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Episode Transcript

Tim Strathman (00:00):
<silence> Hey, everybody excited to get episode number three underway. Uh, we're gonna learn about the poultry business, uh, which is something I'm not super familiar with, so I'm gonna probably learn a bunch myself. Uh, but we've got Wayne with us. Wayne, uh, appreciate you coming on. Andy Evans is actually the one that tied the two of us together after being down here. Uh, it's neat to see what we've seen so far and what we're gonna see after we get done with this. But give us just the, the high level view of you and your operation and where we're at

Wayne Hentges (00:26):
Been farming for, since 2005 is whenever I officially started raising chickens. Um, they got you ups and downs like everything else, but we, um, got, uh, started out with broiler chickens, did them for 10 years, then we switched over to the table eggs and keep growing, um, up to 14 barns right now. So we're make a lot of eggs every day. A lot of scrambled eggs. Yeah.

Tim Strathman (01:02):
<laugh>. Yeah, I I bet you got some scrambled ones in with the good ones. Why'd you get into the poultry business in, in, in oh five? Was there, what was the reason? I guess I, I

Wayne Hentges (01:11):
Worked for the highway department, mowed yards on the side, and I'd always wanted to farm. I grew up on a farm and always, it was always my passion to be on a farm. And I love row crop. I love doing row crop. The only way for me to do that is start out in something that would help me get into the, into more farming. And that's chickens is what's done it so far.

Tim Strathman (01:42):
Yeah. When we drove down here, uh, which we're about four hours, uh, northwest of you, um, it seems like, uh, once you get into Missouri, it seems like there's a fair bit of poultry barns. Is that safe to say? Yes.

Wayne Hentges (01:55):
This area right here has, couldn't even tell you how many barns in this, uh, probably 50 mile radius right here. It's, it's astronomical.

Tim Strathman (02:04):
Huh? Has it always been that way or is that something that's kind of hit in the last, you know, since, you know, couple decades ago, back

Wayne Hentges (02:09):
In the sixties, I think Cargill, which was Turkey, started out in California, Missouri, which is 15 minutes east of here. Yep. And then Tyson moved in in 92 or 93. And it's just, we've always had had birds and stuff in the area. And then with everything that's went on with California rules and all that stuff, everything has went from caged eggs to cage free. And so it's just bloomed here. Um, we've had the barns, we got the people who know how to raise birds and have learned how to take it and raise eggs.

Tim Strathman (02:48):
Yeah. So when we drove in, you got quite a setup here, and I know you got a couple other, uh, farms, you know, within five, 10 minutes of here.

Tim Strathman (02:58):
I'd love to go through some quick, quick math. I'm not gonna stick you on numbers by any stretch of the means, but I think people would be blown away. You know, the boys when we pulled in, just were blown away at how big the buildings are. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, uh, and then obviously you go in the cooler and how many eggs you have. And, and just thinking through all the numbers, so what's an average size of a barn in terms of chickens, I guess, uh, that you have? Are they all the same or is that kind of varied?

Wayne Hentges (03:20):
Basically, the barns are all the same size. They're 42 foot wide, 465 foot long. Uh, put roughly 32,000 birds a barn. And they're on an aary system, so they got levels, they fly top, fly up wherever they got their feeding water, a nesting area, and then they've got feed, uh, they got feed up on top too, so they got roof pipes and they go down on the ground, scratch around, and it's a very humane way to raise birds. They can do anything they want to. Everybody thinks, oh, they gotta go outside. They need to be outside whenever it's hot, they're cool. Whenever it's cold, they're warm, they're, the birds want for nothing, you know, they got all their feed, all their water, and, uh, the right temperatures all the time.

Tim Strathman (04:18):
Yeah. So 32,000 birds and you said what? 14?

Wayne Hentges (04:22):
14 barns? Not all of 'em are

Tim Strathman (04:26):
Capacity.

Wayne Hentges (04:27):
Uh, yeah. Yeah. We got some of 'em that we're redoing still. Yeah. Um,

Tim Strathman (04:31):
Regardless. Yeah, it's a lot

Wayne Hentges (04:32):
Of birds. A lot of

Tim Strathman (04:33):
Birds. Uh, so what, what's an average production? We had a call initially. You had said what, five or six semi-loads a week? A week of eggs, what? 23,400 cartons, a dozen

Wayne Hentges (04:47):
Of eggs per

Tim Strathman (04:48):
Semi semi-load. So roughly for easy math, 1.4 to 1.67 million eggs a week. Yes. That's insane. That, that is just insane to think about. How many eggs, do you know, do they go to grocery stores? Do they go to like

Wayne Hentges (05:06):
They they go all over. Okay. It's the, they go Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, had some go to Hawaii last year, had some go to Canada last year. I just, wherever their, wherever the broker sells them.

