The Evolution: Athens Stockyard through Dean Williams' Vision

[00:00:07.560] - Chris Griffin
Welcome to Back to your Roots, a podcast that provides insight into all things farming, financing, and farm life, guiding you Back to your Roots. Thanks for joining us today on Back to your Roots. I'm your host, Chris Griffin.

[00:00:21.180] - Jordan Turnage
Hey, guys, I'm Jordan Turnage, and as always, thank you so much for joining us. Today, we're talking with Mr. Dean Williams. He's the owner of the Athens Stockyard in Athens, Tennessee. And a longtime borrower here at River Valley Ag Credit. We're glad to have you on here today, Mr. Dean. Thanks for coming on.

[00:00:36.440] - Dean Williams
Okay, thank you, guys.

[00:00:38.940] - Chris Griffin
Mr. Dean, can you tell the listeners a little about your background and how you started in the cattle business and became a stockyard owner?

[00:00:46.230] - Dean Williams
Okay. I started at a very young age. As some people say, I've always had my head stuck up the cows butt. But my grandmother and my great-grandfather, they grocery stores in Inglewood and one in Athens here. Before I was born, anyhow, my grandmother, they sold their grocery store and bought a dairy farm. And so I was raised on a dairy farm. And I had uncles that were cow traders. Then one uncle, he run a stockyard in Cleveland, and I'd go to the stockyard with him and my cousin and everything from the time I was probably four or five year old. Then when I got out of high school, I started livestock trading, pinhooking or what. Any how, I bought and sold cattle in the country and everything. I did that for about 28 years everywhere, Chattanooga, Fort Payne, Alabama, Sweetwater, Athens, Crossville, all around. But anyway, so in 2003, opportunity come for me to go to work for two guys at lease Athens Stockyard, I'm managed it for them. We did that for about a year. And then the next year, the opportunity come for us to buy in at Athens in the stockyard. That was 2004.

[00:02:03.680] - Dean Williams
I mean, everything I've done all my life just worked right up to. I just hit the ground running, and we just tried to treat people like we wanted to be treated. If you do that, I had a lot of people, we went from probably 50 head a week to now, we have had 20 something hundred head a week. They all say, Well, how did you do it? How did you do it? They just one secret. If you treat everybody like you to be treated, you don't have no problem.

[00:02:32.330] - Chris Griffin
Just treat people with respect, and they'll a lot of times give it back over time.

[00:02:36.710] - Dean Williams
I've been doing this about 48 or nine years, and then raised any than other 10, so probably 60 years, and I'm '67.

[00:02:46.030] - Chris Griffin
Now, did you say was it your grandparents that don't know a grocery store or your parents?

[00:02:50.880] - Dean Williams
My great-grandparent, he run a grocery store, and then my grandmother, which I stayed with my grandmother and everything, and she in the grocery store, and they were people. You got to be people person.

[00:03:04.570] - Chris Griffin
Well, when you said that my grandparents had owned a grocery store here in Kentucky, and they lived in the back in an old country grocery store. When I heard that, I just brought back some memories.

[00:03:18.500] - Dean Williams
Yeah, my grandmother, they raised their kids up above the store. It's still here in Athens.

[00:03:23.980] - Chris Griffin
Oh, yeah. My dad still talks about that's where their grocery... Anything that was left over, that's basically what they cooked for dinner at the time or whatever.

[00:03:33.180] - Dean Williams
But I guess growing up, my hero was my uncle, and he'd run the dairy, and he'd done a lot of cattle buying, and I'd go with him. He'd run the yard down there at Cleveland. I told my wife the other night, I said I used to play stockyard. I'd ride out tickets and stuff when I just eight, seven, eight-year-old. That's just the way it's happened.

[00:03:53.090] - Jordan Turnage
I tell you, I think between Chris and I, the only real cattle work we've ever done has been with a knife and fork, but we try to do our best with that. It's a reciprocal operation we got here.

