Stress

 
One cattle equals one stress. It's called cattle math. (Source)

If you want to know how many problems you have to deal with as a rancher, just go count the heads of cattle you have—you'll find it's a pretty fair one-to-one ratio. Each and every animal grazing in your field can cause you a headache.

Then there's Mother Nature and her unforgiving arsenal of droughts, floods, hurricanes, frosts, lice, boils, and locusts. There are diseases that can attack your animals and your crops. There are government policies to be concerned with, and the ever-expanding might of agriculture corporations that are looking to destroy your business and put you out of a job.

Then there's the market, where something as simple as supply and demand can set prices so low on animals or crops that selling your product is worth less than strapping it to a rocket ship and shooting it to the moooooooon.

In other words, ranching is often an exercise in the unpredictable. There's no way of knowing from one month or one year to the next whether the proverbial poop is going to hit the fan and ruin you.

As a rancher, you're always going to have to be poop-prepared.