What should I raise on 100 acres?

ksfarmer: Is that $18 per acre per year? I knew I probably wouldn't get close to $15,000 per year just by renting out the land and doing no work, but I did expect a lot more than $18 per acre per year. Sounds like I may be in for a rude awakening.

agmantoo: I'm in zone 7. I've already been reading your sticky post on rotational grazing. I'm about halfway through. It's very interesting stuff! It's slow going for me because I don't come from a farming background and many of the terms, procedures, and equipment aren't familiar to me and I'm having to look things up as I read through.

If I can get it all figured out it sounds like a great opportunity for me to get things set up and then keep them running in my spare time each day. Thanks a lot for taking the time to document everything in the sticky and for helping me out here.

Ack226,
Do you mind calling your agriculture extension office and contact someone that can tell you what the carrying capacity is for beef cows in your county? There probably is no need to discuss the rotational grazing. Just ask regarding conventional cow /calf operations using pasture and hay. Also ask what their best guess is as to the profit per feeder calf to the average producer. I know this is getting lengthy but this information is needed to reach an intelligent idea of the potential.

To give you an idea of time required, I spend approximately 30 minutes per day when time is pressed. On leisure days I may spend as much as a couple of hours mulling around and thinking of what I could do to improve my operation and just enjoying the place. There are times when I may spend a day bush hogging or cleanly trash weeds from the fence. As far as being a novice, do not concern yourself with that. It could be a plus! You do not already have a predetermined mindset as to what will not work.

Thanks

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Yes, that is $18 per acre for the grazing season which runs from late April to mid Oct in our area. Typically, a cow with spring calf will need 7 acres, a stocker calf less. That brings about $125 to $130 per cow for the season. These prices vary according to services provided , such as salt, mineral, guaranteed headcount, etc.... On 100 acres of good pasture in our area, you would realize somewhere less than $2000 gross income by renting it out.

As Agmantoo and I both have said: "Call your local ag extension agent to get facts and figures more specific to your area".

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* I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one. .*-

Hey.

You can net MORE than the $150 an acre growing corn. The cattle market is CARP for now and I wouldn't bother entertaining that thought.

I suggest you read here:

http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docush.../F-6021web.pdf

http://www.oklahomafarmreport.com/wi...812_080448.php

RF

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It's not good enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required. - Winston Churchill

Knew a man who made decent side money on a 100-acre place with hay. He was dialed in pretty tight with the horse set, and offered them alfalfa and bermuda hay in small square bales.

Rocky Fields and Jolly are right in that you can make more per acre with corn or other crops, however, an operation of that type requires you to invest much more time and many dollars of equipment. And, if you lease to a crop farmer , you only get a percentage of the crop or a cash rent payment.

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* I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one. .*-

Perhaps I am sounding too negative, I don't mean to do that. I think owning your own land is a great idea and I would expand whenever possible, "they aren't making any more land". I just don't like to see someone jump in with unreal expectations. You must balance with what you can afford and have the time to manage, and like the old saying "don't give up your day job".

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* I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one. .*-

