Million Downloads Episode

Summary

Cattle Chat – Million Downloads Episode (May 8, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this special episode, the BCI Cattle Chat team from the Beef Cattle Institute at Kansas State University celebrates a major milestone: reaching one million podcast downloads. The hosts reflect on their journey, share favorite memories, highlight the value of listener engagement, and discuss impactful listener questions and cattle industry topics. They also provide thoughtful advice to aspiring ranchers, emphasizing education, experience, and networking.

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Celebration & Reflection on the Podcast's Journey

• The team celebrates the milestone: "We've had our millionth download and listen of the podcast, which seems crazy."
  — Brad White [00:20]
• Founding members reminisce about the podcast’s humble beginnings, including scrapping early episodes that failed to meet their standard for quality and adopting a more conversational, less “lecturing” format.
  • "We deleted every one of them. The first month's worth. We recorded. We deleted them all."
    — Brad White [01:04]
• Listener questions have been critical in shaping content and improving the show’s relatability and depth.

Memorable Moments:

• Worldwide Reach:
  “Several people walked up and said, are you Dr. Weber? We know you from BCI, CATT... I thought that was pretty cool that the stuff here, although not targeted specifically at South Africa, had made it clear around the world and was being useful and impactful in another place, another country.”
  — Bob Weber [02:29]

• Cross-discipline Episodes:
  “It was just really animal feeding. But it was so interesting to hear that, you know, from the human health side that they talk about and practice here with the athletes.”
  — Dustin Pendell, about an episode with a K-State athletics dietitian [03:53]

• Timely Producer Support:
  “We had a producer question arise… The topic at that time was Ergod, and folks were kind of seeing that… It’s a great way to get information in front of people real quickly and to get some people involved real quickly and get a lot of good information out there.”
  — Jason [04:29]

• Enjoyment of Collaboration: “I just enjoy the conversations that we have here. I like hearing, you know, people with other expertise, ...so I just like the variety of people that we've gotten to discuss all kinds of topics with because I always learn something.”
  — Bob Larson [05:33]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Maybe the outtakes are stuff that doesn't make the air. The stuff you guys say before we go on or after… It's kind of like an NFL pregame show… we figured out Bob was like our Terry Brad.”
  — Brad White [06:04]

• “I hope you enjoy that as much as I do.”
  — Brad White to Bob Larson, about giving him grief every episode [06:48]

• “My mom and your dad were our only two listeners for a while.”
  — Bob Larson [06:51]

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Key Listener Questions and Insights

Which Cattle Topics Do Listeners Ask About Most?

Listener question data compiled by Philip:

• #1 Nutrition
• #2 Reproduction (Repro)
• #3 Management
• #4 Health
• #5 Genetics
• #6 Markets
• #7 Grazing

Top Subtopics by Category

• Nutrition:

  • Protein supplementation
  • Forage quality
  • Nontraditional feeds (tree leaves, pineapples, rice bran)
  • Net wrap ingestion
  • Supplements/minerals
    “We also discussed things like tree leaves, pineapples, rice bran… eating net wrap…” — Brad White [10:31]
  • Needs revisiting: forage management and dormant forage supplementation

• Reproduction:

  • Bull selection & fertility, breeding soundness
  • Pregnancy status determination
  • Synchronization and developing heifers
  • Foundation for successful herds: “If you develop your heifers well and you manage your forage well, I bet you're gonna do okay.” — Bob Larson [12:35]

• Management:

  • Early weaning strategies
  • Calving management and timing
  • Cattle performance
  • Sandhills calving system

• Health:

  • Specific diseases: anaplasmosis, scours, pink eye
  • Early embryonic loss

• Genetics:

  • Crossbreeding (two-way, three-way)
  • Breed selection
  • Genomics/DNA markers
  • Balancing selection for desirable traits

• Markets:

  • Value gain, feed cost, income over feed cost
  • Direct-to-consumer, preconditioning, feeder cattle marketing, vertical integration
    “Top ones, semi related value gain, feed cost, income over feed costs... marketing would be the other broad category.” — Brad White [14:48]

• Grazing:

  • Cover crops
  • Intensive management
  • Fescue
  • Toxicity issues

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Listener Question: Advice for an Aspiring Rancher (Junior in High School)

[16:22] — 25:14

A high school junior asked for guidance on how to best prepare for a successful ranching career, in school and beyond. The crew provided these actionable insights:

Themes & Recommendations

• Lifelong Learning:

  • “It's not necessarily what we do in college, but it's everything from there on after in life… that is really important for helping us be successful.”
    — Jason [16:22]
  • Maintain curiosity and seek ongoing education beyond graduation.

