Jared Flinn [00:00:00]:
Do you see your do you guys see yourself expanding the trucking operation? Or continuing to grow, I guess?
Jared Holmes [00:00:06]:
I think right now is a holding pattern. Insurance is a severe problem. You know, they want 25 year old kids with five years experience. Well, where do they get the experience from? Yep. So I think we'd be more comfortable growing the owner operator model. I think it works better. And this generation of drivers, they just, are not the center of the old, you know, the old school guy.
Jared Flinn [00:00:32]:
So we just left, Torquinsawyer's place with Barn Talk, man. It was just an awesome show. So thankful that they allowed me to, come on and talk. And then, man, we got to tour their farm, see their hog operation, and their farmer's choice meat business was cool. But it was cool on the way up the day before, we were driving up and, started listening to some of their episodes. And we saw that one of their one of their best episodes, it was from a truck driver, truck owner named Jared Holmes. And, I looked him up and Jared was actually on bulk loads for a while. So I sent him a text and I said, hey, we're gonna be up in the area.
Jared Flinn [00:01:09]:
We'd love to come by. And he said, yeah, come on over. So we're gonna go see his operation. I know they run a very successful livestock trucking operation and then he's also in the show cattle business. So we're gonna go and hopefully get a tour from Jared and have him kinda show us around. But, yeah, it's always, you know, some of these visits, you know, the goal was to come up here and visit the Barn Talk and get on their show and, do an episode with them. But I'm always like, man, this is always a bonus when we can go and see some of these other ones. And especially if you go and listen to Jared's podcast on Bart talk, it was just so well.
Jared Flinn [00:01:42]:
So, man, would love to have him share some of that knowledge and wisdom that we can provide to our audience. So, yeah, we're gonna go visit Jared's house and, have him show us around. We're pretty excited.
Jared Holmes [00:01:54]:
Well, the show cattle ties into everything that we're doing. We start we only show females, and we take those and turn them into donor cows. So, this is the new set of cattle that we're gonna be showing this year. With any luck, we'll win a national show, which increases their value. That increases their value, and then we'll take them to a genetic center, and we'll pull all the embryos out of out of them, create eggs to sell to other people. So some people can't buy the hundred thousand dollar progeny, but they can buy the embryo to put in their own commercial cows to create the the elite crotter beetle.
Jared Flinn [00:02:40]:
So you I mean, is this I mean, the family business. Mhmm. But are you in charge of a lot of this? Or does your wife head this up? Or
Jared Holmes [00:02:47]:
Yep. We I kind of float and manage most of everything. I'm a floater
Jared Flinn [00:02:52]:
and then
Jared Holmes [00:02:53]:
I I'm a delegator. Because all my kids, they take care of these. And then when we're done with this, you know, I'll take you through their daily routine with these girls. Then when they turn into production, they go over to that facility over there. That's where we breed the cows and turn turn kind of everything full circle. So it all starts right here. We'll travel the country in the fall and find the best females we can find. And, they'll kind of start here.
Jared Holmes [00:03:20]:
So it's like a glorified four h project.
Jared Flinn [00:03:24]:
Wow. How long did you guys start this?
Jared Holmes [00:03:29]:
This is about I don't know if you have my kids older. Kenley's thirteen, so their first year four h probably. So four or five years.
Jared Flinn [00:03:38]:
Okay. Yeah. Because it's like the gates, everything. I mean, looks pretty new.
Jared Holmes [00:03:42]:
This was last summer. We we did have them out back. There's another set out back, which we call the B team. This is the A team out here. So they all kind of chill out here and then at night they'll get rinsed up in there.
Jared Flinn [00:03:55]:
But they're having to get rinsed because?
Jared Holmes [00:03:57]:
Keep their hair coat going. Keep them broke, tame. Like, we're getting ready to go to a show in two weeks, so they're hairy. And then we'll clip them and shape them and do everything. All the pizzazz.
Jared Flinn [00:04:09]:
Wow. So some of these right here, like, might go for I mean, value these guys.
Jared Holmes [00:04:15]:
A hundred thousand a piece. But the return on it's this crazy. You sell eggs for $3,000 a pop and flush them every two weeks. So I'm gonna give you 20 eggs, I'm gonna give you seven. Just depends. So Holy smokes. So it's kind of the new modern way to raise cattle. We don't have bulls here.
Jared Holmes [00:04:36]:
Everything's done artificially.
Jared Flinn [00:04:39]:
Okay.
Jared Holmes [00:04:40]:
So like I said, this is kind of the beginning of where it all starts. It starts as a project. And some of them will turn around and be the best generators there ever are and never win a cattle show. It's just it's so unpredictable.
Jared Flinn [00:04:55]:
As far as the breeds, is it
Jared Holmes [00:04:58]:
All breeds. We we run the board. We're not one breed loyal. We the only breed that we would do is heifers that can make females or heifers that can make steers. And that's more of a body type. It's not a breed thing. And then it's a color thing, like south of where you are, they want them colored up. Reds, whites.
Jared Flinn [00:05:19]:
Yes, yeah,
Jared Holmes [00:05:20]:
that's right. Yeah. That stuff. Up here, blacks, black baldies, and then there's always a market for those crazy color going some little girl gets her dad twisted wants that red and white one. You know what I mean? So it's always just shaking the shaking the tree. They're trying to find the value in
Jared Flinn [00:05:39]:
Everyone sounds like down where we are like the red angus have gotten really popular. Like people love they're just smaller, docile.
Jared Holmes [00:05:46]:
Right some of those breeds will be absolutely dormant and then just explode within a year or two.
Jared Flinn [00:05:51]:
So this building looks pretty new.
Jared Holmes [00:05:53]:
So we moved here two and a half years ago. We used to live 20 miles away, and trying to calve over here was just an absolute pain in hand. So it gets pretty, pretty in-depth. Like, this is the feed board, and each one of those things get fed completely different down to the minute scoop, everything. No other body condition, supplements, all kinds of crazy shit. But it's really good. Like, so my oldest daughter's 13 and the youngest one's four. They have to do all this shit, morning and night.
Jared Holmes [00:06:34]:
So it works pretty good.
Jared Flinn [00:06:35]:
It's their project.
Jared Holmes [00:06:36]:
There's yep.
Jared Flinn [00:06:37]:
How did you guys get into this? What started it? What was the, where was the idea to
Jared Holmes [00:06:42]:
I showed cattle when I was little, but we sucked at it. We were fucking terrible, and I don't like to lose. So,
Jared Flinn [00:06:47]:
I just kinda
Jared Holmes [00:06:49]:
live in my thing vicariously through my kitchen. So we bring them in here to wash them and blow them. Just and that's kind of a daily routine. Just just keep everything going. So they'll wash when they get home from school.
Jared Flinn [00:07:04]:
Every day? Yep.
Jared Holmes [00:07:06]:
Yep. Going up to a show, like like, when it's real, real cold, we won't mess with them. But, like, we're getting ready to go to a show, so it's hammer time. Soon as they get home from school, they'll start rolling.
Jared Flinn [00:07:18]:
You were talking, when I obviously, were up here because the Barn Talk podcast, but we watched your episode that you were on there. But, you were you were talking, like, when you went came back from military, you were wanting to get into life cycle judging. Is that right?
Jared Holmes [00:07:33]:
Yep. For sure and that's a lot of what this kind of stems from.
Jared Flinn [00:07:37]:
Okay nice. Did you grow up so you grew up doing that?
Jared Holmes [00:07:40]:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:07:41]:
Okay your parents were big into
Jared Holmes [00:07:43]:
They we weren't huge into it but we're kind of into it. I wasn't any good at sports or anything like that so you kind of had to find your find your niche. I was on a party and then drinking side of the game.
Jared Flinn [00:07:52]:
Rather than that. Yeah.
Jared Holmes [00:07:56]:
Yeah. Kinda just stem from four h and FFA. So Yeah. And then in the summer, like, so in April, we'll shave all the hair off of them. They have a hair cycle, and we'll shave all the hair off of them, and then they'll come in here. So they won't see a whole lot of daylight. They'll stay in here. It's air conditioned cool room.
Jared Flinn [00:08:15]:
Oh, wow.
Jared Holmes [00:08:16]:
Individual pens, cooler units. We'll keep it about 40 degrees in here, and they stay inside. Fans blowing on them. And then at dusk, we will go and turn them back outside, And that just gets our hair going. You're trying to trick their hair into thinking it's wintertime and it's dark. Poof. So the hairier they are, the more miss not misconception, the more illusions you can shape into their hair, whether it's their leg or their neck.
Jared Flinn [00:08:45]:
It just makes them look like a better show steer or show cow, show okay.
