would you?

[6ncounting]

A guy stopped by today wanting to know if we'd rent our pasture to him, he has 4 cows, 3 with calves on them and another about to calve soon. The thing is, I have 6 Dexters (the 2 cows should be bred and calve in sometime between late feb to early apr) and a Jersey/Dexter cross bull calf. They don't seem to be able to eat my grass fast enough but I think that may be a good thing so that they will have grass right in through the winter. The pasture I run them in is about 3.5 acres. I just don't know that I can keep anymore than what I've got. Although there is another 2.5 acres on the other side of the house not being used at all at the moment. But he has regular cows not Dexters. I'm so confused? He is wanting to move them from an 80 acre property 40 minutes away. What do you think and what would you charge if you think it'd be ok?

[farmergirl]

With such a small place, I wouldn't do it if I were you. It's one thing if you have large tracts of land that you're doing essentially nothing with, quite another if it's just a small pasture. You might decide you need the extra space for your own animals, one can never have too many pens or paddocks when raising livestock.

[milkinpigs]

No, I would not

[G. Seddon]

My main concern would be disease. If you did rent it to him, what if HIS cows got out? What if HIS bull got to your cows? You can always use your other pasture to wean calves, move newly calved cows to, isolate your bull, etc. I agree with farmergirl about never having enough paddocks or pens.

[JKB07]

Nope.

[MayLOC]

My first thought was NO way would I do it!

Now I know 3.5 acres varies a whole lot w/ different parts of the country, but that not much land. NOt sure what your typical animal unit is there, but here we figure 50-60 acres/cow (so you can see how different we are).

didn't catch if you were going to pasture together w/his cattle or not, but my worries are disease (some can be transmitted across fence or w/shared tank, ect.) and overgrazing your land. Best case would be rotational grazing with your unused pasture. Worst case would be bringing in his cattle and overgrazing/ruining the 3.5 acres.

You also will have to deal with this man and his/your bull/s and all the fun that goes with pasturing cattle. Minerals/water/care/winter supplement/ect...would have to be either your or his responsibility.

So if you do decide to go through w/it, then make sure you cover all your bases.

[mary,tx]

We have 90 acres and lease some of it. IMO, 3.5 extra acres is not enough to lease. You might want to alternate grazing with your own cattle; I would not bring more on.
mary

[ksfarmer]

No. You have enough on your 3.5 acres now. A fullsized cow and calf in the Kansas flinthills area figures 6-8 acres for a summer grazing.

[6ncounting]

thanks all, I was needing to be certain that this was the correct decision. I'm glad for your input.