People here are really making the money raising chickens and guineas. I can personnally say that they are easy to raise with the proper set-up and a market for them. There is a large livestock auction 1st and 3rd Saturdays about 45 miles from here. There are those that set up outside the auctionhouse for $15 a day and sell their wares. One man here is selling guineas for $20 a piece to the hispanic population. He puts 600 eggs (which he purchases from someone else for $1 a dozen) into his incubator every 2 weeks, some chickens and some guineas. He has several huge penned areas and 20 brooders he built from scrap lumber with heat lamps. He keeps the babies in the brooders for 4 weeks and then puts them in the first pen. A month later, he moves them to the second pen where he keeps them until he is ready to sell them at about 3 months old. He cleans his feeders and waterers daily, and his total outlay of time is about 3 hours per day. However, he is making more than he was building houses (and with the economy, that got to be none at times.) If you downscaled the size of the production and went with chicken tractors instead of the large pens, you could easily raise enough birds to make some good amount of profit without the expense of the food as the chickens would be eating bugs in the pasture. Your helper would be moving them daily for you so the upkeep of the birds would be minimal with him only moving them and filling up waterers. You might learn to raise some cattle as my BIL does on the side. He raises Black Angus, he has a bull and about 30 heifers and raises them as natural beef with no growth hormones or antibiotics. He sells them in an auction on RFD tv and each year he sells them to the Japanese as they want the natural beef. He makes a nice profit from them. He has one worker and they cut hay for the winter and raise sileage for them for winter feed. He does need to sell most all of the babies to have a full load to sell as they are transported a long way to be shipped. He spends about 45 minutes each evening checking on them and the occasional weekend for getting them separated, worming, etc and work up to the chicken and guinea producing. With a hundred acres, you could also place this operation away from your home so the smell would not be a problem. You could see the added benefit of using the poultry manure for your pastures fertilizer. I could see how you could easily get this operation going and be able to hire someone to do the actual work since you would only need them several hours per day and the potential profit would pay for them up front. I would also add rabbit pens and raise rabbits to sell. Rabbits are very easy to raise and don't take much time at all and I would have a large pen of laying hens for my eggs for the chicken production and to sell eggs. To further cut expenses, you might put a used mobile home on that 100 acres and provide living quarters for your helper so that you wouldn't have to pay them that much, but include their living quarters as part of their benefits. If they live there full time, they could plant large parcels for market veggies and grow some of the food needed for the animal operations as well.

This being said, I have just written down MY dream for you for my 100 acres if I had it. I have a lifetime of experience raising animals and gardens, so I could see where I could make that $15,000 a year easily if I had the land to do it. I could not raise the number of cows my BIL does, but I could raise a few, and grass-fed beef here is a hot item right now so I wouldn't have to worry about the shipping problems.

I would also like to add that those children of yours could benefit by helping raise the chickens and rabbits. My children and I did this on a much smaller scale and sold eggs and meat rabbits. My kids earned their allowances instead of being given theirs, and this taught them valuable lessons in life. They are mostly grown now but still talk about the days of growing up doing these things.

If you raise your own critters on 100 acres, get set into a rotational grazing system - that is the best way to up your income. It can take 5-10 years to get to a good working setup, but it is well worth it. Even just breaking your 100 acres into 4 padacks will go a long ways.

Renting out, a rancher will pay about 45 cents a day to feed their cow. So it depends on how much grass your land can grow. If you are in a dry area of the mid southwest, then $20 an acre might be about right. If you have rocky poorer soil, a little less might also be about right. I'd maybe look at customs in your area, learn who maintains the fence (you or the renter) and if pasture isrented by the animal unit per day, or on a yearly amount per acre. It is often better for the owner to rent on a per animal unit per day rate - this keeps your pasture from being overgrazed & ruined. If you don't have much to eat any more, the renter moves his cattle - they get thin & it's costing him every day. If you rent per acre; well if pastures get short the rener might just keep his critters stored ther, bring in a little hay to tide them over, and your pastures turn into grassless dust bowls. Lot of grey area between my extremes, just mentioning how the games work.

'Here' you can stock 2 cattle per acre from May - October. 'There' you might need 7 acres or more per critter? Growing grass all depends on how fast you can get grass to regrow, which totally depends on your soil quality/ fertility & how much rain you get.

Rotational grazing easily gains you 1/2 more critters on your land once a person has it set up & working & keeps up with moving the critters.

Corn: Works well to grow corn, if you have the rain & soil for it. I suspect you only have soil & weather conditions to grow grass? You have to work with what you have, I know 'here' I would rent it out for $250+ an acre to raise corn or soybeans. 'There' that likely won't work at all. Of course 'here' you would be paying $4500 an acre to buy that land - you might not have invested that much?

Hay: If it isn't too rocky or steep or tree'ed; Works good, but you need a market to sell to, and making good hay takes some equipment and being _very_ on time cutting, raking, baling, and stacking the hay. No - get around to it in 2 days....' Then you will be making poor hay, and you lose any chance at making money at it. Hay = being very on top of the clock & doing things now when needed. Waiting even 3 hours to go rake hay can lose you all your profit on that hay.....

Profit from cattle: Oh boy!!!! Cattle prices go in cycles. Sometimes you lose money for 5 years straight, then hit it big in one year make it all back plus some to do it again for another 5 years.