[00:04:06.440] - Chris Griffin
Keep you in business.

[00:04:07.270] - Dean Williams
That's good.

[00:04:08.520] - Dean Williams
We like you people.

[00:04:10.110] - Jordan Turnage
Yeah.

[00:04:12.080] - Jordan Turnage
So just kind of walk us through what a typical day or week is like there at the sale barn.

[00:04:20.930] - Dean Williams
Okay. When I first went into this stockyard, I never will forget, the guy was kidding me the other day. We got a little old place down here where we eat breakfast and might tell a few lies or whatever. When I was going to start this stockyard deal, I told him, I said, now, it's just one day a week, one day a week. When he sees me, anywhere he sees me now, he says, how's that one day a week job? But it's not a one day a week if you do it right. If you go in there and you just go the sale when it starts and then when the sales over, you get the commission check and go home, it's easy deal. But what I usually do, we're on call 24/7, me and my son, Dusty. He's in with me now, and we're 50/50 partners. But we'll take cattle in starting on Saturday and Sunday. Our sale's on Tuesday. But we fixed our facilities to where we can handle them. We take cattle in on Saturday and Sunday. Then Monday is the day I'll get in there about nine o'clock on Monday morning. We receive cattle and we tell people, help them to sell and all that because we're on commission and you hire me to sell them.

[00:05:36.990] - Dean Williams
So I feel like I need to earn my keep. We'll take cattle in and pin them the way they need to be pinned and get everything ready. We usually stay open till 8:00 or 9:00 on Monday nights. Then Tuesday morning, the day of the sale, the only day that I told him I was going to have to work that Tuesday, the day of the sale, we get everything lined up. We'll get probably 600 head in on Monday, and sometimes we'll get 600 or 800 in on Tuesday, and that'll give us thousand, 1,500 heads. But we get them lined up Then at 12:00, we start our sale. We start out with the head cows and stuff, and I go to the ring and make sure to watch everything. Then 3:00, we sell our feeder cattle, and then on up the night, we'll finish her slaughter cows. Well, then Wednesday morning, which I've got guys that stay all night and load trucks and stuff, Wednesday morning, the cattle are left over. We have to move them around, get them on hay and water, and a lot of them are loaded out. Then we have special sales, like on Thursday.

[00:06:53.590] - Jordan Turnage
Yes, sir.

[00:06:53.890] - Dean Williams
We'll have a replacement cow sale on Thursday. We got to be there on that Wednesday and power them up, get them ready. We have a Holstein Steer sale the second Thursday, so we take them in on... We're moving cattle out from Tuesday on Wednesday and then bringing in Holsteings for the sale. Then the third Thursday, we do a pre-condition sale, the wing cattle. We take them in on Wednesday and have to get them ready. Then on Thursday, we weigh them and get all those sales ready on Thursday. Then on Friday, we have to make sure the cattle we sold on Thursdays, we get them out on Friday. Then I've got a good guy, he keeps the barns clean. We have to get that ready for Saturday and Sunday. So that's a typical week right there for us answering the phone. A lot of these farmers trust us, and we give them advice. I mean, it's just like family.

[00:07:57.600] - Jordan Turnage
Yes, sir. I mean, it's It's a community. We've got it here out West, not near to the degree that you guys do. I'll be honest, it's pretty foreign to me growing up on the row crop side of things. But it's all about, just like with row crop and everything else. It's about helping your partner and your neighbor and developing a good community because all hands got to pull in the same direction and row in the same direction. That makes a big difference, I'm sure.

[00:08:29.740] - Dean Williams
Got to have good help. We try to take care of help, but you're talking about community. When we first, you have to get a charter. Used to, you had to get a charter in Tennessee, and they had a meeting like we made at the courthouse to get a charter. But when we took the stockyard over, we'd have cattle three miles from the stockyard that were going to another stockyard. I told those guys, I said, Listen, if we cannot sell these cattle within a mile or two of the stockyard, how can we get people to come 150, 200 mile radius? And that's what we've got, a circle of Athens, about 150 to 200 miles. So I said, to be a community market, you've got to be part of the community, right?

