Tom Krawiec aims to simplify ranching through his book

Published 2:16 pm Tuesday, August 18, 2026

In a recent webinar today through Battle River Research Group, Author and Rancher Tom Krawiec discussed topics from his book Ranching Like a 12 Year Old, a book aimed at simplifying ranching.

He published his book four years ago and covered topics including the philosophy behind decreasing labour and ways to do so, such as building permanent and semi-permanent infrastructure, bunching up your animals, moving calving and lambing to growing grass, and more.

When he published his book, he was toying with adding 80-year-old to the title.

“What I discovered was that if I set up the day-to-day operations of the ranching business so a 12-year-old could do it, an 80-year-old can do it as well,” he explained.

He added that a lot of people retire not because they want to, but because it becomes too much work, so setting it up in a simplified way, like for a 12-year-old, people can continue ranching for a very long time.

“It comes down to asking one question for everything that you do, all the money that you spend, ‘can a 12-year-old do this?'”

He came up with this from a visit when his friend’s daughter and friend came to stay with him back in the summer of 2001. They were 12 and 13 at the time, and Krawiec realized that for them to be helpful, he needed to set things up so they could help.

“In two years, just by asking that simple question, our life completely changed, because we were working our butts off and going to bed exhausted.”

After promoting his book and through doing a podcast, Pine Haven Farms in Wetaskiwin reached out to Krawiec, and he now works there as their grazing manager from mid-April to the middle of October.