Tim Strathman (05:22):
Yeah. So, so do you actually know, and you don't have to name names by any means, but if you were at the grocery store, would you be able to tell that those were your eggs? There's no system for, like, the only reason I ask that is, uh, family business growing up was a pet food. Right. And so pet food, there was always a, a code on the bottom of the bag. Yeah. That would tell you what plant it was made at and all that kind of stuff. And so to most people wouldn't have a clue. Yeah. So I, um, but you know,

Wayne Hentges (05:46):
When our eggs leave here, they go, they've all got a number on 'em. They go to the grading facility. And I don't know how that all operation all works when they go there and there might be followed by the barcode, you know, of what's on that package. Um, that might be how they're followed. Just so if there's ever any issues, they've gotta be, gotta be

Tim Strathman (06:11):
Traceable back to something

Wayne Hentges (06:11):
Traceable somehow. That

Tim Strathman (06:13):
Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's neat. We are actually doing the interview for people that can't see this actually where they pick and pack. Is that the, the way to put that. Um, so they've got two automated systems. Uh, and this is pretty, pretty incredible to see the technology, but I would assume, uh, like everything else, you probably struggle to find labor. Is that safe to say? Was that the reason to do this? Or was it more of just a consistency and efficiency thing?

Wayne Hentges (06:38):
Efficiency more than anything. Um, before we had to have two people at this packing machine, and one was a, was basically picking off the bad eggs, whatever cracks, what cracks, breaks, whatever, the other person would stack a pallet. And we went to this system for labor. And also you wasn't touching each stack eggs. It's, it's, uh, this system here, not saying it doesn't break eggs, but, uh, it'll crash every once in a while. It's a computer, but it'll, it picks 'em up so much more gentle and sets 'em down. Everything is done, done a lot easier

Tim Strathman (07:24):
For people that, uh, can't get into a barn or, you know, honestly, like in our neck of the woods, I can't even think of a, of a, of a barn anywhere close to us. Yes. Um, how, how does the process work? They lay, does it go on a conveyor? How, how does it get here?

Wayne Hentges (07:40):
They got nest. They lay their eggs in and there's a belt, continuous belt in that nest, and it brings 'em to the front and it hits an elevator and it brings it up. And they go onto a belt that comes in here, into this, uh, grading room, and, uh, comes into the packer there. It's

Tim Strathman (07:59):
Everything. And that's seven days a week? 365 days a year. Yep.

Wayne Hentges (08:03):
Yep. There's always, always eggs to be packed.

Tim Strathman (08:07):
How many people does it take to keep your operation going? Just on the, on the poultry side of things? Not on the farming or cattle or anything like that.

Wayne Hentges (08:14):
About 15.

Tim Strathman (08:15):
Really?

Wayne Hentges (08:16):
Yeah. That might be short, but real close to that. Yeah.

Tim Strathman (08:22):
Is that, um, something where you have people here around the clock or is it pretty

Wayne Hentges (08:27):
No, it's okay. Go to work at six o'clock in the morning, two 30. If there's no breakdowns or anything pretty much ready to go home, the birds start laying about six o'clock in the morning. So you gotta kind of check, feed, water, start checking everything, come in and start running the belts and start whenever they start laying real heavy, you try to have all the eggs off the belt as you don't the eggs, there's an egg there, another egg hits it, it's gonna crack it. So they, they're, they start running as quick as they can.

Tim Strathman (09:03):
Yeah. Speaking of eggs, uh, what can one bird produce one egg 365 days a year? Or is that not realistic at all?

Wayne Hentges (09:12):
Well, our peak lay, which would be about 23, 24 weeks, it'd be about 96%. And then they kind of start going down from there. Yeah. Um, I figure on a typical flock, they'll lay about 85%,

Tim Strathman (09:28):
Which ain't bad. No. What's, what's the lifespan of a, of a bird in terms of actually the ability to have eggs?