[00:09:14.340] - Jordan Turnage
Yes, sir. Oh, yeah. Because everybody, it'll make a break, especially in these markets where they are right now.

[00:09:21.350] - Dean Williams
That's right.

[00:09:22.530] - Chris Griffin
You're talking about community. Shea was talking about, we obviously do Stuff the Tractor and just talking about it. I wasn't as familiar with it, but said that your stockyard is always a huge contributor to Stuff the Tractor. You go into that and what you do to raise some money for that event. I think it just shows the respect that your guys have for you and the community, how they work together to try to help something out that's important to the community.

[00:09:52.580] - Dean Williams
Well, what we do, which it's really the farmers. I mean, it's our farmers. I mean, they give, they give. Like February, we'll sell one bar of candy for the Shriners. Anyhow, the first time, and that leads right up to the stuff in the tractor, but they brought 15 cases of candy up for us to sell. We got one little bar. We do it the last Thursday in February. The first time we did it, we raised about 10,000 with that one little stick of candy bar. The next year I told him, I said, don't bring all that candy down here. Leave it up on top and we give it away. We've raised anywhere from 15 to $25,000 dollars at a time.

[00:10:37.850] - Chris Griffin
That's crazy.

[00:10:38.510] - Dean Williams
Dollars at a time.

[00:10:39.350] - Dean Williams
So Jim and them come and they brought some stuff.

[00:10:44.220] - Dean Williams
I told Jim, I said, We'll auction this stuff off. But I said, This year, we sold some stuff. I don't know. We thought we might raise 1,500, 2,000. So we started selling it. Was doing pretty good. The lady that always makes us applecakes, Ms. Diane O'Donnell from Ringo, Georgia, she'd make these applecakes. And the last Shriners deal, they bring $3,000, anyhow, about $6,000 for two of those applecakes. So she just walked in spur of the minute. And I really forgot about this year's sale till about 10 minutes before we... I knew about it, but I just let it slip my mind. So we started. She walked in. I said, Diane, I said, You make us an apple cake, and of course. So we sold it for two weeks later, and I think it brings about $3,000. We sold it two times for a thousand. And then the boy bought it the last time. He gave a thousand for it, and he said, I'm not selling mine. I'm keeping it, but we raised about 4,500.

[00:11:50.030] - Chris Griffin
That's awesome.

[00:11:51.970] - Chris Griffin
We're super appreciative of that, and I know the community is, too.

[00:11:57.940] - Dean Williams
Well, those guys are glad that you We're trying to help. We do live in a land that's plenty, but there's a lot of people. I'm telling you, they struggle.

[00:12:07.760] - Chris Griffin
Yeah, for sure. I know River Valley, we've always been trying to make it more relationship lending and have good relationships with our borrowers. Can you just tell us, how long have you been a member of River Valley and what's, I think, you hear and made you.

[00:12:26.380] - Dean Williams
That's what I found out about River Valley, what I like It's operated on the same principle that we operate on. It's the community-minded. They treat us just... I mean, Jim Roberts, my agent down here, all those ladies, everybody in that office is good. But Jim Roberts, he'll walk you through what you need to do, and you can get some good financial advice from him. But I started, I don't know the exact date, but I'm going to say in '82 or '83, maybe before then, when it was production credit, right?

[00:13:02.140] - Chris Griffin
Yeah.

[00:13:03.250] - Jordan Turnage
What I hear, I wasn't here just yet.

[00:13:06.540] - Chris Griffin
I wasn't quite born yet. That's what I've heard.

