What would you do with 80 acres of pasture?
 

Currently producing decent hay. Soil is light clay loam.

Now don't get too wordy and over explain things so much.... ;)

I would plow it up and plant it to corn.

But, that works 'here'.....

You didn't say where it is, how steep it is, how wet or dry it is, or - anything.....

I'll assume it is hay ground because that is the best option for it?

Guess more important, what do you want from it?

As its called a pasture, assume it has a good fence and water source. So, I'd rent it out for 45 cents a day a head, sit back and cash the check. Enjoy life.

If you want to give up your summer and like big risks, buy some 400 weight steers, graze them over summer, and sell. Depending on the direction of the cattle markets, you could make or lose many thousands of dollars doing this. Cattle is a cyclic business, you lose money more often than make money, but just the right year you make a lot of money. If you are in it for the long haul and have enough reserve money to last 10-15 years you can do well with cattle, but it takes money and time, and you risk a lot. 'Here' you could run up to 120 or so head, some areas you could only run 15 head on those acres. Donno from your description.

If your fence ain't no good, making hay on the land if it isn't too steep, too wet, or too rocky is a good alternative.

I'd share it out, have someone do all the work and you get around 40% of the hay, which you can sell often right back to the guy making the hay for you.

Or, you can buy the equipment and make the hay yourself, if you have $20,000 to invest in hay equipment and don't have any other plans for your summer. Hay needs to be made exactly when it is ready, you are it's slave, if you make hay whenever you fell like getting around to it you will make poor hay and lose the value of it. (Yup, person can make hay with $4000 worth of 8N tractor, 69 NH baler, and a iron wheeled rake and sickle mower, but you ain't gonna make 80 acres worth of top quality sale able hay that way.....)

So, kinda your options. Can do different critters, and so forth, but basically depends on your fence, water supply, and rock/hill/moisture conditions.

Paul

If the pasture and myself were someplace it rained semi frequently, Id put a few cows on it. If it was here, Id use it for goats maybe or maybe not . Was going to say I could go shoot there but as high and scarce as ammo is, thats not an option anymore.

If I owned it I would rent it for $200 an acre to a farmer for corn or beans.

Fenced into 4 pastures, good fence. Property was used for cattle by a family, the last remaining died couple years ago at 91. Last few years he least the land for hay and least pasture for a few horses. Acreage is mostly flat, some very gentle rolling. Located in northeast, no drought issues that I can recall here in the past 17 years. Not too wet ground as it is slightly elevated, Property slightly inclines to the east.

Not sure I understand what the big risk with cattle is. If I buy 400 weight steers, grass feed them, and hold them for a year, they should have put on quite a bit of weight and basically only cost me their 400 weight price and transportation....

Or if I get some breeding stock, 12 or so cows and a bull ( or go AI )...the feed is minimal if grass fed, and I can even grow some silage. New calves should be profitable in a year or less...tell me what the dangers are?

With cattle, you buy high, and sell low.....

The price of beef can go up or down a lot in 6 months.....

Getting into beef is more like trading gold and silver, you are trading on a moving market over time.

What happens in Brazil, China, and the European economy these days has far more to do with your net income on beef than your ability to care for the grass and stock itself.....

Buy today, sell in November.... The price can change a whole lot in between.... Do you feel lucky? :)

Paul

Got ya ;) I suppose if you have the money, and are not in a rush you can hold out until prices go up....

With my luck I'll buy in just before the entire beef market crashes and is replaced by kangaroo.

Here you go. You don't have to understand this whole page, just look at the pretty charts on the right side.

http://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/lspdfss.pdf

If you buy your cattle when the blue line is way up on top, and then sell when the other chart happens to be way down on the bottom, you spent a year making your cattle fatter, and got paid less for them than what they cost you.....

And everyone else with cattle is trying to outguess what those charts are going to do too.... No one really knows.....

A lot of folk sell beef direct to the customer, and you can avoid some of this craziness. But, you need to find enough people in your location, you need to deal with the public, and you still will find some ups and downs with prices. Your size operation would be big to get into this right off, tho over the years it could work into that. Probably need to start as commercial selling, finish out a few for direct sales to start with. Remember to do this you need to have finished steers, typically pastured stock needs some grain you'd need to buy, or you need to really work hard to make pasture-finished beef....