Jared Holmes [00:08:49]:
Yep. For sure.
Jared Flinn [00:08:51]:
Wow. There's a lot that goes in.
Jared Holmes [00:08:53]:
It's it's intense. It is. It's it's kinda like it's just stupid. Like, I was just entering the kids last night for that show in Des Moines. It's like $900 just to enter. Shit. But I told my wife, I said, hey. Memories ain't cheap.
Jared Holmes [00:09:09]:
We gotta go.
Jared Flinn [00:09:09]:
But the thing is that show though I mean, if you guys placed well though, it's gonna allow
Jared Holmes [00:09:15]:
Okay. Well, you're doing it for two reasons. It it's a fun weekend getaway, and then it's also it's a building process to build a reputation on these cattle here.
Jared Flinn [00:09:26]:
Yep.
Jared Holmes [00:09:26]:
So it's kind of a it's a very good way for the kids to learn responsibility Mhmm. Feeding and doing all this shit. And it's a good way to get humiliatedized too. You can do all the work in the world and go get your teeth kicked in and you gotta get back up and and keep on hammering. So
Jared Flinn [00:09:44]:
So all three will be showing?
Jared Holmes [00:09:46]:
Yep. Boy, three is showing this year. Yep. Yeah. So then, like, let's see. We show the fourteenth and fifteenth, so next week we'll start clipping, and, we'll bring them in here.
Jared Flinn [00:09:58]:
Wow.
Jared Holmes [00:10:00]:
And I can't clip, so I got guys that work for us that
Jared Flinn [00:10:04]:
Like professional that's come in here?
Jared Holmes [00:10:06]:
Come in and and smoke them things down.
Jared Flinn [00:10:10]:
Wow.
Jared Holmes [00:10:11]:
Yeah. Once they leave here, they look like completely different animals. So
Jared Flinn [00:10:15]:
There's a lot of processes to do.
Jared Holmes [00:10:19]:
Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. So that starts kinda the beginning, and then I'll take you over the farm, and that's where we spin into the production. Well, it'll tie it all together.
Jared Flinn [00:10:32]:
So besides the show, I mean, you guys just run a regular cattle too, or is it everything everything show?
Jared Holmes [00:10:36]:
All the mothers are commercial regular mothers, and then we'll put their embryos in those commercial cows. That commercial cow will basically be a surrogate for those elite animals.
Jared Flinn [00:10:51]:
Okay. Hey, guys. We are getting down to weeks away from the Bulk Freight Conference twenty twenty five. This is our third year. We don't want you to miss it. We will have now expecting 800 attendees, carriers, shippers, and brokers all in bulk. I'm gonna tell you what. Your network is your net worth.
Jared Flinn [00:11:10]:
If you're struggling to find the right connections or enrich those connections, you can't do that behind the desk or over a phone or over the Internet. You gotta come to the Bulk Freight Conference. Go to the Bolt Freight Conference website, boltfreightconference.com. Get signed up today. Tickets are limited. Hotel accommodations are getting limited too. You will find that all on the website. I'm telling you, this is one of the best things you can do to grow your business in 2025.
Jared Flinn [00:11:34]:
You don't wanna miss it. Hope to see you there. God bless.
Jared Holmes [00:11:39]:
So the farm kinda works in a circle. The best way to see it from here. That's the calving and breeding facility. And then as soon as they they calve and the weather's good, they come over to this little paddock. And as they get older, they'll go to the next one. Oh. And then they just keep working further and further away. Those cows down there, they'll calve March 4.
Jared Holmes [00:12:02]:
So as they get closer to calving, they'll everybody makes a circle. So they're kinda hanging out, getting ready to get put inside the calving barn?
Jared Flinn [00:12:12]:
Yep.
Jared Holmes [00:12:12]:
And we got a fresh group of calves in there that will come over, take their spot. They'll move over. So everything
Jared Flinn [00:12:19]:
will calve inside? Yep. Hunter. Okay.
Jared Holmes [00:12:21]:
So every as they get older, they're a little more independent, and then they'll just shift and get further away.
Jared Flinn [00:12:27]:
Okay.
Jared Holmes [00:12:28]:
And then they circle back around.
Jared Flinn [00:12:30]:
Summer, everything gets calved inside? Yep. That barn, I see it open. Like, does that that closed part? I mean, is that indoor for cattle too? Or Yeah.
Jared Holmes [00:12:38]:
We can go look at that. That's for, like, the fresh, fresh babies. They'll they got pens inside there. They'll stay in there. And our breeding facility and our tubs are over on this side. But, like, they won't stay inside that barn. They'll they'll calve. It's okay if they calve in the open part right now, and then we'll pull them into their paternity pens for about twelve hours, get them mothered up real good, then kick them back out to general population.
Jared Holmes [00:13:03]:
Or if we have one that's a little slower, we'll leave them in there for a little longer.
Jared Flinn [00:13:08]:
Okay.
Jared Holmes [00:13:09]:
But then, like, there's a bunch of we'll pull all the doors open on that open spot and be able to ventilate that a lot better.
Jared Flinn [00:13:16]:
I know you mentioned the girls, but I mean, this is still alive. You got the trucking business. Who else helps you with?
Jared Holmes [00:13:21]:
I got guys here. I got office managers in Kelowna that are fantastic. I got shop managers in Kelowna that are great.
Jared Flinn [00:13:29]:
But you got a couple of farmhands or ranchers here that are kind of working? Yep. Yep. Okay.
Jared Holmes [00:13:33]:
Yep. Yep. He kinda oversees the stuff and keeps girls in line.
Jared Flinn [00:13:38]:
Yeah. Cool. School hide's kinda all organized that way.
Jared Holmes [00:13:42]:
I'm a I'm a control freak. I gotta I like to I like to kind of be in every part of it.
Jared Flinn [00:13:50]:
Yeah. Super cool.
Jared Holmes [00:14:01]:
So these are all replacement females here. They're they'll get bred this spring and get sold next to winter for replacement females. This is a set. They're about three weeks old. These little fellas over here.
Jared Flinn [00:14:14]:
Oh, nice.
Jared Holmes [00:14:17]:
So they're the ones getting ready to get moved further back.
Jared Flinn [00:14:25]:
How did you kinda figure all this out?
Jared Holmes [00:14:28]:
I went on a oh, I like to well, I listen to podcasts, and I like to ask questions. So, a building company put on a tour out Nebraska. You get on charter buses, and you just drive around the state for three days, like, looking at people's stuff, and I was just asking and asking and asking and asking. The biggest reason is this ground is so expensive here, like, ridiculous. And it doesn't work for cow calf, so you have to Oh, yeah. You saw well, torque all their hog building stuff. Everything's confined. Everything's vertically integrated.
Jared Holmes [00:15:03]:
So I challenge
Jared Flinn [00:15:04]:
Doing the same with last year.
Jared Holmes [00:15:05]:
I wanted to do it with beef cattle, that way and then tie in our hobby to try to make our hobby at the very minimum break even. And then it just became like a just a challenge. I love challenges, especially when people tell me I can't do something. That's like, okay. Watch this. So these little fellas just got done.
Jared Flinn [00:15:28]:
Yeah. Look how small these guys are.
Jared Holmes [00:15:32]:
So they're kinda just hanging out. They're getting ready to go outside. Yeah. They're just we make sure everybody gets a good start while we can catch them easy. You know? Because a lot of times you get out there, it's kinda like the wild West, and I can't rope for shit. So, yeah, these little fellows will get their feet under them here, and these guys will leave. We'll clean all this out, and then we'll bring the next set in. So air spacing is the number one thing for health in in cattle.
Jared Holmes [00:16:04]:
So we treat the mothers kinda more of a in a in a locked confined setting, but we want those babies to stay healthy. Healthy. I don't want them up here laying in manure and stuff. So I'll let them go out there and play in the grass, and then they can come back through to go eat and do that kind of stuff.
Jared Flinn [00:16:25]:
So So they'll get about how old before they're coming out? A month?
Jared Holmes [00:16:28]:
What's that? How old? Out of here? Yeah. It depends on the weather. Okay. If it's really bad weather, I'll leave them in here for a while. You know, if we're running into Yeah. If it's like this, they can stay in here for a couple days and get out. So by doing that, we don't have to bet it all the time. We can kinda save on betting and stuff if the weather's good.
Jared Holmes [00:16:47]:
So far, we've had a really good winter. But all these fellows were calved out in that blustery zero negative 20 bullshit that we had last week. So these guys got a good start. They're they're probably ready to
Jared Flinn [00:17:01]:
Yeah.
