SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi there, I'm Molly. And I'm Jamie. We're the owners of Higher Ham Software. And this is season six of our From the Pasture podcast. For more than 15 years, we've been helping breeders promote their pedigree livestock with our easy-to-use, animal management-driven website software. Each week, we bring you stories from the pasture, breeding philosophies, ranch traditions, cattle knowledge, and conversation with folks using Hired Hand to power their livestock marketing. So settle in for today's episode of From the Pasture with Hired Hand. Welcome back. Today we're having a conversation that I've been looking forward to for a while. If you're into hunting at all, you probably already know today's guest. Cody Robbins is the host of Live to Hunt, which has been on the outdoor channel for almost 13 seasons. He's filmed some of the biggest mule deer and whitetail ever captured on camera, including a potential world record archery mule deer. But what a lot of people don't know is that Cody is also a cattle rancher in central Saskatchewan, Canada. And over the last several years, he and his wife Kelsey have been building a Texas longhorn breeding program called Rafter 7. So today we're going to talk to Cody about all of it, what it's like raising longhorns in Canada, the logistics of getting U.S. genetics across the border, what hunting and breeding cattle have in common, and how Cody and Kelsey are building something from the ground up in a part of the world where Texas longhorns are still pretty rare. Plus, we're going to play a fun game, so be sure to stick around for that. So, Cody, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Thank you so much for having me, Molly. I'm really excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Thank you for joining us. We're we're really excited about this one. So obviously, anyone that hasn't been living under a rock for the past few years probably knows you for Live to Hunt. Uh, for those that have not seen the show for some reason, um, you know, tell us a little bit about yourself and, you know, how you ended up um in Saskatchewan on a hunting show on the outdoor channel, and then we'll jump into the bits about the Longhorn.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, for sure. So my my wife, Kelsey, and I have had a hunting television show on Outdoor Channel, as you said, and it's on Sunday evenings at 7:30 p.m. And we travel all over North America hunting world-class North American big game. So we're trophy hunters. We love hunting giant whitetails, giant mule deer. But it's just, it's crazy. Uh, I grew up on a ranch. My dad always had black Genghis cows, and I don't know if there's this correlation between hunting and trophy hunting and big Texas longhorn cows, but I absolutely love them. I used to raise commercial cattle uh until 2008. I was a team roper. I rodeoed really hard. And I would buy, I was strategic. I made sure I bought heifer calves when I was gonna rope and I had my own arena going, and I kept those heifer calves and just created my own commercial herd. So I didn't have to go out and buy animals every year when I wanted to rope. And then when I started the TV show, or Kelsey and I started the TV show, there was no time to rodeo anymore. There was we had no money because trying to start a show was crazy challenging. And when we started it, I quit rodeoing, but I was still trying to market those calves to team ropers. So I'm gonna bash team ropers right now, but I'm a team roper myself, so I feel like I have the permission. Trying to sell roping cattle to team ropers was a crazy headache because they didn't want to spend money on roping cattle. It always blew my mind how they'd go and spend so much on a rope, so much on a horse, so much on entry fees, so much on beer on a weekend and traveling and fuel, but they did not want to spend much money on roping cattle. And in my frustration or in the middle of my frustration, a registered breeder came to me at one of our hunting trade shows and he said, Hey, you love your longhorn cattle. I'm like, Yeah, I do. I love them. I had them in the intro of our television show every week. So when I introduced the show, I'd say, Hey, I'm Cody Robbins, and I'd always have a Texas longhorn cow standing behind me. But they had small horns, they were commercial. This guy says, Well, I have registered Texas longhorn cows, and I'd love for you to come for a tour. And he took me out to his ranch at like six o'clock in the morning one day before this hunting trade show and showed me his registered animals. I went straight home, I sold my commercial herd, and I started buying registered animals. And that that was in 2009, I think. So I've been at it for 17 years and just, you know, everyone thinks my love and my passion is hunting, which it is, but I I love Texas Longhorn cows. And because hunting is my job and my stress, Texas longhorn cows are my biggest passion. I love them so much.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

So tell me a little bit more about that moment that you were kind of like, oh wow, like this registered, you know, this registered herd is not maybe not that much different than what you were doing, but also pretty different. And, you know, what spurred you to just make that jump right away? Tell me more about those decisions and feelings.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

So I was familiar with um quarter horse genetics and and people breeding for certain traits and for run or for cow, cow blood or whatever. So I was always intrigued by that and I enjoyed horse genetics. And when that gentleman introduced me to the whole idea that there was registered Texas longhorn cattle and there was certain horn genetics and kind of the same demographic or the same idea, it just got me so excited about it because I loved, I loved trying to breed certain cows to certain bulls already that were commercial and trying to create a certain animal. So to see it on paper and see the bloodlines and everything, I just I love the idea. And it's it's been a crazy learning curve. Um, because in in Texas longhorns, as everyone knows out there, there's you can take it so many different directions. You can focus on horn, you can focus on body, depends if you're showing or if you're going for measurements. And I I've learned so many lessons. I've changed my direction of breeding like six times. And I feel like I'm on the right track now, or I'm I've figured out what I really truly want, and I think I'm going in the right direction also. I'm enjoying that.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

I'm excited to talk more about the lessons you learned and the directions you're going as we dig in a little bit uh more to the longhorn side here. But I'm curious before we do that, what did your roper friends think when you decided to just sell them all and move to register? Did you get some funny looks then?

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Oh, I got some funny looks when they came back to me every spring and they wanted to buy calves to rope. And it's like, nope, my cattle are worth three times as much now. And they thought I was really crazy at that point. And they they all make fun of me. On my hunting pages on Instagram and Facebook, I'll have a fancy little registered heifer calf, and I'll be down there like the crocodile hunter, and I'll be squealing and baby talking this little heifer calf in the straw, and I'll be so excited about it. So all my old rodeo buddies, they'll be texting me saying, You're such a lunatic. That's crazy. That animal's meant for roping, and you're down there acting like it's a baby puppy. But I I don't think they understand, well, they're big tough cowboys, and I'm not. I'm a I'm a softie. I I don't think they will ever see longhorn cattle the same way as I will. I feel like I'm like the ladies out there that love longhorns and love colors and love finding a baby heifer calf in the springtime. And that's yeah, they've kind of disowned me or they enjoy making fun of me, or I guess.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

What does Kelsey think of all this? Where'd where does she come in with the longhorns?