You buy cattle for a price. You feed them for 6 months, or 12 months, or 18 months. Then you sell them for a price. The problem is that in the 6-18 months, other people have decided that cattle are worth more or less than they where back when you bought. You can buy calves at $.95 a lb, add 600 lbs to them over summer, and end up selling them for $.65 a lb, getting less per animal than you actually bought them for - all depends on the cattle market cycles. You need to catch a cycle in the other direction every now & then to keep your head above water.

We are in a real tough time for livestock of all kinds. Be real careful. You can invest a lot, and lose a lot for several years be4 showing anything close to a profit with cattle - or any livestock.

Selling beef on the hoof directly to buyers, one or 1/2 half at a time, is where a small outfit like you are thinking of can make some real money. Most areas you can't sell butchered meat without SSS inspections; but hook yourself up with a local butchershop, sell live animals to buyers, deliver them to the butchershop, let the buyer set up their deal with the butchershop, and you can make some money.

The deal with that is it takes a lot of time to find buyers, you are dealing with one at a time so it takes time, time, time, and more time, and you need to be a good salesman & people person to find & keep customers.

Some parts of the country folks have moved in from other lands and goats are _very_ much in demand for these individual sales. You live near any communities like that - be othe only one with live goats for sale around such an area, keep good relations with that culture, and you got a mini gold mine.

Some sort of specialized nitche can really pay off for you.

So, forget your research on animals if you want to raise some.

Learn your local demands; figure out what kind of critter you love to work with even if you don't make a dime from them.

Combine those 2 with some good people skills and you can make some money on critters.

If you love raising & working with hogs, but hate dealing with a cow - doesn't matter what our research & studies show, you ain't never going to make it with cattle.

Boarding horses: Makes big money, makes big headaches from town people who love their critter more than their family and have unrealistic expectations of what things are worth. Oh boy do you need people skills to survive such a deal.

Remember - if farming were easy, everyone would be doing it!

There are 3 ways to make some money at farming.

1. Get really big - many many acres and play the farming game & make a couple dollars an acre most years. This would include renting the land out to someone big to use as part of their operation. This requires no time of yours, and kinda sorta pays the taxes and maybe the intrest on a loan. Maybe.

2. Find some niche in your area that people are willing to pay for - butcher animals, horse boarding, sod sales, etc. Treat it like a hobby & enjoy working with people & you will make some money to pay off the land & toys you use, but you won't get rich. You spend a little time, a little money on toys, and hope to break even while you enjoy working with people.

3. Find some real specialty nitche on just an acre or 2, and spend almost all your & your family's time on it - garden farming, sweetcorn patch, cut flowers, and so forth. You can make big bucks per acre, but really the land doesn't ccount - you are selling all the time you are investing, as these high-paying deals require _much_ time. Skimp on the time you spend on it, and the flowers or corn will grow up in weeds or go unpicked or full of worms & you got no income at all for a year. You are heavily invested with big bucks in either special seed, special equipment, or lots and lots of labor. Big payoff when it works, big hole when it fails. You only hear about the good years from others, not the big hole years.....

You are getting some suggestions from all 3 catagories.

Which one fits you?

In any case, farming is a long term investment - going to be 10-20 years before you see real income from your initial investments - land & toys - er implements cost a lot of money up front, you got to work them for 10-20 years before they get paid off & you see income you get to spend.

--->Paul

you make you money on the tax deductions for your 9-5 job. the farming part is just for fun and exercize. Around Tulsa the taxes will eat you alive and the markets are flaky at best. Ag is the only thing I know that seems a given that you will buy hish and sell low.


Selling to the specialized markets nets the most but takes a lot of time to find the markets.

Hay for the horse people is very good but it is very intensive and time consuming. We have goats and what worked on our place before is not working here so I would not recomend goats as a crop.

If your place is fenced for cows try that w/ just a few. Rent is out and learn from your renter.

If I had 100 acres, here in NY, I'd be baling hay. I'd do whatever I needed to do to the land, and I'd buy the (used) equipment; *I myself* will be spending $2400 for hay for the next 6 months (and have done so, for several years). All you need are 10 customers like me in your first year, and your equipment is paid for. Yes, you'd need to keep your real job, but lots of people do, because of insurance.