Jared Holmes [00:17:01]:
Exit the premises here. Man, pretty babies. Yeah. So when these guys get ready July, they'll start getting subbed out. And then I'll sub them out to brokers, and they'll break them, and then they'll sell them for projects just like what we showed over there.
Jared Flinn [00:17:19]:
So these are all gonna be show cabs?
Jared Holmes [00:17:22]:
Yep. They're all show cabs.
Jared Flinn [00:17:23]:
By the time what do these retail for on average? Like a show cab when they go to
Jared Holmes [00:17:27]:
I I like to put my numbers at 5,000 and hope that it's a hell of a lot more than that.
Jared Flinn [00:17:31]:
Yeah. No. I'm just trying to get a ballpark. So about $5
Jared Holmes [00:17:34]:
So you're gonna have Compared
Jared Flinn [00:17:36]:
to if that was just a regular kit, you know, would be
Jared Holmes [00:17:38]:
You're gonna have some that blow your blow your mind and bring 50 plus, and you're gonna have some that don't bring shit. It's just the law of averages. It's such a risky game. And this setting would still work really well for a commercial cow man, just to control and all that stuff. We just opt to be a little more aggressive with it and attempt to hit a homer, and if we miss, this is gonna be embarrassing.
Jared Flinn [00:18:04]:
So yeah. Well, these go with A lot
Jared Holmes [00:18:08]:
more fun. It's, like, exciting. Like, what what's this what's this thing gonna be? Yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:18:13]:
It's kinda like a surprise. Yeah. I mean, you're kind of, like,
Jared Holmes [00:18:17]:
kind
Jared Flinn [00:18:17]:
of rolling the dice and hoping you get a home run every once in a while.
Jared Holmes [00:18:20]:
Yep. The average is is is is is the safe way to play. Kinda it's kinda like going exactly like going in the high limit room and just seeing what happens. You're gonna be really happy, you're gonna be really pissed, and there ain't no in between. So when this is set up normal, we can pin it off. Like, there's, like, 25 in this set, but we'll have three different we can break this down even further. So if it's set up correctly, normally, we can open it all up since they're done, but it would be pinned four pins in here.
Jared Flinn [00:18:51]:
Okay.
Jared Holmes [00:18:52]:
And then, like, say one looked like she was gonna cab tonight, she'd go in here. We got full surface cameras everywhere to where we can watch all the time.
Jared Flinn [00:19:00]:
Oh, nice.
Jared Holmes [00:19:02]:
And then kinda do the same thing with the age game. We'll go through and look at them after we feed and see, like, okay. She looks like she's gonna drop today or tomorrow. Close ups. She's got a few days. Stay over there.
Jared Flinn [00:19:14]:
So you guys are really watching these Yeah.
Jared Holmes [00:19:16]:
You have to. Urls. These things are so big and so stout a lot in the show cattle deal. You have to be there available to assist them if they need it. I mean, there's I mean, the foot size and the bone's just not normal for that commercial world. So sometimes they do need help. And when they do need help, we'll bring them in here.
Jared Flinn [00:19:35]:
So %, everything's AI'd. I mean, you're taking those our embryo. Yeah. Yeah.
Jared Holmes [00:19:40]:
Yeah. So the ones we'll Craig check and the ones that don't settle the embryo we'll bull breed them and then sell them.
Jared Flinn [00:19:47]:
To do that, I mean do you have a vet or is there service that comes out to
Jared Holmes [00:19:50]:
Yeah, it'd be like we work with Transova and Collisons out of Rockwall City. They specialize in that. And then for us, with our cost of operation, we need the bangers. So we're better off to not feed the bull breads and sell them in December to guys that are looking for those bull bread cows to go into commercial. Yeah. So these dual functions as an alleyway and calving pens. Those gates will all swing across the wall. Mhmm.
Jared Holmes [00:20:21]:
So when we're rocking and rolling and have 10 in a day, each one of them come in here. So they'll stay in here for ten hours, twelve hours, sometimes two days if we got one that isn't needs help go getting going. But we get them in here, get them mothered up, and let her rip. And then a lot of times, we're breeding and calving at the same time. So we'll have baby pairs in here, and we'll bring in the open cows ready to breed through this alleyway and funnel them around. So there's a lot of shots. We synchronize all those cows to cycle and gestate at the exact same time. So we'll line this up.
Jared Holmes [00:20:56]:
We can fit 19 cows from the front to the back and go through and start popping them with their shots. Three rounds of shots to get them to all come in at the same time, and then we'll breed them all the same day.
Jared Flinn [00:21:08]:
Man, that's a process.
Jared Holmes [00:21:11]:
And we do that. We get that calving window tight. We get that calving window tight, then we're hawks watching them until they're all done, and then we're done. So we take the process, ram it together. We also get consistency, that way they're all the same age for that group within four or five days. And then we're done. We clean this out. I haven't got to it yet, but we'll clean all this out, clean all that out, re react the next set.
Jared Flinn [00:21:39]:
Man, I'm
Jared Holmes [00:21:40]:
When we line them up in here, we got our shots. They go right in their hip, and we just do it like a factory. Just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. When that when they come in, we keep track. When they come in the heat, the embryologist comes, throws the embryos in them, and out and over they go.
Jared Flinn [00:21:57]:
What's the success rate of all that? I mean
Jared Holmes [00:21:59]:
Try to shoot for fifty percent, and that is, when you're messing with mother nature like that, you better be ready to get burned. I've had thirty three percent. I've had eighty percent.
Jared Flinn [00:22:10]:
A lot
Jared Holmes [00:22:10]:
of it has to go with the cow's nutrition, keeping, the right plane of nutrition, mineral, all that stuff. Make sure you give the shots at the exact same time. Make sure your embryologist is good. And that's why we built this facility. If we did this outside on a rainy day in March, then we're all just probably like, ugh. This ain't no fun. Heat controlled Yeah. Wax.
Jared Holmes [00:22:35]:
Do a good job. I can get that thing in there.
Jared Flinn [00:22:41]:
How many acres you got here?
Jared Holmes [00:22:42]:
There's a 60 here, and then there's another 60 across the road. So why, again, we did it too was we can feed a pile of cows with the technology and the cover crops and all that stuff available off of minimal ground. That's where the whole concept came into. I can't Yeah. Go buy $20,000 an acre dirt to run cattle on.
Jared Flinn [00:23:08]:
My dad, he worked for a a large truck line back home at a farm that he he had to help out, but they had, I think it was 404 mamas all on the roof.
Jared Holmes [00:23:19]:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:23:19]:
But they did those cows never saw pasture.
Jared Holmes [00:23:22]:
Any pasture.
Jared Flinn [00:23:23]:
They yeah. So they were fed, everything calved. It was just I never it was the first kinda opening to me. I was like, oh my gosh.
Jared Holmes [00:23:29]:
That's where I
Jared Flinn [00:23:30]:
But the control environment, like you said.
Jared Holmes [00:23:32]:
That and you can control exactly what they get. Back when feed was high priced, that was a huge, huge thing. You can control everything down to the dollar it cost per head per day to feed them and all that. When they're out there on grass, smashing the shit down and Yep. Whichever. Yeah. That's something.
Jared Flinn [00:23:52]:
They they can control the grass you're cutting, you know, bailing, know everything,
Jared Holmes [00:23:55]:
and you're not So I wanted to do that that all inside concept. And as we got to going, the health was just went to shit. Like, you still can't beat that good grass, but you can still do it in in moderation. So I have a hybrid model. And I'll still control their feed, but I'll I'll also let them go be cows Yeah. So to speak. Yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:24:15]:
That's actually good.
Jared Holmes [00:24:17]:
Is an insurance claim that the insurance company didn't need to find out about. So it's expensive shade tree.
Jared Flinn [00:24:26]:
I know we're gonna see in a little bit, but how how many trucks do you have on the
Jared Holmes [00:24:29]:
road? Oh, shit. Depends on the day. Depends on who quits and who don't. We're 25, 20 five, 30. Just kinda depends. So half of that is our trucks. Either half's owner operators. We're kinda switching to a more of a owner operator based model.
Jared Holmes [00:24:49]:
Yep. I think there's a lot to gain from that. And a lot of these kids want to to own their own trucks. They they have to come to work. They have a payment. They do a good job because they have skin in the game.
Jared Flinn [00:25:02]:
Yep. That's right. Most of the your hauls, you guys are hauling more pigs than anything?
Jared Holmes [00:25:07]:
Yeah. Pigs are bread and butter. For here, I know a lot of it too, and this goes with anything in trucking. You gotta haul with what's what's in your your area. Right? Hogs for us and livestock, there's so many hogs around here that make your head spin. It'd be the same way if you live by an Amazon distribution center. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah.
