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Angus bull prices are the most argued about number in the cattle business right now, and Moriondo Farms of Mount Vernon, Missouri opened the gate and walked us through exactly where that money goes. Mark and Larry Moriondo run 1,700 commercial cows and 500 registered cows in southwest Missouri, and they sell roughly 120 Angus bulls every fall and spring. In this episode they break down January calving and the all night work that comes with it, DNA pulled and verified on every calf, two full days of photos and three full days of video for the sale catalog, $120 a head just to semen check, and the injury fallout nobody talks about. As Larry puts it, he complained about what he paid for bulls until the day he had to raise them himself.

The family started a commercial cow calf operation in the late 1980s, bought their first registered cattle in 2015, and held their first bull sale as an online only test in 2017 because they were not sure the demand was there. They bought cows at the top of the 2014 market, hauled Sandhills genetics from Hoffman Ranches in Nebraska and bred females out of Colorado down onto Missouri fescue, and watched their AI rate fall to 30 percent before the herd adjusted. Their first sale averaged $3,200 a bull. Today they average 95 percent breed back across the herd, develop every bull slowly on fescue hillsides instead of full feed, hold them to 18 and 20 months of age, and back every one with a full year breeding soundness guarantee. Mark also walks through the two herd sires that stamped the program, a Cowboy Cut son out of Cow Camp Ranch and Walk The Line out of Nebraska, and what a bull of that caliber costs today.

The Moriondo Fall Production Sale is Saturday, November 7 at 1:00 at the farm in Mount Vernon, Missouri, with approximately 120 Angus and SimAngus bulls selling along with commercial bred heifers at the conclusion of the sale. Catalog and sale information is available through Moriondo Farms and Innovation AgMarketing. Hosted by Cassidy Brown for Livestock Loads, where we tell the stories of the people raising and hauling the cattle that feed this country.

Chapters:

0:00 Three Generations in the Cattle Business
0:52 Buying the First Registered Cattle in 2015
1:35 Why the First Sale Was Online Only
2:12 "I Was the Pessimist. He Had the Drive."
2:47 Predominantly Angus
3:17 Billy Hall, Ratcliffe Ranches, and the Mold They Built From
6:03 Buying Cows at the Top of the 2014 Market
7:15 Moving Sandhills Cattle onto Missouri Fescue
8:21 95 Percent Breed Back Across 2,200 Cows
9:36 Eugene Moriondo and the Joplin Stockyards
10:48 Bulls Are Like Teenage Boys
13:31 The Fallout Nobody Wants to Add Up
14:20 Why You Start With 150 Bulls to Sell 120
14:57 "I Used to Complain About What I Had to Pay for Bulls"
16:24 Why They Never Put a Bull on Full Feed
18:46 What an EPD Actually Tells a Buyer
21:18 Knowing the Customer's Cow Herd
24:01 A Full Year Breeding Soundness Guarantee
24:09 Why Bull Sales Exist At All
25:50 How Far the Genetics Travel
27:37 Repeat Buyers Since the First Live Auction
28:27 The Two Bulls That Stamped the Program
30:44 What a Herd Sire Costs Today
32:08 Embryo Work and 300 Flushes a Year
34:02 Sale Day: November 7 in Mount Vernon

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Lewie Pugh drove for 25 years and logged 2.5 million safe miles before he ever set foot in a congressional office. Today he is Executive Vice President of OOIDA, and he describes himself as the closer: the one who follows the association's four Washington lobbyists into a meeting and puts an issue into plain language a lawmaker can actually understand. We sat down with him at OOIDA headquarters in Grain Valley, Missouri to talk about what moves in Washington, what does not, and why he thinks truckers get painted in a bad light by people who have never done the job.

He joined OOIDA in the mid nineties as a 22 year old with a new authority, ran for the board in 2004, and has now served 22 years. He is from a rural county in southeastern Ohio with about 12,000 people in it, has a vocational school education, and does not take for granted that someone with his background can testify in the halls of Congress. He talks about why he still misses the road, why he likes the DC work and the truck shows and hates the day to day office stuff, and what he tells members who call in angry or working off bad information: he is not going to tell them what they want to hear.

The conversation gets into the money and the mechanics. Truckers have been exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act since 1938, which is why company drivers give away hours at loading docks, and Lewie explains why OOIDA is fighting to remove that exemption and why it would raise rates for owner-operators too. Where the surface transportation reauthorization stands. Why the Highway Trust Fund is running dry when federal fuel taxes have not been raised since 1993 and electric vehicles pay nothing at the pump. Why tolling and vehicle miles traveled taxes worry him more than a fuel tax increase. Why OOIDA stands with the railroads against longer and heavier trucks, with a story about hauling steel in Ohio that shows exactly how more weight turned into less money per hundred. He also clears up a common misconception: roughly 20 percent of OOIDA's membership are company drivers, and the organization advocates for them too.