• Network & Diverse Industry Exposure:

  • Attend local and state cattle organizations: “Go to some of those meetings because there are lots of people that you can meet that are willing to share information and don't reinvent the wheel.” — Brad White [17:32]
  • Pursue internships, work experiences off the home ranch, and campus involvement.

• Coursework (with bias for well-roundedness):

  • Economics & Business:
    • Intro to ag economics, farm & ranch management, finance, data management
    • “The best class he's ever taken is a finance class.” — Dustin Pendell [18:05]
  • Animal Science & Agronomy:
    • Animal science and forage classes are foundational
  • Accounting & Records Management:
    • “I didn't take accounting until graduate school, but a managerial or finance and accounting is really, really useful…” — Bob Weber [20:34]

• Extracurriculars & Leadership:

  • BCI’s undergraduate student leadership experience connects students with faculty and industry leaders [19:22]
  • Department-led student opportunities (animal science, ag econ, agronomy)
  • Study abroad for international perspective

• Building Networks On and Off Campus:

  • Relationships with faculty across disciplines; seek mentors and extension faculty
  • Peer network:
    • “Surround yourself with other like-minded, success-oriented students, get involved in clubs and activities...” — Bob Weber [21:58]
  • “You're going to run into them the rest of your life. And that's a great network to have.” — Bob Weber [22:28]

• Avoiding Over-Attachment to Home:

  • “Don't go home all the time. There’s a reason to be on campus and interacting with people and not going home every weekend. Or if you're going to go home every weekend, don't go to your home.” — Bob Larson [23:06]
  • Get experience on different types of operations (feedlot, stocker, purebred units)

• Competitive Experiences/Judging Teams:

  • Highly recommended for skill-building, travel, time management, and networking [24:33]

• Perspective and Enjoyment:

  • “Remember to enjoy the journey, because a lot of us are focused on getting to the goal, but it should be enjoyable along the process… a job at a different place where maybe I'm a little uncomfortable at the start, that means I'm learning.” — Brad White [25:14]
  • Success is self-defined, and the process should be enriching as well as goal-directed.

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Episode Structure & Notable Timestamps

• [00:20] Milestone announcement, early episode reflections
• [02:29] Hosts share favorite podcast memories
• [06:30] Evolving the format to more conversational engagement
• [08:19] Acknowledgement of past hosts, contributors, and student producers
• [09:01] Quiz: Most-asked listener question categories and key topics
• [12:44] Discussion of key management, genetics, health, marketing, and grazing listener questions
• [16:22] In-depth panel advice to aspiring ranchers (student question)
• [25:14] Closing thoughts on enjoying the journey, defining your own success, and gratitude for listeners

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Takeaways & Tone

The BCI Cattle Chat team’s tone is friendly, collegial, and enthusiastic, with plenty of humor and camaraderie. The episode balances celebration with forward-looking advice, driven by listener engagement and a clear passion for education in the beef industry. Notable is their emphasis on continuous learning, broadening experiences, and the value of community and mentorship.

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For further questions or topics, listeners are encouraged to reach out:
Send questions to [e-mail]

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Congratulations to the BCI Cattle Chat team for one million downloads!

Transcript

[A]

Hi, welcome to BCI Cattle Chat. I'm Brad White. Happy to have you with us. Happy to have our crew here in the studio. Morning, Dustin.

[B]

Good morning, Bob.

[C]

Hello, everybody.

[A]

Jason.

[C]

Good morning, gentlemen.

[A]

And Bob Weber came back to join us. Hey, Bob. Hey, guys.

[D]

Great to be here.

[A]

It's nice to have two Bobs again.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Indiscriminately say Bob and you don't know which one I'm talking about. So we're glad to have you with us because we're actually having a little celebration today. We've had our millionth download and listen of the podcast, which seems crazy. And you, Dustin and Bob.