SPEAKER_01 7:38

She was not on board because I was spending a lot of money. Like I would spend a lot on a young heifer. Um I started buying my my bull calves and I loved Nancy Dunn's genetics. I still love Nancy Dunn's genetics in Alabama. I feel like her program is exactly what I want to have someday. And I understand now that it takes so many generations to create exactly what you want. But at the start, Kelsey saw it as me just spending a whole bunch of money. It was like my drug. It was like me just blowing money on cocaine or VLTs. But I've started my website now and she's totally fallen in love with hoping for fancy colored baby calves, and she really enjoys it. And when I'm shopping online and looking at websites now, she's into it too. And I let her pick sometimes, maybe not all the time, but I make sure that I include her on it and we do it together now. And it's we both find a lot of joy in it. So it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Do you find that you have similar tastes, or are you, does she like one thing and you like another? And it's hard to hard to come together on some of them.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Bird taste, the exact opposite of shopping for herself. She likes calves or bulls that have a smaller price tag. She she looks at the price tag first, just like if I'm looking at her Lululemon stuff, I'm looking at price tags and I don't want her buying a $5,000 purse. But so she acts like she loves it, but she always is policing the price and the money I spend and likes to try and talk me into calves that maybe have a smaller price tag.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Well, let's talk about the longhorns a little bit more. So if you were to walk me through your program today, what does your herd look like? What traits, you know, are you maybe focusing on a little bit more than others? Um, you know, just tell me about some of the bloodlines, just all about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Raising cattle and raising cattle in Canada, I've learned that you need a bigger, beefier animal that's gonna, you know, winter a little easier. They need to be easy doing. And um throughout the start of my journey, one of the lessons I learned, obviously I love big horned and I want to have, you know, big tip-to-tip measurements. But uh I went through kind of a chapter where I didn't pay attention to body and confirmation and femininity, and I was just chasing giant horn measurements, and that didn't work. Um came up with animals that had no hip, animals that weren't fleshy and they didn't do well, especially with the big horns. You know, those horns, they they're made for cooling an animal's body, as most people I think would know. And when you're up here and you're in minus 40 degrees Celsius, which is pretty much the same in Fahrenheit, those animals and they're not they're not fleshy and they got the big horn, they don't do as well. They're always stressed. And I learned pretty quickly that I needed to focus on it. It was great to want bighorn genetics, but I also really had to take into consideration the body types. And I had to find animals that were built really nice, that had really good hips, that were fleshy and bigger bodied. It was a cow that was 11, 1100 pounds, or a little bit more, 11 to 1200 pounds that was built really nice did much better here in Canada. And another thing that we have to worry about with the cold conditions is freezing horns. So in the wintertime, you have to have them out of the wind. So we have windbreaks everywhere. You don't have to worry about it down in the southern states. You have to have lots of windbreaks that can't be exposed to any wind. You have to bed them really well, and they have to have really good nutrition. And as long as they're in good shape, you're still gonna freeze the odd horns. So when you have a pen of weanling heifer calves, you're gonna freeze the oddhorn, which is crazy disappointing because you'll get a really fancy colored calf out of a really nice cow, out of a bull. You've been waiting to try and get this certain connection, and then they freeze their horn, they're never gonna have nice, beautiful horns. They're gonna have a broken tip and one's gonna grow all wonky. So you just you really gotta focus on the body types and really be selective when you're picking out cattle, especially when you're bringing them up. I love bringing cattle up from Ross Ollendorf's program. I've learned, also learned that the purchasing experience in the longhorn world is a tough one. There's so many people out there that they maybe don't specifically need to make money off their longhorn program. So they don't have many animals on offer. And I'm not trying to be negative, but I'm just trying to be realistic and honest. There's a lot of people that only sell stuff that isn't really appealing to them to have as breeding animals. And I find that Ross, he's in it to make a good living and to build a really good customer base. Um, he's really good at getting back to you. He's sending you videos and pictures within one or two days. Very informative. And I feel like he has animals at all different price points. If you want to buy a heifer calf that's $2,500 and, you know, a good starter price point, he has lots of animals and they're good, they have good value. They're not animals that are just garbage that he has priced at $2,500. They're really good animals. And then he also has animals with crazy horn genetics, with crazy color. And if you have a high a bigger budget, he has animals for everyone. I don't even know where we were focused on in this this part of the conversation. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

I have a whole bunch of questions. Hopefully I can remember them all. Just I want to touch on a few of the different things that you said. Um, so first of all, with the with the freezing horn, I can totally relate. So I grew up in Iowa and my family raised Texas longhorns. That's how I kind of got into all of this. And my favorite cow of all time, she had, you know, she ended up like this. She had one horn going up and one going down because I think maybe like her second winter, it froze off. And it's it's a real thing. And it is folks that don't see those elements and get exposed to those elements and, you know, or can um keep their their heifer herd, you know, enclosed in a in a barn or something all winter, you know, it's a it's a real danger. So how long did it take you to figure out some of those sorts of perils just that were going to be different for you, you know, raising animals in Canada versus, you know, like Ross down in down in Texas?

SPEAKER_01 14:51

It the first five years of having registered cattle, it was horrible. I I would have these beautiful heifers, nice bull calves that I wanted to market. And of course, the horn is very important. People want tip to tip measurements, they want nice uniform horns. It takes away from their value if they don't have that. And the first five years, 50% of my animals would have lopsided horns, frozen tips, horns falling off. And I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know, understand what the problem was. And I quickly learned you they could never be exposed to any kind of wind. Once the once the it got down to a certain temperature, if there was any wind, it would damage those horns. So I learned that windbreaks were very important, shelters were incredibly important. Kelsey and I built a barn, and then they just had to be bedded with straw at all times. You had to be up to date on your Ibamec, make sure they had a good hair coat. And then it probably took me 10 years to figure out all of those things to eliminate any frozen horns. And I don't think you're ever going to eliminate all of it in these climates. We have um, I I had three or four heifer calves that I showed last year in Canadian Texas Longhorn shows. And my favorite one, she froze both of her horns. She was the only one out of my pen of 18 heifer calves that I kept last year. She was the only one that froze, which is it's a win. If you only have one that freezes her horns, you're winning if you're living in Canada. But it and you you never know which one it's gonna be, and just is what it is. You have to be ready to accept it now. But at least I've eliminated a lot of that.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

So did you have any mentors or like other breeders that you could talk to during that time that you were having these learning experiences that maybe fast-forwarded that progress a little bit at least?