Jared Holmes [00:25:26]:
So you got a lot of guys, oh, I wanna haul cows. Well, that's great. There ain't no cows around here. So if you wanna haul cows, then you're gonna be over the road. And then the next thing, you're gonna be pissed off. They I'll be home every night. Oh, jeez fuck Christ. What do you want? You know what
Jared Flinn [00:25:39]:
I mean? Both your guys are home.
Jared Holmes [00:25:43]:
We try like hell to get them home two or three nights a week, and we've seen that that for the gross revenue that they do per truck and the retention, that's the sweet spot. We make them go every other weekend. In my line of work, we gotta fill the plants for Monday morning, so we gotta go on Sunday. So we roll them every other weekend and we try to get them home two to three nights a week if possible. Some weeks, they won't get home at all. Some weeks, they'll be home every night. It's just we're in the service business. So my customer tells me when they're shipping and where they're going.
Jared Holmes [00:26:21]:
We execute. Yeah. And then we just balance out our roster to try to in a severe attempt to make everybody happy, which is Yeah. You know how that
Jared Flinn [00:26:31]:
Oh, that's trucky. But you're right saying you're in the sir you're in the business of service, man.
Jared Holmes [00:26:35]:
I think a lot of people forget that. Like and I go over this with my guys all the time. Like, hey. If your air conditioner shoots out in your house July 4 and you call the guy to fix it and he tells you I can't get there till tomorrow or the next day, you are calling somebody else That's right. No matter what. So, you know, do I like it that we gotta go out on Christmas day afternoon? No. But we have to fill the plant. If we don't, somebody else is gonna.
Jared Holmes [00:27:02]:
So it's just a interesting dynamic and the the young this next generation kinda loses track of that that service. Yep. And we all got spoiled during COVID for the most part because customer service kinda went out the window, so to speak. Hauling $10 a mile freight, well, everybody got complacent and comfortable with that. Well, now, uh-uh, customer service is back in town.
Jared Flinn [00:27:26]:
Yeah. That's good. Do you see your do you guys see yourself expanding the trucking operation? Or continuing to grow, I guess?
Jared Holmes [00:27:34]:
I think right now is a holding pattern. Insurance is a severe problem. You know, they want 25 year old kids with five years experience. Well, where do they get the experience from? Yeah. So I think we'd be more comfortable growing the owner operator model. I think it works better. And this generation of drivers, they just they're not the same as the old, you know, the the old school guys.
Jared Flinn [00:28:00]:
So we just loaded up back in the car. We, we're gonna head to Jared's, trucking operation. It's in Kelowna, which I think it's he said about 15 mile drive. But, yeah, that was really cool just to see the the show cow operation. I mean, just brand spanking new stuff and, how he's I love how he said he's traveled around and looked at some of these best practices to try to figure out how they can be more successful and profitable running the cattle business. But, yeah, right now, we're gonna go see the the trucking business, which is in Kelowna. He's got a washout bay there and, keeps his trucks. And, yeah, excited to see it.
Jared Flinn [00:28:37]:
I gotta ask you first. Yeah. How did you get the awesome name of Jared? I just think it's one of the best names, Jared.
Jared Holmes [00:28:43]:
You know? Mom must have been having a good day back then. Yeah. It was always frustrating growing up too because every spelled so different. Oh, yeah. I might not. It's it's only this way. You all are wrong.
Jared Flinn [00:28:55]:
You spell it the same way as I do. Right? Yeah. J r. Yeah. Yeah. I always tell people I like it in the Bible. It's spelled the same way in the Bible. Yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:29:00]:
Yeah. Can't be wrong. For sure. Yeah.
Jared Holmes [00:29:03]:
It's wild.
Jared Flinn [00:29:04]:
So this is the this is the main shop here, which, you know, from your house that we just came to, what, fifteen
Jared Holmes [00:29:09]:
Yeah. Fifteen, twenty minutes.
Jared Flinn [00:29:11]:
Why is it here not
Jared Holmes [00:29:14]:
you know, we kinda don't ever plan things. It's just like, hey. This will work. Hey. Get the cows going. Hey. We need to live by the cows. So I don't know.
Jared Holmes [00:29:24]:
It's never really
Jared Flinn [00:29:25]:
Did you guys live here one time in town?
Jared Holmes [00:29:27]:
No. We live. No. This just happened. Okay. So, I'll we never I I guess to back up, never thought it would get this way. Like, it just never when we built this, we had three trucks. And I just like, it's crazy, like, just how things develop and things.
Jared Holmes [00:29:47]:
So, like, this is our livestock washout. Yeah. And I really like, if I could do it again, I would have built it off the interstate to get the boys efficiency wise. So we're gonna build a new one, off the interstate, and then we're gonna build another one two hundred miles west. That's in the plans for this year. And just plant these livestock washouts, and I think it's similar to your guys' line of work.
Jared Flinn [00:30:15]:
Yeah. But The hopper washouts?
Jared Holmes [00:30:16]:
Off the interstates and this thing. So biosecurity is a huge thing. So every load that we haul, we pretty much have to be washed out and cleaned. So we don't want any of that debris from that trailer going inside of a building getting other pigs sick. So these pigs are so densely populated.
Jared Flinn [00:30:35]:
So you are you guys hauling finished pigs? Everything.
Jared Holmes [00:30:38]:
All different classes of pigs.
Jared Flinn [00:30:40]:
So it could be anything from wean pig, feeder pig, whatever, different weights. Yep. And you guys are delivering even to the kill plants?
Jared Holmes [00:30:47]:
Kill plants everywhere. So biosecurity is a big thing. Make sure you don't track that that stuff around.
Jared Flinn [00:30:53]:
And do you all I mean, are you guys ever hauling any other livestock besides
Jared Holmes [00:30:57]:
We'll haul cattle here and there, but we stay so busy with hogs. Hogs is so structured. Like, I get 400 loads in my email on Thursday, and then I can build it. So that's how we retain guys. I can build it. It. Like, boom, you're doing this, this, and this. He's done tonight.
Jared Holmes [00:31:14]:
He's going home. He'll leave in the morning. Boom, boom, boom. So that's where we kill it in retention because he knows what he's doing. A lot of our competitors are, yeah, call me when you get unloaded. I'll tell you where you go
Jared Flinn [00:31:27]:
next. Uncertainty.
Jared Holmes [00:31:28]:
So I yeah. So I think, like, we do well with it it's hard trucking and balancing family life. A lot of these guys have kids, and and they're gone and this and that. So at least when they're gone, they can tell, you know, when they're gonna be back, that kind of stuff, or if they have something going on. So we'll stay within a three hundred to air mile radius of here and just just zip them back and forth and kinda crisscross, but we have to wash out so much. For instance, if he was on a tight time stable, he'd drop that in here and grab one and leave. But most drivers, especially the prideful ones like John here, he own he don't want nobody pulling his trailer. A lot of those good, good drivers, they in equipment integrity is number one to them.
Jared Holmes [00:32:15]:
So nobody drives John's truck. Nobody pulls John's trailer unless it's a efficiency situation or a time situation.
Jared Flinn [00:32:23]:
What's the cost if you're to go to an outside wash? How to get these washed out?
Jared Holmes [00:32:28]:
Anywhere from a hundred and 50 to $400. It just depends.
Jared Flinn [00:32:32]:
So it'd get pretty expensive if you didn't have your own bay?
Jared Holmes [00:32:34]:
Yep. So we we do it because we can control the quality of job and it just works better. So our guys, instead of him unloading and waiting two, three hours, maybe more to get washed out, he's back here at home. So that's what I like about it.
Jared Flinn [00:32:53]:
These guys you were talking about most of them can be you can get them home two or three nights a week?
Jared Holmes [00:32:58]:
Yeah. It it we try for that. That's never a guarantee. You know what I mean? But we we certainly try for that.
Jared Flinn [00:33:05]:
Always thinking when when I always hear the livestock haulers, people always talk about this livestock hauling, the young man's sport. Like, those guys, I mean, you're I mean, halfway nuts, hauling lifestyle. I mean, is it but, like, what is your perception or what would you say to that?
Jared Holmes [00:33:20]:
Used to be that the the modern renegade outlaw days are over with. There's still guys out there, I think, that do that, but sustainability is number one. Right? When we first started, I mean, you pull on to a DOT scale and they'd run that DOT number. Yep. Go around back, bud. So as you learn and evolve, you gotta keep that thing clean, which comes down to it. And the the people have changed. That twenty four hour a day bullshit, they don't fly no more.
