who knows how much they eat?

lonelyfarmgirl · #21 08/28/10, 07:24 PM

HA! Hobby my ***!

This farm is a full time job. We have 11 species, numbering probably close to 400.

topside1 · #22 08/28/10, 07:52 PM

And your asking how much hay to feed livestock, we should be asking you "full-time". Just read post # 17....

agmantoo · #23 08/28/10, 09:13 PM

If I had to buy hay I would cease to be in the cattle business. If you are going to buy hay buy by the ton not by the bale. You need to buy hay in quantity from a a wholesaler that will be able to verify the protein content and the relative feed value.
At the current price for good hay it is going to cost approximately $2/day/animal of $120/day to feed your 60 animals. This is a guess only but I would think in cheese country you will need hay for not less the 150 days per year. That quickly sums up to total $18,000 for the 60 head doesn't it? Your mileage may vary from what I posted but it will be an expensive Winter and little profit if any.

lonelyfarmgirl · #24 08/29/10, 10:05 AM

I know, it is a dumb question for as many animals as we have.

I guess I just wanted to see what other people said. Last winter, we ran out of hay in february and had to buy some in. Bad time of year to run out!
That was the first year that ever happened. But our herd is increasing every year. Currently, we a borderline of not being able to meet demand for our beef...which led to the consideration of increasing the herd yet again. We already shipped 3 cows this year. I hate having to ship a cow.

The hay we have purchased already was around 80 a ton and we had to bale ourselves. Fortunately it was very close, so we didnt have to haul very far.

Creamers · #25 08/29/10, 10:54 AM

Horses, Goats, Cow - they all vary from 2 to 4%

John Schneider · #26 08/31/10, 10:17 AM

We performed an interesting exercise last year. We tried to figure out exactly what our costs were. We figured fencing amortization, water infrastructure and usage including electricity to keep it frost-free, feed (we hay our own land), land costs & taxes amortized to cattle pasture, fuel...the works. We have it figured that in our area right now we are spending approximately $50 per month per animal unit (cow, bull, steer, cow/calf).