[C]

So the other two, Bob's.

[A]

Dustin, you guys were here when we started this thing and doesn't seem like that long ago, but I think Dustin remembers the dates and kind of how we started it. Do you remember, Dustin?

[B]

Yeah, I want to say. Well, it was 26 or 6, 2018 or 2019, I don't remember which year, but it was April, end of April. I saw some pictures and then if you guys recall, we recorded about a month's worth and we decided to scrap.

[C]

Scrap them all.

[A]

We deleted every one of them. The first month's worth. We recorded. We deleted them all.

[B]

We started recording April, but they were so great.

[C]

They were not great.

[B]

I think May, late May, is when the first one might have came out.

[C]

Well, that's probably. People are listening saying, okay, so the ones you're keeping are good. Yeah,

[A]

Well, there's a plateau. Maybe.

[C]

Yeah, maybe.

[A]

At least we. But we. I'd ask a question and you guys would go into lecture.

[D]

I mean, it would be lesser mode, like full on.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So hopefully that's at least a little bit better now. But I wanted to remind everybody, one of the things that's made it better is listener questions. And we're going to talk about. I've got a list. Philip, who could not be here this morning, gave. He actually went back through all the listener questions we've ever had and ranked them by category and then he came up with some of the most popular ones. And I want to share that with with you guys later. We also had a listener question today about a student preparing for a career in ranching that I want to address. So as always, if you have a listener question, send it to [e-mail]. but I wanted to ask you guys about your favorite podcast memory or what was one of the either episodes topics guests. What was something that you really enjoyed? And it could even be an interaction with somebody else. So if you've talked to somebody about the podcast after Bob, I'm gonna go to you first, Weber.

[D]

Yeah, thanks. So one of the. And I think we shared a recorded session that I made when I was in South Africa last fall. Dr. Steven Hughes. And one of the things that really stood out on that trip was the number of people that knew bci, knew Kansas State University. Several people walked up and said, are you Dr. Weber? We know you from BCI, CATT or extension publications. And I thought that was pretty cool that the stuff here, although not targeted specifically at South Africa, had made it clear around the world and was being useful and impactful in another place, another country.

[A]

And, you know, we don't always think about that. We don't at all through the podcast, but we do have listeners from lots of different places and Dustin has traveled to lots of different places. Dustin, what's your favorite memory?

[B]

You know, I'm just thinking of a. Of an individual. I can't remember her name, but she was from, I think K State athletics. And that was when we were up on the hill.

[C]

Oh, sure.

[B]

She was a diet.

[D]

Oh, the dietitian.

[A]

Yeah, she talked about. Yeah.

[D]

Was it Rebecca something?

[B]

I'm not sure, but I think she.

[D]

That was great.

[B]

I think she was a rower, maybe. Yeah, they state, but just. I didn't, like. I guess I didn't put it all together, but the athletes, the, you know, the protein, everything that they need, how they basically measure for like, the individuals and whatnot.

[C]

It was just really animal feeding.

[B]

Yeah, pretty much. You think about the offensive defensive line, but yeah, it was just. It's so interesting to hear that all the stuff that, you know, from the human health side that they talk about and practice here with the athletes.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's something we don't always think about. And it's good that we've been able to incorporate some of those. Some of those topics, not just cattle nutrition, but human nutrition. And Jason, I know you. You've had some good experiences as we've gone through, especially the last couple years. You've been a lot more involved, which we appreciate it. Tell us what's. What's one of your memories?

[E]

I think one that really sticks out for me is just last fall we had a producer question arise pretty quickly from some folks down in southwest Kansas. The topic at that time was Ergod, and folks were kind of seeing that pretty quickly and in sorghum plants. And I think the reason why that one sticks out for me is I look at this podcast, right? It's another form of communication we have in a way to get information out to people real quickly and address in that case a real pressing topic that was very much on the mind or on the forefront of a lot of people's decision making stances at that point. So great way to get information in front of people real quickly and to get some people involved real quickly and get a lot of good information out there.

[A]

The cool thing about that one too was you were on and Scott Fritz was on so he could talk about some of the toxicology stuff. You talked about the nutrition angle, some of the different aspects. And it's good to get multiple perspectives because those, those problems are multi pronged.

[E]

Absolutely, yeah.