SPEAKER_01 16:37

For sure. So there's a gentleman, uh, Mark and Tina Stewart from Pinoca, Alberta. I feel like he's the guy that came to me at the hunting trade show and introduced me to registered Texas Longhorn cattle. And he's the biggest Texas Longhorn breeder, I think, in Canada, for sure. He sat up to 200 registered cows at one time. And every time I'd have a problem, every time I had a heifer freezer horn, every time I had a situation, I'd call Mark and he was like my therapist. And he would tell me what I had to do different and what I, you know, how I had to adapt and and that everything that was just part of the process of having Texas Lawhorn cows in Canada, he was my guy. He was, you know, 15 years ahead of me in the registered longhorn business. So I learned a lot from him.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

So was he did he also help you back in during one of our previous questions? You kind of mentioned that it took you a while to figure out the perfect or the minimum weight of an animal that you needed and, you know, kind of the conformation in the body. Did he help you with that too? Or have you always found yourself kind of just drawn to those bigger bodied or well-conformed animals like Nancy Dunn's, like Ross Ollendorffs? Uh, tell me a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

He corrected me. He he came out to my, I was always going to his ranch six hours away in Alberta, and I was buying animals from him, buying lots of animals from other people. And one day he was passing through and he stopped in. And I was very frustrated with the frozen horns, with animals that weren't doing well. They were always stressed. And he looked at my herd and he said, Hey, if you if you want to do a really good job and you want to raise show animals, you're gonna have to get a little bigger bodied bulls, little fleshier bulls. You're gonna have to focus on bigger bodied animals. And that's who I got that from. And he he had, I think at one time I was out there and he had 175 cows that I walked through. And they were all, you know, around 11 to 1200 pounds, and they were very healthy. Didn't matter how cold it was, they always did really well. And he made sure that he kept back replacement heifers that were just easy-doing, fleshy animals. And once once you have the right body type of animal, they do really well. You know, a lot of people say, oh, Texas Honglin cows don't belong in Canada. But once you select the right type of animal, they do really well. And if you take care of them and they have good nutrition, they have no problem whatsoever. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Did you ever, during that process, did you ever think about giving up and think that you maybe made the wrong decision?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Well, yeah. Probably four or five different times I'd get discouraged and I'd just think, this sucks. Like, I better just go back to Angus cattle. And I saw other breeders, they would buy five Texas Longhorn cows and they'd get a bull, and they'd go through those same little chapters that I went through and they'd get discouraged and they just quit to sell their longhorn herd. And I'm glad that I didn't because I, you know, it took me, I didn't want to start a website until I had 40 to 50 animals that I could offer one time. And I wanted them to be good quality animals, animals that if someone else chose to get into longhorns, I wasn't setting them up for failure. I didn't want them to buy animals that wouldn't do well in the cold weather or had frozen horns that weren't pretty to look at. I wanted to make sure that if I was gonna have a website, I had something really good to offer people and they would enjoy their time on my website and they'd have lots of information for them to look at. And I was 2009 to 2026, and I started my website two months ago. So it took a long time to have a herd or go in the right direction and build up a herd that I was proud of in order to start my website. So it took a really long time.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Well, let's let's talk about your website a little bit here. So it hasn't been live long at the time that we're recording this. Uh, but have you found or or maybe do you hope? Um, are you hoping for to make sales outside of Canada? Are you hoping for primarily visitors within Canada to find your site and grow in that way? What's kind of your goals for having the site out there now with those, you know, animals that you're very proud of?

SPEAKER_01 21:17

I would love to have customers in the United States, but I I feel like my focus or the where I started this whole plan was I know there's a lot of people that admire, they get the Trails magazine. They really admire a lot of the programs down in the southern United States, and they would love to have animals like that. The programs up here, you're not going to see herds of 200, 300 Texas Longhorn cows. It you just have to pamper them way too much. They wouldn't get the attention they need to be a nice, big, healthy herd. And there just isn't the market for it. There's not as many people interested in longhorns. But I my goal was to bring those world-class genetics to Canada and offer them to Canadian breeders so that they had an opportunity to buy Nancy Dunn genetics. They had an opportunity to maybe get a bull that was related to 50-50, or they could get a bull related to chardiron or spotted thunder from Ross Old's program or maybe from the Bullins. Those breeders and those ranches are famous in Canada and a lot of people are interested in them. But to drive, you know, 35 hours one way to get import permits, to get blood tests done, to get them across the border, there's just so much that goes into it. I think it discourages people. So my goal is to have that connection here in Canada. They're not crossing a border and they have the opportunity to come to my ranch and get some of those really fancy genetics and have a chance at really nice animals, and they don't have to travel as far. Of course, if if I had people that were interested in my herd from the United States and wanted to go through the process of crossing the border and doing the blood tests, I would be so proud. And I I hope that that happens someday, but I'm not really expecting it. I know that there's so many awesome programs down there closer to home for them. You know, it probably wouldn't make a whole bunch of sense for people to go through the process of crossing the border. Maybe if I get my genetics in my program. The very best it can possibly be, it would be cool. What I love is that there's so many hunters that I've met in the Longhorn world. So I've come down to some of the shows, I've been to the cherry blossom and really enjoyed the friendships I've made in the United States. One of my very best friends now is Bear Davidson. And I met him. I met I bought a couple heifers from G and G in 2015. It was one of the first big trips I did and bought really expensive females. And I met Bear, and he's a hunter, and he's a he's a great human. I love that guy. And uh we really enjoy each other. And he's introduced me to a lot of awesome people in the longhorn world. And yeah, so I would be pumped. I would love to bring my heifers get to a point where I could offer my very best heifer each year at some of the big sales down there. And for the biggest thing, just to meet other cool people that love longhorns and love hunting as well. And I I would love the social side of it to be able to come down there once or twice a year with a couple animals.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Well, as I mentioned, your your website hasn't been live for is it has it maybe been a month or so now?

SPEAKER_01 24:26

It's yeah, about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Have you had has it worked yet? Have you had any like within Canada any inquiries or any new folks out to the ranch or anything?