Wayne Hentges (09:35):
We have 'em here about 14 months.

Tim Strathman (09:37):
Really? Yep.

Wayne Hentges (09:39):
That's the kind of the make it, uh, makes the best quality egg. And 14 months they pretty much go down the road.

Tim Strathman (09:51):
That's wild. So, uh, does, do you contract with somebody that brings the birds here and then takes 'em away? You're not, you're not actually raising?

Wayne Hentges (10:00):
Not yet. Okay. That's in the future,

Tim Strathman (10:02):
Really. Yep.

Wayne Hentges (10:04):
We're we, uh,

Tim Strathman (10:05):
So how, how much bigger do you have to be to raise the replacements? I mean, how many barns are we talking to raise that many replacements? Three,

Wayne Hentges (10:12):
Three more barns.

Tim Strathman (10:14):
Really? Yeah. And how, how long does it take from a baby to actually be productive?

Wayne Hentges (10:20):
Four months. Put the baby chicken in, day one in that barn, and then roughly four months, take 'em outta that barn, bring 'em and put 'em in these barns. And then they're take about another two and a half, three weeks and they'll start slowly laying eggs.

Tim Strathman (10:41):
Really?

Wayne Hentges (10:42):
And about 20 weeks they'll be laying pretty good.

Tim Strathman (10:48):
Uh, it's just, it's just wild. Uh, we walk into the cooler and of course you can go to the store. Um, and you and I think, uh, had this conversation. We were on the phone when I was trying to talk you into doing this, uh, which I appreciate you doing it. You have white eggs, you have brown eggs, you have all different color of eggs. Uh, and I think you had made the comment that somebody said something about 'em being bad eggs because they were brown or vice versa, I guess. Give us a little knowledge on that particular subject.

Wayne Hentges (11:16):
Well, the conversation was as mom was at the, at Walmart and a lady had said was opening egg cartons, looking for brown eggs. And she's made the comment, don't know why we're bleaching these, why they're bleaching these eggs white, why don't they stay brown? And mom had to educate her that a brown egg comes from a brown chicken. A white egg comes from a white chicken and

Tim Strathman (11:43):
Pretty simple. It's

Wayne Hentges (11:45):
Yes. Um, you know. Yeah. If you wasn't, if you wasn't ever around chickens Yeah, you wouldn't know that. But that is, that's the way it is. That's, and there's brown chickens that'll lay, depending on the breed, there'll be almost a white egg on a brown bird. And it's just kind of, you'll see, you know, eggs that are just about white come in here, but it, there's dope come out of a brown chicken.

Tim Strathman (12:14):
Is there any nutritional difference between a white and a brown egg? Like ma major nutritional difference? I

Wayne Hentges (12:20):
Don't, I don't think there's, yeah. I, somebody could crack me a white one and a brown one, and I couldn't tell you the difference between 'em.

Tim Strathman (12:27):
Really? Yeah. Why get out? When you first started, you were actually in the, in the meat side of the poultry business. Why get outta that and go to the egg side?

Wayne Hentges (12:35):
There wasn't any money in the, in the meat side of stuff. Don't know why. It just wasn't, uh, wasn't nothing there

Tim Strathman (12:43):
Just at, you know, Andy obviously is a beef guy. We just at a dairy. Does the egg market fluctuate price wise, or is it usually pretty consistent week to week, month to month, year to year?

Wayne Hentges (12:56):
It, it's got, it's seasonal. Um, you get close to Thanksgiving, egg prices go up, go through to, uh, Easter. Get past Easter, and then they start going down and it's, it's kind of a seasonal thing.

Tim Strathman (13:11):
So are you, when, when you talked to me, you said you were an independent grower, what does that mean for somebody that doesn't have any idea of what, you know, how the business works? I guess

Wayne Hentges (13:22):
I buy the birds. I buy the feed. I, there's, uh, I don't have a company telling me that, you know, Hey, you need to feed these birds. This, instead of that, if, uh, they don't want something, you know, I we're, we give these, these birds everything that they need. I got a nutritionist that once a week he gets all the information of what these birds weigh, how big the eggs are, everything about these birds. And then he makes a feed rash. And off of that, he makes it to where these birds can be efficient, get exactly what they need. They're not being starved. They're, they get, and if you get with a company and they get to eat just a little too much feed, well they, they'll make you back off of feed. Hmm. It's sometimes you got different birds that want different, that eat different.