Another option if dairy is in your location, is to raise dairy heifers for a nearby dairy. They typically want a lot of silage for their feed tho, but might be able to team up somehow, another option to look into. The dairy likes to focus on milking cows, they let you deal with raising the young stock and bringing them up to the point of being a cow, then take them to the dairy barn....

Paul

I would keep making hay.

Animals have a habit of dying every so often. Lighting, disease, problems calving, broken legs, being shot by deer hunters that dont know the difference between a cow and a deer, wild dogs, as well as other predators, depending on your area.

Price per pound is also an issue. That weight gain is often offset considerably by price per pound on sale day. The closer to slaughter weight, the lower the pound price is normally.


This is from this weeks livestock price report at our local stockyard.

Feeder Steers Medium and Large 1-2
Head Wt Range Avg Wt Price Range Avg Price
1 330 330 186.00 186.00
17 410-480 457 145.00-170.00 150.99
12 505-598 541 135.00-142.00 138.13
18 601-698 646 120.00-130.00 124.49
7 802-885 861 110.00-112.00 110.53

Note the price per pound drops as the weights go up. Feeding only on pasture, you can expect no more than 1lb a day weight gain... so by fall you will gain maybe as much as 200 lbs per head. If you buy 20 head of 400 lb calves at todays prices you are looking at investing 20x $600 = 12k

If everything goes perfect, no losses, no vet bills, or other expenses.... this fall you would have 20 head of 600 lb feeders worth about $700 each... (at todays prices) or 14k which results in a profit of 2k. However, this is spring, and fall prices are usually somewhat lower than spring prices.... supply and demand kicks in. Pastures are fading in sept and oct, and hay costs money so many farmers will be selling when you are, for the same reasons. This usually results in a price drop in the late fall markets of 10 to 20 cents per lb. If you are very lucky you may end up with a profit of $1000 to 1500 or so. However, if you arent quite that lucky, and have some vet bills, maybe lose a couple of those calves, that will cut into those profits and you might just break even. If you are like me.... your luck might not be quite so good and you end up losing money. if you have to borrow the money to buy those calves... you will at best feed the banker. Current interest rates in my area for this type of loan is running at around 8 percent. There goes half your "profit" in a perfect year!

I played the "buy calves, wait for them to grow and sell 500 lb feeders" game for several years, got lucky on the last year and broke even overall, actually walked away with about 50 bucks "profit" for 5 or 6 years worth of work! I quit that game and went into the cow/calf game. I now keep a few cows year round, cut enough hay to keep them through winter and sell their calves in spring to other farmers wanting to play the grazing weight gain game. I clear a couple thousand per year this way on our roughly 30 acres of pasture and hay ground.

Yep, there are risks, and no guarantees in the business world. We just pays our money and takes our chances.

So why not hold the cattle over winter and sell in spring when prices go up? & They'll be heavier then. Since I have 80 acres pasture/hay...I should have plenty of hay to feed through winter at only the cost of tractor fuel and time?

That's were collecting the 45 cents per head per day, or letting someone bale it for you on shares starts to look good. ;) There are problems too, but less likely to go in the hole.

Paul

That works a bit better. Thats what I was doing during my early years and finally broke even.

Us farmers do that with corn and soybeans and hay - we store it a while to see if the prices get better.

Livestock don't store well. They get ripe and its time to move them on. They need to eat every day, costing money..

You are in a rare climate where there is grass all year long? Here we still have several inches of snow, and the frost is still over a foot deep, going to me May 10th before any grass is tall enough to graze, in August it gets hot and dry and grass stops growing, comes back again in September but then October so e time freezes and quits growing.

If you get the cattle to a different size, you now have a different product, and need to find a market for those cattle. If you feed them on pasture all winter, then what will you be selling in spring, and to whom? Pastured wrong and the beef is very stringy on older critters, you need to find your market then, some prefer that kind of beef, many do not....

You can't store beef like you do grains. They keep eating, and get fatter (hard to do on just grass), or bigger (boney, more waste not more value), or older (tougher meat), depending on how you feed them..... Different customers will be happy or sad about those changes, and pay you perhaps less for them if they feel they are now a lesser quality....

You need to add some minerals and salt as you pasture them, so you have a small feed cost as you carry them over winter, even if you have 100% grass fed and enough winter grass to do so.