SPEAKER_01 24:36

I've sold yesterday, I sold uh five mature cows to a customer that's just getting into registered longhorns. In the last month, I've sold lots. I've sold, I'm to the point now where I don't I have lots of animals for sale on my website. I don't want to sell anymore because I want to always have I'm trying to get to 50 breeding females, then I'm at 42. And with the amount of interest, I almost have to cut it off and take the prices off my cows until I have my calf crop this year, and then just keep selling heifer calves. And if I keep five heifer calves, I can make I can offer five cows. I'm it's kind of a battle where I want to have my inventory up to have lots to offer people, and it's the interest is crazy. It's been crazy. It's been awesome.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

You're walking the line between the site you just said you don't like where folks don't have anything for sale.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah, exactly. And I uh it I don't know where the balance is. I have to get, I think I have to get to 50 females, and then I have to get the 50 females and also 50 calves all offered at once. And then that way I can, as the calves sell, I can keep a few of them and then the cows can sell. I just want to make sure I have a website where there's a lot of animals offered with lots of different price points. I'm trying to structure it. I want to be a lot like Ross Oldendorf's program and his father. I just feel like I went through a lot of frustrations trying to buy nice animals over the last 17 years. And Ross's program and his website, I love it. There's a lot of animals you can look at. He's got lots of great information there. And if whatever you're after, you can find it on his website. And I really enjoy that.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

So when it was time for you and you decided that you were finally ready to get a website and you had enough to offer, what made you choose hired hand for your website?

SPEAKER_01 26:23

I just um all the websites that I enjoyed, I saw your little watermark at the bottom saying it was a hired hand website. And I love the information, how it's organized, and how even if I don't know what I'm doing to organize the website, it it just naturally throws genetics and lines into place for you. And it's connected to all the photos. And when someone's interested in an animal, there's so much information they can look at and so much they can study. And it you can't get that if you build a website yourself. So I think it's pretty huge.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

The favorite feature or, you know, a favorite uh way to use it that you found so far, maybe more focused on like the back end and less less on the website itself?

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Um I I've learned like it only took me one day, you know, when I was editing my animals or adding photos um or adding progeny or whatever to animals. I had no idea it was going to be that easy. It was very simple, very easy to use. I just go in there and I thought it was gonna be a crazy learning curve, or I'd be frustrated, and I'd have to call you guys. I remember apologizing right at the gate. I think I asked like two or three questions to one of your ladies, I think to Angie, and I said, Oh man, I'm so sorry. And I I thought I'm gonna be bugging you a lot. And then I don't think I've talked to her since. I'd it's very simple and easy to use. And every time, every time I'd click on something and then hit um save, it would say it was updated successfully. Everything just worked, and I haven't bumped into any problems. So it's it's worked really well.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Have you gotten any feedback from like the new breeder you mentioned that has purchased some animals from you? Have you gotten any feedback from any of them about maybe how they found your website or you know what drew them into it and and helped them decide to purchase from you versus maybe, you know, another um another breeder within the within Canada?

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Um, so I I've been showing my animals at the Canadian National Texas Longhorn Show. It's a it's a great big cattle show called Eggur Bission. It's in Saskatchewan each year, and that's where the Canadian Texas Longhorn Association has their national show each year. And it's in November, it's in the middle of hunting season. I should not be going to it because my job, and there's a lot of people that count on me, including my kids, for putting food on the table, to be hunting and producing in the hunting space at that time. And I love my cows so darn much that I entered that national show three years in a row and then forfeited my entry fees and never showed up because I felt like I had to keep hunting. I was behind on hunting content and footage. So my cameraman and I, we kept traveling and hunting. I never went. And then the last two years, we started going to that show, and I just told myself, you know what, life is short. I can pick up the slack at other times throughout the year and do the best job I can in the hunting. But I love my cows and I want to go market them and I want, you know, I'm proud of them. I want, I want to show them and see how they do and see how they match up to other breeders. And we went to that show, and that's where we've had so many people come over to our stalls and look at our cattle and look at our signs and save my phone number. And I've been telling them for two years. I've been saying, we're starting a website, you'll be able to see our genetics. And then I saved all these numbers and I had a big list. And then as soon as my website went live a month ago, I circled back and I sent my website link out to all these people that were inquiring. And then it was just wildfire. Lots of people buying, you know, three or four heifers and a bull that wasn't related. So I have four different breeding fields. I don't have I only have 50, 45 cows, but four different breeding fields. So I have some different genetics and they have the chance to buy a little package of heifers and a bull that isn't related. And it just, those people I think could they were patient and they waited quite a while. I told them about how great this website was gonna be. And I finally got it live. So it's working really well.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

It's really good foresight. I feel like a lot of folks overlook those little details and just kind of think when you when you launch a website, it's just gonna happen, right? Like you don't have to do anything else with it. So that's awesome that you were planning ahead in that way and could, you know, instantly uh send that out to folks.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Yeah. Yeah. I I just enjoy them so much. It's it's cool for me to go on there and go back. I can find, I can look at maternal lines on some of my calves that like I had no access to that before. And now with hired hand and your linkage to everything, I can go there and I can look at the ancestry on my own animals that I've never seen. I really enjoyed.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Have you used our pedigree simulator yet to plan out any of your future uh breeding opportunities?

SPEAKER_01 30:54

I I haven't. And I'm I'm not even familiar with it. So I I should.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

I'll have to I'll have to tell you more about it. But essentially you can choose any sire in any DM and then take a look visually at what the bloodlines would look like if you decide that it's a pairing you want to have.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

So it's like an AI type simulator thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Um it won't, it won't generate an AI of what the animal should look like, but it will just show you, you know, all of the genetics and the bloodlines, uh, you know, the pedigree for the father and and mother, you know, right in one view. So you can kind of decide if it's something that might work for you.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

That's awesome. Yeah, I'll check it out.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