Tim Strathman (14:23):
Sure. Yeah.

Wayne Hentges (14:24):
It's just like humans. And now I'm by my, on my own. I don't have them people saying, well, them birds are eating too much. You know, that's, I, if they're eating a little too much, we just kinda leave 'em be and see where they going. A lot of times it, but you go trying to pull feet away from a bird, you lose production, you lose everything. And people, I see why they're doing it, because that's profit. Right. Every pound of feed that goes out that you don't need to go out. But in the long run, it kind of,

Tim Strathman (14:57):
I think you, you probably lose quality too. Yep. Not only from the quality side of the egg, but quality of, of life for the bird, I would assume. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Wayne Hentges (15:04):
Yeah.

Tim Strathman (15:05):
Just to save. Yeah. You know, pennies or dollars or whatever. Yep. Yeah. No, that makes sense.

Wayne Hentges (15:11):
I I'm not, I'm not sitting under somebody's thumb. Right. You know, on, on being independent, I can, you know, everything is, if I want to take the birds out a week early, I don't have to have permission. If we have an issue that we've gotta take care of, you know, we can do that. We can do what we need to do. And you, you work under somebody else, it's gotta be done a hundred percent anymore in this world. We first started out with eggs and 15 and 16 and the company we was with, I mean, it was pretty much basically farmers taking care of stuff wasn't in it for six months. And it becomes corporate. As corporate it could be, I bet, paperwork. Everything was just through the roof. You had no time to do what you needed to do in the barns. 'cause you was constantly doing paperwork, trying to send this report to them and that report, and that's not farming. You can't, you gotta be able to pay attention to your animals. You gotta pay attention to everything. You can't be sitting at a desk doing paperwork. And that's why I like being independent. You know, we have an issue, we take care of the problem. You ain't sitting there doing paperwork. Well, why'd this problem start in the first place? Well, we go take care of the problem 'cause stuff's breaks. We got moving parts.

Tim Strathman (16:35):
How many different chains of command do you have to, um, go through on the food and beverage side, um, to get your product from here to wherever? Or is that something that the person that's the broker deals with? Uh,

Wayne Hentges (16:47):
I think that's, the broker deals with that. Okay. We've gotta have, um, humane audits and stuff. Right. Uh, we got I think three or four different ones that we have a year. And it's

Tim Strathman (16:58):
Just inspect, making sure you're taking care of the birds and everything like that. They

Wayne Hentges (17:01):
Go through all the paperwork, see what everything's, just to make sure that there isn't no abuse and, and all that stuff.

Tim Strathman (17:08):
Which I think, you know, part of the reason, uh, we started doing this is I think people have the wrong perception about a lot of things in ag. Yeah. And I think livestock specifically, you rarely ever see any good stories about the beef for the poultry or the swine or Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> the dairy industry other than Oh, they treat 'em like crap and they put 'em in cages and they Yeah. You know, but I think people would realize this place is immaculate. Uh, like you said, uh, they're, they're cold in the summer and warm in the winter. Yeah. Uh, you, you, I mean, I don't know. They get, they get room to, to move around. I don't know what else you could ask for. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I don't, I don't know that you could make it any better than you're already making it. Right. You know? Yeah. For the, for the quality of life in the day to day. Eggs come in here, packing 'em up, what's a good percentage of eggs that are actually boxed up and, and shipped out? Obviously you got cracked ones, you've got, you know,

Wayne Hentges (18:04):
There isn't that many

Tim Strathman (18:06):
Out, out of 1.5 million say a week. Is it a fractional percentage fraction? Less, less than 1%? Yeah.

Wayne Hentges (18:13):
Oh, it's, yeah. It's way less than 1%.

Tim Strathman (18:16):
Yeah. That's pretty impressive though. Yeah. To have 'em actually Yeah. Get from there all the way through the barn. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> all the way through here and then on a pallet and be that's, yeah. That's impressive.