Chapters:
0:00 Four Lobbyists and the Closer
0:52 Started by Truckers, Still Run by Truckers
1:45 What He Misses About the Road
3:29 2.5 Million Safe Miles
4:22 They Have Money, We Have Members
5:12 How to Actually Reach Your Lawmaker
6:04 A Vocational School Kid in the Halls of Congress
6:58 "A Source of Truth"
7:48 Telling Members What They Don't Want to Hear
9:31 Entry Level Driver Training Was Only a First Step
10:23 Joining OOIDA at 22
11:19 Why Company Drivers Belong Here Too
13:04 The Overtime Exemption Since 1938
13:56 Why It Would Help Owner Operators Too
14:50 Cautious Optimism in Washington
16:33 The Highway Bill and the Calendar
20:03 The Highway Trust Fund Is Going Broke
22:42 Tolling, VMT and the $90 Car Driver
24:29 Railroads as Allies and Opponents
25:20 Why OOIDA Opposes Longer and Heavier
26:12 The Steel Permit That Paid Less
27:54 DEF and Who Has to Use It
29:37 From a Laundromat to This Building
31:22 How to Reach OOIDA

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Todd Spencer joined OOIDA as an owner-operator member in 1976 and has spent the half century since fighting for small business truckers. We sat down with him at OOIDA headquarters in Grain Valley, Missouri for a long conversation about the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, the fights it has won, and the ones still ahead. He was elected to the board in 1978, came on staff in 1981 as editor of Land Line and communications director, back when the organization was small enough that he was not sure he would get paid, and became president in 2018 after decades as Jim Johnston's right hand.

He grew up in Missouri with a favorite uncle who drove, started hauling grain, shingles and building materials out of Kansas City through Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa, and has slept in line at the river terminal waiting to unload like plenty of people watching this. He tells the story of four states that once pulled truckers off the scales and required them to take a drug test on the spot. A woman driving through Nebraska refused, called headquarters, and OOIDA sued Utah, Nebraska, Minnesota and New Jersey along with the federal agency behind the pilot program. They won in every state. He also walks through the split speed limit fight in Missouri and the Tennessee inspections that included searching a driver's living space, and why he believes a right you cannot assert is not really a right.

The conversation goes deep on how the industry changed. Why deregulation and investor capital turned JB Hunt, Werner and Swift from small companies into the dominant players, and why those companies are run by MBAs, attorneys and accountants instead of truckers. Why lease purchase programs and per mile pay exist at all. Why he calls the driver shortage a myth that carrier executives sell to lawmakers, and why he would raise the CDL age rather than lower it. What worries him about autonomous trucks and about bad actors overseas resetting electronic logging devices. And why, after 50 years, his answer is still the same: if you drive a truck, you ought to be a member.

Chapters:
0:00 Joining OOIDA in 1976
1:47 Hauling Grain, Shingles and Building Materials
2:40 Sleeping in Line at the Terminal
3:20 Jim Johnston, a Trucker's Trucker
4:26 Starting Out Under the ICC
5:20 The Oil Embargo and 250 Organizations
6:14 Driver Training, Decades in the Making
7:59 Using Technology to Exploit the System
8:53 Paid Before You Even Deliver
10:41 Why Big Business Is Not a Friend to Small Business
11:33 Lease Purchase and Per Mile Pay
12:27 When Trucking Became an Investment
14:15 The Most Important Person in the Supply Chain
15:59 Where Truckers Used to Come From
16:53 Veterans: Three Quarters Then, a Third Now
17:30 Taking Over as President in 2018
17:45 Insurance, Big Judgments and Who Profits
20:23 Professionalism and Preparing New Drivers
22:59 The Driver Shortage Myth
26:32 Why He Would Raise the CDL Age
27:26 How Other Countries Pay Their Drivers
29:13 Livestock Rules Written for the Cattle
30:59 Skin in the Game and Your State Lawmakers
31:52 Autonomous Trucks and Hacked ELDs
33:39 What He Wants Every Trucker to Know
35:25 The Split Speed Limit Fight in Missouri
37:10 Random Roadside Drug Testing in Four States
41:38 Tennessee, Cab Searches and Jail
43:23 "It's Worth a Whole Lot More Than the Effort"