Capital! How to bootstap up to sixty acres

[Mark T]

I just got offered sixty acres of beautiful, flat pastureland on a long term lease with minimal rent.

I have a week to decide if I want to take it on.

Here's the problem:

It has no fence and both the landowner and I want to avoid using the streams as watering sources (erosion and parasite control). The landowner does not want to do hay and I'm already tapped out on the amount of hay I can handle each year, so if I take it I have to graze it.

I'd have to build fence AND find a way to water the animals, but have no capital to expend and, with Sally staying home with the kids, won't be able to qualify for a loan.

I figure that if I use steel posts every ten feet and three electric wires for perimeter fence, the fencing would run about $3500. I could do interior subdivisions much more cheaply - the land is flat and I could probably get away with single wire with mostly fifty foot centers for the posts.

About 1800' of the perimeter fence would be to keep the cows out of the boundary stream - I understand that there is some county help for fencing out waterways, but don't know who to contact. What is the timeframe and cost share percentage?

Water is a bit trickier. The house is on one corner of the property, so running a hose 2000 feet to the far subdivided paddocks is out of the question - I can get away with that on my square nine acres and five cows, but it would be a nightmare to try to water 20 head that way - and have to move the watering system every couple of days as well.

If I could get a source of water close to the center, I'd probably follow Joel Salatin's system of laying black water pipe down the center and then using quick connects and automatic valves for portable troughs. I've never priced any system like this - what would the costs be?

There is a waterline running through the property and the landowner has the right to use 5 g/min of potable water or 20 g/min greywater. I'm not sure how to tap into that or how much it would cost. Another option would be a well, but I know that cost would be very high. If I am short on water because I'm saving the streams, is there a cost share program to either tap the waterline or put in a well?

This seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity, but financially it is coming at the wrong time. If I was able to get over the hump, I'm confident I could sell 20 grassfed calves each year direct to customers - I have been selling 8 per year without doing much marketing besides word of mouth. I'd have to grow to that level - I have five cows and two heifers right now, but I could probably "borrow" some grazers from another farmer in order to get the mob effect of grazing and start improving the pasture. The other farmer
would get free grass and I wouldn't have to spend the money on buying more animals or have to add mowing each paddock in turn to the chore list.

I don't think I'll be able to say yes, but already think I'll regret it forever if I say no. Thanks in advance for the help and/or ideas I haven't thought of.

[Freeholder]

Can you pump water out of the stream? If you are allowed to do that, you could run a portable gas-engine pump to get water up to watering tanks inside the paddocks. Or put a water tank in the back of a pickup and haul it to the paddocks. Inconvenient, but it would get you started.

If you do hi-tensile wire, can't you put the fence posts quite a bit farther apart on flat ground? And you could haunt farm auctions for second-hand posts and wire to cut material costs.

Is there any way for your wife to add a little part-time income? Maybe babysit one child, for example, or increase the size of the garden to have something to sell from that? Anything you both can do to cut expenses and increase income would help -- it does seem too good an opportunity to pass up.

Kathleen

[The Paw]

I I bought a 1,000 gallon tank that sits on a small hill (maybe 5-6 feet elevation) near my pond/dugout. I pump water into it and let it gravity feed to a trough with float switch that is 200-300 feet away. This works like a charm. I would like to eventually get a solar pump to fill the tank, but they do cost a bit. All of this was to avoid bank erosion in a small creek I have fenced off.

If you have a way to tap into that waterline, a similar set-up could work well for you. If the landowner is also motivated to protect the stream, maybe he would help out with the up-front investment in return for a reasonable return on the money while it is tied up?

[fantasymaker]

You dont have to have all of the fence as permanent. You can lay out deep rooted anchor posts at stratigic sponts and then move the fence with the cows.
Id build a central watering station area with good fence and posts , by putting a gate on each side of six corner posts you could have access to 12 seperate pastures. Run the cows into it move the fence run them out into the next section.
Water in the central section.

[Pinnebog Kid]

How about the owner helping with the cost of the fence and you paying them a little bit extra rent each mth till their cost is paid for, then the rent could be lowered back to orginal rent?

[foxtrapper]

Cattle don't like electric fences, so even a single strand with step in posts will hold them. BTDT, quite a number of times.

Long distances with tubing works, it's just slow. A few tanks with a small (cheap) trickle line to fill the tank will work. Put a float valve in the tank and you're done. As long as it can flow more water than the cattle drink, it'll work just fine.

[Lazy J]

Contact your local NRCS to see if they have cost share funds for this type of project. My father received substantial funds to add catch basins and water coursing work to allow him to add watering capabilities to his pastures much like you need to do.

