Time committment for 3-4 cattle?

[Dirtslinger]

Today, I need to let the dexter breeder know if I am placing a deposit! I'm struggling, I want the cattle but am very level headed and don't want to take on more I can chew.

This is 2-3 bred heifers PLUS an unrelated bull in the near future.
How much time each day, would you guess- I need to mind them? I have water right to them, and they are on very good pasture needing no feed till winter. Winter hay can be dropped off right in their winter paddock.

All electric fencing, which will be moved around(weekend work), main thing is I work VERY long days mid week.

So about how long would you spend caring for 3-4 cattle per day, mid week? No sugar coating! I'm a busy guy mid week and don't want a maintenance nightmare.

THANKS again, for all the great tips here.

[agmantoo]

I tend to a 100 head each day in about 30 minutes. This applies only to your summer grazing as I do know have any knowledge of handling cattle in deep snow. On days that I do not have the 30 minutes to allocate I simple get the area ready for the next day and do nothing on that day except open a temporary gate. I can also allocate two or three days worth of grazing and give them access all at one time. With a few head of cattle and depending on the amount of pasture you could go for weeks without attending to them. This is not recommended however as you need to more frequently know the well being of the animals. When feeding hay you can put out several days worth at one time thus freeing yourself from having to visit them daily. Knowing you have a good fence and that the animals are contained is important. If your fences are substandard do not get the animals. The animals and your available time will conflict if they are out of the pasture.

[ksfarmer]

Your biggest time consumption will be in the winter months. You have to feed and keep water unfrozen. The other thing is if you have bred heiffers, they will require close supervision at calving time (like 3 or 4 checks per day) to watch for any problems.
Like agmantoo says, if on pasture in the summer, you can get buy checking on weekends if water is reliable and fences are good. In winter you can use a water tank heater and put out 2 or 3 days feed if necessary.

[darbyfamily]

for our two cows it took me 30 minutes to feed and water and milk... mornings... and in the evenings about 20 to fill hay and make sure they had water.

oh, I guess thats probably not even accurate, because that includes goats and pigs in the evenings.

[planecrazyusa]

Get a good electric fence charger!! Also, I have had an issue with the dexter calves rolling out under the electric for about the first week. This is two strand. I was awakened this morning at 5:30 by a nice neighbor who told me he put back in the still wet Dexter calf we didn't even know we were expecting!! Our fence is right by the road and they roll into the ditch. Thankfully no injuries have resulted, just a heads up for you!! Other wise, my husband, who was a little disappointed with the Dexters at first has recently been bragging on how little care they require. We feed them a little feed just to keep them coming up when we call. Hope all goes well for you!!

[Karin L]

I'm with agmantoo as well on this. When we used to have steers, with adequate water supply and a large pasture (we did a sort of continuous/rotational grazing thing) with plenty of grass, sometimes we didn't see the animals for a whole week, except to see if they were still all there when they came up for water, (lol) and to switch pastures. They start acting like range cattle when they haven't had human contact for a couple weeks (or more) on end, but it only takes them a few minutes to figger out that the "strange" person out in their pasture checking on the grass and them (the cattle) wasn't gonna do any harm to them. BTW, with ~80 head on a 50 acre pasture with excellent grass growth, you don't see em for a good couple weeks anyway (I did mention that, didn't I?).

It's a whole different ball game in the winter time. You see them at least once a day, checking for frozen waterers, checking if there's any sick (or even dead) animals, feeding them their hay and/or silage, pushing out big drifts of snow for them to get better access to water and feed after a nasty snowstorm, the whole bit.

So you can say your time commitment to these animals vary with the seasons. I should mention that with only about 4 animals to look after don't expect you'll have less time to spend with them: "...labour costs differ very little whether the herd numbers 100 or 300." (Beef Cattle Science by M.E. Ensminger, (c) 1997) Or if its 5 versus 100. AND, you'll have to make more time to spend with the heifers when calving season comes around, you never know what'll come your way.

Just my $0.02.

[Dirtslinger]

Thanks! I have sent the deposit, the heifers are now getting registered.