Seven Generations On One New Mexico Ranch with Tom Spindle

Most people can picture a cowboy. Far fewer understand the math, the risk, and the nonstop decisions behind a real New Mexico cattle ranch. We’re in Stanley, New Mexico, sitting in a pig barn of all places, talking with Tom Spindle from the Bill King Ranch about what it takes to keep a seven-generation operation moving forward when the weather will not cooperate and the bills keep growing.

Tom breaks down seedstock in plain language: these bulls and females are the “seed” for commercial cattle herds, and the genetics have to perform in the real world. We talk about why New Mexico’s arid landscape changes everything, from how far cattle may travel for water to why Tom keeps bulls athletic and lean instead of overfed. If you’ve ever wondered how ranchers plan for drought cycles, protect rangeland from overgrazing, or make management calls when “average” doesn’t mean much, you’ll hear the reasoning straight from the source.

We also get specific about animal health and cattle care, including an intensive vaccine protocol built with veterinarians and animal health partners to drive death loss close to zero. And we go where most conversations stop: thin margins, one sale check a year for many producers, and the reality that higher cattle prices can come with higher fuel, feed, fertilizer, and labor costs. Finally, we talk direct-to-consumer freezer beef, why customers want to know where their food comes from, and the pride of selling beef you’d feed your own kids.

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Transcript

Welcome To The Bill King Ranch

Carollann Romo 0:04

Welcome back to another episode of Behind the Burger. I'm Caroline Romo, Executive Director of the New Mexico Beef Council. We're here with Tom Spindle. Are we in what town are we in?

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Stanley, New Mexico.

Carollann Romo 0:16

Yeah, we're in Stanley. Okay. So will you introduce yourself and kind of start with the background? You can even tell them where we're sitting, too, if you want.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Okay, we are actually in a fancy pig barn here in Stanley, New Mexico that my son-in-law and his wife built, Josh and Abby. Um so just a quick uh introduction. I'm Tom Spindle from the Bill King Ranch in Stanley, New Mexico. Uh me and my wife have been married for 32 years. We raised four children here on the ranch. Um, she is the fifth generation on the ranch, and uh we currently have the sixth and seventh generation living on the ranch, uh, all the way down to uh 12 months old. That's perfect. Uh of course her dad Bill King is still involved heavily, he's here daily. Um so we all get along good and we we we all have the same uh vision and goals, I guess, in the ranch. Um right now we we almost strictly raise seed stock cattle. Herford, Charlet, and Angus. Bulls primarily is what we market to commercial breeders. Um this ranch, I I told you we're seven generations deep now. So the ranch has been in my wife's family, uh homestead by her great-grandfather, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. And uh would have been uh I think we celebrated our centennial five years ago. So congratulations. Uh it's something that has stayed in the family for a long time. It's really neat.

Carollann Romo 1:43

I think uh that family legacy is probably the coolest thing about a New Mexico ranch or a ranch in general, just that that hundred years, how many things have been in business for a hundred years? Not many, yeah. Right, right. It's agriculture typically.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah.

What Seedstock Really Means

Carollann Romo 1:59

Um so we love that and we love the family legacy. And then so we talk about seed stock, and of course, the goal of the podcast is to talk to people that don't know about the beef industry. Uh you kind of mentioned it. Seed stock usually means bulls, it's breeding animals, right? Is that how you would describe that?

SPEAKER_02 2:13

So basically they're the seed for uh commercial breeders. Um so we also sell females too that you know, if people need some replacement females, purebreds, or we even sometimes have commercial heifers, but we'll sell those and then they can cross them with whatever bull they want. Uh in this industry, you almost have to have a commercial crossbred calf and and uh utilize the heterosis. So we sell purebred bulls to commercial guys and it it works.

Carollann Romo 2:45

Yeah, absolutely. And you do that, um you do that throughout the nation, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Oh yeah, we send them all over from coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico. So yeah, and we sell them all private treaty. It's a it's quite a bit of work selling four to five hundred bulls annually, private treaty, but we've got great customers and I sell them in big, big lots.

Weather, Markets, And Flexibility

Carollann Romo 3:06

So yeah, love that. Um, what do you think is the most rewarding part of being in the beef industry?

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Um all of it. I mean, it's it's not for the faint of heart, it's it's hard work. Uh you're always battling something. If it's not the market is not where you need it to be, then you're dealing with bad weather. Every once in a while, everything's just great. The weather's good, the prices are high, but we're always kind of struggling with something. And it's it's you kind of just get used to it. I mean, you you're always kind of waiting for the next bad thing to happen. It sounds bad, but it's not. It's I mean, the the best part of it is we're we're kind of our own bosses, we make our own decisions, good or bad. We stick by them. We uh we change our not necessarily our goals, but our our route to get to where we need to be, depending on uh things that we can't control.