Jared Holmes [00:33:51]:
Yeah. And especially lawsuits and the safety and just the risk aspect of it. That thousand dollar load to run it hot and and take a chance of killing somebody, you're going to jail. Like, it ain't no joke. So, you know, I've gotten older and, you you know, it's a fine balance of chasing the money and being safe, but I got audited by the feds in 2016. And what I paid in fines, we might as well just ran legal. Right? So, anyway
Jared Flinn [00:34:20]:
Walk this way. Look. So he's Yeah. Talk about, like, these guys, are they, I mean and, you know, let me get specific, but, like, livestock haulers, I mean, equivalent to what grain haulers are gonna make.
Jared Holmes [00:34:30]:
Oh, no. There it's it's way more. So, like, we're bidding freight loaded one way. And that's the challenging part about livestock is is there's not freight just sitting everywhere to drop hook and and do all that.
Jared Flinn [00:34:45]:
So everything you're bidding, you're assuming you're One way.
Jared Holmes [00:34:48]:
Everything's one way. There and and some guys, maybe more in the cattle sector, are more like, the backhaul is not in my vocabulary. We don't do backhauls. If it's a backhaul and and contrary to popular belief or maybe customers get mad, but it's none of the other customer's business if I already had a truck over there. Right? That's the connections that we have for our guys to double dip, so to speak, or whatever. If we can make it work, but it's never that because we gotta wash. Yeah. So as far as the money, the the money is what it is, and it's kind of a two two part conception deal because you got guys that will tell me, oh, I I can run.
Jared Holmes [00:35:34]:
I wanna make all this money. Well, day two, their their tummy hurts, and they gotta go home for bowling league and shit. So that honest perception is a deal. But to answer your question, I mean, I got guys that make $70 a year, guys that make a hundred and 30. It it it and that's my truck.
Jared Flinn [00:35:52]:
Just depending on how much they wanna
Jared Holmes [00:35:53]:
Yeah. Whatever. What and it's a get in where you fit in, and I always ask those guys like, hey. Tell me what you want to do and there are standards like that you you you will do your part. If you're on my team, you will do your part. Not everybody can run the way everybody's different. So I asked those guys to tell me, hey. What are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish? And let it rip from there.
Jared Holmes [00:36:19]:
So it it is a whatever you wanna make game, but I I'm not gonna run those guys on a on a two day binger. I won't do it anymore. Just too many accidents. Yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:36:30]:
It's not worth the
Jared Holmes [00:36:32]:
And even still, we get by on the on the map one fifty, regulations. So, I mean, we're still running logs, but we have a little more flexibility. But I tell a lot of these kids, that work for us now, like, that shit don't matter, dude. Like, again, safety. And safety, it used to be a, like, a punch line, and and now it's legit. Safety is money.
Jared Flinn [00:36:58]:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Safety is money. It's really good.
Jared Holmes [00:37:01]:
And I think a lot of guys well, a lot of brokers and stuff, you gotta have a clean deal for them to load you. That doesn't really relay to us per se, but, you know, I will take our safety record and show it to customers and just to to offset us from our competitors.
Jared Flinn [00:37:18]:
These washouts, do the drivers wash them off themselves?
Jared Holmes [00:37:21]:
Or They have either or. So, like, in my situation, I pay those guys $45 to wash their own trailer out. I can do it in twenty seven minutes with these fire hoses that we can go look at. But I I have full time guys to wash, but I I want, how am I trying to say it here? Nobody will come to me and say my check suck because the first thing I'm gonna go do is go look at that wash log. If I own this and I'm not too proud to wash one out, then you can go wash one out. Yeah. So I have guys that will make an extra $300 a week by washing them out themselves. I It's cool that
Jared Flinn [00:37:56]:
you incentivize them to do it themselves. Yeah. It's kind of like, hey.
Jared Holmes [00:37:59]:
You can do it and make Hey. My check suck. Oh, hold hold, please. You didn't wash my trailer out. What's what the fuck? And it also helps too if they have a slower week and things like that to to offset it.
Jared Flinn [00:38:10]:
That's really good.
Jared Holmes [00:38:11]:
But I have, like, three guys that they don't want anybody else washing it out because they're so particular. They wanna do it themselves.
Jared Flinn [00:38:18]:
Will this guy do it himself?
Jared Holmes [00:38:20]:
Probably not. He's he's probably ready to go home. So I got high school kids that are they're here now. And I I kinda try to find a balance. Like, them guys, I want them high school kids to do it now. He's been on the road for a while, like, a couple days, so get get the fuck out of here. You know what I mean? I wanna keep those guys fresh.
Jared Flinn [00:38:37]:
Talk about it just like this truck, the really cool paint scheme, but this one's a little bit different. Is there I just talked about kinda your brand and, do you have kind of a methanancy? I know because you run all Kenwars. Right?
Jared Holmes [00:38:50]:
Yep. T nine hundreds? W, w nines.
Jared Flinn [00:38:53]:
Or done I'm sorry.
Jared Holmes [00:38:54]:
W nines, but we did just, pull in a t six eighty to experiment with fuel mileage, and we strip all the plastic off of it. And it's got dual exhaust out the sides, and it looks pretty sporty. So we're just trying to hone down on efficiencies. Cost of operations, scary right now. So if we can pick up that fuel mileage, and that's kind of a two bit punchline too. We're pulling parachutes talking about fuel mileage. But Yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:39:17]:
Well, I was gonna talk about that because, yeah, the fuel mileage and livestock's probably gonna be one of the worst with any of it versus trailers because you're, yeah, you're pulling up a parachute down the road.
Jared Holmes [00:39:25]:
You can still work on it, though. I mean, you can still improve. I mean, to be honest, I'll tell you, we're four and a half mile a gallon right now. In those cold weeks, we'll do four one. When it warms up and the wind isn't blowing, we can get five, five and a half.
Jared Flinn [00:39:39]:
That newer model, what does it
Jared Holmes [00:39:41]:
We're doing six four with that thing, which is is unheard of in in our game.
Jared Flinn [00:39:47]:
Well, that's a huge
Jared Holmes [00:39:49]:
huge deal. The challenge is when you're looking at matching up drivers to trucks, the younger guys, they don't wanna drive their aerodynamic bubble ons. They want the big hood and all that shit. So you gotta kinda play softly with that. So I personally drove that truck for a while just to be like, hey. It's not poisonous. You're you're gonna be fine. You won't die.
Jared Holmes [00:40:12]:
I promise. Just to kinda set that precedent. So then I had another guy. He's like, hey. I'll drive that thing. I'm like, here you go. Knock yourself out. So the style is that Aerocab flat top, that kinda I just always love that look.
Jared Holmes [00:40:31]:
Yeah. Everybody's got a Peterbilt, and the Vantage is you can still stand up in that and put your pants on. So I kinda like that. So the color schemes, the senior drivers, the guys that have been here for a while, the guys that that do a phenomenal job, steady, consistent, I let them pick them out. So I'll let them
Jared Flinn [00:40:53]:
Whatever.
Jared Holmes [00:40:54]:
I'll I'll I'll do the engines and most of the specs, but other than that, here you go. Pick pick your drop visor, your colors. I'm not a pink guy, so I kinda draw the line on the pink. I haven't had one do that, but, yeah, I let them kinda do their thing. So, I kinda, you know, the wheelbase and stuff, we need to shorten them up a little bit. These two eighty inch wheelbase trucks, they're kinda just just just about an inconvenience to some of the places we go.
Jared Flinn [00:41:26]:
Oh, interesting.
Jared Holmes [00:41:27]:
We need to shorten them up a little bit, and then it also helps with the resale. So we're trying to buy trucks that we can run for three years and and have a a high resale value for a guy to go pull a hopper or an operator spec, which whichever. So that's how we do that. So all the trailers are EVs? They're all EVs, and they're all almost exactly the same. They're the same spec. They're the same brakes, same suspension, same tires, same everything.
Jared Flinn [00:41:57]:
How long will a trailer like that or how long will you pull it before you do trade it in?
Jared Holmes [00:42:01]:
We we have ours on a four year rotation. So they this one's pretty fresh, and we'll keep them every four years, and we'll bring in about a trailer every quarter or so. Just just we always are rolling them. Yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:42:14]:
One of these I mean, that's the other thing. This over the last year doing these videos, traveling across the country, talking to these guys about the price of trailers, like, how much have these trailers went up in price? I mean, just over the last ten years or five years. I mean
Jared Holmes [00:42:27]:
COVID was a bear for us. You know, my first trailer I bought in brand new trailer I bought in which is a 02/2012. I paid 77,000 for it. That's a hundred and 35, hundred and 40 thousand dollars.