Wayne Hentges (18:26):
Whenever they get to the grader, we'll be at two point a half, 3% and that's gets loaded on a semi gets taken to wherever, wherever they go and they get graded, you know, we'll be at in the 3% range probably. And that's, you know, for that many eggs. That's good. Now we have times that where you have shell quality issues, uh, if it drops and gets stuck, terrible cold, um, you know, them birds can tell that they'll still stay at temperature, but the cold air coming in the barns and as the old cold air comes in, it's, it warms up, but you gotta ventilate. 'cause uh, you air quality's not good, but if it gets down to zero, shell quality will go down. Percent of lay go down, stuff like that. But you'll have older birds that'll start falling off. Shell quality will go down. Just gotta give 'em more, more lime, more rock. Yeah. Is basically what it is. Yeah. And stuff.

Tim Strathman (19:36):
It's interesting to think about, like when I told a few people that have, like I said, people have just kind of really dove into this and Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I got, I went to a football game Friday night and people were like, who's the next one? You know? And multiple people asked me that, and I'm like, I'm going to a poultry operation in Missouri. And they're like, oh yeah. And I told 'em, I'm like, based off the numbers you gave me, we're in the 1.5 million eggs a week. And they're like, what? <laugh> And I, and I

Wayne Hentges (20:00):
Was like, all in my backyard.

Tim Strathman (20:01):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, and it's just crazy to think about. I mean, do you ever sit back and think, holy crap, you know, like whether it's at Waffle House or IHOP or somebody's kitchen table, like that's a crazy amount of eggs. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> for, and I mean, no disrespect by this, but a small operation on a very small footprint Yeah. To, to send out 50, 60 million eggs a year. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. You ever sit back and think about like how cool that is?

Wayne Hentges (20:29):
Yeah. And I think, where do they all go? I'm just one guy. There's thousands of 'em doing not, maybe not on this scale, not this many, but it's, it's still, it's where all these ace go. It it is. You know, person eats one egg a day and not all people eat one egg a day. Right. It's kind of one of them things. It's like, how, how does, how do these all get used up?

Tim Strathman (21:02):
How does society go through that many eggs? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know?

Wayne Hentges (21:05):
Yep.

Tim Strathman (21:05):
But you think about it like yesterday morning, you know, we probably burned through 12 or 15, you know, just making omelets for the kids. Yeah. You know, and then you think about, oh, we made cookies and Yeah. You know, all the stuff that eggs go into if you sit back and think about it. Yeah. It's probably a lot more than one would realize it's, it's how many eggs of, uh, it family of five goes through in a month Yeah. Is probably pretty astonishing. Yep.

Wayne Hentges (21:28):
That's

Tim Strathman (21:28):
For sure. You know, I, I asked that question to Anthony at the dairy, you know, like you think about how many thousands and thousands of gallons of milk that they produce as a small operation. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But people drink a lot of milk. People eat a lot of eggs. Yep. You know, and so it's, I think it's neat. Uh, like I said, everybody I talked to was like, that's just crazy to think about that many eggs. Yeah. What's what's the future look like? Are you, are, are you happy with the size? Are you, you wanna double in size, you wanna triple in size? Well,

Wayne Hentges (21:56):
My wife said she wouldn't sign any more loans, so I guess I'm pretty much done <laugh>.

Tim Strathman (22:02):
I, I get how that goes. I get how that goes completely.

Wayne Hentges (22:05):
Although I did sneak one more in on her, so Yeah. She's gonna sign in. So we'll see what happens. I, I'm, I'm happy with the size we are with the eggs. I would like to focus more on some row crop

Tim Strathman (22:17):
On that side of the business. How corn and soybeans, what corn and soybeans, what's the row crop side look like?

Wayne Hentges (22:23):
Uh, we farm about seven 50 acres and

Tim Strathman (22:26):
All close here. Yeah.

Wayne Hentges (22:28):
Gotcha. It's all real close. Yeah. And, uh, that's, I just love to put a seed in the ground and watch it grow and see, you know, at harvest time what it did. That's, I I'm fascinated by that as much as I am anything else. And I've always liked that, you know, I've always wanted to see what I could do.

Tim Strathman (22:50):
Yeah.

Wayne Hentges (22:51):
You know,

Tim Strathman (22:52):
It's

Wayne Hentges (22:52):
Taken me a lot of years to get some decent production, but I'm, I'm south of 50 highway and we're pretty much in the rocks down here.

Tim Strathman (23:01):
There's a, my boy, uh, was like, man, are we in the Rocky Mountains? I'm like, I don't know if we're, it's that rocky, but it's pretty rocky down here. Yeah. Uh, so I can only imagine row crops is Yeah. A difficult thing. You

Wayne Hentges (23:11):
Go just North Highway 50 and totally different on dirt. There's pretty much a line across, you know, they get on, uh, the west side of five highway and it goes dirt goes black just a little bit deeper and less rock. But we're, we're just far enough south on everything. Yeah.