[00:13:09.380] - Dean Williams
It may have been 1980, but anyway. I knew three or four of these guys, I have to give them recognition, Harold Moore and Ray Arnold and Morris Clark and them. Morris was a lending agent, and those guys were on the board, and they were out. They were cattle farmers, and they went out on a limb for me then. They've always been there. Then about 2018, I run into a little rough stretch, and Jim Roberts, down here at the local Athens office. I just went in and He said, Let's just let's figure this out. He helped me figure out my loans on my farm. We got all that worked out. Then a couple of two or three years later, come up to buy the stockyard out, and we got all that deal worked out. Jim's always done that. And then we're operating money with him at the stockyard. He's always... River Valley has been... If it wasn't for River Valley, they wouldn't be Athens Stockyard as it is right now. Jim, I have to throw this in every time, too. Jim, he gives me some good advice on everything, financial advice or just life. But I'd say, Jim, when are we going to get this?

[00:14:29.930] - Dean Williams
When are we going to get this? He said, Listen, do you want a fast no or a slow yes? So I said, Okay, that's the way we'll operate right there. I'll take that slow yes.

[00:14:40.430] - Jordan Turnage
Mr. Jim-

[00:14:41.290] - Dean Williams
They've always come through in time.

[00:14:42.970] - Jordan Turnage
Oh, yes, sir. Yeah, he's He's always somebody that at a meeting or something like that, if there's an open chair, I like to sit by him because...

[00:14:49.740] - Chris Griffin
He's always a wealth of knowledge and wisdom.

[00:14:52.990] - Dean Williams
Oh, yeah.

[00:14:54.940] - Chris Griffin
He's been through ups and downs of lending.

[00:14:56.920] - Jordan Turnage
Just a gentle giant.

[00:14:59.130] - Dean Williams
Yeah. He's good.

[00:15:00.730] - Jordan Turnage
Oh, yes, sir. Well, hey, let's piggyback off that and go down the economic role of things when it comes to the stockyard. What economic factors, such as the price of feed and demand, affect your business?

[00:15:15.680] - Dean Williams
Okay. We operate on a commission. We're a commission. The more the farmer gets, the more we get. So the harder I work, the more the farmer makes, the more I make. When you've got high feed, that means cheap cattle. And the better job that these guys do, to anything that we can do to get more out of their cattle, just that helps. Just high feed usually means cheap cattle, and cheap feed means high cattle.

[00:15:53.450] - Jordan Turnage
Yes, sir. Our grain markets are always like a teeter totter between cattle market and row crop. When one side's up, the other side's down.

[00:16:03.080] - Dean Williams
Yeah.

[00:16:03.930] - Dean Williams
I used to do a lot of buying and selling them when cattle got cheap. We were buying and selling cattle. Most time when they got cheap, you couldn't buy any cattle hogs, which are not many around now. Hogs would get high. So you could jump back on the hogs and survive.

[00:16:25.580] - Chris Griffin
I know you said you've been in this business for a long time, and you've seen trends, good and bad. In your opinion and the outlook, what is the future of the cattle business and stockyard business look like coming up for '25 and even beyond that?

[00:16:41.930] - Dean Williams
Well, I've seen a lot of different trends, and most of them, if you study, they're just about the same. The only thing that we're seeing different right now is that so many people are getting older.

[00:16:56.150] - Jordan Turnage
Yes, sir.

[00:16:57.350] - Dean Williams
And they can't... I mean, they try. I've They got some... Just like I've sold one or two guys out in the last month that were 85-year-old. They stay at it, but there are just so many people going out. That's going to eventually hurt our numbers around the stock yards, which... Some of these yards have got down to 200 or 300 head. But that's why we're trying new things. We're trying to keep these people interested. If we do a good job, We're going to have to reach out farther. We reach out 150, 200 miles. But just the worst trend right now is that our farmers are getting older and their kids are really not wanting to do it. But some of them will, till they're offered 10 and $20,000 an acre for the land. And then it becomes a no-brainer, dad, you've done good, but we're going to sell this farm.

[00:17:57.200] - Chris Griffin
That's the same way over here.