Jim

[texican]

Without fences or water, it's an expensive proposition. Before I put up any kind of fence, or built any kind of waterhole, I'd have to have a long term lease.

I think 3500 is very optimistic. Personally, I'd never entrust my cattle to an electric fence, unless I lived on the land, and could see the cattle all the time. Electricity is a fickle thing... it can go off for a variety of reasons, and the wires can ground out for even more reasons.

I'd figure out how much profit I could make by putting cows on the plot each year, figure out how much the fencing cost, time put into putting up fence (& taking it down), and the cost of water. Looking at thousands if you build a pond large enough to hold water year round... piping water into troughs is a time consuming proposition [cattle on my place have a propensity for stepping on any exposed pvc pipe, busting it]. Figure out the cost/benefit ratio and if it's a plus [within the time period the guys willing to let you have it at], I'd go for it.

No such thing as a free puppy or a free lease. I let my uncle raise cows on my best pasture... he had to spend several thousand and half a week of labor to build new fences, clean out a pasture, replant good grass, etc., and spends money/time each year maintaining it. I get taxes paid, free hay, and an ever increasingly better hay meadow.

[Jennifer L.]

You could pump out of the stream by a hydraulic ram pump. You can Google it, but here's one quick one: http://members.tripod.com/ATLASPUB/index.htm

Jennifer

[agmantoo]

I am an experienced cattle person and I have witnessed a cattle operation in Virginia where the owner put in a water system and the cattle essentially ceased to use the stream on their own. I do not think that you have adequately evaluated the potential of the 60 acres. Your idea of the number of feeder calves that 60 acres can produce is understated. As suggested above you need a written contract before doing anything. Specify both near term and long term details of the contract. We have a long running and lengthy discussion on rotational grazing over on the cattle forum. I suggest you come on over and discuss your situation.

[Caitedid]

You might also call extension about what kind of microloan financing might be available. In Iowa we have a loan program for up to $30,000, you have to have a really good business plan and have been turned down by at least one bank before you can apply. They're amazing about helping you get more education, including a grant of $250 a year to be used toward education or business expenses such as software.

[Mark T]

Agamantoo,

I am purposefully underestimating the carrying capacity - I'd rather have too few and cut the extra grass as hay (I sold a thousand square bales this winter) than to have a larger capacity that runs afoul of a dry summer. I don't sell at the cattle auction because of the low returns, so flexibility in stocking rates isn't an option - I have to reserve my butchering dates several months in advance and my customers select which date to slot them into. My customers might be flexible on their butchering dates, but it would be impossible to simply add 10 steers to the small scale butchers that I work with.

Thanks for the replies everybody.

I'd rather have woven wire around the outside perimeter, but that would be even more expensive and time consuming to put up. I figure I can drive steel posts at a rate of 20 or so an hour, but don't have a post-driver for tapered wooden posts and would have to hand dig and then set and then tamp each one - maybe 2 an hour. I simply don't have the time to put in five thousand wooden posts for woven wire. Additionally, woven wire runs about $250 for a 330 foot section - and I can get the three 14 gauge wires over that section for practically pennies. I'd use single strand for interior paddocks, but want the extra insurance along the roads and neighbors.

[Mark T]

Agamantoo,

I have been really enjoying your rotational grazing tutorial. With your blessing, I'll post over there too.

[fordy]

Originally Posted by Mark T

Agamantoo,

I have been really enjoying your rotational grazing tutorial. With your blessing, I'll post over there too.

..............You need to look into a Sling Pump, to get water too your necessary points . , fordy

[Terri]

A ram pump, into a water tank?

If the creek has enough fall to power the pump, it might work.

[greenacres]

I just wanted to add that we use field fence, or woven wire, wired to t-post. When you purchase t-posts you get clips or you can by them by themselves. It makes fencing a lot easier. Drive posts. Roll out wire. Stretch wire with a cum a long attached to the bumper of the truck. Go down the line and clip to the t-posts.

[whit]

Sounds like you might not have enough water movement for a ram pump but they work great where they will work.

[Welshmom]

While it may take you a while to build up your herd via cow/calf, consider adding as many stocker calves as possible each year until you are producing enough of your own. You can direct market the beef as you build that market, and sell the excess stocker calves as feeders to local guys wanting to fill their lots. That way, you are totally utilizing your carrying capacity and using mob grazing, instead of under stocking, and you are maximizing your income potential with a lower risk. Stockers give you the flexibility of selling them off and having them gone when you want your pastures to be resting, and they'll be eating someone else's hay and concentrates all winter.

Also, you might want to read Greg Judy's book Risk Free Ranching. He covers this very scenario, and talks quite a bit about leases, and the ways he's discovered to fence and water new pastures as cheaply as possible. I'd recommend it.

Good luck, I hope it works out for you!