Tim Strathman (23:31):
But

Wayne Hentges (23:31):
There's good dirt out there. We got good dirt here. And, um, I say probably about, uh, 10% of every field I got's got rock in it, you know, and

Tim Strathman (23:45):
Part of

Wayne Hentges (23:46):
It, it might be all the way across the field,

Tim Strathman (23:48):
<laugh>, do you use the chicken litter in your, on your fields? Yeah. So that, that's a neat way that I think people don't, I guess, realize how you're, you're using the byproducts of everything. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so you're not wasting it, you're not doing anything. Yep. You take it out there and, and spread it. We, I know quite a few guys that'll haul chicken litter from Missouri or Arkansas or wherever

Wayne Hentges (24:07):
People think, oh, they're destroying the ground by spreading the manure. Everything we do, all of our fields are grid sampled. They, and they write a prescription. So whenever I'm spreading, it puts on what that piece, what that 40, 40 by 40 foot square needs. It's not rocket science. It spreads wider than 40, it might catch half of it, but we don't just go out there and just throw tons of manure on the farm. It's all done scientifically. And I got an agronomist who does my, all my fertilizer, my seed, all that stuff that way. And it's, it makes a difference. You know, you're not, I bet you're not wasting nutrients.

Tim Strathman (24:56):
Well, and you, you have it readily available. I

Wayne Hentges (24:57):
Got it readily available, but I don't have to, some people who have it readily available, they probably just go dump it on. I'm not, not doing that that way. No. That's not a way to do it.

Tim Strathman (25:09):
Need to go through and see what, what you need per acre and Yep. And, and use it. Yeah. There's a lot of people to just pour it on. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And that's probably not the right solution in a lot of

Wayne Hentges (25:18):
Cases. There's places I might only put on 500 pounds the acre. And then there's other places that need three ton and it's all done by every half the ground gets soil sampled every year.

Tim Strathman (25:31):
I'm guessing you, uh, probably sell off a lot of the manure. Oh yeah. I was gonna say, I, I can just about imagine how much each house probably puts out. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So yeah. You're definitely not gonna be able to get rid of it yourself, but

Wayne Hentges (25:43):
We sell, sell a lot of manure.

Tim Strathman (25:45):
Yeah. Which again, I, I think nobody thinks about the, the byproducts of having Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, manure is a great resource, especially for the row crop side of things. It's organic. Yep.

Wayne Hentges (25:56):
You know? Yeah. We might put this other chemical stuff in there, but the fertilizer stuff is organic if you're not throwing salts and all that stuff on the field with commercial fertilizer.

Tim Strathman (26:07):
What's, uh, what's the next 10, 20, 30 years look like for your operation

Wayne Hentges (26:13):
Wells? See, 30 years, I'll be 80 years old.

Tim Strathman (26:17):
<laugh>, you're still picking eggs, huh?

Wayne Hentges (26:21):
Oh, I don't know. I'm not saying I, I, uh, see what happens. I, I like, uh, I'll never retire. I'll be here until the day I die. It's just something that I like.

Tim Strathman (26:37):
You got somebody to take over.

Wayne Hentges (26:39):
I, I got daughter and son-in-Law that helps on the farm now. Good. I have another son, or my son is freshman in high school. He's, he's into cattle. That's his forte. He likes his cattle. Good. So that's his, that's what you

Tim Strathman (26:56):
Think. He'll come back and be a part of the, the family farm in some way, shape or form. Yes. Good. Yep.

Wayne Hentges (27:02):
He definitely will.

Tim Strathman (27:03):
So is your daughter and son-in-law full-time in this? Yep. Perfect.

Wayne Hentges (27:07):
Yep. They're full-time son-in-law's a machinist.

Tim Strathman (27:10):
He, well, that works out well for this.

Wayne Hentges (27:12):
Yeah. He can, he makes, he makes a lot of parts for this, all this stuff. If we have some, there's a lot of

Tim Strathman (27:16):
Moving pieces. Yep.

