want today, I think I’ll just cry,” said Kriss Yunker of Flippin Ark., just before the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Mustang and burro sale held on Nov. 7 at the Cattlemen’s Livestock Auction in Harrison, Ark.