So you mentioned the I I believe it's called Aggribation, right? Is the show that you mentioned. So tell me a little bit about that. I did some research on your site before our interview, and I think you had an animal win that show, Jungle Orchid BCB. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Yes, it came from uh Brent and Cindy Bowen's program. She's a 2015 cow, and she's won the at that show, she's won the grand champion female two years in a row. She's she is absolutely beautiful. If if I could clone that cow 50 times over, I would just, I would just die to have more like her. So that cow, I got a funny story. She's beautiful. She came from Brenton Cindy Bowen's program, and she was being sold at an auction sale in Fort Worth. And my buddy from Canada that I got into Longhorns, he's got lots of money. He flew down there. He was like falling in love with Longhorns. He's going through his like longhorn journey, and he was at a sale in Fort Worth, and Parker Brown is my favorite color. And he's like, There's nobody at this sale. The sale starts in like 20 minutes. There's a crazy blizzard. It was like the first time that it was a couple years ago. It's like the crazy first time that a snowstorm ever hit Fort Worth or something. He said, There's nobody at this sale. I feel like cows are gonna sell cheap. And there's a Parker Brown cow here. I feel like it would be like your favorite cow. And he just sends me a really crappy picture of it. He didn't, he never took nice pictures of cows. Through panels, he just took a picture and there's this beautiful cow. So I go on uh, I think your website, and I look up in the catalog, I look up this cow. I'm like, oh yeah, I love that cow, but she'll sell for a lot. And I I'd kind of blown my budget on Longhorns for that year, like a month or two before. I had bought some animals from Nancy Dunn or from Ross or someone. And there's no way I'd get approval from Kelsey to spend even $5. So he's like, Well, I'll I'll buy it for you. You can pay me back. I'm like, yeah, but I still have to be able to afford it. And he goes, Well, how high do you want to go? I said, Well, $3,000. But that cow is never gonna sell for $3,000. So it's we're like, we're just wasting our time right now. He's like, okay, whatever. He writes me back uh 40 minutes later, he said, You got her. I'm like, oh yeah. And this is the kind of guy, he's a really generous person. I thought, okay, well, he bought this cow for me and he's not gonna make me pay him back, or who knows what his mental plan is. But that cow definitely did not sell in my budget. And he said, She sold for 2,000 bucks. Nobody was bidding on her. And I'm like, there's no way. A month later, she arrives, she comes up to Canada. I went down and got her, brought her up. Just the prettiest cow in the world. And we took her to Agribision. She's probably the cheapest cow I've ever bought. And I'm I'm not dissing any cow in Canada, any breeder's program. She is just like a unicorn. She's so pretty. She has no chin skin. She has a head like a princess. She has an ass like a cook. That's like a thing that you hear in the horse world: head like a princess and an ass like a cook. She's so beautifully put together, has a perfect daughter, has beautiful big horns, so feminine. And I feel like I'm not dissing anyone. I'm not being like arrogant or anything. I feel like as long as she's alive and lightning doesn't hit her, I don't know how any any cow could ever compete with her. She's so pretty. I I've tried to buy more cows like her, but she's she's like a diamond in the rough. She's so pretty.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

I remember that sale that you're talking about. It was the legacy sale. And folks were like scared to drive. It was like Fort Worth itself. I remember being there and it just shut down. Like it was just Yeah. Yeah. Just for and and coming from Canada or Iowa, it was just a little bit of snow. It wasn't any big deal.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Yeah, like to me or you, it wouldn't have been a big deal. But to Texas, they're like, they had their helmets on. They're like, oh, we're gonna die.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Well, I'm glad the stars aligned and you got her for a good deal. That's that's exciting.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Yeah. I I got another funny story about that cow. She's she's my buddy. Like, so three months leading up to the show every year, we're always pampering her, feeding her fancy grain, and our other heifers, whoever we take into the show, we're spoiling them and getting them nice and fat. I don't know what it is about Kelsey. That cow hates Kelsey. And she can differentiate Kelsey from another lady. Like, if I'm sure another brunette girl built the same could walk by that cow and she doesn't care. Kelsey walks by that cow and she just loses her marbles. It's so weird. And um, I'd be away hunting and I'd say, okay, Kelsey, you gotta I have the bags of grain that we're feeding them. I have it all weighed out. She gets five pounds each day. You gotta feed jungle orchid. She's gotta get the severity. She's like, I'm not feeding that cow. She's so mean to me. She puts me over the fence, she chases me. And I'm like, get a grip. You're so dramatic. She probably swung at a fly and almost hit you. No, she didn't. She did not do that to you. And I called her bluff and made fun of her and told her to suck it up and to feed my cow and made sure she was pretty for the show. I came home from like three weeks on the road hunting, and she's like, you know what? I don't appreciate the way you talk to me about that cow, and I want you to see what she does to me. So we go out, we go out to the pen, and I'm like, Kelsey, you're a nutcase. This is ridiculous. I walk into the pen, I put my hand on jungle orchid's hip and I scratch her and she's chewing her cud. And Kelsey's like standing like a long ways away, two fences away, just kind of watching. She's like, okay, watch this. And Kelsey would walk over and walk on the other side of the fence, not in the pen with her, but just like so one pen one fence between them. And she walked by, and that cow hit the fence. I don't know. I don't know what it is. She won't do it to my kids. She won't do it to any strangers at the show. Kelsey can't go near that cow. I'm not sure what I've never seen anything like it before.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

She wants to be your favorite, not Kelsey.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

I guess so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Well, let's talk a little bit about one of the things you mentioned earlier. You know, um, there are probably a lot of hoops that have to be jumped through in order to get an animal from the United States to Canada or vice versa. So for folks listening who, you know, maybe have questions about that or want to be more educated about that, can you kind of just walk us through um all of the paperwork and the different requirements?

SPEAKER_01 37:43

So for an animal to come to Canada, they need a brucellosis test and they need two TB tests. And this is where I got I got rejected at the border three times and turned back, which tough lessons to learn when you're coming from, you know, like 1800 miles from the border. And the the national vet at the border tells you that you have to go back to place of origin. Like that's that's a big deal. And the the problem I kept running into, which vets weren't familiar with it. Like you tell a local vet in an area, you say, okay, this animal needs to be prepped and tested to go to Canada. So they'd go and they'd go on uh the internet or whatever, and they'd get the criteria they needed. But it always got overlooked by vets, by by breeders, by whichever. Everywhere it says uh a bovine animal needs one TB test and one brucellosis test. At the Canadian border, they need two TB tests. And the the the second TB test is only specific to rodeo stock. Um, because rodeo animals are traveling, rodeo bulls, roping stock. They're traveling all over the place and they're they're interacting with so many other animals, I guess. And they put Texas longhorn cattle into rodeo stock. It doesn't matter if they've never been to a rodeo, it doesn't matter if they're never going to be to a rodeo because they have horns. I don't I've had arguments with vets at the border. I've I've gone through so much with this. They will not allow you to cross the border without the second TB test that is specific to rodeo stock. So if you're ever gonna try and bring some animals across the border into Canada, you have to make sure that you get both TB tests and you have to bring that up with the vet that's gonna be testing your animals. Whether you find the link on the internet and send it to them, but you have to bring it to their attention to make sure that you don't get rejected at the border. But once you get the two TB tests and the brucellosis test, you have to apply for an import permit into Canada. And that takes about one to two weeks. Once you apply for it, it takes one to two weeks to get approved. I've never had a problem getting approved. You just send your farm information. It's pretty straightforward and it's there's really nothing that's gonna shut you down. You just have to make sure you apply for it. And then with that import permit, they look into the breeder and where you're bringing the animal from. And then it just gets looked at to see if there's been any weird health cases in bovines in that region, make sure the border is open to animals from that state or from that area. And it's and I can't stress to you enough, do your homework ahead of time, have all your paperwork approved, send your import permits to the the vet you're gonna be working, dealing with at the border ahead of time before you leave home. Send them the import permits that you get, send them the blood tests and everything, and make sure you get approval from that vet at the border before you leave home because your import permit's good for 60 days. So they'll approve you and say, okay, I'm satisfied with all the information you've given me because I've learned the hard way where I haven't I have all the information in my truck in envelopes, and then I get to the border and hand it to the vet and they don't like something. It's a big deal. And they reject you and they turn you back, and it sucks. So just make sure you send all that information to the to the vet at the border, get their thumbs up, and then go on your journey to go get your animals. And then that way you're not going to get fall into any hiccups.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