Wayne Hentges (27:18):
He's got what he needs to, to make things, rebuild things if we have to. There's times I'll come to him with a piece, Hey, can you rebuild this? He'll look at me kind of funny, like, are you serious? <laugh>? But it, he can, he can always come up with a solution to fix a problem. I don't think we've had, we haven't been down yet. No. For, for something broke that he could not get it put back together long enough to get us until we can get a part. My middle daughter, she's a gonna graduate from college this year. She's gonna be a school teacher.

Tim Strathman (27:56):
Awesome. So the world needs those. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> What's it like having a family business and be able to work with your kids and, and wife and everything like that?

Wayne Hentges (28:04):
Like I say, it is challenging, but it's nice to be able to, you need something during the day, you can call on them. My daughter and son-in-Law, I don't, they graduated high school. My daughter went to college. My son-in-Law had been in a high school program learning to be a machinist. And we was just getting into this whenever that all took place. And thankfully they come and work for me, you know, and kind of learned what was going on and, and, uh, they never left. And I'm grateful for that, that they've stuck around and helped me out.

Tim Strathman (28:47):
It takes an army. It's,

Wayne Hentges (28:48):
It definitely does. It takes an army and it takes, uh, my daughter does all my paperwork, all the audit stuff. I mean, it, she, what she does for this place is phenomenal. She takes care of loading all the trucks, unloading, packing material, and, uh, I mean, she just, it's amazing what she does. I give, have to give her crap all the time. I come in the house and she's just sitting there not doing nothing. I'm paying you to do nothing. <laugh>.

Tim Strathman (29:20):
Yeah.

Wayne Hentges (29:21):
I do that with my son-in-Law too. Yeah.

Tim Strathman (29:22):
I'm sure that goes over well. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta crack jokes once in a while though. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's your most enjoyable part about being a farmer?

Wayne Hentges (29:34):
My, what I really like is being able to see some, my kids be able to grow up on a farm. My grandkids being able to grow up here. Hopefully one or one of them might come back to the farm. Um, my wife takes, well, did take care of my grandkids. One of my grandson is, uh, in first grade my granddaughter went to pre-K or not pre-K, but, uh, preschool this year. Yep. And, uh,

Tim Strathman (30:01):
Do they like being around? Yeah. That's awesome.

Wayne Hentges (30:04):
She, she don't like me leaving. She would rather go with me most of the time, but, uh, I never know where I'm gonna end up at. Yeah. That's, you know,

Tim Strathman (30:14):
It's neat though to have Yeah. Family that wants to be Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> a part of something.

Wayne Hentges (30:20):
My son, whenever he was born, he, he was, um, my other, my daughters was eight years older than he was, so he pretty much did everything we did. Um, he went to my mother-in-law's for a little bit for her to watch him and stuff. And then he got old enough. He pretty much stayed with me on the farm, just between me and my other, my mom and dad. And he pretty much did everything we did. So

Tim Strathman (30:53):
That, that seems to be the, the typical farm operation. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> is, yeah. Grandpa's still involved and yeah. Mom helps. And now the grandkids are at least being a part of it and Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. That's just gotta be an incredible thing. Yeah. I'm sure it's frustrating at times 'cause working with family's tough, but Yeah. Um, I think there's a lot of advantages to it. Yeah.

Wayne Hentges (31:16):
I, my granddaughter, I think she'll be the first one to be back here helping me. My grandson, he's kinda maybe iffy, but, uh, I, my granddaughter, she'd be here any given time. It doesn't matter. But she does like school. I will give her that. That's a good thing. 'cause I didn't like school.

Tim Strathman (31:36):
Yeah. You gotta gotta at least get through some school. Yep.

Wayne Hentges (31:39):
You know, so, but that's my ultimate goal is to have something to hand down to my kids and they can hand to their grandkids and

Tim Strathman (31:47):
Keep it in the family. Keep it

Wayne Hentges (31:48):
In the family. You know, anything, everything you eat comes from a farm. And that's the whole people don't understand that. But we don't have normal office hours out here. We go to work in the morning. Sometimes it might be three o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning. And sometimes we never get to go to bed. We just keep on going and the public doesn't understand. They see these nice flashy tractors and all this stuff going down the road. Look at him, he's making too much money, or look how much money he's made. People don't understand that if we didn't have them GPS this and them tractors and stuff, we couldn't do what we do. The farming industry is a, I don't know if you want to call it a, a dying breed because the numbers just aren't there from what they used to be. Farms are getting bigger and less people run them. And that's, we, we put in 14, 16, 18, 24 hour days. A lot of times harvesting got a rain coming. You just keep on running. And people don't realize that people don't give you a room on the roads. Son-in-Law about got hit the other day.

