OXFORD, Ohio — Marc Tincher and Danielle Mann are full-time teachers in the Talawanda school district and breeders of Simmental and Sim-Angus cross cattle. They don’t want to give up either occupation.<br>
Tincher is up and in the barn every morning at 5 a.m., before going to school. He compares it to people who play golf.<br>
“This is something that I enjoy doing and it’s relaxing,” he said. “It’s a hobby that I can make money doing and it’s great for the family, great for my kids – they can go into the 4-H program. Some people hit little white golf balls around. I go out at five in the morning and check my cows to make sure everybody is healthy.”
Mann helps on the farm, though she is busy with the couple’s two children, Jack and Scout. She has developed a freezer beef business, mainly through the Talawanda School District.<br>
“People really want hormone-free, antibiotic-free meat,” Mann said. “We’ve sold it long enough that people really like it and they tell other people. I feel it is a good price.”<br>
Tincher and Mann acquired the farm from Tincher’s parents, Jack and Carol, who are still involved in the operation. The farm was in row crops until 1993.<br>
“We became so dependent upon the fluctuation of the market and we had to judge what it was going to be 12 months from now,” Tincher said. “With the purebred cattle market, we can pretty much set what our price is going to be and we can control our market a little bit that way.”<br>
It took a long time to build the herd, but they have been successful; they have sold genetics all over the nation. Yet, like all livestock producers they are faced with increasing farm input costs. Like any other business, they watch expenses, Tincher said.
They have their corn custom planted because that saves on inputs. They cut their own silage. Tincher usually makes all of the hay used on the farm but because of last year’s drought, they had to buy from out of state.<br>
“We had several semi-loads of big square-baled hay brought in from Wisconsin,” Tincher said. “They didn’t suffer the same kind of drought, so we were able to get that hay at a reasonable price. We paid more for the trucking than we did for the hay itself.”
While many people liquidated herds of cattle, he said they couldn’t do that because it took so long to build up the genetic base of their herd.<br>
“We can’t just turn our cows into beef,” he said.<br>
One nice aspect of the cattle business is the many friendships the family has developed, Tincher said.<br>
“We’ve got really close friends in Kentucky and Tennessee; we’ve got friends we’ve developed all the way down in Mississippi, that we interact with a good bit,” he said. “It’s nice to build those friendships, that you never would have met those people if not for the cattle business.”<br>