...For the exclusive use of M. Neger, 2016. S w 910B04 OLD MULE FARMS David M. Currie and Lorena Mošnja Škare wrote this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation prohibits any form of reproduction, storage or transmission without its written permission. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K7; phone (519) 661-3208; fax (519) 661-3882; e-mail cases@ivey.uwo.ca. Copyright © 2010, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation Version: (A) 2010-05-03 In March 2009, Donna and Jim Green looked with dismay at the financial statement summarizing the performance of Old Mule Farms for the year 2008. Old Mule’s cow-calf operation had experienced another year of losses. Especially frustrating was that the losses occurred despite the Greens’ multiple efforts to improve the farm’s efficiency. While these efforts improved performance compared to 2007, they were not sufficient to overcome the decline in calf prices, so the operation continued...
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...Memorandum TO: Dr. Kathleen Sheehan, BECO 4310 - 003 FROM: Brian J. Walsh DATE: 3/2/2015 RE: Old Mule Farms The Old Mule Farms is a cow-calf operation that provides calves for feedlots to fatten up before being sent to packing houses and eventually sold as meet for consumers. The current owners have been experiencing a problem with losses in revenue. The expenses that Old Mule Farms incurred are veterinary bills, labor, nutritional supplements and minerals, and a variety of forage. The forage is primarily grazed grasses but is supplemented with hay. The owners of the farm have found a correlation between the weight of a cow, and the cost of feeding it, in conjunction with the weight of a calf. The problem that they currently face is three fold. First, what is the proper size of a cow for their herd? Second, what is the best approach to use in measuring a proper size: weaning a calf that is 50% of the mother’s size, or comparing the value of a calf to the cost of maintaining a cow? Last, what are the primary cost drivers in the calf-cow operation, and is the revenue-expense calculation currently in use clear regarding the cost drivers? Based on Old Mill Farms research, a cow above or below 1200 lbs. has a lower weaning calf weight than a cow that is 1200 lbs. The optimum weaning calf weight is when a cow is 1200 lbs.. To answer the first question Old Mule farms has, the proper cow size should be 1200 lbs. to produce the optimum calf size. Research that the owners...
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...To: | Michael Giberson, BECO 4310-006 | From: | Arielle Pruitt | Date: | January 27, 2014 | Re: | Old Mule Farms Case | | | | | Jim and Donna Green live on a farm that has been in their family for three generations. However, they have been losing money over the past couple of years because of what it costs to maintain their cows they use for breeding. To help offset their losses, Donna focused on making sure the calf weight at weaning was larger than in past. She also included nutrients in their feed and selected sires whose calves generally grew at a faster rate. These measures helped to increase the farms efficiency but unfortunately it was still not enough. One night after watching The Cattle Show on television, Donna and Jim had several questions on how they should proceed to raise their revenue for the upcoming year. Their first was question is what is the appropriate size for each cow in the herd. The second question the couple has is which method was most appropriate at measuring size: weaning a calf that weighs half of its mother, or comparing the cost of selling the calf to the cost of maintaining the cow. Their third and final concern is to figure out what the drivers of the cow-calf operation are and if the revenue-expense calculation is clear in regards to drivers. To answer Donna’s first question, I would recommend the average cow size in the herd be 1,100 pounds. The method that most appropriately measures this factor is comparing the cost of selling...
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...For the exclusive use of C. Milne, 2016. S w 910B04 OLD MULE FARMS David M. Currie and Lorena Mošnja Škare wrote this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation prohibits any form of reproduction, storage or transmission without its written permission. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K7; phone (519) 661-3208; fax (519) 661-3882; e-mail cases@ivey.uwo.ca. Copyright © 2010, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation Version: (A) 2010-05-03 In March 2009, Donna and Jim Green looked with dismay at the financial statement summarizing the performance of Old Mule Farms for the year 2008. Old Mule’s cow-calf operation had experienced another year of losses. Especially frustrating was that the losses occurred despite the Greens’ multiple efforts to improve the farm’s efficiency. While these efforts improved performance compared to 2007, they were not sufficient to overcome the decline in calf prices, so the operation continued...
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...Mule Killers by Lydia Peelle This is a story about unrequited love and its consequences and the change from child to adult. Time changes and life goes on. Whether people accept the changes and might takes advantage of the possibilities given to them, but people make mistakes, especially when they are young and in love. Will it be a bump on the road or will it change the direction they are heading. These are some of the themes that the short story “Mule Killers” is dealing with. Mule Killers is told by a narrator, who is telling the story of his father meeting his mother. It is a son telling about his father telling his son what happened the year he was 18 and the mule killers came. So the story takes place in two times, the present where the father and the son are picking asparagus in the garden and the past where the life of the father was changed for good. It all takes place in a farming area in America at the time where modern machinery reached the farms in Nashville. Tractors started to take over the farm and were therefore setting mules out of work. The narrator’s grandfather “…goes to Nashville and buys two International Harvester tractors for eighteen hundred dollars, cash…” (Page 9, line 13-14) The father is in the sons telling an 18-year-old teenager meaning that he is a little uncertain and confused about growing up, and with small ability to express his feelings towards other people. The uncertainty and suppression of his feelings will later in the short story...