Carollann Romo 4:01

Well, and most everything that you deal with you can't control. Right. Markets and weather, that's that's an interesting thing. You don't get to set prices necessarily, or or I guess in some ways you do, but it's based on the market that you're dealing with. Yeah. Feed and and fuel and all the things.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

And really, it's mother nature. It's uh I mean, everything could be going great, and you could have a horrible storm when you're calving, and it would really hurt you bad financially. Uh, or you could just have a drought. We're in a pretty substantial drought right now, the whole West is. Um, so yeah, you just gotta be willing to be flexible and don't get discouraged and just keep moving forward.

Raising Bulls Built For Distance

Carollann Romo 4:38

Absolutely. And I I think that probably is why the beef industry has such great humans. Yeah. That flexibility, that having to adapt, having to deal with things outside of our control. Right. Um, and uh yeah, I think that's a that's a really special quality. So you already mentioned uh the the drought, um, but how do New Mexico's landscapes and climate shape your operation?

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Um so yeah, we intentionally do not get our bulls overly conditioned prior to selling them. And it's it's kind of difficult because I will sell bulls year-round, so I I can't feed the bulls to a specific sale date. So we have to keep them, I'd say athletic and lean because we know a lot of the range country they're gonna go on is you know subpar as far as forage, and they're gonna have to move a lot. So we try and intentionally raise bulls that can get out and hustle and find feed and breed cows. That's the most important thing.

Carollann Romo 5:37

So they're so they're extremely adapted or ready, prepared for New Mexico's harsher conditions.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Yeah, yeah. Arid landscape, and and we they perform up north where they get substantial rain, probably even better than they do here.

Carollann Romo 5:51

So yeah, they're ready for it to be tough, but they could thrive where it's not tough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Like all of us. Yeah. Like all of us in the industry. Yeah.

Carollann Romo 5:58

Absolutely. If you can handle when it's tough, you can handle when it's good.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Yeah.

Carollann Romo 6:01

Um, that's a great, great analogy. Do you and then and then I think um just you know, an example of New Mexico too, of that um we've been talking, we were at the Agri Future conference where you hosted a tour, and they were, you know, you you talked about the differences of landscapes in New Mexico versus other places. Some places they say you don't want your your um cattle to travel a half a mile for water. Yeah. And in New Mexico, it's probably a mile, and sometimes they're weird to go four or five miles, yeah. Or they have to go. And so that that difference is uh in New Mexico, I thought was an interesting thing that we learned about last week.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

It is, and the animal units per acre in New Mexico varies so much from north to south, from east to west. Uh it's you know, if you're down in Donna Anna County, it's a lot of acres per cow. So yeah, so you gotta have cows that can travel.

Carollann Romo 6:53

Absolutely, absolutely. I know um someone was telling me recently they say usually New Mexico is about 60 acres per animal. And I and I thought, maybe if you do the mathematical average, but there's people that are 120, 150, and more because of drought and because of access to water.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

So and that's the other thing is you know, we always talk averages, but it seems like our averages or our we're spanning from really wet to really dry. So that average is kind of hard to figure into because you may be feeding cows for five years and then you may have abundant rain for five years. It's usually about a 10-year cycle.

Carollann Romo 7:32

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's a big, big extremes, big differences.

Vaccine Protocols And Low Death Loss

Carollann Romo 7:36

Uh well, can you give an example of how you care for your cattle to support their health and well-being? I know you talked about your vaccine protocol on the tour or yeah, yeah. Um how do you how do you take good care of the cows and bulls?

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Um it I I could spend hours just talking about health on cattle because uh our cattle and not to be uh not to be like diminishing the value of a commercial calf, but the purebred cattle are worth more money.

Carollann Romo 8:06

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Obviously, I mean that's a that's a no-brainer, but if if we lose one bull calf, that's that's pretty substantial. So we we worked with vets and we worked with some uh some medicine companies and we we came up with a vaccine protocol that has worked very well for us. Our death loss is almost zero now. But it's very intensive. You know, we we vaccinate them at birth and then all the way till they're adults. But we have to because the value in the cattle, especially now, yeah, you do not want to lose a calf.

Carollann Romo 8:34

Right, right. Well, and I I always think that that's a great explanation is absolutely we care for the cattle. You care about the cow.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

I care about them financially and also because it's the right thing to do. Yeah, yeah.