Tim Strathman (33:09):
It's, and it's sad to see that

Wayne Hentges (33:12):
He was turned off the road and he had his blinker on and his car was just in a great big hurry. And if he wouldn't have saw it, he would've, he had hit in the side and people just started in such a big hurry to, to get nowhere, basically hurry up and get home to do, basically make supper. Yeah. We're still working. We still got our, we still got our lives to lead.

Tim Strathman (33:40):
Yep.

Wayne Hentges (33:40):
And we're not getting rich doing it. We're doing it 'cause we love it. No,

Tim Strathman (33:45):
You do because you love it. And you, you can again, spend time with your family doing it and Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I, I think you're right. I think people don't appreciate farmers and ranchers like they should. Yep.

Wayne Hentges (33:56):
Um, we're always in the way.

Tim Strathman (34:00):
Sure

Wayne Hentges (34:01):
We are in the way, but whenever their food's not getting delivered to the grocery store, then we're in trouble. Right.

Tim Strathman (34:09):
That's, it seems like some days it's a, a no win situation probably. Yeah. And so that's, again, the big reason for this is just to spread Good, good about it. Because I think ag media, or not ag media, but media in general Yeah. Doesn't, you

Wayne Hentges (34:26):
Know, they don't do what they should. No.

Tim Strathman (34:28):
They highlight the bad 'cause it sells, you know? Yes. As Thomas said, you know, clicks and, and you can get that. But I think the men and women that put in countless hours Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And regardless of what that is, whether that's row crops or that's livestock, whether

Wayne Hentges (34:42):
Vegetables,

Tim Strathman (34:42):
Every, every ag industry, fruit, people put in so much time. Yep. And at the end of the day, everybody eats. Yes. And, uh,

Wayne Hentges (34:51):
People don't realize that your oranges, your apples, your cauliflower, your broccoli, all that's all farming.

Tim Strathman (34:59):
It's

Wayne Hentges (34:59):
Yep. It all comes off of a farm someplace. Yep. And people put in thousands, uh, countless hours doing that stuff.

Tim Strathman (35:08):
Uh, I for one want to tell you thank you and you're welcome and appreciate what you and your family do, uh, and everybody else. And again, this is why we're gonna just keep telling stories and I think, um, just build any awareness. Right. We're a, we're a small dot on the map. Realistically, farming

Wayne Hentges (35:25):
Is one of the most dangerous things a person could do. People don't realize that either. This, there's so is so dangerous out here. There's so many moving parts and it don't take, but just a flash. And then people just like pulling off the highway and somebody think, oh, I could beat him. Might be a blinker on, might not. But there's, there's lives at stake whenever they do that stuff.

Tim Strathman (35:55):
Yep. To, to, yeah. Get home a minute sooner. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Wayne Hentges (35:58):
Yes.

Tim Strathman (35:59):
Yeah. It's definitely not worth it. But you see it all. I mean Oh yeah. I don't know how you solve that particular problem, but it's definitely everywhere. Everybody's in a hurry, but Yep. They're not really in a hurry if they just think about it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and Yeah. There's no other way to move big equipment. I mean, you just

Wayne Hentges (36:18):
Part of go down the road, you know? Yep.

Tim Strathman (36:21):
It's, I think you're right. You see so many accidents every year that I think most of them could be avoided. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. If people would just have slow down and take a little bit more time and realize that, or

Wayne Hentges (36:30):
Get their fans, their face outta their phone, you know, driving down the road and then all of a sudden look up, oh, I gotta do something. Yeah.

Tim Strathman (36:38):
<laugh>.

Tim Strathman (36:39):
That is the truth. Well, now that's a, that's a good point to end on. Yeah. Again, thank you so much for your time. You're welcome. I really do appreciate it. And, um, thanks everybody for watching. Make sure to like, subscribe. We've got some great episodes coming up. Uh, the biggest thing you can do is always support farmers and ranchers in whatever way possible. Uh, because again, without them we'd have nothing. We wouldn't be, we love to eat, but, uh, you gotta appreciate where your food comes from. So thank y'all for listening. We'll talk to you again soon.