How to Not go Broke Ranching is the irreverent and sometimes humorous effort of a multi generation rancher to help people keep from making all of the mistakes that he made in fifty + years of ranching. It is drawn from real life though some names are changed or not given to protect the guilty. The vast majority of ranches in the United States, whether commercial or life style, are neither profitable nor sustainable; the author explains why this is so and what must be done to improve the situation. The changes in philosophy and in management practices required to do this are spelled out in some detail by a man who used them to turn an almost bankrupt ranch into a consistently profitable and stable operation. The book is not a how-to cookbook but rather is an attempt to get people to think of ranching, and agriculture in general, as the biological endeavors, run on sunshine and rainfall that they once were and should be again, rather than the industrial enterprises that are common today. The methods described have been proven effective by people all over the world and their results can be duplicated by anyone who is willing to think through the situation and is not afraid to be different. As the authors' father once told him, "You have two kinds of neighbors, half of them think you are crazy and the other half knows you are crazy." The management described is not yet universally accepted but it works from all standpoints: it is financially sound, ecologically sound and it is a good way to live and raise a family. Both the new, or would be, rancher just starting out and the established rancher will find information and advice in this book that can be used to make their operation more profitable, less dependent on purchased inputs and markets and a whole lot more fun.
About the Author: Walt Davis spent more than fifty years as a working rancher in Texas and Oklahoma. He has lived all of the joys and all of the sorrows that go with ranch life and it is his unbiased opinion that ranching is (depending on how it is done) either the world's best way to make a living or an unending struggle against nature that will break the strongest spirit. Walt grew up in a ranching family and was exposed early on to ranching as it had been practiced in west Texas for many years. After a degree in animal husbandry from Texas A&M College, he took over management of a ranch in southeast Oklahoma. It soon became apparent that there were major flaws in ranch management as he had been taught in college. Walt started searching for "a better way." He soon realized that agriculture is a biological rather than an industrial process. This book is an outgrowth of that search and its' results. Walt and wife Diann live on a small place on the outskirts of Calera Oklahoma; Walt consults with ranchers and other land managers over a wide area, he teaches seminars, and writes columns for the Farm Progress family of magazines; after a bad fall curtailed his activities, he finalized How to Not Go Broke Ranching and is working on The Gyp Lease Tales and Other Lies (collection of short sketches of ranch life) and The Gathering at Oak Creek, a novel set in the west Texas ranch country. Contact Walt at www.waltdavisranch.com.