Jared Flinn [00:42:45]:
So almost double Yep. Over the last 12
Jared Holmes [00:42:48]:
Which is crazy. A lot of it's the FET, but, I mean, these things don't even have engines. You know? We're paying $202.20 for trucks, and you're you're talking a hundred and 30, hundred and 40 for trailers. But COVID, I mean, it was just bang, bang, bang, bang, and it hasn't fell down as fast as it went up. So
Jared Flinn [00:43:09]:
You were talking about insurance being a just a trouble. I mean I mean, just over the continued premiums just continue to go up every year. Yeah.
Jared Holmes [00:43:19]:
Yeah. Insurance is a is a chore and I think there's two parts to that. So I
Jared Flinn [00:43:24]:
remember this because obviously we do insurance, but I mean, and we're doing for the grain guys and all that, but what I remember and I'm not an insurance agent, so that's my disclaimer. But it seems like there's very few markets that write lifestyle haulers.
Jared Holmes [00:43:36]:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:43:36]:
There's not there's not a lot of competitors out there. You have, like, a very niche small group. Well, if you don't there's not a lot of competitors.
Jared Holmes [00:43:43]:
Yeah. It's a it's a monopoly situation. And and I see a lot of insurance just the owner operators we deal with. A lot of them don't wanna deal with with, with onesies and twosies anymore. And Yep. And you you look at the fundamentals of insurance. You know? We're on all herd bumpers on every single truck we have. A single deer hit is $14,000, roughly.
Jared Holmes [00:44:07]:
Whatever. Knock the hood out, push your radiator in, all that stuff. Well, that's 14,000. And then you turn around, you start talking about the downtime or whatever. And people are so sue happy now. God forbid you you hurt somebody. They hundred thousand dollars in it at least, and then a lawsuit coming. So when you look at just the fundamentals of insurance of how much it costs, we laid one over this fall.
Jared Holmes [00:44:30]:
There was probably a $350,000 loss, and then I just get an invoice in the mail for $30,000 for the guardrail that he took out. So when you're talking about a upwards of $400,000 loss, and they have to prorate all that, I understand it. I get it. The challenge that we have is is it's hard for any trucking company to raise their rates as fighter competitive as it is to offset that cost.
Jared Flinn [00:44:57]:
Yeah.
Jared Holmes [00:44:58]:
And you're talking about a young kid, call him 25 year old with a clean record and five years of experience in my game. He ain't getting insured for less than 25,000. So you're $2 a month. You know? Yeah. Woof. You're hauling a load at least a week just for insurance. So it's a it's Jeez. It's wild.
Jared Holmes [00:45:25]:
But this equipment, it it the parts are expensive, and and everything's expensive. But
Jared Flinn [00:45:30]:
Look at the yeah. You said those fire hose is wash bay. Kinda cool to see that. So when you go to after he washes out, he's gotta put clean shavings in there?
Jared Holmes [00:45:38]:
Yeah. He'll do that when he gets to the farm.
Jared Flinn [00:45:41]:
Now is that mandatory for the
Jared Holmes [00:45:43]:
For the pigs. Okay.
Jared Flinn [00:45:44]:
Yeah. This is so this is an outside tree oak here.
Jared Holmes [00:45:46]:
Yeah. That's my brother's
Jared Flinn [00:45:47]:
tree. K. Man, sharp. Wow. You wanna take a look in here and see if they wow. How long does it take to clean one of these out? I mean, I know it can vary depending on how nasty it is, but How
Jared Holmes [00:46:09]:
how long will it take you to clean this out?
Jared Flinn [00:46:11]:
Probably forty five minutes to an hour. It's not too bad.
Jared Holmes [00:46:13]:
So this is a triple deck. These take a little longer. This is for little pigs.
Jared Flinn [00:46:18]:
Okay. I think it's cut up in there.
Jared Holmes [00:46:20]:
So then like this one here, probably take him half an hour. It's just a regular two deck. Okay. So this is his busy time. These the trailers will start rolling in about now, and then they'll get they'll get them washed up, and then back out they go.
Jared Flinn [00:46:39]:
So these trailers are getting washed out one tray every day?
Jared Holmes [00:46:44]:
Every day. Oh, yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:46:45]:
Yep. About every in the winter, about every three to four loads.
Jared Holmes [00:46:49]:
Yeah. Summertime?
Jared Flinn [00:46:50]:
Yeah. Summertime is Yeah. Four to five.
Jared Holmes [00:46:54]:
Just depends on the customer requirements. They'll tell us clean, dirty, whichever they wanna do.
Jared Flinn [00:47:01]:
Actually, I never thought about that. Lifeside trailers, probably probably out of all trailers have to get cleaned more than anything just because of the
Jared Holmes [00:47:08]:
Yeah. It's like it's harder right now. You're good to go, Gentry. It's harder now with the the when they come in here and they're frozen. That's a son of a bitch. Oh. So I'll let them thaw a little bit, and it's a pain in the ass. So this is a shitty job, but, like, that kid's 16.
Jared Holmes [00:47:27]:
I think I freaking wrote him a check for, like, a thousand bucks last week for a 16 year old. For one? For one week. Yeah. It's dirty work, but it's like
Jared Flinn [00:47:37]:
Get my son a fucking washout job. So
Jared Holmes [00:47:40]:
Oh, yeah. I'll pay for you to buy some gas working for me, baby. But, I mean, it's cold. Today's beautiful, but it's cold. It's a shitty dirty job.
Jared Flinn [00:47:51]:
Yeah. Literally. So this is so once they clean it out, this is getting the shavings? Is that what this is?
Jared Holmes [00:47:57]:
No. They'll pull ahead and then they'll throw the bedding on the back as they're rolling out. Oh. This is taking the shavings from this system. So all Okay. Yep. All the the debris will fall in there. It rolls over there into a big batched pit and the shavings will fall on this side of that, and the water will go underneath the other building.
Jared Holmes [00:48:19]:
And then the water gets pumped out on the field.
Jared Flinn [00:48:23]:
Yeah. Because there's some
Jared Holmes [00:48:24]:
A lot of debris.
Jared Flinn [00:48:26]:
But I mean, isn't there some fertilizer in there?
Jared Holmes [00:48:28]:
Yeah. There's some. Something. Not not a whole lot, but some. Yeah. Yeah. So then we'll store it and get it ready.
Jared Flinn [00:48:35]:
So your brother runs for you or runs separate?
Jared Holmes [00:48:37]:
Yep. Separate. Yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:48:38]:
Did your did your parent dad was he an ice hockey player?
Jared Holmes [00:48:42]:
Yep. Our dad started it, and then I have my business, and then my little brother took over my dad's business. Then my other brother is the dispatcher for Eichelberger Farms down in Whalen, a big hog company. Okay. So we've trucked trucks forever. Trucks. Yeah. It's a It's always been trucking.
Jared Flinn [00:49:01]:
Yeah. Yeah. So is this stuff most of it, is it figured on just a set set of miles?
Jared Holmes [00:49:05]:
Yeah. Loaded miles. So you kinda have a short range, a medium range, like the short range stuff. Me personally, we bid it by the hour. Just if there's you can't get any miles, so it doesn't Yeah. I mean, you get more sitting I'll listen to kids, like, oh, I'm in $10 a mile. Don't fucking matter if you're going 10 miles, dumbass. You know what I mean? So there's a flat rate, and then there's the long haul stuff.
Jared Holmes [00:49:28]:
And, you know, we will if we have an opportunity to reload, we'll be homies and be like, hey, dude. I can do it for this. We're already crisscrossing. But those are all relationships. We relationship haul. We don't we don't really load board haul, if that makes sense. Yeah.
Jared Flinn [00:49:44]:
Yeah. That's smart. And I I think for us, we, being an owner of a load board, our goal is we get people that, you know, find loads, but they develop relationships from that. And I said, people always people always like, that's a bad bad business model. It's like, yo, it's not. We wanna get them graduated Oh, yeah. Where they have direct and still don't. We hopefully, they still pick the load board for filling work or whatever, but it's like getting those contacts that, yeah, you're not just spot freighting at all times.
Jared Holmes [00:50:10]:
Weight is something that the axle configurations and weight of hauling livestock, we're at a disadvantage. We don't know what they weigh. So we're putting them on the truck, going off of air gauges, and then that kind of thing. So for instance, you pick up a load up in Wyoming, their weights are different coming to Iowa. You know, you roll 60,000 pounds on that trailer in this state and get popped. Have fun. You know what I mean? So it's just so much unpredictability stuff, to when we're pulling into plants and kinda staying here. I know where I'm at.
Jared Holmes [00:50:45]:
Like I told you, I got dinged bad in 2016 and that was okay. I'll behave. I'm sorry. You know what I mean.
