Startup Cattle

[paulharvey]

I don't know that you are looking at it right. You don't need to buy 100 acres at $3500+ per acre to raise cattle. You can lease property fir very cheap (more if its already fenced). In florida, (2nd in US in beef cattle head count) many people rent out there unused 20 or so acre tracks for very cheap because if its in active ag "bonified agricultural" your propery taxes drop from nearly $150 per acre to next to nothing. You get property to use, and the land owner gets some cash and a reduced tax bill every spring. There probably is not money in going out and spending $500k on land, well, fence, tractor for bales, shutes, ect, just to raise 50 head per year, but cash purchase isn't the model for ag anymore.

 

[Turbys_1700]

I don't know many folk that purchase land to put cows on it...
Most of the cattle raised around here are from land owners that have had farms in their families for several generations...
The profit from cattle is an added benefit to the land owner in keeping the pastures in good shape versus bush hogging and maintenance...
You can't just look at the profit or loss when you have a 100 acre farm to keep up...
My dad raised cattle most of his life while he was in tractor sales...
When he retired from the cattle at 72 we have to keep up 3 small farms...
We let two guys take the hay off of two of the farms and the other one has to be hogged...
Lots of maintenance if you don't have something on it grazing...
Just my perspective from 53 years of farm life...

 

[rtimgray]

On the scale that I do cattle, it would be (I think) impossible to actually make money if I had to count paying for the land. However, as mentioned above, the land is paid for, so I don't worry about that. Now the other question could be: Could I make more money doing something else with the land? Honestly, I don't know. I know that a large professional farmer is row cropping land adjacent to my property on a couple of sides and I'm sure I could arrange to have him do our land as well, and make some money for doing nothing.

On the other hand, the reason we have cattle is mostly because I like cattle and I like my kids growing up around cattle. There are fewer and fewer small farms in our area and most of my kids friends that come over have never touched a cow. As mentioned in other posts, most of my cows are borderline pets - on any given day, I can walk up and pet practically all of the cows and some of the stupid calves (once they've gotten a little age on them). My cattle are pretty low maintenance. My driveway runs through the fields that I rotate them through, so even on days when I don't specifically go look at them and mess with them, I still see them.

Also, we never slaughter any of our cattle - we are not much of a beef-eating family. We probably only eat beef a couple of times per month, and when we do it is almost always hamburgers, tacos, sloppy joes, stuff like that. If we slaughtered a calf, we'd end up with 600 lbs of ground beef! We do it chicken quite a bit, but I've never been successful raising chickens. I've tried it a couple of times and found it to be much more difficult to do than cattle.

Good luck and take care.

 

[greasemonkeyok]

On the scale that I do cattle, it would be (I think) impossible to actually make money if I had to count paying for the land. ...
On the other hand, the reason we have cattle is mostly because I like cattle and I like my kids growing up around cattle. ....

Your situation is pretty typical of the cattle ranchers that I know.

The only added factor in the equation is that land prices closer to the cities are influenced by the professionals (Dr.s, lawyers, etc.) buying ranchitos for write-off and entertainment. Makes it hard on the fella wanting to actually get a ROI when purchasing land.

 

[farmall 55a case]

I am getting one to fatten up and butchered. But I afraid my wife will make a pet out of it and wont be able to. We will see how it goes tho!

 

[RoMad]

I am getting one to fatten up and butchered. But I afraid my wife will make a pet out of it and wont be able to. We will see how it goes tho!

My advice is to get two. They are herd animals and will be much happier and behave better when they have company. I had five steers and butchered them and sold the meat as they reached ~1200lbs. When I got down to only one he became a bit of a pain.

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

I am getting one to fatten up and butchered. But I afraid my wife will make a pet out of it and wont be able to. We will see how it goes tho!

we have chickens and a couple steers for meat and the one leson we learned is NEVER NAME YOUR FOOD ! it makes it harder to butcher them and once there pets you might have a hard time grilling bobo the steer !

 

[bsrfarms97]

As stated above in a couple of post. I've farmed cattle all my life on a family farm that was purchased by my great grandfather in 1920. Nowhere did I see the original poster say he was gonna make a living farming cattle on 90 acres. He just simply said he was wanting to get into cattle and haying his land. Cattle is a investment kind of like purchasing a CD or a savings account drawing interest. And as for doing the math, you don't count land as a liability weither you owe on it or not. Purchased for whatever reason at a reasonable price, it will eventually be worth more than what you pay for it. It is considered a asset cause it incurs equity just like a house. The cattle is cheaper maintenance than paying someone to bush hog. With cattle at the end of the year and done right you will put some money in your pocket rather than just paying it out to keep it cleared. As far as haying the land yourself for cattle. I think that if your planning on running anything over 20 head, then in the long run , spend alittle on decent used hay equipment and put up your own. If you try to buy that amount of hay (I don't know about where you live but here good hay is gonna run 25-30 a roll) even at 20 head you will feed 2 rolls in one or two days max. That over a period of 3 to 4 months will add up quick. Not to mention if you buy it for several years. The equipment in a period of a couple of years will more than pay for itself even figureing in fertilizer cost. If cattle is what you want to get into then go for it. If you do your homework and buy from local farmers equipment and livestock I think you will find a nice hobby that you will enjoy and make alittle money at. Not enough to get rich but enough to make it worth your while if you like the lifestyle. Best of luck to you. You should enjoy it.

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

I'm still in the learning stage but I would be much happier fixing a fence in the cold driven rain than I would be doing just about anything else provided there's a warm fire when I'm done , John Wayne is still my hero ! And if I want to try to live as my grandfather did so be it ! Also it gives another reason to buy another larger tractor to help the 855 :cool2:

 

[Soggy Bottom Outdoors]

There was a lot of info that the original poster didn't give other than he wants to raise some cattle. We don't know his finances. He may have a feed bag full of $100's to buy it with or he could be buying it from "Grandpaw" for a couple hundred bucks an acre. We just don't know.