Children’s Opportunity Fund | When and Investment is Lost

Karsyn lost a calf this fall to pneumonia. I tried my hardest to keep it alive and had thought we rounded the corner.

When we started the opportunity funds for the kids, we purchased five open heifers for each of them.

We did more than one because we’re well versed in well made plans that go awry with livestock.

In other words, we understand death loss.

I thought buying 5 would hedge our bets, but these kids haven’t been immune to loss.

They’ve learned about death of their own animals faster than I was anticipating, frankly.

It’s been tough. And at the same time, a foundational life lesson.

The themes of economies of scale and risk tolerance come to mind first.

It takes the “same” amount of time to feed 5 cows as it does 1 and likewise, takes about the same time to feed 20 as it does 100. 😉 I hope they see that scaling their businesses to maximize their inputs, especially, time, is vital.

For risk tolerance, if we have 1 cow and it dies, we lose 100% of our investment. If we have 5 cows and we lose 1 then we lose 20% of our investment. I’m hoping they see that scale can help carry the risk while still realizing they could also have all 5 cows die… hopefully not, but it’s possible.

Anyway, we haven’t run into the problem of their herds growing too fast yet. 😉Agriculture and circumstance has dealt them a fair hand.