Can you make a living with cattle?
 

Here is a big question for all of you with experience! I would like to earn some money raising/working with/doing something involving livestock. Can cattle do this? I have a lot of experience with livestock in general, and am looking for some wisdom on what avenue to pursue. I raised horses for years but there was a lot more money going into them than out! We have 20 -50 acres of usable land in eastern KY. Thanks

Yep! Once you have start up stock in place and all you improvements done. You cant help but make money. How much money is the question? That depends on what and how you do it. Simple cow/calf deal with everything going to the sale=easy not as much profit. Specialty breed marketing so on more money. You get out what you put in! You wont make a living on that much land but you can make some decent spare change and you can always eat your profits.

Define making a living? IMO, you either have to be large enough to weather the ups and downs of the market, mother nature, and other setbacks...or you have to be diversified enough to utilize the same land for other money making ventures.

In eastern Kentucky IMO you can make good supplemental income from the acreage you have. In order to to generate the income needed to live the lifestyle of middle class American working at a public job you need to have more acreage. You would not have to own that acreage it could be leased/rented. Cattle are like other farm commodities in that prices fluctuate. Being a good astute manager is a must to survive on farm income but cattle can be the source. Learning how to become the low cost source of whatever farm product you produce is paramount. Remember, farmers typically buy input products at or near retail and then sell their production wholesale.

I always made a fair profit on my cattle... had to sell off our herd last spring due to my own physical limitations but sure am going to miss those dollars every fall when it came time to sell calves.

Seen a lot of guys make money with cattle, seen some go broke. Nothing is free and easy. You've got to be willing to put in a lot of labor, along with costs of equipment, feed, vets, pasture, etc. Market prices fluctuate, right now its easy if you owned the cattle prior to the current uptimes. If you have to buy into cattle now at todays prices and if those prices come down just as you plan on selling, you lose. For me cow-calf operation was mostly steady, but some years not much profit. You have to plan for that and spread out the good years to cover the bad. Buying calves short term to utilize some grass can be real risky, your initial investment is high and you hope you don't have any losses due to disease and then you hope the price is still strong when you sell.

i wonder what is considered a good size acreage to make a living of cattle, either selling meat or dairy?

Well, we don't live the average American lifestyle. We are working to self sufficient, but were running on about $20,000. We would not need that full amount from one source! Sooooo... can you give me some specifics? What would you do if you had a fresh start? What do you hope to gain from each cow( I know how crazy the market is, but maybe an average gain from one cow calving each year) Where would you sell your calves, auction? Any other ideas, any out there plans you've had? Thanks!!

I believe I can, with not using the current inflated prices, conservatively net your $20,000 or more off 53 head of 500 lb black Angus feeder calves produced most years and sold at auction. 5 to 6 heifers would be retained each year. No return for culled cows was considered here but that return would offset the heifers retained. I know what my production costs are. I would need 74.2 acres in zone 7 growing grass that will be stockpiled. I would want 159 round bales stored on the farm for emergency use, drought and ice. My brood cattle would be 1000 to 1050 lbs weight and frame 3.5 to 4. The cattle would be no more than medium milkers and must be adapted to a steady diet of grass, no grain. Soil fertility would need to be maintained with recycled chicken litter or hog lagoon waste. Fencing costs would be expensed in the early startup years. No labor would be hired. Time for attending to the herd should be no more than an hour per day most days but for 365 days per year. The land costs should rise with the economy/inflation resulting in a low risk investment and at the end of the business/retirement bring back more than the original costs.

It's really all about your soil, your rain, and your climate.

I know that here in Georgia, under current conditions, with fifty acres of good pasture, I could run a bull and 20 cows with no problems. I would mob graze them and they would be just fine.

Assuming that everyone got bred, and assuming that I got a calf out of each cow that made it to weaning size, you could make $20,000 pretty easily.

If you raise registered animals you have the opportunity to sell breeding stock as well.

The secret to making money with cattle is to keep your costs as low as possible. In my area we can graze year round, and if you can keep your stocking rates right, you will never have to feed hay or grain.

If you can sell raw milk in Kentucky, you might want to consider a dairy operation.

If you're just looking for something that can make you a few dollars, you should not discount anything until you explore it. Sheep, goats, chickens, etc all have their place.

Many times you can get more bang for your buck by co-grazing. Cows and sheep can be grazed together, each preferring a slightly different type of forage, and then followed a few days later by laying hens. Now you have made your land much more productive by figuring out which animals work best together.

Wow holy open ended question batman!?!

There are so many variables to this question, that there are in fact whole books devoted to this subject, I suggest you go read them first.

Wow Thanks for the detailed info, and I like the idea of co grazing too. You can not sell raw milk in KY:mad: We are looking at making a big leap into relying on livestock for a chunk of our income, so sorry for the open ended question but i didn't want the opinion of someone making money from a book, just wanted to get the vibe from people who are doing it. Thanks

Wishing you the best of luck with the cattle. I know I enjoy mine. Just remember there are input costs. You can't spent the gross, just the net.

