Record-keeping on the Ranch

Tricia went to Corpus Christi last weekend to visit her mom and she came back with something really neat in addition to the Mexican pastries (Pan Dulce) that she always brings back for us to enjoy.  It was a grocery bag full of memories from her Dad.  Tricia's Dad had a ranch out in Woodsboro, Texas and kept cows out there.  He really enjoyed his livestock and Tricia probably inherited her love for cows from him.

I went out to the ranch with him several times.  There were lots of mesquite trees on the property and a type of tree called Huisache that has thorns that will flat tear you up if you are not careful.  Huisache require constant maintenance to keep from over-taking the land - similar to the chicken tree (Chinese tallow tree) in our area.  The Garcia Ranch was very remote and was populated by deer, turkeys, wild hogs, and scorpions! 

Tricia pulled out some pictures from the plastic bag she brought back that contained many pictures of cows!  Tricia said it was always a running joke at her house growing up that her Dad would have more photos of his cows than of the family.  They would joke when Mr. Garcia pulled out his cow pictures, "Put those away.  If you've seen one cow, you've seen them all."  We started thumbing through some of the pictures in the stack that was rubber-banded together.  The front part of the package contained photos of the bulls.

We looked through the stack, but it contained more than photos.

Mr. Garcia was very detail oriented and his records of his livestock were meticulous.  His organization skills were first rate.  He didn't need Excel spreadsheets to keep records.

He had sections of note cards for each cow he ever owned.  The first part of each cow's section was a photo of the animal.

Behind the photo was a really neat record-keeping idea that we are going to use.  I wish we had learned about this method and started this earlier.  As shown below, each cow had a card with its name, color, tag #, birth date, who it was bought from and the price paid.

Furthermore (like genealogy for cows), it listed the cow's offspring, its sex, when born, who the sire was, color, when sold, weight, price per lb., total price, commission, and net price.

We like to keep good records, but our record-keeping is woefully inadequate compared to this.  We were amazed by the detail and what a good system it is and we are going to implement this tool on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  Not only was it neat to learn this, but it brought up good memories of Tricia's Dad.  I think if Mr. Garcia was alive today, he'd be proud of his daughter carrying on his tradition of being a cattleman (cattlewoman)!