What about going the other way? You mentioned that maybe, you know, down the road you'd like to consign to some of those Texas sales and start going to some of those events. What does that process look like?

SPEAKER_01 41:47

It's much easier. Um it's only one TB test and one brucellosis test. They're not worried about the that second TB test. And it seems much easier. And the the import permits seems a lot easier to get as well. So hopefully, you know, hopefully there's some animals of mine that uh American readers show interest in that I can I can go through that process with them at some point. But it seems much easier. The to bring them to Canada is a lot more complex, but it's very doable as long as you do your homework.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Well, hopefully there are some Canadian listeners uh today, and maybe some of them are interested in getting into ranching to longhorns. What would your advice be? Like where would you tell them to start? What where you know what process would you tell them to follow if they're thinking about starting to raise longhorns?

SPEAKER_01 42:35

Um, just thinking of all the the hoops or the all of the lessons that I've learned. You you have to buy a total package animal right out of the gate. Don't don't get tunnel vision on horns. You know, you see so many people, you go on people's websites, and it's fine. You can't it's you know, it's beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that's not that statement's never been more true than when you look at Texas on horn cattle, because there's so many directions you can take it. There's color, there's horn, there's uh just certain genetics, and it's you're just there to have fun with it most of the time. So it's not that anything is wrong, uh, any choices are wrong. But uh in my journey, I just I would say, you know, when you're picking out an animal, look at you gotta consider, don't just look at their tip-to-tip measurement, look and see if a cow has a feminine head, a nice feminine head. Look and see if they have a nice hip. Look and see, you know, their their body structure and their conformation. And I've really learned so many times that if you have a heifer that's not feminine, she kind of has more masculine features. She never milks well. She doesn't raise a nice calf, and you're gonna spin your tires. You're gonna have animals that don't produce for you. Um one of the most important things when picking out a heifer, sure you can look at its horn and its horn genetics, but make sure that it has feminine features and look at its mother. Holy smokes. A lot of times you'll pick out a little calf and you'll like how it looks. And you might not like how the mother looks, but you like how the calf looks. In two years' time, she looks just like her mother. She she'll have the same attributes, she'll have the same hip as her mother, she'll maybe have the same horn shape as her mother. So I try and find an animal that I love the individual animal, but I also love the mother just as much. And if you you love the mother and you think that that calf looks really nice and has nice features and it's feminine, it's probably gonna turn out to be a good producer for you. And I've I've had it go the other way where I haven't done my homework and I've I've picked an animal just on one or two, like checking one or two of the boxes, or four or five of the boxes instead of all ten boxes, like color, uh confirmation, disposition, femininity, more of those boxes that you can check, that animal is going to be a better producer for you.

SPEAKER_04 45:09

That's what I've learned.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

If the Texas Longhorn or the registered Texas Longhorn world wants to grow in Canada, what do you think that actually requires? More breeders, more shows, more assistance from the TLBA? Like what does that what does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 45:26

Um I I think it needs more promotion. Maybe um I I there's not a whole bunch of active websites in Canada. There's a lot of breeders. There's a lot of breeders that are. That I've met over the last two years when going to that national show that don't have a website. I never knew those people existed. They're just under the radar. They enjoy longhorns as much as anyone, but they're under the radar. And there's a lot of people that have interest in getting into longhorns, but they don't realize that there is breeders out there that, you know, that are close by within a few hours that raise nice animals that could get them started. And I feel like people just need to do there's people out there that have text longhorn cows in Canada, but they don't really promote their herd as much as they could. Um, with my following and with the hunting and my hunting uh Facebook page and Instagram page, and I'm coming out with a movie called The Raftor Seven. And it's it caters to all to all of my hunting friends, but I am going to promote the life of my longhorn cows in that show. And it's it's about my journey. It's about falling in love with deer hunting when I was a little kid and wanting to someday own my own land so I didn't have to hunt on public land my whole life. And then buying some of my own land and trying to find a way to pay for it and developing that land where I'm mulching tree lines and putting in fence for like fencing for six years as hard as I could in my off time instead of spending time with my family at the lake. I was fencing and cutting trails and getting cattle on that land to be able to pay the mortgage to have that land, to be able to hunt on it for the whole dream, you know, to work and to function. And when that movie comes out, I think it's it's gonna be very well received, but it's I'm making a point of really marketing my longhorn cows in that movie. So there's gonna be a lot of hunters watching, a lot of ranchers that are hunters that'll be watching. And I'm gonna do my very best to try and bring back, I don't expect huge longhorn ranches in Canada, but I really want to try and bring back uh trophy steers, lead cows in big Angus ranches, um, you know, bring back that kind of that cow mascot for every big ranch, and also to help people that want to start little long-horn ranches and just kind of be that outlet and maybe help people, other people promote and encourage them to start websites. But I there's been so many people get out of beef cattle, you know, through COVID, and um now cattle prices are great. But there was there was not very long ago when cattle prices were not great, and so many cattle ranches sold off and got out of cattle. There's a lot of cattle facilities still out there, and people from the city are moving out to the country, and then there's they have a barn and they're behind their house, they have a nice barn that they're not using. And there's so much interest in Longhorns right now. And I feel like if we market it properly, it can really catch on and it can have a lot bigger presence in Canada. I just think the Trails magazine, maybe there's got to be more Canadian presence there. Um, with people writing in the magazine or sharing their stories or participating in the colorful calf contest, but just just having a Canadian presence in there and then starting some more websites. And I think I think it'll grow. It's definitely growing, but I think it there's needs to be a little bit more effort and it can grow a heck of a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

So And does your movie come out or when is it expected to come out?

