When I was younger and living in Pennsylvania there was a man who lived near us who always seemed to buy the poor doing stock that went through the sale barn.  Thin, old, rough looking stuff that sold cheap.  He would keep them around until he got some weight on them (or they died) and then sell them.  One time the sherrif brought him some cattle that had been confiscated in an animal cruelty case that were so thin they could barely walk.  Most of them survived and he fed them out.  George is long gone now, but I wonder if anyone still has someone like that around.  I never could see how he made much at it, but he seemed to get along with it.