"I give these boys the farm," Bob tells us.
He's one of the lucky ones. The farming industry is a suffering one.
"The people are going out because it's really been hard on them, it really has. You can go to town and work on a job eight hours and go home. You've got Saturday and Sunday to go fishing and do whatever you want to," says Bob. "Here you work from 3 O'clock in the morning until whatever time in the night it takes you to get done."
With more people quitting the business cattle numbers are shrinking but surprisingly the cattle shortage has actually had the opposite affect on the stockyards. On an average Wwednesday, which is the busiest sale day of the week for the Springfield Livestock Marketing Center, 2,400 cattle will be sold.
"The prices just keep going up every week. We have record prices every week," explains Joe Gammon, one of the stockyard's owners.
Gammon says the price climb is a result of farmers thinning their herds.
"A year ago would have been probably a $1.30, two years ago could have been down under a dollar, so they've gone up 50% of their value in a year and a half," Gammon continues, explaining some cattle are going for $1.50 today.
Back on the Coble farm Riley still has a back-up plan.
"I want to become a doctor," the teenager tells us.
Grandpa Bob can't blame him. A supplementary income got him through the tough times too.
"I've got 12 rent properties and my pension and everything is kind of what makes my farm go good. That's why [Riley] wants to be a doctor," Bob concludes with a laugh.
Gammon tells us the increase in cattle prices is off-set by the high cost of feed, fuel, and other materials, so the farmer's profit margin is still slim.
Another reason why farmers are getting out-- the summer drought. It was hard on Missouri and even worse on Texas. The number of cows in that state dropped by 600,000.
