This year, there were several that caught my attention. Two or three children asked for real babies or baby brothers or sisters. But one little girl wrote that for Christmas, she wanted hay. That's all -- just hay.
This raised my curiosity, because what's a 5- or 6-year-old girl going to do with hay? I guessed that maybe she had a cow or horse at home, and Daddy's fields weren't giving enough food this year. Of course, it could be that she asked her parents for a pony for Christmas, and they said, "We'd get you a pony, but we don't have any hay for it to eat." If Santa brings the girl hay, then Mommy and Daddy will get her the pony (in theory, anyway).
In honor of the child who wanted hay for Christmas, this month I dug up a few more feedlot Web sites. Most of the sites I stumbled across are for individual feedlots; there's not a lot I've found in the way of feedlot directories. Ranchlinks.com has a short list of links, and the Kansas Feed Yards site has a pretty thorough list of feed yards in Kansas.
As far as online resources for feedlot owners and cattle owners to find each other, though, the best site I found was AgriPlace, an online marketplace for grain producers. It's got market information and offers free publications dealing with a variety of ag issues.
Any feedyard owners or grain producers out there might find a recent press release from USDA useful; GIPSA has released its annual report. It can be found at http://www.usda.gov/gipsa/newsroom/relea...
Until next month, may you and your cattle stay warm, full and content.
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