Beef or Bull?

[Garandman]

My BIL in Ontario sold off 100 milking cows and looked into raising Angus beef. He has plenty of acreage for feed: in fact he also owns a harvester.

He didn't go ahead. I believe it was a combination of low prices and restrictions on moving stock Canada <-> US due to mad cow disease.

There are a number of relatively small grass fed beef operations in the region. I believe they are able to exist because GB and SNH are relatively affluent: most families consider this a luxury good.

 

[Gary Fowler]

My brother in law wanted to raise cows when he retired. He purchased 42.29 acres of pasture land (I bought 11.29 acres of it from him but allowed him to graze my acreage minus the house site) and bought 5 pregnant cows @$1200 per head to start. He kept all the heifers, sold or slaughtered the bulls and within 5-6 years had a herd of 40 cows. He did have to continually change out his bull every couple of years so no inter-breeding occurred. He had some loses due to unexplained deaths and at least one cow died trying to give birth. He spent a small fortune in fencing cross fencing the 31 acres of pasture so he could rotate the cows around so they grazed each 5 acres or so down while the rest was growing back. We did have a couple of years of drought where the pastures were all grazed down heavily and the one pasture that was usually reserved for hay also had to be grazed. Tough year with $50 per bale hay and it was not best quality either.
$2200 per head of yearling is farfetched at best and downright lying to be truthful. Meat markets might get that for dressed out, cut beef but never the farmer unless he has a certified slaughter house AND some gullible buyers.
Cattle farming is at best a hobby for retirees and might make a bit of money but not without lots of manhours and dollars put in to the business keeping the cows healthy and the land fertile. Not something that I want to do in my retirement years.

 

[Egon]

Feeding a few cows when the grazing ain't gonna happen.

 

[CCWKen]

A friend of mine has a 10-20 head herd going all the time. He doesn't get rich off of it but he says it pays his taxes and he has extra money to play with his antique cars. (About a 30x80 building full of them.) He's been telling me to start with 4-5 head but I'd have to put in some cross fencing, gates and/or cattle guards first or I'd be feeding them on the front porch.

Oh, and he gets by with minimal equipment (8N tractor) but he has neighbors that help with the hay harvesting.

Come to think of it, he has a place to store the hay too which I don't. So that would be another expense to consider.

 

[prichard]

I'm not planning on getting into cattle. The article made me curious.

There's a place down the road that just changed hands and the new owner is sinking a lot of money into it, made me wonder if there is money there.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I have the acreage but don't raise livestock because I don't want to be married to a cow. If you have the land, raise a hay crop and then do what you want. When I was young I met a dairy farmer who hadn't had a day off in 27 years. Screw that.

 

[roadhunter]

From what I've seen it takes a good sized operation to provide enough income not to have another job.

Living in Oklahoma there were more "hobby" farmers with small acreages and a few cows so when I moved up here it was a shocker to see how big some of these cattle operations were. I guided hunts for the Rockin 7 Ranch in Wyoming a few years back. The family had around 140,000 acres and ran 2,500 cow/calf pairs along with a 4k acre buffalo pasture. It was an impressive operation ran by only 4 people with help from neighbors on things like branding.

The best way to make a lot of money in the cattle business is to inherit a ranch, at least that's the way most successful ranches I've seen work. To go out and buy land and buy cattle to make money with would be much more difficult. But with cattle prices where they are it's not a bad time to get in.

 

[draw54]

From what I'm hearing talking to a few people that raise cattle around here, the market is down. All of them have real jobs to support themselves and what they make from the cattle they sell, goes right back into the farm, plus what they make on their real jobs. I've never seen a bank account, but I think they exaggerate it to some degree. They all have big cab tractors, new diesel duelly trucks and more stuff laying around then I will ever be able to afford. When I finally get my fence built, I hope to have some cattle just to raise for eating. While they price of selling cattle is down, the price for beef at the store is still ridiculous.

I've heard that there are certain tax advantages in the ag business, depreciation, operating expences to name a few. Plus getting paid for fallow fields and so on.

 

[Turbys_1700]

Written by someone with zero experience. Both my grandfathers farmed and raised cattle. Dad and I took over when they passed. Three small herds on three small farms. Around 30 on each. Takes the same amount of machinery to raise hay for 5 cows as it does 50. We already had the tractors and made squares until I left for college at which time he got a round baler. Feeding in the winter required three tractors with spears at each farm. Took him better part of half a day. Then the calving, rotation of bulls, keeping up equipment, fencing, etc. When he got 72 he said it was time to give it up. Not saying you can't make some money but market volatility is a big factor plus it takes a great amount of work. Hard work especially if you are making squares. Call me jaded but I started young driving a Farmall A raking hay with a roll-a-bar NH rake eventually graduating to the hay wagon pulled behind the baler. Newer grapple and hay accumulators have made squares less labor intensive but the cost is high. For a hobby I would rather bowl or play golf. Farming and raising cattle is work.

 

[Egon]

The small square bales build Character!