[00:17:59.460] - Jordan Turnage
That's what that's the issue across the country.

[00:18:02.380] - Chris Griffin
I think that's not just, like you said, it's not just a cattle operation or anything like that.

[00:18:09.310] - Jordan Turnage
Your average farmer age, I feel like every year with the calendar year, the average age just goes right along with it. As far as increasing, we're not getting as much return for these younger guys to come in here. It's our jobs as lenders to try to figure out avenues to get these guys in here to keep this going and keep it profitable before it gets away from us.

[00:18:36.090] - Dean Williams
Oh, yeah. What we're doing, we're pushing this 4-H. We support them any way we need to.

[00:18:42.540] - Chris Griffin
Absolutely.

[00:18:43.440] - Dean Williams
FFA, getting these kids down here, they had a field trip. My granddaughter, I've got one granddaughter, 15, and one that's fixed, she's 12. But they're very interested in the stockyard. They like the horses, the cows. And anyhow, my oldest granddaughter, she We had her FFA class come do a field trip down at the stockyard about a month ago. They were back there, one or two of them pregnancy check cows, and then they set through the auction, and If they can just see that it's interesting, maybe these younger kids will get in it. We're like a rowcropper. We're going to have to grow us a crop of these young kids or we're going to be out.

[00:19:29.970] - Chris Griffin
Well, Farm Credit, they're really pushing the YBS program now. For our listeners that aren't familiar with that, young, beginning, and small, and really trying to introduce this next generation and hopefully that level of entry a little bit easier to get into those operations, to get their foot in the door. They're definitely taking the initiative, and I think trying to get out in front of that, not look up in 15 years. Like, Man, we should have been on that quicker.

[00:20:00.770] - Jordan Turnage
That's something we want to hang our hat on.

[00:20:02.570] - Chris Griffin
That's something I know this year for sure with the Riva Valley, the YBS initiative is really important to us and trying to stay on top of that. Anything like 4-H, FFA, anything like that is It's honestly super important for the future of farming.

[00:20:17.360] - Jordan Turnage
I don't know if you've noticed since Mr. Dean, but a lot of those, you're talking about with your granddaughter, you watch a lot of these FFA, 4-H chapters. There's a lot of girls. It's more girls than boys. It's not a club anymore.

[00:20:31.200] - Dean Williams
They had about, they was probably 60 of them down there three weeks ago. They were sitting up there. I was in FFA when I was in high school.

[00:20:41.710] - Jordan Turnage
Yes, sir.

[00:20:41.970] - Dean Williams
Not one girl. Now, this was in 72 to 75 or 76. Not one girl was in our FFA. Okay. And we commented on this the other day. They were probably 45 girls and maybe 10 or 15 boys at the most.

[00:21:03.300] - Jordan Turnage
That's how a lot of it's looking, a lot across these chapters. And even at our way at Murray State for our ag program, the majority of the income and freshmen into the Ag business department or pre-vet, the majority are women or girls right now. And it's not a man's world no more.

[00:21:25.500] - Dean Williams
No. And see, I've got these two granddaughters, and it's When these husbands die, we help these women get their cattle sold a lot. But a lot of those women wind up being a better operator than their husband. It stays there. But we've become, I've laugh and kid around. I say, I've become more women oriented, oriented stockyard, because first of all, I've got two granddaughters. I don't have a grandson. And whether it's coming, the women are going to run it. And I mean, it's just, I'm telling you, these girls are a whole lot more interested than the than the boys.

[00:22:01.420] - Jordan Turnage
Oh, yes, sir.

[00:22:01.830] - Chris Griffin
I know the office I work out of, I'm surrounded by... We're at Kyle and myself and Kip and Logan, we're all outnumbered at this office, the main office. We just try to stay on their good side and roll on.

[00:22:16.980] - Dean Williams
That's right.

[00:22:18.000] - Chris Griffin
They keep us in line pretty good.

[00:22:20.750] - Jordan Turnage
I'm outnumbered here and at home, too.