In spring if you've been pasturing the old beef all winter, there will be poorer short grass for your new calves, so you cost yourself opportunity to carry the old beef over winter. You won't be able to feed as many the following year as you used up the grass.

Feeding beef is both so simple, and so very complicated... ;)

Paul

OK please bare with me, trying to figure this out. I see 17 head with an average weight of 457 selling for an average price of 150.99...am I reading that right?

That would mean .33 cents a pound live weight(?? ) seems low as prices are about 1.00 here. If thats correct then my 20 head of 400+ lbs cattle would cost me about 3,000 dollars. If they put on 20lbs a day or 200lbs a season that would mean $66 dollars profit each at the end of the season ( assuming the same price ). (.33 cents per pound live weight + 200 lbs gained ). 1,320 dollars total for the 3,000 investment.

Prices would have to fall almost 1/3rd to about .25 cents per lbs to break even and lower to lose ( not counting transport and losses )...does this sound right?

Ok, you are misreading the prices.... That 150.99 is per hundred pounds... or about $1.51 per pound live weight. A 450lb calf is bringing roughly 675 dollars in todays market.

ETA: If you look at that group, they ranged from 410 to 480 lbs... with the lighter ones bringing the highest price per pound, and the heaviest right at 25 cents per pound lower. This means that with 70 lbs weight gain... the price on that first 410lbs also dropped by 25cents per lb.

Depends on the year and market, but if you buy a 400 lb steer for $1 a lb, you likely will get to sell it for 80 cents a lb ready to feed out.

Or, feed it out yourself and get to sell it for 65 to 70 cents a lb after fattening it up.

Remember now, you paid a buck for each of those first 400 lbs, so you automatically lose between 20 cents to 35 cents per lb on those first 400 lbs you bought at a buck a lb. Or, you are losing 80 to 140 bucks right off the top on what you are buying.

Smaller younger animals are worth more per lb than older finished animals, so you take a loss along the way....

Paul

Hm..sounds like a tough deal that way. Why should a younger, unfinished animal cost more per pound? Seems like its rigged to keep you from profiting.

In this case, it sounds like it might be better to raise in a cow/calf type operation...maybe higher initial capital cost but better margins?

If farming/ ranching were easy, everyone would do it. ;)

Paul

I would raise pastured pigs, chickens, sheep and cattle. That is what I do - except for the cattle which I'll add in a few years. With good land like that I would use part of the land for raising my winter hay, part for grazing and the winter paddocks for raising crops to feed the animals the next winter. I use managed rotational grazing and plant a lot of legumes in our fields - free fertilizer from the sky.

Our situation is similar. I have about 70 acres that I'm pasturing livestock on. I don't sell at commodity prices but instead sell direct to stores, restaurants and individuals on our regular weekly delivery route. Much better than auction or commodity markets. It does take years to develop the direct marketing but is well worth it. It will also take you years to learn how to farm so the two time lines go hand in hand.

In our case we can't crop much since our land is stoney and swiftly sloping. Pasturing works great for us and is the best use of our land. Since I can't hay I buy winter hay - that frees up land for more grazing so it works out. If I had to I could convert our high plateau to about 20 acres of hay fields and I've got another 150 acres that is currently forest but was hay fields 100 years ago that I could switch - takes time.

Contrary to all the nay-sayers about livestock it works very well. I know because farming is how we make our living. Livestock store quite well. We keep our meat out on the hoof. Each week I go out into the pastures and pick the number of animals I need to fill orders the following week, herd them across our fields to the sorting and loading pens, put them on the truck and my wife drives them to the butcher at the same time she picks up the meat from last weeks animals and then delivers it to customers. Meat stores very well on the hoof and it's fine if it gets bigger - there's a wide range of sizes that are interesting to our market. Feed is not as big a deal as some say since most of what our livestock eat is pasture, in the winter that's hay which does cost but not like grain would. Our big cost is processing, over half our income. We're working on solving that by building our own USDA/State inspected slaughterhouse, butcher shop and smokehouse. Vertical integration.

And yes, it is hard work. But it is also wonderful work. Do what you enjoy.

Cheers,

-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/

First of all smaller calves bring more/lb because there is more leeway for the buyer to put weight on them at a profit. The closer the calf is to slaughter weight the closer the price is to slaughter price.