Carollann Romo 8:45

Yes, yeah, it's ethical, it's moral, and it's also financial, and that's an easy easy story to tell, right? Um absolutely. Well, that's perfect. And then, you know, we do consumer studies too, and the good news is when you ask consumers, they trust ranchers and they trust veterinarians. That's good. Well, you are the rancher and you are a consulting, a veterinarian. Absolutely. So I hope people can have trust in that, right? Um tell me about a time where where you made a sacrifice or overcame a challenge.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Um we're constantly sacrificing in this industry. Um probably the biggest sacrifice maybe was time uh with the family, but on that same note, uh my kids were almost always with me when I was doing stuff. So sure I didn't make every soccer game, but they got to go around every day with me on the ranch. So that's I mean, it's give and take. It is. Yeah. Yeah.

Carollann Romo 9:43

Yeah, time is a is a big one.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Yeah.

Thin Margins And Rising Costs

Carollann Romo 9:45

Um what's one of the biggest challenges you face in your operation today?

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Um, today it's the weather. It's absolutely the weather. We really need a rain bad. We're feeding the majority of our cows right now because we don't want to ruin our turf. We don't we don't want to overgraze, and we've pretty much grazed off big percentage of last year's grass. So we figure we better feed them a little bit. And we have a farm here, so we have we're fortunate enough to where we have some feed to feed them. Um and really that's it. That's the only thing we're struggling with right now. Uh, of course, the market's great right now, and um the excitement's great about the cattle industry.

Carollann Romo 10:25

So yeah, that's a positive.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Yeah.

Carollann Romo 10:27

I do love I do love that it's cool to be a cowboy right now. Yeah, me too. And that beef demand is high. Those are it's a fun time to be to be involved. Um what's one thing people or most people don't realize about raising beef in New Mexico?

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Um, probably just the struggles, and and just because you've got a big ranch doesn't mean you're very wealthy. It's because of rancher drives a nice pickup, that's a tool. It's not a status symbol. It's you know, we need the pickup that costs eighty thousand dollars and it used to cost thirty thousand dollars. So it's always a struggle, and majority of the commercial breeders in the state are just living from sale check to sale check, which may be 12 months. So none of us are getting rich. That's that's the challenge. Even with cattle prices high right now. Uh I just tell everybody we may be adding a zero to our check that we're receiving, but we're also adding a zero to our expenditures. The fuel, fertilizer, feed, all the all the stuff that you absolutely have to have, health insurance. I mean, everything is just skyrocketing. So we're not really making any more money.

Carollann Romo 11:36

Yeah, yeah, it's thin margins.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

It's terribly thin margins.

Carollann Romo 11:39

Yeah, yeah. It's it's like you said, you had a zero on both sides of it. Yeah, that's all you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

It it maybe it feels better when you see that check coming from the sale barn, but it's not that much better.

Carollann Romo 11:49

Yeah. Well, and I think too, a modern uh operation, you've got to be paying attention to every zero, every penny, every, you know, even though pennies aren't out there anymore, right? Yeah, we're still keeping track of every penny because um because it is thin margins, right? It is, and you've got a family and you've got employees to take care of all that.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yep.

Carollann Romo 12:08

Yeah, because even the cost of um employees is up, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:11

You've got to because they've got to buy groceries and they've got to exactly it all just kind of runs downhill and and everybody's got to pay their share.

Carollann Romo 12:19

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I I I hope consumers from this podcast and from every episode we do, I hope they understand that it's not it's not a get-rich scheme. It's a it's thin margins, it has to do with pasture and care and all of that, right? Yeah.

Selling Freezer Beef Directly

Carollann Romo 12:34

Um, what's something you're excited about in your operation right now?

SPEAKER_02 12:39

So at the cattle growers um summer meetings, we had that a gentleman from Oklahoma State tell us that it was gonna be a very substantial monsoon season and El Nino. So I'm still excited about that. But I'm also being patient because it's we're way dry right now. But I'm excited about that. And of course, the uh the market's just great. And and like you said, there's just excitement, and uh, it's cool to be a cowboy again. And uh I think people are really starting to get the message that that we care for our our livestock and our uh our farmland and our rangeland, and and we just want to be good stewards of the of what God has let us borrow. So absolutely.

Carollann Romo 13:22

Well, and you guys even get that consumer interaction, right? With your wife selling direct to consumer, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:27

So we sell a lot of freezer meat. Um and people just love it. They they love the fact that they know where the meat's coming from and that uh they would grow our own food or our own feed for the cattle. Yeah, so it's just uh you know, soccer mom that lives in Albuquerque just feels great about it to know where some of them I've even had several people come out and they want to see the cattle before we harvest them. Yeah, and they're like, oh yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, it is. It's gonna look beautiful on your plate as well.

