Mother (henceforth called Farm Girl, for reasons which will become obvious later in the song) runs her own farm. She raises cattle. She is very good at this, but not so good at the commerical side of things. She has an accountant set her stock targets to reach her financial objectives.
Farm Girl sends me an email. "I'm thinking of buying some weaners..."
It's OK, I didn't know what weaners were either. They are calves that have just been weaned, three months old. Not to be confused with wieners - these come later.
Farm Girl doesn't normally buy weaners. She buys day-old calves, because her operation is oriented around feeding and raising them from this age. Day-old calves are much cheaper, and her expertise turns them into healthy fat cattle in quick time.
I ask her why she would want to buy weaners. "I'm behind my projections". Her accountant has set her a target of x weaned stock by the end of the year, and she figures that her best option is to buy older calves to meet the projection. I'm not so sure.
Firstly, she doesn't save any money by buying weaners. She still has to run her milking operation for other calves, and she has spare capacity for her proposed acquisitions, so there is no additional cost involved if she buys day-old calves instead. Well, there are minor costs, but they come nowhere near the higher price payable for the weaners.
Secondly, her advanced rearing methods mean that calves she rears from infancy mature faster than calves from other farms. In short, if she bought a weaner and a day-old calf today, they would both mature at the same time. This is what matters, because it's not until a calf matures, and is sold, that she gets any return on it, and the purpose of the projections is realised. She rifles through her accountant's projections and realises that if she acts now she can still meet her planned sale dates without difficulty. She relaxes.
Once she's given me this information I explain to her that she gains little benefit from buying weaners, since she won't get her return on them any faster, but that they'll cost her twice as much initially. I don't calculate the figure at the time, but the difference is somewhere in the order of $10,000. Done.
Next day Farm Girl sends me an email. "I'm thinking of buying some weaners..."
I'm sorry girl, I can't help you.
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