[A]

Can't just solve it with one. With one specific area.

[E]

You bet.

[A]

Bob, what about you?

[C]

Well, you know, I just enjoy the conversations that we have here. I like hearing, you know, people with other expertise, Weber with the genetics, Endel with the economics, but also some of the folks that we brought in from other places on campus, you know, Dr. Olds from entomology. We don't interact with the entomologists as much as maybe we should. Sandy Johnson's always good because I can always talk repro with her. And so I just like the variety of people that we've gotten to discuss all kinds of topics with because I always learn something.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the fun part of it is just like you said, the conversation, and that's what I enjoy is us getting together. And maybe the outtakes are stuff that doesn't make the air. The stuff you guys say before we go on or after, but even during. And we started describing it as one of our evolutions was it's kind of like a NFL pregame show. And I started using that analogy. But then we figured out Bob was like our Terry Brad.

[C]

I'm Terry Brad.

[A]

You don't know exactly what he's going to say, but he's willing to say something right out there.

[B]

What about you?

[A]

Yeah, that's my favorite part is the. Is just the back and forth that we have before and being able to give Bob a little bit of grief every. Every episode. Right.

[B]

That's fair.

[A]

That's the. That's my favorite part. Bob, I hope you enjoy that as much as I do.

[C]

Well, again, as we're kind of thinking back at a million episode the when we first started, I'm pretty sure that my mom and your dad were our only two listeners for a while, but absolutely.

[A]

Even after the ones we threw away and we thought they were better.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Those are the only two that listen.

[D]

So it was kind of crazy. One million, though. I thought when I first got the. The email with the announcer, I'm like, that can't be right.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And then I'm like, no, it probably is.

[A]

Yeah, it's a million downloads.

[B]

He just said a millionth episode.

[C]

Oh, I see. No, we haven't had a million episodes.

[B]

Like 19,000 years.

[C]

Yeah. Millions down, let's say, doing some work.

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

So two million ears. Two ears per person. So.

[B]

Right,

[C]

let's up this number.

[A]

Count it. So, because we've had a lot of people on over the time, and I'm not going to list all the past guests, but Bob, you were with us when we started. Jason, you've been involved. We've also had Scott Fritz, Todd Gunderson. Been very involved the last year. Eduardo Bortoluzzi, Dan Mosherv has made several appearances and we've. We've enjoyed talking with him. And Lisa Mosher was our past communications lead. But we've had several student producers over the years. Currently we have Ella Johnson, and then previously we've had Matty Drake, Jacob Clout, Jessica Jensen, Bailey Farmer, Grace Jacobson, Shelby Varner, all. All of which have gone on to careers in communications in different areas.

[B]

Did you mention Brian Lubers?

[A]

And Brian Lubers, yep. Has been also a good, frequent occurrence until he's in our interim department head role. And that has taken up his time, so he can't be on as frequently now. But I wanted to get to. And Philip did a great job summarizing some of the podcast information. So I want to ask you guys some questions. So this is based on listener questions, and the categories are nutrition, reproduction, markets, grazing, health and management. What. Which of those do you think had the most frequently asked questions?

[C]

Well, it should be reproduction, but I'm

[E]

not sure if it was.

[C]

Those are all good topics, but I'm going to go with repro.

[D]

You know, that's a. I'll take management for 500.

[A]

Management for 500.

[E]

You said economics.

[A]

Markets.

[E]

Markets. Markets. I would say that one.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I was going to say management because management's pretty broad.

[D]

Pretty broad. You got rid of things.

[A]

Number one. And recall that Philip put together the list was nutrition.

[E]

So it's a bias list. Yeah.

[A]

So let's throw that one out.

[B]

So what's number two?

[A]

Number two was repro. Number three, management, four, health, five, genetics, six, markets and seven, grazing. So, but a. Pretty tight. Between the top three, nutrition, repro and management. They're all pretty tight. And over the years We've had several hundred listener questions, so that's one of the things that I think has also been one of my enjoyment areas is getting those listener questions and diving into them. So he also summarized some of the topics within those listener questions. So in the nutrition, can you name a couple topics that we talked about frequently, nutrition wise? Jason, I'm going to you first because

[E]

this is your couple topics within the nutrition realm. I would say protein supplementation and coupled with forage quality. Yep. Are those close?