Carollann Romo 13:58

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's neat. I think I think that's really special. And um, we love, we've got the local beef directory, you guys are on that in or the New Mexico Beef Directory, and um, we love that. If if you are able to buy direct from Rancho, that's a great opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

It is absolutely and it's you know, the the only downfall is it's it's a little more money up front because we don't sell one steak at a time, we sell packages or halves or quarters or or whatever they need, but um, but really in the long run, it's still substantially cheaper and a better product than you'll get at the local grocery store.

Carollann Romo 14:29

Well, and uh you just gotta have a good freezer too, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:32

You gotta have freezer so uh

A Job That Never Repeats

SPEAKER_02 14:35

perfect.

Carollann Romo 14:35

What what is your uh favorite part of the work you do day to day?

SPEAKER_02 14:39

Um that's a good question. Um probably my best answer to that is that it's never the same day twice. I mean, I know lots of guys that took jobs in offices or even construction or whatever, and they just do the same repeat full repeating job day after day. And it gets pretty boring. So, you know, I never know what I'm gonna do each day. I I just wake up and figure out which fire needs to be put out first, and then uh and then we uh of course as the seasons change, like right now we're transitioning from breeding season on the cattle into we'll be harvesting uh harvesting crops before we know it. You know, fall will be here soon. So it's always changing. I guess that's the best part.

Carollann Romo 15:22

Yeah, the diversity of it. Cause because you can't um I know there's a lot of videos online right now that kind of joke about I wanted a I wanted to set my own hours. They just happen to be hundreds of hours a week, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Carollann Romo 15:35

Yeah, that part it is it is nonstop, but it's it is like you said, it's varied. So you can stay stay hooked.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Yep.

Carollann Romo 15:42

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Um so I I had the privilege of uh working here on the ranch when I was in high school. And then of course, when uh me and my wife got married, we spent a lot of time with Bruce King and Bill King. And I just the uh the amount of information and advice I got from them, I I can't even think of one thing that's special, but it's been a lifetime of uh what to do and what not to do, basically. Yeah.

Carollann Romo 16:14

Yeah, that mentorship is really important. Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Yeah.

Carollann Romo 16:20

Um what's something people might not know about you outside of ranching?

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Um there's not much of me outside of ranching. Um so me and my kids and Becky as well. We we uh of course we're outdoorsy. I think most most ranchers are, but we live to hunt and fish. And uh we've always spent a lot of time in the barn with show animals. And one thing a lot of people probably don't know about me is we showed goats and sheep and pigs and everything along with the cattle, and I really enjoyed it, really enjoyed it, really enjoyed um livestock judging with the kids and 4 H and FFA, all that stuff. So that's about it. It's about all we do.

Carollann Romo 17:01

Yeah, well, it's a great way to grow up. I I loved 4-H, it was an important part of my my childhood too, and um that's perfect. And obviously, we're sitting in the pig barn, so it stayed, yeah, it stayed in the blood.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

It did, it really

Family, Purpose, And Legacy

SPEAKER_02 17:14

did.

Carollann Romo 17:14

Um so why do you do what you do? Why do you what keeps you going?

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Um so really I I kind of touched on this. It's just the uh the opportunity to to to make changes, I guess, and see your labor pay off. Does that make sense? Like we know we're all working towards something, but when we do something right, it sure works out and everybody's happy financially and for the for the livestock. Um, and also the fact that, like I said, we're we're always doing something different. We don't get bored here, there's no time to get bored. Um and just the ability to be close to the family all the time. So we eat lunch together every single day. That's why I told you we had to be at 1 30. Oh, because it's lunch. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. And so it's great just to have the family around and um and even you know, the little bitty ones that are 12 months old to granddad that's 75 now. We all get together, so that's that's probably the best part of it.

Carollann Romo 18:18

Oh, that's that's un unmistaken unmistakenly a wonderful thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

It is, it really is. And it to have generations bouncing stuff off each other is great.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

You know, as far as day-to-day operations. So and I I don't always agree with my what my kids want to do. And my father-in-law doesn't always agree with what I want to do, but somehow we always come to a happy place to meet in the middle, and it's probably the best place to be.

Carollann Romo 18:47

Yeah, oh, absolutely. That that ability to work with family, like anytime you're in a family business, it's not always perfect. There's not always it can be tough, yeah. But then in the end, you guys can influence each other in positive ways.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Well, like I said at the beginning, if we all have the same goal, we may have different routes to get in there, but we're all gonna get there.