Jared Flinn [00:50:52]:
I learned my lesson.
Jared Holmes [00:50:53]:
Yeah. I'll be good.
Jared Flinn [00:50:53]:
Do you so are you still doing all the dispatching yourself? I mean, lining up the loads?
Jared Holmes [00:50:57]:
So I have a t dispatch team in here, but I like to build it.
Jared Flinn [00:51:01]:
I like That's just kinda the control. Like, you wanna I
Jared Holmes [00:51:04]:
like to build it, and and and and whenever you're looking for a successful dispatcher, you have to have one, in my opinion, that has trucked before.
Jared Flinn [00:51:13]:
Yep. So % agree.
Jared Holmes [00:51:15]:
What I see what she sees or what they see may be different than what I see.
Jared Flinn [00:51:21]:
Is this just a kind of a shop bay? Yep.
Jared Holmes [00:51:24]:
Trucks. So all that water that you saw in there, it goes underneath this building. And then when it's cold, we'll jam this thing clear full of trucks for the weekend.
Jared Flinn [00:51:32]:
Oh, just to keep them all in?
Jared Holmes [00:51:34]:
Yep. They'll they'll all park
Jared Flinn [00:51:35]:
in here in the evening. Yep. I wish to forget. I mean, today's like I have normally Today
Jared Holmes [00:51:39]:
is not
Jared Flinn [00:51:40]:
not normal.
Jared Holmes [00:51:40]:
It's not normal. Correct. Yeah. It's not normal.
Jared Flinn [00:51:43]:
I love these pink colors. Man, it's sharp. Yeah.
Jared Holmes [00:51:45]:
So we try to do them all different. There's not one of them that's I
Jared Flinn [00:51:49]:
mean, but they all have a common thread. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. They all got the stripe, but, like, just the different colors.
Jared Holmes [00:51:54]:
For sure.
Jared Flinn [00:51:54]:
Yeah. It's nice.
Jared Holmes [00:51:57]:
So, yeah. The the disc I do the dispatching, the build it, and where I find success is when I'm out on the road, when I'm in here, the morale is everybody's everybody's playing the drums. You know? So I just like to have the, oh, the the the the ball here, and then I can get stuff to go there. So and then, like I said, then then the dispatch team will do changes and things like that. Sometimes they'll call and say, hey. We need to change this load to this load and whatever, and they'll handle that kind of stuff. So
Jared Flinn [00:52:34]:
Yeah. It's inter interesting to say that because I feel the same way in the business. Like, you kinda you wanna be in there because I've heard you before in your podcast talk about leadership, and you, you know, you're gonna do anything that you'd expect your employees to do, whether it's washing out a trailer,
Jared Holmes [00:52:50]:
Yep.
Jared Flinn [00:52:50]:
Calling the customer, whatever it is. And I'm like, lead by example. I think listen to your podcast. I I assume some of that was just even learned that in the military.
Jared Holmes [00:52:59]:
A % military. Yeah. You you can tell who the good leaders are and the bad ones real fast, and you can tell which ones win and which ones don't. So and it it's basic fundamentals that are just humanity. You know? Treat other people the way you wanna be treated and lead from the front. So How
Jared Flinn [00:53:16]:
do you do this? And this is something even personally I wanna know because, you know, I'm running multiple businesses. My daughter's daughter and boys are getting older, so we're trying to do more of the fun stuff too. But, like, is there a struggle for you, the balance between the trucking business and then the family? And I know you got the cattle operation, but
Jared Holmes [00:53:35]:
ginormous struggle. You know, I've my I'm not the smartest guy. I'm not very smart sometimes, but I do listen. I'm very good at listening. So I've had a lot of old school truck drivers tell me, like, hey. Do not miss these years. There you can always go get more money. And I don't even know if what we're doing is for the I don't money is important, but I don't do this for the money.
Jared Holmes [00:54:01]:
I like to be surrounded by kick ass dudes. So whether you're talking about volume of trucks or number of cattle, I don't care about the volume as long as I can run as many as I can with the best people around. And then I tie it back in, and I will catch myself from time to time. Like, hey. I'm being a shitty dad. I need to roll back. Yep. But as I told you yesterday, when I'm at the farm, it's a % farm.
Jared Holmes [00:54:27]:
And when I'm this slips. And when I'm here, I'm a % here, and that slips. And then I try to do both and then, oh, shit. My kids slip. Yep. So the cattle is a nice way, the showing side to where we can kinda do all that together. But I do. I the balance thing is the biggest challenge.
Jared Holmes [00:54:47]:
Sometimes you get scatterbrained. But I think when it comes to help, when it comes to team, the best of the best, and then you can rely on those guys. Like, I have owner operators that have pulled from me for a long time. They started driving my trucks. They transition into owning their own businesses, pulling my trailers. Well, I invest in them to where just last week, I I have my owner operators like, hey dude. I need you to help me watch these younger guys and make sure. They don't get paid any extra to do that.
Jared Holmes [00:55:19]:
They do that because it's the culture. It's what we built here, and that's what I want. Like, hey, that might not be your job, but, you know, I'm asking you to do this for me and they'll do it. So when it comes to team members, even pay, like, I'm not gonna be the guy that sits here and and says, oh, you want $30 an hour? How's 20 sound? If the number's 30, that's fine. If the number's 40, that's fine. But you better get me 40 worth of worth of stuff. I want what I'm paying for. So and and I think that you also have to understand that your people have to be successful for you to be successful.
Jared Flinn [00:56:03]:
Yep.
Jared Holmes [00:56:04]:
So, you know, and and and anytime you catch that, sometimes you gotta make hard decisions. Like, alright. This entity needs to go. This or whatever the case may be. So, the balancing part, I think, to answer your question better comes I don't think it's ever easy, but if you have the right people in the right spot, and that's what Donald Trump does the best. You know, he does have his flaws, but he will put the right person in the right spot. And if that person isn't doing the job, no matter if it's his golfing buddy or not, hey dude, gotta go. See you later.
Jared Holmes [00:56:36]:
It's a hard decision, but Yeah. There's two sides to me. There's I'll be your homie, and then there's the business. Don't cross them. I do relation business relationship with my brother. We are very, very close. When we're talking about business, it's completely two different tones, attitudes, everything. It's, hey, dude.
Jared Holmes [00:56:54]:
I need to talk to you about business. Alright. What's up? We'll work out the business stuff, and then we'll switch and start talking about going to the bar and and having a couple drinks that swap worse stories about how shitty our week was. Right? Yeah. So I think that's the biggest thing. And and a lot of people, employees, and team members, sometimes they get those lines mixed. And I think it's gotta be two a two part system.
Jared Flinn [00:57:18]:
Yeah. That's super good.
Jared Holmes [00:57:19]:
We'll talk about business, and we're gonna talk about play. And there's black and there's white. So You we
Jared Flinn [00:57:24]:
were talking earlier too that, obviously, you're on the Barn Talk podcast. You're talking about you listen to Jesse Bounds. But, like, you say you try to consume a lot to learn.
Jared Holmes [00:57:34]:
For sure.
Jared Flinn [00:57:35]:
But how talk about that because I think that's where a lot of us like, we're kinda always as business owners out there trying to grow a business. Like, where can I keep feeding to learn, to get sharper, to be Machine? Yeah. To be a better leader, to get sharper, to learn more about business. I mean, I love your story out there at the at your farm talking about how you did this trip across Nebraska to learn about the cattle business. Like, like, not many people would have done that, but you figured out a way, like, hey. If I'm gonna make money, I gotta learn and then apply this different than anybody else's.
Jared Holmes [00:58:03]:
Yeah. I think you gotta swallow your pride a lot and ask questions. You know, whenever you're the smartest one in the room is when you're in trouble. I don't wanna be the dumbest guy in the room, but I got no problem sitting there and just absorbing. Information's free. You know, it gets frustrating to me. Like, I could give a young 20 year old kid a million dollars worth of knowledge on a silver platter. The question is are you gonna take it and use it or you are you do you know it all? You know what I mean? So, the podcast thing and the the generation that we're in now, there's so much knowledge, you know.
Jared Holmes [00:58:38]:
Quit screwing around on Facebook while you're driving and pop in a podcast. Number one, it's safer. Number two, build yourself. And when you talk about life, their only measurable currency is time. So if you're driving down the road, you might as well build build up here. So and and the variety of podcasts I listen to, if I'm if I'm down and feeling kinda soft, Andy Frisella, you know. I'll run through a brick wall. And then the variety is what I like, Sean Ryan.