[A]

Yep. Okay, you're. You're right there. We also discussed things like tree leaves, pineapples, rice bran. You remember the pineapple farm?

[E]

Those were right there. Those were definitely gonna be my next one.

[A]

Yeah, that's eating net wrap. And whether or not that's good for you or not. Turns out. No, no, but that was one of the things. The other one that came in there that has been discussed several times were things like specific supplements, mineral or other supplements that we've gone through. What do you guys think are some of the potential big areas in nutrition that maybe we have emphasized but need to come back and revisit?

[C]

Well, I think forage management. So, you know, in grazing, and a lot of our questions do deal with cow, calf, and stocker, where you're. The base ration is. Is grazing. So I don't know that you can ever spend too much time on grazing. And then particularly when you've got dormant forages, either hay or standing dormant forage, the supplementation, the protein and energy supplementation. So those are. Those are backbone, basic things that we have to cover to do well with cows. And, you know, we get a few questions about guys starting cattle or. Or from the feedlot side as well. But, you know, we're an industry based on forage.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's based on forage and reproduction, which is the next one I want to go into. So, Bob, what do you think are a couple of the top repro topics?

[C]

Well, bull selection and bull fertility. So breeding, soundness exams and things like that. Those would be pretty high because of the impact that bulls have.

[A]

Okay. And what's top on the female side?

[C]

Probably determining pregnancy status. And. Or we did talk a lot about synchronization, particularly with heifers.

[A]

Synchronization. Developing heifers.

[C]

Developing heifers.

[A]

Questions on developing heifers.

[C]

And again, those are kind of foundational. If you develop your heifers well and you manage your forage well, I bet you're gonna do okay.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely.

[E]

Quick question. Was early embryonic loss on that list.

[A]

I think that's on the health one.

[E]

Okay.

[A]

Yep, he's got that on the health one. Which next we get into management. So Weber, what do you. What do you think were some of our top questions on management?

[D]

Good question. Probably early weaning strategies. Maybe parasite control. I don't know if that fell in parasite.

[A]

Is. Is in health.

[D]

I think that's in health. Okay, maybe sandhills calving. Yep, yep, something like that. Calving management.

[A]

Yep. Weaning, calving management, calving season, timing of weaning. Done a few things there on cattle performance as well, which you threw into. Through. Into management. Which, which leads us to the. We talked about several of the health topics and we've covered a lot of different health topics from specific diseases, anaplasmosis, scours, pink eye, some of the other things. But then genetics, which. Back to you, Weber, what do you think we talked about with genetics? Crossbreeding, cross breeding. Number one.

[D]

Number one. Maybe some breed selection to go with that. Complementarity. Some of those are all complimentary topics. Maybe balancing selection between calving ease and performance, carcass traits. Maybe somewhere something like that.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely.

[B]

You're.

[A]

You're right on there. And we've had a couple conversations on the crossbreeding, two way, three way cross. How do you manage that? How do you manage that? Small herds, big herds we also dove into a couple times. DNA markers, genomics type stuff. So yeah, very good questions there.

[D]

And big rock stuff.

[A]

Dustin, what about markets?

[B]

If I had to guess, I would say probably trade. We've talked. Well, maybe. Oh, we're talking listener questions though, aren't we?

[A]

Yep.

[C]

Always want to know when the prices are going to be high.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, but I don't know that we've got that. I don't remember that specifically. I don't know. That's a.

[D]

You just always bring like a trivia piece with.

[B]

Yeah, but that's not necessarily a question though, right? You said a listener question.

[A]

Yep. So the top, top ones, semi related value gain, feed cost, income over feed costs, which is similar to our value of gain. And then on marketing would be the other broad category. So direct to consumer preconditioning programs, marketing, feeder cattle, vertical integration. So those would be the two big, two big areas that those fall into. And, and our last cavity grazing, which could slide into some of the nutrition stuff that you talked about, Bob. You could lump those together. But Philip probably didn't want to do that because he already had nutrition bumped up to number one with how he's

[C]

gonna really pad it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. But cover crops, intensive management, fescue. And then we've had some other one off questions specifically related to toxins like the one that you mentioned or antimicrobial use, pharmaceutical use, which lubricants has handled. And that's the, that's the thing I enjoy is being able to visit with the you guys about those because you've had the training, you've gone through the process and we get to share our expertise and bounce back and forth. Which leads me to my next listener question for today. And there's a, A student, I really appreciate this. So I junior in high school sends us an email. I'm going to K State. I want to be the best, most successful rancher thinking cow calf. And his question is, what should I do today, next year, the year after as I get in? And this could be answered with specific courses, classes, plan of study, or it could be answered with extracurricular activities. What do you think he should do? And Jason, I'm going to start with you.