[00:22:23.630] - Dean Williams
That's right.

[00:22:26.640] - Jordan Turnage
Well, hey, you were talking about helping with herds and with families like that. What are some... Just for the listeners, and really for the presenters on this, tell me, what are some good practices or secrets you can give us when it comes to maintaining a healthy herd?

[00:22:44.450] - Dean Williams
Well, first of all, they need a good health program, good vaccination program. They need a good vet to work with, man or woman. That way they can keep good bulls. They need to cull their cows, vaccinate their calves. They may not be able, like I said, they're getting older and a lot of people can't do it, but we've got some guys around that will go around and do that for them. But make sure their bulls are good. Call the open cows, good vaccination program for the cows and the calves. And another thing that people leaves out, we're grass farmers. I mean, if we're cow, we're grass farmers. We need to take care of our grass and our soil just like we do our animals. So soil testing and fertilizing and stuff like that.

[00:23:40.990] - Chris Griffin
You're talking about vaccinations and fed. You I know there's a nationwide shortage on large animal vets. Is that one of the challenges that you've seen with your guys and at the stockyard? Finding something reliable and is on call and different things like that?

[00:24:03.280] - Dean Williams
Oh, yeah. There's one or two male vets around here, and then two or three women are coming on. I think our co-op down here now, Ag Central, they're full-time vets, a lady now. She took over for the other boy, but it is.

[00:24:24.900] - Chris Griffin
I learned about that a little bit because Murray State's really here in Western Kentucky, they're really pushing hard to try to get a vet school here. We had them on for one of our podcasts and just talking about the shortage of large animal vets and how that's really presented a big issue for a lot of farmers and something you don't really think about, but it's just another level that there's just so many things that go into your operation that a shortage on that end affects you directly.

[00:24:55.910] - Dean Williams
We're in pretty good shape down in this area because we at the UT vet school and all that, but we're in pretty good shape. But now, our state's got this enhancement program, T-CAP or whatever, where they buy the working facilities and stuff. That's helped more than you think, because a lot of these vets, you call them, they'll say, well, have you got anywhere to get her up? Have you got anywhere to get you? We can work these cows. And if you say, Well, not really, then no, I'm covered up. So we've got a lot of our farms have upgraded all their handling facilities and all that. That's helped a whole lot about getting some of these large animal vets.

[00:25:39.690] - Jordan Turnage
What advice would you give out to guys that are looking to get started in cattle farms or they're listening on here, or just for farmers in general? Where are some good P's and Qs guys could follow when it comes to the cattle business?

[00:25:55.360] - Dean Williams
Well, first of all, if you're going in, you got to stay with it. There's going to be good years and they're going to be bad years. Don't sell out in the bad years. They've got to buy the right genetics in their bulls and then pinch pennies. They can't cut corners too much. But I was talking to a friend of mine that runs a local co-up over here, and we was talking about this. The inputs are so high now, and cattle are high.

[00:26:24.880] - Jordan Turnage
Yes, sir.

[00:26:25.330] - Dean Williams
The inputs are so high, they can cut corners, but they've got to watch where they cut them. You buy the right bulls, you can take an average cow and buy a high dollar bull, and you'll get a good, efficient calf. If you're going to try to cut corners, It's like he says, maybe you can skip fertilize this year, or maybe if you've got some fence that you've got to rebuild, you can put some of that stuff off to survive. But the good genetics and keep your cows culled up, they're just going to have to... You just got to watch your steps.

[00:27:10.250] - Jordan Turnage
What are you looking for when it comes to selecting a good bull for breeding? What are the main things that we're going to try to find to help out with that?

[00:27:19.800] - Dean Williams
Okay.