SPEAKER_01 49:02

We're gonna release it in July. And it's I'm gonna I'm gonna try to make my long-horn cows famous in that movie. I I'm really excited that there's a reason I got my website launched this spring because I know that that movie's coming out, and I'm gonna try really hard. There's gonna be a lot of hunters out there, be like, okay, enough with the cows. I want to see another big buck. But but I love my cows, so I'm gonna have them in there lots.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

Well, I feel like you just put all the Canadian breeders on notice. They have a couple months to prepare before the the influx of interest, right?

SPEAKER_04 49:31

For sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Well, I feel like that was also a good segue into hunting because we have to talk about that a little bit, or Jamie and I would get some hate mail over our podcast, I'm sure. Um, so tell me about the property itself. You have it's home to Longhorns, but it's also home to big whitetails. So what makes that special to you?

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Um, so I I grew up uh not owning hunting land. No one in my family hunted. My best friend hunted and he got me into hunting, and I absolutely loved it. And I I grew up hunting on public land. So anyone out there, there's a lot of hunters out there, that's where they hunt. They don't, they're in the same boat. They don't have the opportunity to go behind a no-trespassing sign and have that type of hunting, and they have to go and grind it out on public land. And that's there's nothing wrong with that. It's awesome. It's where I learned to hunt. But with hunting on public land and going through that chapter, you know, you always have this dream, this fantasy of owning your own land one day. And it just worked really cool that I love cattle. I've always loved cattle. There's I'm come from a ranching family. And, you know, with the TV show, it just made sense to try and buy some land that was good grazing land for cows, but also good hunting land. And in 2013, the same year that Berkeley, our first daughter, was born, Kelsey and I started buying a little bit of land. And over the years, we'd buy another quarter of land, another quarter of land. For 10 years in a row, we bought another quarter of land. Excuse me. And we got up to um 1,600 or 1700 acres. And so that's that's it's all in a all in a block. And that's enough land where you can start to protect whitetail bucks, and they can get big and they can get old. And I just had this dream. I kept hunting on public land, and I never started hunting on that land, and I just let the deer grow big inside that pasture. And I took my kids and my wife, and we picked up big shed antlers, and we enjoyed that part of it. But I never took, I never went hunting there for myself. I would take kids hunting in there to shoot call bucks. So we'd tiptoe in there a couple times a year, and we'd take a kid to shoot their very first buck, and they'd shoot, you know, a big, mature crab-clawed deer, a deer that a lot of my American friends would be like, Are you kidding? That's not a call buck. That'd be like the biggest deer of my life. But I didn't want to create too much hunting pressure in there. And I just, the odd time I would treat a kid or someone to a big deer, but a deer that didn't have world-class genetics to try and weed them out. And then after 10 years, I decided I could treat myself to go and hunt a giant deer inside that land. And it was 10 years before I hunted my own land. And I went snuck in there in September in 2023, and I shot probably the deer of my lifetime. He was over 200 inches. I shot him with my bow and arrow. And I had, he was seven and a half years old, found all of his sheds except for one since he was a yearling, had his entire collection. And it's just kind of like for a kid that grew up in a family that didn't hunt, that fell madly in love with deer hunting. I spent eight years as Jim Shockey's cameraman. I traveled all over the world. Like I've lived a hunting dream fifty-fold. Been very lucky that way. But, you know, everyone falls in love with white-tailed deer first. If you love hunting, white-tailed deer are the start. They're probably the first animal you're ever going to hunt, and probably the last animal you're ever going to hunt. When you're 80 years old, hopefully your grandchildren are taking you to hunt a white-tailed deer in your back 40. And it's where you start and where you finish. And I had the chance just to live out that dream to buy my own land. It took a lot of doors opening at the right time. Financially, it was just so very lucky the show was doing well. I had the chance to go and experience a giant whitetail buck from the day he was born, all of his sheds, all the years of him growing, and then shooting with my bow and arrow with my cameraman. And my entire hunting career since the time I was 12 years old, I fell in love with hunting and with video cameras at the exact same time. So my entire whitetail career and hunting career has been documented on film. And that movie is going to be my life. It's going to show me when I'm 12 years old with big Coke bottle glasses and braces and going out and hunting. My grandmother would come with me. She was my guardian. And shooting my first Whitetail buck that was like this big, it was a little yearling, to hunting my whole career on public land, hunting with Jim Shockey, starting my own TV show, Living My Dream, and then shooting this world-class buck that ended up on the cover of North American Whittail the following year. And it's just that movie is that entire journey, my childhood, everything, old 43 format footage, and just all of it. And then I just intertwined my cows into it. So and it's coming out in July.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

Do you feel like there's a lot of similarities between great longhorns and big whitetails, whether it be the mindset you kind of have to have in studying genetics and bloodlines and that, or even just the mindset um, you know, when you're when you're on the hunt for your next bird sire or, you know, your next big buck? Is there a lot of overlap?

SPEAKER_01 55:00

I think they parallel each other. And I think it's no coincidence that you I've met so many people that love hunting in the longhorn space. And and it's so crazy. There's a lot of people getting into longhorns, buying their first longhorn from me. And part of it is they want to meet me and they want to come to my house and see my deer in my trophy room. So I feel like it's kind of an excuse, like, oh, if I buy a longhorn, I get to go meet Cody. But but they're gonna enjoy the longhorns. It's there's the correlation, is it's it's there. I have like the love that I have for white-tailed deer or for any deer for hunting, for finding big shed antlers and watching a big buck grow. I have the exact same love for longhorn cows. When you have, when you go out in April, you we have to be strategic in Canada. We have to calve at a certain time. We can't just have our bowls running out there and calve all year. You have to calve at a certain time so that you don't have babies. You don't want them to freeze their ears off in the middle of winter. But I get I get as much joy out of finding a gorgeous little fancy colored heifer calf laying out in the straw at sunrise in the morning in April as I do finding a boon and crock at whitetail shed. And it's the same love. It's like anticipation. I don't know, it just brings me joy. It's my jam. It's like my cocaine. And if so, right now in the in the hunting space, you know, people are deer, the deer populations are battling with chronic wasting disease, and there's so many things just going the wrong way for deer. You know, I hope, I hope, hope deer hunting doesn't go away, and I don't think it will, but that I'm gonna get my joy out of longhorns. If if deer ever went away, I would get just as much joy out of Texas Longhorn cows. They're just there's something so incredible about them. I don't understand how Angus breeders have Angus cattle instead of longhorns. Like I do when I come back and look at the checkbook and look at the books, I understand that I just see, but I I have friends that raise Angus cattle that just love them and they're passionate about them. And I get it. But then I look at my longhorn cows and think, well, you're gonna find 200 baby calves in the spring and they're all jet black. Like, wouldn't it be fun to go find a fancy brindle baby or like a baby that has little stripes on its nose and you know it's gonna brindle? Or like you just don't have as much anticipation with black cows or semitol cows or whatever. But I know that they have their probably they have a lot more place in the world than longhorns. Longhorns are more fun than practical.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