[E]

You bet. Well, I think this is a really fantastic question and one that I think resonates with all of us. I guess as I kind of look at it big picture as I think about advising this student and maybe some guidance that I would offer is number one, make sure that we approach it from the standpoint of it's not necessarily what we do in college, but it's everything from there on after in life and as we get into our profession that is really important for helping us be successful. And so maybe not necessarily getting quite so stuck on the specific maybe questions on courses or majors that we want to be in, but just remembering that we got to continue that lifelong learning process well on into once we get started in the industry. The other thing I would say is think about those opportunities where we can associate with folks that are in the industry to help us maybe identify maybe some jobs, some internships, some work experiences that we can do that would be really beneficial for this student.

[A]

And you're thinking exactly like I am. And there are places, local county cattlemen's association, the Kansas Livestock association here in Kansas.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

Go to some of those meetings because there are lots of people that you can meet that are willing to share information and don't reinvent the wheel. Right. Find somebody, get, spend some time at their place. I'm thinking exactly like you are.

[E]

Yep, yep. Because I just kind of look at it from the standpoint it's not necessarily one specific course or maybe two or three, but it's a CULMINATION of just what you try to, what you try to develop and learn and grow into as you go throughout life. Right.

[A]

And don't underestimate the value of those relationships outside of classroom learning.

[C]

Right?

[E]

Yep, yep, yep.

[B]

Dustin, this question is just, it's amazing question. I mean you got a junior in high school already thinking about that far out. I mean my son who's a junior, he's trying to figure out what lunch is today, let alone I'm going to college somewhere. But then what's equally impressive is he's going to K State. I think that's good choices. So yeah, what's some things that I'm going to just go more specific into class or start off in a general. I'm going to be biased. You want to take some econ, some management courses, but that's obviously not enough. You know, you've got your animal science, you've got your agronomy or forage. Sure there's some other classes you guys will probably mention but specifically within the ag econ courses like maybe farm ranch management. Well, intro to ag econ, just kind of an intro to microeconomics. Farm and ranch management. We've had Todd on here before and he said the best class he's ever taken is a finance class. So I'm going to throw in an ag finance in there as well and then maybe kind of a data management course that we offer. So lots of numbers and data. So those are going to be four. And then Brad, you brought up another thing. It doesn't necessarily have to be courses, it could be extracurriculars. And I'll just mention this and I'll let Brad maybe fill in details but here at BCI we've got that student leadership experience and I'll let you fill it more.

[A]

So we've done an undergrad student leadership experience which I think we've got two ag econ students in there this year. And those students get exposure to faculty, graduate students and probably most importantly they'll meet with about 25 to 30 people from external to campus where they get to have a one on one meeting with them. Talk about jobs, careers, whether those careers be in policy or animal health management or private companies or individual production operations. So it's a great place to get some of that experience.

[B]

And, and it's not. I mean there's not only that opportunity, there's some in ag, econ, animal science, agronomy that every department's got their own student experiences. And the last thing I'll mention is, you know, study Abroad, you know, I think I've told you guys before, but we've just, it was official, we've got enough students that I'm going to take a group of students down to Brazil next January for a couple weeks and we're going to see dairy, beef, soybeans, corn, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so again, just get involved wherever,

[A]

whatever you do, be cognizant of those opportunities that are available.

[D]

Weber I think, well, I like Dustin's comment about, you know, business and econ courses. Looking back, you know, one of the, I was an ag econ minor with an animal science degree. So you've got, there's lots of electives in your, in your degree program, put those to good use. So focus on and I think, you know, if you're going to go back into production ag, you know, a strong set of courses. You know, I remember Don Liebacker, Liebecker taught Farmer Ranch Records Analysis, one of the best classes I had. I didn't take accounting until graduate school, but a managerial or finance and accounting is really, really useful even, you know, if you go build a vet clinic. Being a good steward of the finances and understanding the balance sheet, all that stuff's really important.