If you are going to look at this economically , you first need to know the basis of your inputs. What could you rent the pasture for in your area or how much hay will it produce and cost of putting up the hay. That would be the cost of grazing those cattle whether you have to pay; it or not. If you want to do this as a hobby then it doesn't matter. If you totally discount the cost of your grass or hay you can probably graze some calves and come out ahead if you buy good calves at a reasonable price and have no health disasters. Please don't take this as a put down but judging by your questions I would suggest you get some help from some one with experience to help in the purchase of these calves or even use a reputable order buyer.

One of the givens about farming and ranching is the risk of uncertainty. Will it rain enough, will the hay get put up right, will the market fall,will a calf die or even large vet bills. There is no way anyone can tell you how much money or if any you will make. Some years grazing stocker cattle is profitable some years you are lucky to get back what you paid for the calf.

You can get an idea what the socalled expert think the price of feeder cattle will be in the future, by googleing cattle futures. The quoted future price will be for an 800bl steer/hundred weight. you can buy price protection insurance. It will protect you from a shipwreck but my experience is it usually costs you the premium. Like most insurance it should be used as protection not a money tool. people are not upset they didn't get their house ins. premium back because the house didn't burn down.

Send it to me I have some cattle that will take care of that hay for you.
Steve

When a pig is born it is already nearly four months old. When you buy it as a weaner it is five to six months old from conception and that is the date that matters. The breeder had to care for it through gestation and that costs money. The breeder also has to support the sow and boar. With a cow the gestation is even longer so it is even more of an issue.

Think of it as cost per month of growth rather than a cost per pound. Thus weaner pigs are about $5/lb while finisher pigs are $2.52/lb. (This is all in live weights. Hanging weights are about 72%.) That weaner pig is five months from conception. The finisher is just another five months older at ten months from conception. The breeder has raised the weaner pig half way before you even saw it. Thus the weaner pig is only $40/month and the finisher pig comes to $63/month - the weaner pig is actually cheaper than the older finisher pig per month. Similarly with sheep, cows, etc.

Get a few spring young stock and raise them up over the summer to sell in the fall. Rinse and repeat for a few years so you get the hang of things. There are many questions you don't yet know to ask but you'll learn by doing and it's fun.

If you want to make money, just rent the ground. If you feel lucky buy cattle and see what that gets you. If you don't need much money let someone make hay for you.
Put an ad in the paper to cash rent and you will have about $8000 in your hand in 30 days, and another $8000 around the first of November. If you can do better than that let me in on it.

Will they are paying $200/acre rent for pasture in Indiana? Wow. What kind of stocking rate would that support?

I dont think I could get anywhere near that much here. Right now, leasing for hay I think they are making just a bit more than the property taxes. If someone is willing to pay 8k, that means he can make much more than that...I want that. I want the maximum I can get out of the land, I'm willing to take the risk and do the work so why not? I can always rent it out if it dont work out.

Darntootin

You are a quick learner. Go back through post 1 through 18 and see how much you have gained in awareness.
I am the odd man out here as I do not do conventional methods nor do I have the input expenses they incur. In farming IMO the way to profit is to determine how to not participate in having the same operating costs as others. If you minimize these expenses by circumventing the out of pocket outlay then that is money you can take to the bottom line. You would need to determine where you can get a competitive edge. This area is where you can influence and grow your profit. I still have not read where you are located. In the right area and with control over your input expenses it would be possible to net from a cow/calf operation an amount exceeding $16000/year of 80 acres of pasture provided the market holds. I always anticipate volatility however.

Think about hair sheep. If you lose one, it's not like losing a cow. If your pasture is good you can run three or four to the acre. If you you go with cows you can still put a sheep for every cow. I've never been able to get sheep to eat much hay, course I'm in the south and have green winter grass most of the time. I've sheep bring as much as 120 to 130 by the time they weighed 30 to 40 lbs. Good yoes can average 6 lambs every 2 years. Most cows it's one a year, if you lose a calf take a while to get another calf.

+1 here.

I wish I had that much pasture.

A group of 50, 48lb (avg) lambs, sold for over $5,000, at the sale barn this week.