But also I think it's like, and maybe I won't explain this very well, but with longhorns, I feel like each one's in addition to looking different, kind of have their own personality too. And so naturally each of us are drawn to maybe a different longhorn for a different reason. And I feel like it's the same way with hunting, right? Like you see one buck on camera and you don't get super excited about it, you know, but maybe you see another one and it has some trait that you, you know, haven't hunted or you know, haven't added yet. And so it's it's kind of that's the kind of that same type of thing, I feel like maybe you're dr you're drawn for a reason.

SPEAKER_01 58:11

Oh, for sure. Yeah. I longhorn cows, I they they have personalities. It's crazy. Like when you're chasing them, the way they can piss you off. That if you're chasing them a certain direction, you're chasing 10 longhorn pears, they're so much different than a an Angus cow. They're strategic. They know if they fade, if if they see one cow fading off to the left and you're on your horse and you're moving them, she's like, Well, he's gotta swing over to the left to get her. If I fade off to the right, as soon as he fades over to the left to get her, I can duck back that way. Like they're so strategic and so smart in so many ways. And and like that's like a negative in a way, but like you have to admire them. They're and if a longhorn cow, if you don't feed them and you have an amazing fence, you know, a beef cow, she'll die in that fence if you starve her. A longhorn cow should be like, I gotta find a way out. If I want to survive, I gotta find a way out. I gotta jump this fence and I gotta go survive on my own because this guy ain't showing up to feed me today. And they do, they're survivors and they're smart. And they're but something that I admire, you know, people say longhorns are crazy. And they're there, there are some longhorn cows, obviously, that are crazy protective when they have their baby calf. But 90% of my cows, when they calve in the spring, and I couldn't do this with my Angus cows, 90% of them. I can go and lay on my side in the straw and spoon that calf and like baby talk it and scratch it and rub it and be its best friend. And she'll stand there and she'll stand there with me. She'll lick me, she'll lick the calf. And I I have a couple that will kill me if I tried that. But the majority of them, like they're your friends. I I love how they're they're very kind and they're they have a lot deeper personality than just a regular beef cow, I find. And I really admire it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:04

I feel like you might be getting more grief from your uh rodeo friends with that story if they hear it though.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

Oh they're all like, they're all tough, cool cowboys, roughies, rodeo guys, and they see me and I get this stupid little baby voice, and I'm laying out there, and they're like, Oh, we're gonna block you. Like, you're so embarrassing. Why are you doing this? But I and I will I go back and I watch my posts that I put on my hunting page a week later, and I'm like, what was I thinking? Like, I'm supposed to be this big tough hunter, and I'm a complete fruitcake talking, baby talking.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

Obviously, it resonates.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

So yeah. Yeah, but when you when you find a little baby heifer calf and she's cute as a button, that's that's the way it's gotta be, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Well, let's uh I feel let's continue on this train of thought for a little bit. So I have a few questions. We're gonna call it a quick fire round, and you get two options. You have to pick which is harder, and they're related to either longhorns or hunting, or not necessarily which is harder. Which is I don't know. You'll see. Can I can I hit them with hit you with them?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:07

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

Yep. All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:08

I gotta answer quick.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:09

Uh yep, first thing that comes to mind. Choosing a herdsire or choosing which buck to hunt. Which decision keeps you up at night more?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:19

It's like dead even right.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:26

Halving season or hunting season, which one is harder on the marriage?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:30

All the same. I uh hunting season.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:36

Filming a hunt or filming cattle, which one requires more patience?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:42

Filming a hunt.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

Saskatchewan winter or Texas summer, which one is worse for livestock?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

I feel like that's the same. Oh, you're you're strategic on your question.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

Uh I would say Saskatchewan winter is definitely Scouting a new property for deer or scouting a sale catalog for cattle? Which one gets your heart rate up more?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:07

Sale cattle.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

Cow that throws color every time, or a buck that scores 200 inches, which one are you taking?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:15

What? These are like neck and neck every time. I'm I'm a nutcase about both. Uh I love I love a cow that throws color. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:31

Breaking in a new hunting spot or breaking in or weaning a new young bull. Which one tests your patience more?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:37

Hunting spot.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:40

That's it. Those are all the painful questions.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:42

Holy, those are like those are like impossible to pick one, every one of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:47

Alright. Well, as we start to wrap up here, uh, let's find out where do you see Raptor Seven Longhorns in five years?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

I would love to have 80 breeding females available for sale on my site at different price points, and just love to have, you know, kind of be Canada's connection to the very best genetics present in the United States and be known as Canada's Longhorns. That's my goal.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:20

Is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you really want to cover today that you want our listeners to know or I don't I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:31

I could go, I could with hunting and longhorns, I could talk forever. So I don't I definitely don't want to bore everybody. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

I don't think anyone will be bored. Well, thanks so much for being on the show. This was a fun conversation. Um if anyone wants to check out Raftor Seven Longhorns, they can head to raftersevenlonghorns.com. That's their new hired hand website where you can see all of their cattle and follow along as they continue to build their program. And if they're not, if you're not already watching Live to Hunt, um, correct me if I'm wrong here, Cody, but you can find it on the outdoor channel, Apple TV, Prime Video, and YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

Yes. And all those, yeah, it just came out on Prime, I think, this week. So now you can watch it on lots of different platforms. And it's Live to Hunt with Cody and Kelsey. If you're watching Outdoor Channel, it's Sunday evenings at 7:30 p.m. next to the crush.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:22

And if they want to see a few episodes that have Rafter 7 featured in them, um, there's some in season 13. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:29

I'm sure. I always sneak my longhorn cows into everything. I'm sure the hunting world and my sponsors are like, what the hell is this guy doing? But it's my show, so I get to do what I want.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:40

Well, thank you again so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:44

Thank you, Molly. It's been awesome.