[A]

Important.

[D]

The other bit that I think sometimes students don't maybe optimally take advantage of is two sets of networks and building that network while you're an undergraduate. And that's a network with faculty, right. So not just your advisor, but you know, you can think about the key faculty across the college that are, you know, have expertise around cow calf production. So some of those are here in the vet school, some of them are in ag econ, some of them are in agronomy, some of them are in animal science. Build those relationships because those are resources particularly. And Jason, you know, when I was in an extension role in department,

[B]

one

[D]

of the things I really tried to do was be in front of undergraduates at some point. So they knew who I was when they left. Right. And so having that connection, particularly with extension faculty, I think can be really useful. And then, you know, who you associate with as an undergraduate is also really important. Right. So surround yourself with other like minded, success oriented students, get involved in clubs and activities and that kind of stuff because those folks are the people you're

[A]

going to run into.

[D]

I mean, but I was fortunate to have that. You're going to run into them the rest of your life. Right. And that's a great network to have.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Bob.

[C]

Well, these guys took most of the good answers, you know, There's a number of good classes and those activities. The one thing that, that I see once in a while, and I certainly understand the, the temptation. So you want to go back home, you want a ranch, but don't go home all the time. There are so many because of these relationships, activities, you know, meets, judging teams, different things. There's a reason to be on campus and interacting with people and not going home every weekend. Or if you're going to go home every weekend, don't go to your home. This is a place you've got these peers that are kind of pushing you. Well, go to their ranch, see some different things.

[A]

So.

[C]

And this may be a conversation with your parents of there may be times when you need to go home and help, but you miss some of the things we just talked about if you go home every weekend. And so I think thinking that ahead of time and balancing that and having appropriate kind of a plan with you and your parents of when do you really need me back and when should I do other things besides just coming home? Because I'm worried sometimes we miss those opportunities because sometimes they're planned and sometimes they just happen because we're here.

[E]

Yeah, that was a good. I'm sorry, Bob, go ahead.

[D]

Oh, I was going to say that that's a great perspective and get experiences away from your home experience. Not that home experience is not valuable, but it's good to have different perspectives. And so I was going to say, you know, both Jason and I have been faculty coordinator for purebred beef unit. So student opportunities to work at university at scale units that are maybe different than the one that you have experience in. So go work at the stocker unit, go work at the purebred unit, go work at the feed yard. Get those perspectives. And there's, there's lots of great producers right around Manhattan that oftentimes are looking for night weekend help. Go cab out a set of heifers. Right, right. In a system that uses sandhills, calving or some. Something that you're not familiar with.

[C]

Or if you're going to be a ranch kid, go to. Go spend some time at a feed yard.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Get different perspective exposed.

[E]

That's really valuable. That's really getting some other segment of the industry experience is really critical there too. It was alluded to and I just wanted to mention specifically judging teams. I really encourage kids to take a look at those. I can think back to a number of situations where when I was an undergraduate, students that shied away from those opportunities to be on those competitive teams because they were afraid of the time commitment, the work, and just the, you know, the need to travel and everything. And those are extremely valuable for young individuals. And the lessons and the things that they learn that come out of those are really, really critical. So I really want students to think about those opportunities, and it's easy.

[A]

I totally agree with what you guys have said, and this is really good advice for any student, whatever they want to study. The other thing is, remember to enjoy the journey, because a lot of us are focused on getting to the goal, but it should be enjoyable along the process. This meeting the new people that we talked about, that should be fun. A job at a different place where maybe I'm a little uncomfortable at the start, that means I'm learning. So that's a. That's a great idea. Taking some classes that are maybe outside my realm in finance or ag, econ or whatever it is. Yeah, I should. I should be able to do that. And remember where you're going. You get to set up your what is best most successful mean. You get to set that metric. So we appreciate that listener question. And we've appreciated all of you listening over the years as we reach this milestone of a million listens, which seems like a really big number. So we have certainly enjoyed having you to interact with and sending us those questions. And please keep sending us things that you'd like us to talk [e-mail].