 My name is Gene Holt and we are at my family's ranch north of Wakota, South Dakota. We run a cow-calf operation, custom grazing, and a guided pheasant hunting operation. My great-grandpa Vic Holzing started this place in 1929. Started out with Angus cows. All cow-calf was predominantly what he did. And then my grandpa Gene Holzing stayed and managed it for cow-calf. I had it like that until my dad came in the 80s and started selling bulls. We used to have a few registered cows and sell some bulls out of them. Now it's all commercial cows. We used to do everything. Our operation was probably half the size, but we would farm about a thousand acres. And then we had cattle and we had sheep. When my father-in-law finally turned it over to us, he said, you can do whatever you want. It's your decision now. And so the first thing I did was let my best friend do the farming. And I think that was a good decision because we all like the livestock. So we just kind of turned it over and rented out the farm ground and pursued the cattle. Well, then at the same time, an older bachelor neighbor, his operation pretty much mirrored ours, you know, in size and everything. And he was going to sell out, so my wife and I purchased 2,400 acres. So we purchased that and we have used the wildlife easement thing through the US Fish and Wildlife Service. And part of the reason is we don't want it to be broke. We want it to be grass. So we've done that on quite a few acres and it's kind of a guarantee, I guess. You know, you don't know what the future holds, but I guess for my 40 years it's always held that you can do all right with the cattle. We started custom grazing in 2017 as an effort to create a variable stocking rate on our place. And not just be set stock with all of our own cow-calf pairs. We wanted to be able to maximize on the good years and then to lean up on the bad years. When we started it in 2017, we started with sheep. We took in all several thousand head of sheep in an effort to just manage some of our property with some outside animals that we could bring in when we wanted to and then also get gone when we wanted them gone. We did the sheep grazing for two years, I believe, and then just gradually switched it all over to taking in cow-calf pairs from a producer. We take in all first calf heifers from one producer and manage them in one herd. And usually they'll come in mid-May and late-May and stay through until sometimes into December. So we'll do all the day-to-day work with them, all the doctoring and moves and putting supplement out and managing for him for the grazing season. It was just an effort to create that variable stocking rate to be able to max out on the good years. It gives us a lot more flexibility. Our cow-calf enterprise is still our predominant enterprise, but it allows us to manage that grass to the best of its ability. Flexibility is the biggest thing. This allows us to be optimistic and to say, like, that should work. And we keep data and we keep track year to year, seen some lean years with it and seen some really good years. So you kind of take that average. It just allows you to use it to the full potential, but also when it's over, when it's time to leave, you can leave with them. We have a contract with this guy we work with where we have to give him two weeks notice for when those cattle have to be gone. It could be for any reason. We've never given him only two weeks notice. The way we keep records and stuff, we'll know months in advance when the end date is coming. The biggest thing on it is the flexibility but also that optimism where you can be optimistic and say, this should work and that's what we shoot for. It's done a lot for first stress level, just quality of life because there's always that out plan, I guess, where there isn't, if you own the animal, there isn't that well-defined out plan like the custom grazing gives you. I guess the hunting, I feel like it's just such a complementary thing with the cow. For example, we can leave a pasture go and say, we're not going to graze that till next April, so it'll be cover all the way through and that bird benefits from it throughout that winter cover, that heavy growth. We might benefit from it with our cow side because we get the calf in there and that small calf can ride out of rainstorm throughout something like that. And on our plot land and all that stuff, totally different focus in terms of we're not into maximum production for the grain. We want some trash cover in there too for that bird to hide out in and it's all about return per acre, right? It's just a different way of getting that return. It's not the mainstream typical production model, but that return is what should rival any of those models. When Kurt was first starting out, he was putting in some of the tools to be used out on the pastures by tools, water lines, some of the cross fencing. And now when Gene is kind of taking over on the day to day management, he's focusing a lot more on what's going on with the species as far as plant life out there. We have organic matter and we have life in that soil year round. I think it just comes down to rotation and variety and hey, this year we did this, but now this is what we need. We need some new growth or we need some old growth over there for nesting or for cover or winter cover, but you kind of need all the players. So you have a little bit something of everything.