tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post1486209789171927271..comments2023-12-15T02:04:08.213-08:00Comments on meat: "there is no labor cost to us..."Bruce Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-69859972145529065162015-09-17T13:16:53.838-07:002015-09-17T13:16:53.838-07:00I don't know, Bruce, but being a voyeur of Wal...I don't know, Bruce, but being a voyeur of Walter's journey, I feel like it's possible to read between the lines and see that facing the challenge of the butcher shop experiment is as much the point as the time and money savings. Pitting yourself and your resources against a challenge seems to be half the fun of farming, and reading about how you guys are tackling such big challenges is what makes it fun to follow. Was he three years behind, or did he get an extra three years of enjoyment? <br /><br />How could someone with a cool moniker like grasspunk prefer common sense over dreams!? rainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12691108190682826219noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-33316878846129582382015-09-17T00:04:11.466-07:002015-09-17T00:04:11.466-07:00"Dream" is such a dangerous word in farm..."Dream" is such a dangerous word in farming. It tends to hide bad ideas from common sense.grasspunkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13635631369955323133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-55634926854304936092015-09-16T21:46:13.174-07:002015-09-16T21:46:13.174-07:00Rain, Walter explained his reasoning for building ...Rain, Walter explained his reasoning for building the butcher shop, and it was about money, and time. His wife has to spend hours each week driving, and he wanted to reduce that labor. he also wanted more of the dollars per sale of each animal to stay on his farm. Both of those are great reasons to do this sort of project. <br /><br />But the way that he's chosen to attempt this is much harder than alternative ways would have been, has cost him more, and honestly, for the past 7 years, hasn't saved him or his wife an hour of work. <br /><br />So measured by his own goals, this wasn't the best way to get there -- I'm glad that he's got the meat cutting rooms in shape to use them, but his original goal was USDA inspection, and that appears to be at least 3 years behind walters own schedule. <br /><br />Sometimes its not about money. this time it was. <br />Bruce Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-91915031032098241742015-09-16T13:27:39.314-07:002015-09-16T13:27:39.314-07:00Not everything is about money, Bruce. Walter obvi...Not everything is about money, Bruce. Walter obviously enjoys the planning and the building aspect of a project like this. Most people pay more than that for their houses, and don't even enjoy living in them for eight years, much less fuel their dreams with their creation. And Rich, what's wrong with complicated? Easy is not more fun. rainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12691108190682826219noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-18842787117698695512015-08-01T20:06:08.737-07:002015-08-01T20:06:08.737-07:00One thing that has bothered me about this project ...One thing that has bothered me about this project is that it's not really a butcher shop. It's a slaughter facility, but there's no retail space or chance for it in the forseeable future. So "butcher shop" doesn't really fit very well - most folks think of a retail space when they think of butcher shop. <br /><br />If we take this $206k and divide it by the profit he likely makes per pig - lets say $300 net -- he's going to have to process 693 pigs before he gets his money back, and that's just the principal amount. if he'd taken that same amount of cash and put it into an investment, he'd have gotten a return, and it's reasonable to say that the lost opportunity counts as an expense, too. at 6% return, that $206k would have turned into $369k -- and at that rate he will never, ever get his money back. He could have put the money in the bank, waited ten years, and hired the whole thing done in 6 months. <br /><br />Right now his operation transports a maximum of 5 pigs a week to slaughter. At that rate, it will be more than 10 years before he breaks even on the construction costs. The saving of a couple of hundred dollars a month in heating or cooling costs is not really an issue at this point. <br />Bruce Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10995706761794063165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842136564899097734.post-61934907320466008982015-08-01T15:39:38.099-07:002015-08-01T15:39:38.099-07:00It's always seemed to me that his on-farm one-...It's always seemed to me that his on-farm one-of-a-kind butcher shop is pretty similar to building an expensive piece of infrastructure like a hog barn on a farm.<br /><br />A lot of money was spent on a single purpose structure that has to be used no matter what to get any sort of return on the money spent. He or his children can't easily change course now and decide to do something else in the future with the farm because they have so much invested financially and emotionally in this multi-year project. <br /><br />The way I see it, they won't ever be able to sell the building, it can't be used for anything else but a butcher shop, and building maintenance or upgrading of systems is likely to be a nightmare in twenty years or so. The only thing in their favor is that at least they don't have a massive loan obligation like a hog barn would have, so it might be a little easier financially to walk away from the project. <br /><br />Besides all that, I still don't understand what the advantage was to having such a complicated building design, there must be easier ways to save on energy costs. Richhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11412944120622315804noreply@blogger.com