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...Mule killers As time passes so does people. A man and a woman form a family, and hope their children get children. But the tricky thing about families is when; there is a gap between the generations. Then people more often than not, are having a hard time trying to understand one and other. Such a dilemma is shown to us in Mule Killers by Lydia Peelle. In this story a test of the morals is shown, given the two generations different view on a problem. In this story our protagonist is our narrator’s father. The story takes place, when the father was young, but is being told to our narrator, when the father, has grown older. So the story takes place when the father is eighteen years-old. He is working on his father’s farm. In the beginning on this farm, everything is done manually, until the father decides to purchase two tractors to replace the mules, which had been taken to the slaughter house. It is here the one of the differences shows. “Mercy, mercy, mercy” (l. 58) these words comes from the protagonist´s fathers mouth, when the state comes with their big trucks, and drags away one of the mules named Orphan. Here it is clearly shown that these animals are not only a tool, but also a friend and helper. The father is willing to beg for Orphans life. The fact that he has named him also proves that they were close. The way Orphan reacts when they try to load him on the truck shows that Orphan cares about the father. The way his eyes goes mad, when they finally get on truck...
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...In Richard Wright’s “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” tells the tale of a young boy, seventeen year old Dave Saunders, struggling to prove his manhood, buys a gun. Evidently, to Dave the gun will make him a man because it represents power and masculinity “And if he were holding his gun in his hand, nobody could run over him; they would have to respect him.” (p.6) Also, his reasoning for associating the gun with power and violence stems from his father. Dave looks at his father as a man, but his father resorts to violence and fear to resolve things. In fact, when Dave gets in trouble at work his father threatens to beat him “ N Pa says he’s gonna beat me...He remembered other beatings, and his back quivered.” (p.11) At the same time, however,...
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...Essay of ''Mule Killers'' by Lydia Peelle By growing up and entering a world of adulthood, you automatically experience both positives and negatives sides of life, you may have not known in the innocent childhood most kids have known. In “Mule Killers” by Lydia Peelle the troubles of a young man is described as well as the consequences of his actions are portrayed, and made a huge influence on the rest of his life. Throughout a lifetime everyone face situations where one has to make choices without being able to know the consequences. Sometimes people make decisions without even being aware of it.. Some choices can have an influence on life's path and the consequences of making choices can therefore be fatal and frightening. To close a door can sometimes be the opening of another – another path in life. In the story the father is a teenager and he is confused about growing up and at the same time he, like many teenage boys, has a difficult time expressing his feelings. This becomes evident in this paragraph: “She is going to walk out the door and leave them here to their sodas and silence. At this point my father, frantic, takes hold of the girl on the stool next to him, leans her in Eula’s direction, and kisses her recklessly, right on the mouth”. Here he has gotten himself into an uncomfortable situation because he has chosen to make Eula jealous instead of telling her how he feels. This disability has the consequence of making the pale-haired girl pregnant. This creates...
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...is always alone in his room. He takes care of the horses and mules in the barn. Crooks is discluded because he is a different color than the other men. No one has the right to come in his room and he has no right to go into theirs. In the middle of the book, when all the guys are gone into town, Lennie stays at the farm to play with the pup. Lennie is very curious and when he sees Crooks light on, he walks right in. Crooks was...
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...was a young soldier just freshly shipped in from New york state to join a crew of support personnel for the Tuskegee Airman. James B. Simpson and my mom met and married while he was in alabama. i was born on a hot sweltin june day, in those times babies were delivered by midwife's or older member of the family, in my case we were lucky enough my grandma maggie's, cousin was midwife Vester Webb who like to take a sip of her medicine. news travel faster than water over them hills, some neighbors from across the creek told my cousins Jimmy Lee, mary Alice, and mary Lee who was 9-10 years old, that my mothers had the baby which was me, they came running to name the baby Betty Jean... it an't happening Ha Ha. I had already been named. the first crisis was the midwife forgot the sterlizing drop in my eyes after a few days of crustation, a mad dash, on a rigdy old wagon with a swayback bowleg mule we made our way over gravel roads to the only doctor in elmore that would take colored patients, if mama hadn't got me there that day i would have been blind, to this day i have none fixable eye problems. well that wasn't my last problem. I grew up spending most summers with my grand mother maggie, and her sister aunt ada. aunt ada was a flapper that spent her young years in new york city, and from what i got from the story my greatgrandfather Shady Daniels was from a well to do family of the high yellow kind, all 10 of the daniel children was given approx 25 acres of property to build...