[00:27:20.760] - Dean Williams
A lot of people are coming. On our Thursday, first Thursday of the month on our replacement sale, we semen check all our bulls. And so first of all, a lot of people will call. First of all, they need to make sure that bull is 100% sound. He's got a good count. The second thing is they have to decide. If you're breeding heifers, then you need a low birth weight bull where you get a live calf. If you're looking for a bull, if you're looking for more milk, better growth on your cash and stuff, then you need to get that higher birth rate. So looking at those EPDs and just deciding what you're needing.

[00:28:12.580] - Jordan Turnage
Yes, sir. Oh, yeah. It's a process, that's for sure. You're talking about with cutting, quote unquote, cutting corners. That's the conversations that I have to have with my row crop guys out here, trying to find ways to not pinch pennies, but stretch them and figuring out.

[00:28:34.940] - Dean Williams
There you go.

[00:28:35.390] - Jordan Turnage
Everybody's operation is tailor made. No one's the same. That's one thing that I know that Mr. Jim and the people that taught him and the ones that he's taught us have shown us is that everybody has their own footprint and life story when it comes to their operations. No one's the same. We got to make sure that we're not cookie-cutting. And that's where I feel like we, as lenders, can hang our hats with guys like you all on the proofs, been in the pudding, saying that good or bad, we're going to sit with you guys because times are tough right now, and we're trying to do the best we can to make these work. And I think that it's good that we can have these conversations, good or bad or hard. We all know that we're trying to do the best we can for you guys, and you guys want the best outcome for yourselves, too, because we succeed, you guys succeed.

[00:29:38.040] - Dean Williams
That's right.

[00:29:39.630] - Chris Griffin
Well, you said something earlier about sticking with it, the good years, the bad years. I think so much now, and maybe that might be maybe what's deterring some guys getting in or maybe discouraging them is, sometimes you've got to look at it as the big picture and willing to commit long term to really see the returns on it. I think so many people now are just don't have the patience or instant gratification, they call it, I guess. I definitely think that's something that is a great word of advice, whether it's cattle operations or farming or business or whatever, investing money or anything. I mean, just you got to stick with it and go through the bad years and the good years and look at it from a long-term perspective.

[00:30:26.590] - Chris Griffin
So I thought that was great.

[00:30:27.710] - Dean Williams
Oh, yeah. You've got the plan for growth, or you won't have no growth.

[00:30:32.270] - Chris Griffin
Yeah, yes, absolutely. Yeah. Gosh, you sound like my wife. I'm like something my wife would say.

[00:30:39.200] - Dean Williams
I'll throw this in here the first one week there, we had about 2,000 head.

[00:30:45.740] - Dean Williams
This guy asked me, he said, golly, bum. He said, What would you have done if you hadn't had these lots in this barn? I said, It's simple. We'd have had 2,000 head, then the next week, we'd been down to 300 heads. I mean, that's just you either you've got plan for it or you're not going to have it, or you won't be able to handle it if you do have it.

[00:31:06.240] - Jordan Turnage
It goes with that old saying, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu.

[00:31:11.740] - Dean Williams
There you go. That's good, there.

[00:31:15.650] - Jordan Turnage
Well, Mr. Dean, we thank you so much for setting some time aside today and to come on here, the Back to your Roots podcast. We appreciate you giving us some insight with the Athens Stockyard and cattle farming. You're a very little customer us. We appreciate you so very much. Any advice or pearls of wisdom that the guys have received on this, we sure appreciate you giving it to us today.

[00:31:41.240] - Dean Williams
I appreciate being able to give it, and I appreciate what you do for me.

[00:31:46.800] - Jordan Turnage
Yes, sir. Well, guys and gals, as always, we thank you so much for coming on here and listening to us on the Back to your Roots podcast. For Chris, I'm Jordan. Thanks for listening.

[00:31:55.030] - Chris Griffin
Thanks for tuning in to Back to your Roots, where we dish the dirt on all things ag. Be sure to never miss an episode by following and subscribing. While there, leave us a review about what you want to hear next. Stay in the know between episodes by following us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok. For more resources, go to our website at rivervalleyagcredit. Com.