The Leachman saga continues

  I am constantly amazed at how so many "successful" people in this business do it on someone else money. Which means most of the time they spend what they can never repay. I have seen it a million time....here today gone tomorrow.

  A lot of us may be "nobodies" but we owe "no one" in the cattle business.


  Just my opinion!

Jeff Cornell

I have to agree with feeder duck.  The little guys do a lot of good for the industry, in fact, we are the show cattle world for the most part. If no family oriented Jr. shows existed, would steerplanet exist?  Would show steer auctions happen?  Would heifer sales be a big deal?  A friend of mine recently reminded me of this and I'm convinced it is true.  Sure the Leachman's and the other really big players do things we can't,  but without us little(r) guys, they would founder.  JMHO.

Here is to the honest little (family) operation!

The big guys wouldn't exist without us small family operations.  Here in Florida we have 3 of the top 10 cow/calf operations in the country yet over 90% of the cattle are still family owned in herds that average 48.7 head, meaning even as big as they are, the big guys are the ones who are only a drop in the bucket that is the American cattle industry

When I first got into this business I thought it would be cool to be as big as Leachmans, to be big enough to make a difference.  After readin this and the posts earlier about this deal I am very proud of what little i have accomplished and i will stick to my 25 cows and my few acres!!!!!!!!!!!   

Jim Leachman used to spend a lot of time in our part of the world for some reason.I used to see him in my home town on many occasions.  Many years ago now, when Leachman Cattle Co at Billings was having 1 M-1.5 M bull sales each spring, I ran into Jim Leachman in my home town in a restuarant. We had met a few times before so he invited me to have lunch with him.  Before we were done our meal, he had asked me to consider becoming a co-operator herd for him. He would supply me with about 100 bred females and all the bulls would go to Billings at weaning and be fed for the sale. He said we  would split whatever the bulls sold for on a 50-50 basis. It sounded like a pretty good deal at the time and I tried to find some additional pasture land but was not able to get any. Probably was a good thing too seeing how things ended up,

I also remember on spring when Leachman Cattle Co had a record sale of something like $1.7 M. About a month after the Leachman sale, I took about 50 bulls to a range bull sale in Sturgis, SD. It was a large sale of over 1300 bulls. The day before the sale, I happened to be standing near the loading chutes when 3 pot loads of bulls arrived. I watched them unload and was amazed to see about 150 bulls with the hair pin brand come off the trucks. I could not help but think that the Leachman sale maybe wasn't quite as good as the reports indicated.

Some of the sale results are included in the article

http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_4542ec9d-d13c-5d7c-96a9-0fa9a1144c76.html?oCampaign=hottopics

Isn't that article from 2007?

hereford said:

Isn't that article from 2007?

Click to expand...

It's dated 4/4/11.

guess that's what happens when you make an "Unhonest living with cattle and horses".  I wonder if his bull sale $$$$ were legit?  You'd a thunk with bull sales like that, the bills could have been payed?

Musta been too dern many hookers? 

No Doc its not.  Looks like December 22, 2007 to me.

http://billingsgazette.com/business/article_8ce6e127-d3cf-5b72-9886-2e4b0cc5dd98.html

hereford said:

No Doc its not.  Looks like December 22, 2007 to me.

http://billingsgazette.com/business/article_8ce6e127-d3cf-5b72-9886-2e4b0cc5dd98.html

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Doc is referring to the second article about the horse sale that took place this week.

http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/article_2b17456c-fa55-5bb0-a474-b9320f398231.html

I was always in awe of the Leachman program, used to love the catalogues and all the data
Who would have thought it would end like this!

There is a hour long radio interview with Jim Leachman at faceso***.com    faces of ag .com      I guess I have to put spaces between faces of ag  but its all one word.

go down on the left, to rural route and click on thursday

I could not get a link to work.   Starts out talking about the old days of Ankony Angus,   and ends up with some spiel about the horse events.

If somebody can get a direct link to work, maybe you could post it?

have a good one

I was out at Leacman's during a BIF meeting and saw a lot of those horses.They were beautiful animals and can't imagine that anyone could abuse them like that.I will never forget when there was a group of us standing amongst a band of broodmares and felt a horse nuzzling the back of my neck.I would move away a little and the bugger did it again.I finally turned around and was face to face with the   stallion!

the horse sale was just recently.

if you read one of those articles, they only had to put down 8 horses.  out of over 800, that's a pretty minute death loss.

here in Montana, we've had about the third terrible winter in a row.

if you look at some of those horses, they're fat as hogs.  800 horses.  how many acres do you think that ran on?  don't you think they had mob mentality and the naturally weak were on the fringes in the 'rough' areas.  i'm not saying animals should get ran down, but it happens, that's nature, this is a cruel world.  i think there are some wild mustangs that have suffered a more brutal end...and every citizen of the US owns them.  what have you done about it?

xxcc said:

the horse sale was just recently.

if you read one of those articles, they only had to put down 8 horses.  out of over 800, that's a pretty minute death loss.

here in Montana, we've had about the third terrible winter in a row.

if you look at some of those horses, they're fat as hogs.  800 horses.  how many acres do you think that ran on?  don't you think they had mob mentality and the naturally weak were on the fringes in the 'rough' areas.  i'm not saying animals should get ran down, but it happens, that's nature, this is a cruel world.  i think there are some wild mustangs that have suffered a more brutal end...and every citizen of the US owns them.  what have you done about it?

