Armed Fed Agents and Snipers in Nevada Battle with Local Rancher

Haven't read a lick about this story or this rancher but as someone who knows the cattle and ranching business very well….you don't need 600K + acres to raise cattle. Quite the contrary. You can 100% rotationally graze and grass feed hundreds of head of cattle on as little as 100 acres. I don't care if this land has been in his family forever. Things change, this is the 21st century not the 1800s. Not one single human being deserves to "own" more than 1000 acres or whatever in this day and age. Farmer, rancher, Ted Turner whoever. That's complete and utter BS. We have plenty of Americans that would love to own property, that should own property, and lots of young people who would love to get into the ranching/farming business. I mean it's unfathomable that in America Ted Turner can own millions of acres of land. Fk that! EVERY AMERICAN BORN CITIZEN should have the opportunity to own land in this country. There should be plenty to go around.

That being said I'm not about to let the government go in and seize private property. But I feel no sympathy for a farmer that needs thousands of acres to graze cattle. Screw him! He probably already gets plenty of government subsidies. And the facts of this story aren't even clear.

Gozer
reply to post by trig_grl

 

"...a major escalation in a decades-long standoff between a local cattle rancher and the U.S. government."

I bet I can guess how this is going to end.

The gov't has learned their lesson...They are making sure there are no cameras anywhere near that ranch...I'm sure the family, their kids and dogs and rabbits will point military type weapons at someone and it will quickly be over...And the house will be buried before the sun sets...

reply to post by GreenMtnBoys

You must be speaking of Vermont?

Raising cattle out West requires more grazing land per head. It is a different world out there. It is all about water and range land.

reply to post by intrptr


Range fed beef? LOL….what do you know about "range feeding'? You think you can just throw cattle out on "rangeland" and that's all there is to it. The beef is going to be tender and taste good? NOT! You don't need thousands of acres. Range feeding is an antiquated way of raising beef cattle. It's unnecessary. MiG and rotationally grazed beef I think is what you are implying. Very different than range feeding. Better tasting beef, better for the environment and better for the cattle. But you can't be a lazy farmer. You gotta be out there rotating your cattle and reseeding, haying, etc. Range feeding is agricultural laziness.

butcherguy
reply to post by tinner07

 

I doubt there was really snipers.

Maybe there aren't any....

But FBI/HRT sniper Len Horiuchi was at Ruby Ridge, and he did shoot Vicki Weaver through the neck with a sniper rifle while she held a ten month old baby in her arms. She was not armed.

No reason to believe that there would be snipers.

He was also at Waco...

Iscool

butcherguy
reply to post by tinner07

 

I doubt there was really snipers.

Maybe there aren't any....

But FBI/HRT sniper Len Horiuchi was at Ruby Ridge, and he did shoot Vicki Weaver through the neck with a sniper rifle while she held a ten month old baby in her arms. She was not armed.

No reason to believe that there would be snipers.

He was also at Waco...

He didn't 'fill his tag' there, AFAIK.
It still says quite a bit about the Feds in that he was still operating after Ruby Ridge.

reply to post by JonButtonIII


They stole it?
His permit was revoked for not paying the grazing fees on public owned property.

He has lied about how many heads of cattle he has, he has threatened the Feds with violence in 2012 when they tried to remove his cattle.

Even the Nevada cattlemen's association said they would not interfere with this, their only concern is that the cattle are removed safely.

Okay now that I've read the article I can form an opinion.

I think the rancher is stubborn and simply wrong. Besides the fact he refuses to pay taxes / fees he claims public land is his land. WTH?!?

The people who side with this guy have a weak arguement.

reply to post by butcherguy


I suggest you research management intensive grazing and rotational grazing principles. My family is in the business and I live "out west". MIG type ranching requires a different set of skill sets and knowledge most old school stubborn hard to change farmers/ranchers don't have or don't want to embrace.

GreenMtnBoys
reply to post by intrptr

 

Range fed beef? LOL….what do you know about "range feeding'? You think you can just throw cattle out on "rangeland" and that's all there is to it. The beef is going to be tender and taste good? NOT! You don't need thousands of acres. Range feeding is an antiquated way of raising beef cattle. It's unnecessary. MiG and rotationally grazed beef I think is what you are implying. Very different than range feeding. Better tasting beef, better for the environment and better for the cattle. But you can't be a lazy farmer. You gotta be out there rotating your cattle and reseeding, haying, etc. Range feeding is agricultural laziness.

Please google the following:
'Ranch land in Nevada'
then-
'Farm land in Vermont'

Check out the top hit on each category.
The top result for Nevada has a photo of what I would call 'a desert'.
The top result for Vermont has a photo of a red barn with lush green grass growing all around and wooded hills.

