No offense but working for a farmer or rancher is pretty much a dead-end deal for the non-family employee, from what I see in these parts.
Sometimes housing is included and free beef, but retirement, medical, dental, eye, vacation, sick time aren't part of the deal. Usually a monthly paycheck that stays the same no matter the amount of hours. You just just don't see anybody in these parts doing well working for a farmer/rancher. Those that do may well enjoy it and like the lifestyle, but you can't ever get ahead in life when compared to other jobs.
There are people who will work cheap if they can ride a horse, work cattle, and drag a gooseneck trailer around. The smell of cows, horses, mud, and diesel must be addictive.
Sad but true. Cattle are a passion, I've never worked so hard for so little.
No offense but working for a farmer or rancher is pretty much a dead-end deal for the non-family employee, from what I see in these parts.
Sometimes housing is included and free beef, but retirement, medical, dental, eye, vacation, sick time aren't part of the deal. Usually a monthly paycheck that stays the same no matter the amount of hours. You just just don't see anybody in these parts doing well working for a farmer/rancher. Those that do may well enjoy it and like the lifestyle, but you can't ever get ahead in life when compared to other jobs.
Sad but true.
I'll be serious for a minute..... I know there are 2 main ways it's done in my local. Most of this is for farmers who raise crops, cattle, hay, and usually have several chicken houses....almost all of them here do all of these in combination. The chicken houses provide excellent fertilizer for the hay, crop, and grazing land. They'll supplement it as needed after soil testing but it's a $ saver for them. They also sell/spread it for other folks and make $ that way.
1. Bring in "undocumented immigrant" workers. I don't know if they bring them in or find some locally. Perhaps some of them are "documented", I'm not sure. Provide housing for them...I'll make mention of something related to this below. I don't know what the pay rate is.
2. Use local folks that aren't going to work in any other setting. Usually pretty rough. Same deal as above, provide housing and payment....again, no idea of the rate.
About the housing....there is a rental assistance program from the USDA Rural Development department. The guy who rented some of our land for crops told me about this. He passed away a while back and his grandson runs it now. Anyhow, he set up a row of run down trailers and built several small/cheap houses and houses his workers and their families in them. .gov sends him a check for housing for each of them every month. He said it's the best thing he's ever done.....check from .gov every month and no hassle of collecting from renters. The housing has to pass certain standards but it can't be much as he did it (grandson doing it now) with rough looking trailers. They do this for the families that work for them as well as other low income families.
In all of these cases, sons, daughters, grandsons, etc of the farmer are working as well so family is a big part of the labor/help.
One of the reasons I did hardly any work this past year, only had my son helping, and now with him working full time with his online jobs can't find anyone.
God bless Texas----------------------- Old 300 I will remain what i am until the day I die- A HUNTER......Sitting Bull Its not how you pick the booger.. but where you put it !! Roger V Hunter
I know the guy that ran a ranch up in tom miner a few years back.....he brought in Peruvians....the ones I met was nice and he said hard workers....bob
Tried for five years to hire a young guy here to work with me. Would pay him better than any of the factories in town to start, and more as he learned. Once he got to where he could do whatever he got sent to do and I didn't have to go fix it, I was willing to hand him the business. Tools, customers, all of it. No takers. They all want to make a living being chair pilots. Working with your hands is viewed as second class work, for those who can’t do any “better”. Good luck hiring anyone reliable for the dirty but necessary jobs. Once we’re gone, the fuggers can starve out in the open, I guess.
I have worked on farms/agricultural/Orchards etc quite abit. When the economy would take a down turn or I was down because of seasonal influence, I would head to the agricultural sector for work, I don't draw unemployment or any of that. I was way further ahead to work for less and ride out tough times, and I also liked working on the land.
The east indians own all the agricultural farms here now, they are going to run out of Mexicans next because they dont want to work for them, they treat the workers poorly, hold back their pay, make them live in poor conditions. I was just told yesterday the Mexicans aren't coming back to the nearby farm this year.
I never saw a Mexican or foreign worker until about 15 years ago, ever, never needed them and if policy was changed we wouldn't need them now.
Our Social programs are too generous and much of the youth are cracked out and lazy.
There are people who will work cheap if they can ride a horse, work cattle, and drag a gooseneck trailer around. The smell of cows, horses, mud, and diesel must be addictive.
True. There are a few cowboys around here that seem to keep sticking it out, but are prone to move on to a different ranch every few years. Being single seems to be best for the trade.
Some of the bigger farmers in these parts are starting to turn non-family employment into a partially compensated job though. My buddy is a diesel mechanic and he quit his diesel shop job to go to work for a farmer/rancher. He loved it for about 5 years. In the end though, having 4 kids and a stay at home wife he couldn't swing the insurance, retirement, etc and went back to work in a diesel shop.
You might need help but if you hire some it will take the profit right out of your operation. Sorry but that's the state of the family farm / ranch operation and it won't get any better under the Democrats. Mb
" Cheapest velocity in the world comes from a long barrel and I sure do like them. MB "
We’ve seen the Eastern European kids up here working fast food joints, gas stations etc.
What I’ve seen they’ve impressed me, hard working polite kids. Might be worth looking into. Wish I had a good answer for you Sam, as always wish you the best.
Both of my boys have good payin jobs w bennies, being able to pass a drug test, knowing the value of showing up & hard work not being a foreign subject to them probably helped. 🤷🏻♂️
I did much wrong raising my kids, I was a fire breathing, no nonsense, yelling & cussing machine too much of the time, but as they got older, more capable & learned when we had work to do it was time to get to work, we’d have fun busting each other’s balls over who worked the hardest or was most capable. But at least they’d been introduced to what work should look like.
There’s nada to replace the energy of youth though. We used to get up cows on my grandads place to move them a couple of miles to different pasture. No four wheelers, no horse as mine was kept on my dads farm. I could wheel back on foot running to get to the other side of the small herd to push a stray back into the herd, then wheel back to the side I was supposed to be working. I made up for a fair amount of dumb, w incredible energy.
Some of the best days of my life were spent helping my grandad. He remains as one of the best men I’ve ever known.
I'm pretty certain when we sing our anthem and mention the land of the free, the original intent didn't mean cell phones, food stamps and birth control.