Carollann Romo 19:06

Yeah, yeah, and learn with each other. Right. That's perfect. That's a great, great reason to keep going. It is and deal with the drought.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Yeah. Um we've seen worse.

Carollann Romo 19:15

Yeah. That's what I've heard. Yeah. I have heard that before. Um, hopefully we don't we won't see worse in the future.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

I hope not.

Carollann Romo 19:24

Um, is there anything you'd like? I think we kind of already said it, but if you were what would you hope consumers know about the beef industry? What do you want people to know?

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Um yeah, just kind of like what I said that uh if if if we're raising these cattle and we're doing the best we can to raise, you know, a healthy, uh stable source of protein. And it it's it's we take a lot of pride in it, I guess you could say. And I dang sure wouldn't sell a product that I wouldn't feed to my own kids or grandkids. Does that make sense? I mean, who else you can't argue with that, right?

Carollann Romo 20:00

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

So the most important things in my life, I would feed the same product that I'm selling. So that's I would I think that's probably the best thing to say.

Carollann Romo 20:08

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Advice For Future Ranchers

Carollann Romo 20:10

Um, what advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Um gonna have to be tough. It is not easy. It's not easy. Even my son, I tell him you got to get up and go to work early every single morning, not just five days a week, not you don't get to take Christmas or Easter off. We still get up and go check cows, and it's not for everybody, it really isn't. Um It's not like a job that at three o'clock on Friday you punch out or whatever and uh don't go back, don't even think about it till Monday. No, we're we're always if we're not like in the field, if we're sitting around the dining room table, we're talking about cows.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Trying to think of a better way to do something. So it's I mean, it's not just a job, it's uh it's a way of life, I guess. So you better just pull your boots up and it's gonna be tough. Absolutely, but worth it. Like I said, it's it's worth it. It is, yeah.

Carollann Romo 21:05

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, what's your current favorite way to eat beef?

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Or maybe uh maybe an all-time favorite, but I like to say current favorite because you might have um of course I'm a steak and hamburger guy, cheeseburger. Um I think me and my wife can make a steak on our Traeger grill in the backyard better than I could buy one at any steakhouse. I mean, it's incredible.

Carollann Romo 21:27

Oh, I bet.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

It really is. And that's I I would like to have uh just a T-bone or a cooked in the backyard on the grill. Yeah. That that would that's my favorite meal, probably.

Carollann Romo 21:40

Okay, that's perfect. And uh I was gonna say hard to hard to mess up. It's your own beef, it's your own uh you know, backyard and uh love that.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Yeah, I don't I don't even like to buy steaks generally when we go to dinner. It's hard when we go out because they're not as good as I can make or my wife can make. So I usually get shrimp or something when we go out to dinners.

Carollann Romo 22:02

Yeah, that's funny. That's funny. Well, now I understand if I'm with the cattleman at dinner and they order shrimp, it's because it's not their own.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

That's it. And I'm not the only one that said that. I've heard several guys tell me that. No, I can eat steaks at home.

Carollann Romo 22:11

Yeah, yeah. If we go out, we want to try something different. That's great. Yeah. Well, you won't catch me eating out and not eating beef because I work for the I don't want to get caught. I get it. Yep, I get it. And I don't have my own beef uh yet, I should say. Maybe one

Favorite Beef Meal And Closing

Carollann Romo 22:25

day.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Yeah.

Carollann Romo 22:25

Uh well, is there anything else you wanted to add, or as you were, as we, you know, finally roped you into into uh doing the podcast? Or well not finally, you said yes pretty quick. But um is there anything you wanted to make sure and say or or get across?

SPEAKER_02 22:40

No, I think we've said it all. I do. Um unless you have any other questions.

Carollann Romo 22:45

No, no. Um, I think that's it. That's that's all my questions. And um yeah, I uh yeah, so then we'll just close out. Um yeah, thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you. And most importantly, thank you for the work you do to uh you know push the beef industry forward with genetics and and everything that you're doing. We we uh appreciate you and as a consumer myself, I'm so grateful for quality beef on the table and uh people that make the sacrifice through drought and through toughness. So thank you again for being on the podcast and thanks to the listeners for tuning in for another episode. Behind the Burger is produced by the New Mexico Beef Council to celebrate the people and stories behind New Mexico Beef. Thanks for listening. Follow the show so you never miss an episode and connect with us on social media for more behind the scenes stories and updates. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at NM Beef and on Facebook at NM Beef Council. We'll see you next time, and until then, beef, it's what's for dinner.