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...Old Yeller Recently, my class and I read a book called Old Yeller written by Fred Gipson, and also watched the movie version produced by Disney. In it’s simplest description — Old Yeller is a story about a teenage boy and his new dog. To me, though the movie was somewhat different from the book, they were also alike in many ways. I’m going to tell you all about these differences and similarities. Now, when you make a movie based on a book, it should stick to the plot line for a great majority of the time. I could say that this is a necessity, but sometimes, the movie goes so far off from it’s book, that it seems like the screenplay writer just took the characters and wrote a new story, or in some cases, the movie is actually better than the book. Well, I think that the movie version of Old Yeller stuck to the plot line very well. They kept the setting (which I will get to in a few sentences), the kept the characters and they kept basically the whole theme. Which I think was good, because despite what some of my classmates thought — I enjoyed this book a lot. The setting of the book was pretty much dead on. It took place in Salt Licks, Texas, during the time period of the late 1860's. it also kept Birdsong Creek, the name of the place the Coates live. The house still has hills around it, it still has the pastures where the cows, pigs and old Jumper, the family’s mule, live. Though it was not what I had thought of when I read the book, it was a perfect setting. The...
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...Bird 1. He eats like a bird． 2．A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush． 3．We’re all early birds in my family because we live on a farm. 4. Birds of a feather flock together． 5．That’s for the birds! 6．It’s an ill bird that fouls own nest． 7. A little bird told me． Horse 马 8. He eats like a horse． 10．It’s time to study now and stop horsing around． 11．I got it straight from the horse s mouth． 12. Just hold your horses！ 13. She works like a horse all day long． 14．That’s a horse of a different color! 15．You can take a horse to the water，but you can't make him drink！ Monkey 16．Don't get your monkey up for nothing． 17. You shouldn't monkey about with that machine, if you don't know how to fix it． 18．What kind of monkey business has been going on while I've been away？ Chicken 19．Come on! Don’t be chicken! 20．Well，she’s certainly no spring chicken． 21．Don't count your chickens before they're hatched! Owl 22. He is as blind as an owl． 23. He’s a wise old owl． Bear 24．Every time l see my grandfather，he gives me a big bear hug． 25．Her husband is a real bear． Bee 26．She’s always as busy as a bee． Snail 27．He walks at a snail's pace． Worm 28．He wormed his way through the narrow passage． 29．Every time l take the kids to the movies，they always worm around in their seats． 30．l am a worm today． 31．A worm will turn． Ants 32．You’d think he has ants in his pants． ...
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...Thesis: Steinbeck illustrates how people cope with loneliness through Candy, Crooks, and Curley's wife which shows that meeting inner needs brings validation. Curley’s Wife Candy Crooks Claim: Curley’s wife copes with loneliness by flirting with men in an effort to to feel validated. Evidence: “She had rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers. ‘I’m looking for Curley’, she said. Her voice had a nasal brittle quality” (31). Reasoning: Curley’s wife’s red fingernails and mules symbolize her need for attention because red is a known flirtatious and seductive color. Flirting with guys makes her feel accepted and helps her cope with...
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...fields examining each product’s value. A machine that is used for picking crops and is used with/powered by the tractor, called the Reaper. As this gathers the crop, it discards the waste. If there are any spoiled crops, it separates them as it does the waste. Recently there have been advancements in a newer method called Precision Farming, which has been suggested for preserving resources, preventing excess waste, and reusing old waste (Precision farming rewards at hand). This new method can be used by satellite so farmers know their surroundings at all times, and will know where they left off in the field the previous day(Precision). Another beneficial factor of this method is that it notifies the farmers where their crops are (Precision). The great improvements in farm tractors allows farmers to be able to maintain larger properties in the same amount of time it used to take to maintain smaller properties. Due to these advancements, farmers are able to expand their farms therefore, making a larger...
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...In “The Dreamer,” Junot Diaz reflects on his mother’s childhood. Diaz’s mother lived in a Third-World country, Dominican. His mother worked on his grandmother’s farm and would not let her get an education. Although one day the county got a new dictator Trujillo, which he put into effect mandatory education to children under fifteen-years-old. Diaz’s mother tried so hard to acquire an education because her dream was to one day become a nurse. I am inspired by Diaz's essay both because of what his mother did in order to education and also because of what a mother’s abilities can go on their son. To begin with, Diaz’s essay was an inspiration to me because his mother had to go a remarkable length to get an education. Firstly, Diaz writes “Her...
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