I agree that grain fed beef is better than range beef. Tastes better and is more tender.

But not everyone farms in the East. Most of the country eats range fed beef.

GreenMtnBoys
Haven't read a lick about this story or this rancher but as someone who knows the cattle and ranching business very well….you don't need 600K + acres to raise cattle. Quite the contrary. You can 100% rotationally graze and grass feed hundreds of head of cattle on as little as 100 acres. I don't care if this land has been in his family forever. Things change, this is the 21st century not the 1800s. Not one single human being deserves to "own" more than 1000 acres or whatever in this day and age. Farmer, rancher, Ted Turner whoever. That's complete and utter BS. We have plenty of Americans that would love to own property, that should own property, and lots of young people who would love to get into the ranching/farming business. I mean it's unfathomable that in America Ted Turner can own millions of acres of land. Fk that! EVERY AMERICAN BORN CITIZEN should have the opportunity to own land in this country. There should be plenty to go around.

That being said I'm not about to let the government go in and seize private property. But I feel no sympathy for a farmer that needs thousands of acres to graze cattle. Screw him! He probably already gets plenty of government subsidies. And the facts of this story aren't even clear.

edit on 8-4-2014 by GreenMtnBoys because: mistake

It's not fenced...It's just what's there...I'm sure in times past, many ranchers used that public grazing land...And if was good for anything else besides grazing, I see no reason why hunters and others shouldn't have access to that land...And they probably did...

I've hunted land on public land in Montana that had grazing cattle...

What's interesting to me is that people have had cattle grazing that land for over a hundred years and apparently it wasn't a real problem for turtles...I doubt that it is now...

reply to post by GreenMtnBoys

don't want to embrace.

Some might view this as a freedom issue.

The Amish don't exactly embrace change either.

Wow the feds are on a grave robbing spree, just recently antiques and art from an old man.... now it's the old farmer cattle and land!!!

The gold in fort knox must be gone!!!

GreenMtnBoys
reply to post by intrptr

 

Range fed beef? LOL….what do you know about "range feeding'? You think you can just throw cattle out on "rangeland" and that's all there is to it. The beef is going to be tender and taste good? NOT! You don't need thousands of acres. Range feeding is an antiquated way of raising beef cattle. It's unnecessary. MiG and rotationally grazed beef I think is what you are implying. Very different than range feeding. Better tasting beef, better for the environment and better for the cattle. But you can't be a lazy farmer. You gotta be out there rotating your cattle and reseeding, haying, etc. Range feeding is agricultural laziness.

That's pretty much all there is to it...They have a roundup once a year to brand the newly born cattle and castrate the new males...They bring them in and stick them in a feed lot to fatten them up just before they are sent to the slaughter house...About the only thing that's changed is a lot of them use motorcycles and sometimes helicopters to round them up instead of horses...

They don't need barns...They often stack hay out on the range for the winter months...

This matters how and why?
I've yet to see to any people trying to give the Native Americans their lands back.
So why should the current population be treated any better by this government?

reply to post by butcherguy


No most of the country eats feedlot beef where cattle are fattened for the last 6-12 months of their life. You have no clue what you are taking about. MIG/rotational grazing requires more water yes. But it can be done all over the country and is more efficient. Oregon to Alabama. Maybe we shouldn't be raising cattle in the desert ever think of that?

The next time we have a Republican in the White House we won't be seeing these "domestic" threats anymore. It's how the game is played. Whenever a Democrat is the POTUS, we have more scary threats from nutjobs with guns here at home than terrorists overseas. Republicans love to scare us with terrorists in far-flung countries. It's to much for one party to tackle, so they divide it up.

Democrats = domestic threats
Republicans = foreign threats

There is a lot of talk about how wrong this guy is in his fight with the Feds. Those arguments have much merit. He is wrong about different things.

What the Feds have to remember is that Jesse James was a bank robber that had most of the people in the countryside that he roamed in on his side... because of what the government represented to them at that time, after the Civil War.
The Federal government hasn't been making a lot of friends lately.

MystikMushroom
The next time we have a Republican in the White House we won't be seeing these "domestic" threats anymore. It's how the game is played. Whenever a Democrat is the POTUS, we have more scary threats from nutjobs with guns here at home than terrorists overseas. Republicans love to scare us with terrorists in far-flung countries. It's to much for one party to tackle, so they divide it up.

Democrats = domestic threats
Republicans = foreign threats

George H W Bush was the POTUS when Ruby Ridge took place.

reply to post by butcherguy


True, but historically if you look back through ALL the "attacks" be it foreign or domestic, traditionally it falls more along those lines.