Click to expand...

Agreed xxcc,do a search on the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and you will see some real abuse at the hands of an organization set up to protect them.

r.n.reed said:

xxcc said:

the horse sale was just recently.

if you read one of those articles, they only had to put down 8 horses.  out of over 800, that's a pretty minute death loss.

here in Montana, we've had about the third terrible winter in a row.

if you look at some of those horses, they're fat as hogs.  800 horses.  how many acres do you think that ran on?  don't you think they had mob mentality and the naturally weak were on the fringes in the 'rough' areas.  i'm not saying animals should get ran down, but it happens, that's nature, this is a cruel world.  i think there are some wild mustangs that have suffered a more brutal end...and every citizen of the US owns them.  what have you done about it?

Click to expand...

Agreed xxcc,do a search on the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and you will see some real abuse at the hands of an organization set up to protect them.

Click to expand...

r.n., are you still breeding Thoroghbreds?

GB,EPM has put a least a temporary end to my Thoroughbred breeding aspirations.Worse than that I lost a good friend.

Here is a horse person's point of view.  Before I put it out there, please understand I believe a range horse to be one of the heartiest animals to serve a cowboy and part of that is because they are raised on the range.  I believe in horse slaughter and our family has recently gotten out of breeding business after 40+ years so I am not a bleeding heart or some yahoo and am lucky enough to call some of the successful breeders in the horse biz friends.
I have read every news clip and if you do you will find the below facts supported.
That being said.  The problem with Leachman in the horse world is this.  He makes even the lowliest of horse traders look good. He was given the option of a sale, and turned it down as he didn't want to sell the horses for 200.00 each.  Instead, he blamed the Stovalls for locking the horses off of the land they needed for forage and more inportantly water.  He was given a date to get the horses off the land and did not do it.  I do not feel Mr Stovall did anything wrong by putting cattle on land that he now owned.  The horses suffered for it but Leachman made no effort to remove them.  He basically abandoned them to the elements.  Horses can be a hardy bunch but when you allow mares to rum with stallions and they are then bred with a colt on thier side, ans still runing with thier yearling and 2 year old stud colts, who knows which stallion these colts are by.  AQHA requires DNA varification of the parents.  As far back as 2007 there has been trouble with registering stock he said was by this stud out of this mare.  People paid for registerable stock and did not get it and had to fight the AQHA and Leachman to get what they paid for.
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/leachman-hairpin-cavvy-c66484.html#comments

The horse world is hurting.  We saw it and got out of the breeding business.  Horses are livestock but are viewed very differently by the public.  To me a starving horse you are not willing to find a home for should be dead.  No animal should suffer because of the ego of a person or a personal agenda
We all know what the costs of caring for an animal is like.  The fact that he let his herd get to 800 is unheard of in todays breeding business.  He didn't even know how many horses he had or where they all were.  Would you let your assets wander?  He said he had no money.  He let people step in and feed these animals in order to get them ready for a sale.  Children in local schools wore hats and if they did they donated money.  Private and corporate donations rolled in.  There was standing room only at the sales to get these horses sold.  They sold for 360,000+.  No assets my a$$!  And to slap the face of the people that gathered, sorted and bought, Leachman knew he couldn't pay for these animals himself since there are pending charges so he had his son Seth purchase them with a check for 35K and here is the kicker.  He just opened the gated and turned them back out on Crow land he has a lease on.  Talk about a slap in the face to every person there trying to help.  Now, when these animals again get out of  hand, do you think there will be anybody willing to help?  His court date is looming and even the public defender at first turned the case down and as of today we find out he has the "means" to hire an attorney.  Yeah for Judge Hernadez for turning down his request for a public paid defender!!!  One less thing he will make others pay for.
http://billingsgazette.com/search/?l=50&sd=desc&s=start_time&f=html&q=leachman

So ask yourself this, could you sleep at night if you did business like this?  In no way shape or form has he made himself accountable for any of his actions or said a public thank you to all that helped this herd get fed or go to sale.  It would mean he would have done something wrong.  I have a child.  I tell him no matter what you do in life, good or bad, own it.  People will repect you for your accomplishments and even for a failure.  The way this man has done business in the cattle and horse industry is shameful and dishonest and the saddest part is when an animals suffers from an ego.

So I have my flame suit zipped up This has been an ongoing topic on Pleasure Horse Forum and the horse people are just plain disgusted.  I encourage you to go to the billingsgazette.com and read ALL the articles before commenting.  I have.  Joan