I only had two lambs that were old enough to sell. ;)

I do currently have sheep. I raise Icelandics and find them to be very economical as they eat only hay and grass, produce a fleece, and a decent carcass. The only issue I would have with putting them out on this 80 acre parcel is that it is a 20 minute drive from home and I fear for coyote and other predators.

If I had the 80 acres right here on my homestead I would not hesitate to go with sheep, as others have said one dead sheep is less of a financial loss, twin lambing, easy to handle etc.. As it is here I have about 20 acres grass and the rest in woods, every night I put the sheep away in the barn because of coyotes. I have considerd an LGD but haven't pulled the trigger on one

get it fit, plant it to corn and make sure your crop insurance is paid up...

No, just because someone is willing to pay 8k doesnt mean he can make more than that.... it means "he thinks he can make more than that". He is planning to make more than it costs him, but that simply isnt always the case. I remember all too well the years when my daddy took over my grandpa's farm.... and lost money every year! Seems like the years when we had a good crop the markets would be down, and vice versa. We had 120 acres in alfalfa, raising it for seed. I remember years when the farm produced 1000 lbs to the acre at harvest time, and the price being 12 cents a pound. That sounds good, until you figure in the expenses to produce the crop, well over 40 cents a pound. I remember the last year the price was up.... over 2 bucks a pound, but our seed crop had failed... it was costing more in fuel to run the combine than the seed coming into the bin was worth. Daddy had run himself further into debt for 4 years in a row and wound up having to take a job in town and it took him over 10 years to pay off the bank. Grampa sold the farm that year. We still own 80 acres, 76 acres irrigated, and its been leased out for as long as I can remember. Last year daddy had to come out of pocket to pay the water bill and taxes on the place... the rent didnt cover the basic expenses. Yep, theres money in farming... sometimes.

Well, look there is no such a thing as a sure business, I know that. Every business I've looked into someone told me you can't make money doing it. You can't make money in the restaurant business, you can't make money with cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, rabbits or crops of any kind, you can't make money in the stock market, can't make money with real estate, can't make money with horses, can't keep your money in a bank because you'll lose money to inflation, can't make money with a distribution route ( had one ), can't make money owning a bar, can't make money with firewood, can't make money with computers anymore etc, etc, etc

Nobody ever makes money doing anything, apparently. Maybe I should just give up and go to work at the Walmart.

I would make sure it had good fence on it, then I would put about 20 head of bred heifers on it.....

Jim

The people that make money in their business have a knowledge of the business and work hard.You can not make money by depending on luck alone.You have enough acreage to make a profit and you have enough acreage to lose your shirt if you make a large investment and realize you don't have the knowledge and experience to make things work.Make sure you know what you are doing before making a big investment.You don't have to go to college to pay tuition.

With all this info on beef im surprised you can even buy beef. I would think there is profit to be made.

Depends on how much time you have. I've seen some good suggestions in the thread, but putting all your eggs in one basket is a big gamble. Diversifying what you do with your land gives you more chances to come out ahead since some years and markets are boom, some are bust. Do a little of what several people were suggesting - rent out some land, plant other acres, keep some in hay, raise livestock.

I'd get it certified organic then start preparing a ten year plan for a hops yard (making sure that there was enough local equipment for rent and a good drying shed. A recent change in organic beer has made it so that og beer must have og hops (used to be able to use conventional hops). So, there's a big demand for it, right now. Historically sheep have been used to keep weeds back from the vines. If yours didn't eat the whole durn thing down, you could pasture them in with electric netting and rotate them through the hops. Husband and I were looking into doing this---start out with one acre, then next year plant two (as your rhizomes multiply...so you're not buying massive quantity of og rhizomes.

Some links:
http://www.usorganichops.com/AOHGA/i...g_Company.html


http://mysare.sare.org/mySARE/Projec...826&y=2012&t=1

Kind of old, But a trove of info:

http://www.crannogales.com/HopsManual.pdf

Buy a few livestock guardian animals (dog, mule, llama), run a hot line on your fence, put up a run-in shed and a watering station, and stock it with sheep (or goats). Then you'd only have to make the trip every couple of days. You could easily put 100 on 20 acres in rotation and hay the other 60 acres for cash and winter feed.

There is profit to be made with beef... sometimes... but it all depends upon how one goes about raising and marketing it, management is the key. Me? I like a cow/calf operation.