Just an aside............ some of you post and talk about "here" but give us NO INDICATION of where "here" is. A little help, please! Please?

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I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.

Thanks everyone for the great information! I'll be talking to my local extension agent to get more localized info as suggested.

All of your suggestions and information have been very helpful to me in finding possibilities to explore and thinking things through to come up with a plan. Here's what I currently plan to do:

I'd like to buy the land and continue to rent the pasture to the rancher that's currently renting it to graze his cattle. If he's open to it, I'll work out a deal with him that includes me doing some of the day-to-day work and inspections in exchange for him teaching and training me on how to raise and care for cattle. Since I'm right by the land and can see the cattle out my window while he lives farther away I think this should be a good deal for both of us.

While I'm doing this I'd like to fence off a corner of the 25 acres my house is on to raise 1 or 2 cattle on my own as an experiment and learning experience with rotational grazing. If I can understand it and make it work on a small scale then I should theoretically be able to scale it up to a larger scale in the future.

After a few years of this I can re-evaluate whether I want to strike out on my own and raise my own cattle on the 100 acre pasture or just continue renting it out to someone else. What does everyone think of this plan? Sound good? Any further suggestions or criticisms? Thanks again for all of the help and information everyone has given. This really is a great website and group of people!

I would say it sounds like an excellent plan! Way too many people jump in with both feet and get overwhelmed. Learning from someone else is WAY better than learning the hard way!

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...orbiting Seattle at a safe distance...

Sounds like a great plan.

--->Paul

Ack226, what I do and what a conventional cow/calf operations does has little in common. The average cow/calf producer nets very little money. I learned a long time ago that if you want to succeed in an undertaking to emulate someone that is successful. I did not come up with the idea of rotational grazing but I have implemented what others were doing successfully and used that as a stepping stone. I would still like you to get the answers to the question I asked. IMO you are headed down a road that has no destination. Your goals are achievable and the rewards are closer than you may realize. Is there any chance that you may be in the NC area anytime soon? You are welcome to visit my operation.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Thanks for the offer Agmantoo. I'd love to see your operation in person. I travel on business several times a year. Never to NC, but maybe close enough to justify a side trip. I'll definitely contact you and set up a visit if I get close enough. It sounds like you have a great system in place and I'd really love to learn how it works.

The questions you need answered are carrying capacity for a standard cow/calf operation using pasture and hay in my county and profit per feeder cow, right? Anything else?

Additionally I would like to know the average rain fall per year and the feeder animal question is the amount of net profit for a beef feeder calf sold for finishing.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Keep in mind also my mention of my BIL finding that nitche in that raises his calves without growth hormones and antibiotics and there is a good market for this. If you get RFD TV, check out some of the auctions to learn more about what they sell for. I have never seen one of these auctions, just passing along somebody else's experience. For what its worth! Good luck in whatever you decide.

You have already offered up far more information than I got from an NC Ag Agent.

I spoke to my ag extension agent and got the info you wanted:

Carrying capacity is on average 5-6 acres per cow. This is assuming that you reserve and bail part of the land for hay to use in the winter so you don't have to buy it. Capacity is increased if you buy and bring in external hay. He also stressed that this will vary a LOT depending on grass types, fertilizing, and other factors.

Average rainfall is 48" per year. He also stressed that Oklahoma weather is very unpredictable year to year and we might get a lot more or a lot less than the average in any given year.

He wouldn't even venture a guess about the net profit per calf - said there are too many variables to even make a guess. He's going to have another agent send me some information on statewide averages for revenue and expenses for cattle operations.

After getting these answers I spoke with him a little bit about rotational grazing and stockpiling summer growth on the ground for use for winter grazing. He said that it's done a lot here, but that it's impossible to go through the entire winter without using bailed hay. He said that the winter is long enough that the nutrients are leached out of dead grass on the ground before you get through the entire winter.

I also found out from describing our current grass to him that a lot of it is bromegrass, which he says isn't very good for grazing.

Thanks again for your help everyone. Agmantoo, if you need any additional information please let me know.