If you want to skip the context of this request for help; scroll down to the paragraph titled “meat and potatoes:”. Thank you in advance to anyone that can share some knowledge.

Hey all, second gen farmer and small business (restaurant) owner, but first generation rancher just east of Austin, Tx running solo (27M) now. After getting out of the military I moved back home to help my dad with stage IV cancer run his olive orchard with my mom. Well, the big Texas freeze a few years back froze all 1,100 olive trees to the root resulting in a complete loss of 5 years of work. With his cancer we decided that replanting and trying again just wasn’t in the cards, so we switched to grazing cattle and raising Hampshire pigs for our own use and it went well for awhile providing us with great meat for our own use.

Well, fast forward a bit and his condition took a turn for the worse, and he ended up passing peacefully (as much as one could) surrounded by family. As small business owners and landowners, we (the family) were left scrambling to fill his shoes and utilize the skills we had learnt throughout life to keep the show running. With that, family bbq’s, pig roasts, and our consumption has decreased leaving us with a lot of extra cattle and pigs and it’s led to overgrazing with the cattle and more pigs than I can personally sell (I’d sell individual pigs for locals), but at the rate of reproduction I just can’t keep up while working a full time job in commercial real estate and running the family restaurant. Not to mention I was struck head-on driving home from work shortly before he passed and have been recovering from burst fractures in my spine and ankles that temporarily left me in a wheelchair.

I refuse to let our way of life die, but in all honesty I need help. Due to his deteriorating condition we never were able to take any animals to market and frankly beyond loading them I have no clue how I would go about taking animals to market.

Meat and Potatoes: Could anyone give me some tips on how I would go about taking pigs (I just had a litter of 12 born a few days ago) to market? If you’re local to the Bastrop/Travis county area and could share specific locations that would be great. If you’re not local, any help would be appreciated. As it relates to cattle, I assume the process would be the same, but feel free to educate me otherwise.

Thank you in advance to anyone that helps save our operations. I don’t want to abandon this way of life, but with only myself (27M) and my disabled mother. I do have to make the decision that both realistic and best for us and the animals, and if that means dropping the whole operation, then, as sad as it would be, then so be it.

Also, if you’re local to Bastrop/Travis county and are looking for part time ranch hand work. Please feel free to reach out. I can’t promise you a full time job, but if we can get an efficient system in place to regularly take animals to market. I’d be happy to explore sharing of profits and even equity in the business if we can actually get a profitable operation going.

Thanks for reading and have a blessed day y’all.