Jared Holmes [00:59:08]:
Get get a little, culture, get get a little news going on. Then the best thing is is like, it's not ABC, CBS, blah blah blah, whatever anymore. So much so much variety of good real stuff. So that that's probably
Jared Flinn [00:59:27]:
Is there any way to tell, like, trucking wise? Like, do you prefer like, I mean, some of the stuff you've learned in trucking, some of those businesses, I'm just talking about other guys out there to sharpen.
Jared Holmes [00:59:36]:
I you know, I think that that's, I don't listen to a lot of trucking podcasts. When I'm when I'm trucking, I'm wholly consumed in my business and what we can do better, I think. And and I think the challenging part of trucking, everybody's business is different. I will still listen and things, but we're, I don't know how to haul freight. I don't know how to pull tanker. I don't know much about hoppers. So in my livestock business, there's not a whole lot of that out there. And to be honest, and I don't think this is the right thing, everybody sees everybody as a threat and as a competitor.
Jared Holmes [01:00:13]:
So nobody wants to share the dirt. I'm not really scared because you're not gonna get me. Like, nobody I mean, one way or the other, we're gonna win.
Jared Flinn [01:00:23]:
Well, there's really no secrets out there anyways. For sure. People think they're like, if if they're if they don't say something, they're holding this like that, you know, nobody's gonna know. And there's there's really, really no secrets out there in in in business.
Jared Holmes [01:00:36]:
There's and every the the cost of operation is so tight right now that you're not gonna upper hand. I mean, you're gonna have guys cut rates and all that stuff, but that's good. That ain't gonna last. I mean, those guys aren't sustainable. So and they can't keep help. And then the next thing you know, they're gonna come work for guys like me because we're we're doing it the right way. But I you know, the the the the crazy thing is is, like, what I learned the last couple years was just mental health, mental fitness, and how important that is. It's no different than changing oil in a semi.
Jared Holmes [01:01:08]:
You're not gonna put used oil back in a semi when you service it. You gotta be putting good stuff in your body. Get your mind right. I don't know. I like what, like, one it's not even a fad, but, what I have going on right here. I have, like, six guys that are, like, dieting and and talking about all that stuff working out and stuff. And then like that spreads to the other 15. And some of them are overweight, you know.
Jared Holmes [01:01:31]:
And and if you can inspire that shit, like it's freaking awesome, you know. I love that shit. And then it it spreads. Instead of having drama and bullshit, like, I got guys sitting here arguing about what diet's better. Like, that to me, you know yeah. We're hauling pigs, but it's so cool that, like, everybody's yeah. Let's be better. You know?
Jared Flinn [01:01:52]:
Yeah. Last question. And, man, appreciate your time. When you look at, five, ten years from now, kinda what's what are you thinking? What's what's the plans?
Jared Holmes [01:02:04]:
For me? Just wait for an opportunity and grab onto that sucker by the horns, I think. Kind of in a hold pattern right now just to kinda see how things go and and,
Jared Flinn [01:02:18]:
because you're saying the industry's a little tight right now?
Jared Holmes [01:02:21]:
I think. I think I mean, we got, you know, some disease going around that's affecting the populations of the hogs and and stuff, but there's just so much uncertainty right now. You know, it's it's it's you know, what what is next? I don't know what's next for us. I think that, honing in, you know, this year, you know, it's it's January 1. Right? You get a new shot. What are we doing? What are we doing? How do we be better? You know, it's tax time. Hey. Let's have an honest self reflection.
Jared Holmes [01:02:50]:
How'd we do? Legit. Like, damn. We didn't do very good there, there, there. So I think for us in the next couple years is definitely honing in on on the things that we can do better. You know, efficiency, you know, retention, that kind of stuff. But it's also for right opportunity strikes. In in my business right now, there's just not a lot of growth going on. So there's no sense in talking about adding expansions with trucking or or anything of that nature.
Jared Holmes [01:03:20]:
I think in the game and the water that I swim in, a lot of those guys that have been doing it for thirty or forty years are are starting to kinda wonder what their next move is. So what is there an opportunity there? I don't know. Because in livestock trucking, it
Jared Flinn [01:03:34]:
seems like there's more especially compared to hoppers, like, more larger fleet companies.
Jared Holmes [01:03:40]:
It's getting that way.
Jared Flinn [01:03:41]:
Yeah. I mean, you still you still got I mean, there's some decent ones running 10 plus. But, like, if I look at, like, your operation by seeing there's a lot more of your style operations than
Jared Holmes [01:03:50]:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn [01:03:51]:
The small five less.
Jared Holmes [01:03:52]:
I think that that's that's America, though. The small dealerships are gone. You know? The banks, they're 10 branches, 20 branches. Right? I think that's, I think that's the way that it's going. And I catch myself wondering, like, too, and I'm not ready to retire, but what's my succession plan? I think so many of these guys when you just wanna roll it back into a life model, you're going a hundred miles an hour at growth, but then what? What are you doing? You've missed all this shit for what? To take it to an auction and pay the IRS afterwards? I think that you gotta have short term, medium term, long term goals to better answer your question. We're we're not looking at growth, we're looking at be better. How do we be better? How do we make sure that we're capitalizing everything we can capitalize? I tell my guys all the time, trucking is no different than fishing. There's one goal in fishing that is to get the fish in the boat.
Jared Holmes [01:04:48]:
When you stick the net in the water, you want the fish. You don't want the bullshit. You don't want the water in there, but fish is the only thing that matters. In trucking, fish is money. Get the money in the boat. Don't worry about the other stuff. You can go haul a thousand dollar load and have one guy drive 55 mile an hour ten and two with the speed limit or you can have one guy being badass driving 90. At the end of the day, who's making more money? Time is the only measurable currency we have out here.
Jared Holmes [01:05:19]:
So capture efficient everything that we can get. And that's the way that the livestock industry is right now too. Feed efficiency, you know, death loss, all that stuff. I think that what I feel the temperature of the room is is efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. What can we do more with less? Same thing, talking about diesel fuel electricity, it doesn't matter. If we need to do more with less and be more efficient, reduce our carbon footprint, and kinda be looking out and see see what happens there. But, you know, we the ever since I you know, I told somebody the other day, 2019, I think, was the last time that we probably could chalk it up has killed it in terms of finances. But, you know, it's just been kinda the since 2020.
Jared Flinn [01:06:05]:
Yes.
Jared Holmes [01:06:06]:
And and everybody talk about podcast, my friend group, the wolf pack. I got construction guys, equipment sales guys, all that. So you you can really feel it that everybody's like, ugh.
Jared Flinn [01:06:21]:
Yeah.
Jared Holmes [01:06:21]:
Kinda kinda rough rough pickings. And that's no different in your in your world. Everybody's what's what's lowest? What's the cheapest? What's the cheapest? Well, I can say that I'm the best, but I'm not gonna be the cheapest. I can't. There's there's no way. So I'm gonna let it sit. But in your world and your customers, they want it done cheap. They want a good job, but they want it done cheap.
Jared Holmes [01:06:46]:
Well, you can't have both.
Jared Flinn [01:06:47]:
Yeah.
Jared Holmes [01:06:48]:
You know? There's cheap, good, and fast. Which one you want? You know, so, it's it's just a different it's a different civilization. It's a different attitude. It's different people and you got the the next generation that came in and then I'll tell this is a dig to some of these people running these corporate companies. The people that started the the everybody gets a trophy prize, that generation is now in leadership positions and a lot of them too are in our business. So I hear this, gotta be fair. What the fuck you mean you gotta be fair? Like, you want me to be fair? I've had guys with me for ten, twelve years and they're loading beside a guy that just started yesterday with a truck that wouldn't pass a DOT inspection. What do you mean fair? You know what I mean? Yeah.
Jared Holmes [01:07:36]:
So the disconnect between on the ground, the warriors on the ground and corporate so large, it's insane. So how do we how do we narrow that gap? I think you gotta, you know, burn that field of CRP before you can narrow that gap. And they get back and start asking questions to the guys that are in the trenches doing the work. Yeah.
Jared Flinn [01:07:56]:
Dude, this is so good, man. I think, I'm glad you answered my text yesterday when we were on our way up to visit Torque and Sawyer to be on the show. And, man, thanks for graciously taking your time to come out and see your farm operation, livestock, and, then to see the trucking business. It's cool that, you know, we're on the bulk side. You're on livestock, but it's trucking's trucking and
Jared Holmes [01:08:18]:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn [01:08:18]:
And growing a business and and all the moves. So, I mean, there's it it coincides and, which I think just makes us beautifully fit. So, man, thank you very
Jared Holmes [01:08:27]:
much.
Jared Flinn [01:08:28]:
God bless you. Appreciate it.