Then go work on a beef farm for a season :)

Agmantoo, I was hoping you would give a few more details to the plan that you have laid out. Are you considering the acreage to be already paid for, or are you talking about renting, or making payments on it? Are you talking about starting off with cows, or buying 53 calves, and then selling for a profit? I know there are a lot of veriables, but if you could rough at some of the money figures you are thinking, I know I would appreciate it, and I believe others would as well.

When the spring pasture flush arrives, you should feel my satisfaction. I love grazing cattle more than I dislike winter, stinging ear tips, cold fingers and toes, mud, walking in icy mud in a sock with one boot off, fixing things, budgeting, heat, flies, worming, unloading feed, creative watering, ticks in my belly button, unloading feed, carrying mineral blocks, early mornings, late nights, chasing down offenders who drive through one end of the fence and out the other end of the fence to avoid police reports, court and damage claims. I hope I can retire to it. I have been asked by people if it cash flows. I reply, "you should see the checks I write."

Since I live in the concrete jungle, I don't have any hands on experience. But I do have a lot of dreams in a similar direction and have done a ton of research about it.
I have found out that to start a successful business of any kind, you need a well laid out plan from start to finish. And that business plan is best if started from the finish line and worked backward. Such as, have your market already set up. Figure out who you are going to sell too in order to get the biggest bang for your buck. Once you have that set up, then and only then figure out how you plan to get there. And finally get to the beginning.
If your market is going to be the auction, then go to a few auctions to find out what are the best sellers & what prices to expect in return. What breed or purpose (beef or dairy) or grouping (single cows, cow/calf pairs, bred heifers, stud bulls, etc) bring the most money.
Are you going to sell to a big AG company (Tyson, or??) what prices will they pay and what type of product do they expect?
Craigslist?.....much too risky, but is possible to sell although probably not enough to make a living from.
Specialty market? As in 'Organically and humainly raised', grass fed or grain fed? Butcher shops in or near the city that sell to those consumers looking for better products than store bought assembly line beef may be a good choice, but you need to check out your local butcher shops to find out where they get their meats, how much they pay & if you can sell your product to them.

Once you've found your market outlet......then set yourself up to raise your product. Build your fences, shelters, find a vet that is willing and able to attend your herds in case of problems on whatever scale you choose to run. What kind of feed do you plan to use? Will you have to buy it? Can you rely on that feed being there, during a drought? Will you be able to buy it when you've had a slow year of sales and the cost has skyrocketed for whatever reason? Or do you plan on a sustainable system & grow all your own feed? Either way, it would be better to have a barn full of feed before you ever get a cow.
And what are you doing to do if your herd becomes sickly or diseased from whatever comes down the pike and you can't sell or the herd is completely wiped out? God forbid that should happen to anyone, but it can happen. Once it does, your good name in the business is now forever tarnished and is possible to loose everything. It would truly take a miracle to successfully come back from something like that.......and it wasn't anything you did or didn't do that brought it on.
Sorry, but just some thoughts to consider :)

Yes! But that being said there are a lot of "ifs" involved you will need to think on exactly what you want to do. In other words make a plan, do u want a cow calf breeding program or would you rather finish calf's out for the meat market? If caw calf what breed? If finishing meat is it going to be top meat or whole sale, grass or grain feed?
And if you want to do milk instead of meat, then that is a whole new set of questions.

Don't go into debt on cattle, and don't count on the income for survival at least until you have a few years of experience under your belt. Eventually you should be able to supplement your income pretty nicely with 50 acres of grazing to utilize. But you'll need to get the fences/facilities in shape, get a chute, trailer, etc. And cattle prices are up right now so your startup costs are gonna be high. They won't stay up this high forever, either, so keep that in mind on the selling end.

There's an old saying about farming of any kind.

An old seasoned farmer won the lottery one day. While being questioned later that day about his future intentions and what he would do with all that money he replied, "keep farming until I'm out of money!"

My point is simply this: go into any farming venture with caution and prayerful wisdom and never make your business plan around text book conditions. Learn from the oil men who bought wells when it was $100 per barrel at the price of $100,000 per barrel of production and are wondering how to pay the note payment now when it's selling for $46 per barrel.

I'm betting there is a story behind this! :)

Up here it is possible but most farmers have enough land to feed them as well as alternate crops to supplement when the price is down. That said might be different down there but to make a go of it you need minimum 1 section for your operation in most cases bigger and even then you won't be cash rich. A common tactic of farmers here is to farm other people land for 1/2 cost (fuel) and get 1/2 the harvest. When the cattle price is up they expand their herd and buy the other half but again depends on the market and any farmer that doesn't change with it is setting themselves up to fail.

I've seen this in a few farmers that the family knows that 'sell out' - before they did they struggled financially to keep things going but once they sold off most of their assets they usually had 4+ million in the bank.