Cow-Calf Operations

[stifflej]

Any one here run a small Cow-Calf operation? When i say small, I am thinking just a couple cows, which calve every year. I have been buying a few calves every year, raise til ready to butcher, fill my freezer and sell the rest. Was thinking about changing that this year, by purchasing a few (2 or 3) bred Angus/Hereford/or crosses, to calve next spring, then have them IA'ed every year after so I get a new calf crop every year. Not looking to make a fortune, but would like to at least cover costs for each year. Would be mostly grass fed, but would add grain for bred cows and to finish out the feeders. What are your opinions on this being doable? I do have pasture for summer, but would need to purchase hay for winter.

Thanks for your input.

[myersfarm]

I would just keep doing what your doing....Wintering a cow thought the winter can run some dollars....plus you start with a live calf....if you do the cow thing you can invest in a cow keep her all year and then lose the cow and calf....

.Plus getting into cows when they are the highest is never a good idea

[Vickie44]

Sorry to say I know a few who tried that around here ( Angus ) and came no where near break even.

[asparkie]

If you can keep your cost low by getting your heifers at a good price, moving them to fresh pastures when yours is dry, then i'd say do it. If you can handle 3-4 head at least, raise them till they're good size. Then the profit of of 3 head should pay for your operating costs and give you one to keep for the freezer. But like others said, any hard times, like a lost cow/calf or other unexpected cost, may put you under. But like you said, your paying out money in the negative anyway the way your doing it now and this way may put you positive. I'd say do it. Unless you lose the whole herd you'll always get some of your investment back.

[stifflej]

Trying to figure out what it would cost, because currently I am feeding calves over the winter (raising Holstein steers now), so it may not be a huge jump in costs. One thing i don't know, for those who supplement grain, for a bred cow, when do you start giving it grain, and how much? Also, after she calves, how much and for how long do you continue to grain her?

Thanks.

[lakeportfarms]

You can make money if you are a low cost producer. First and foremost, do not overstock the property you have available for pasture. Use managed intensive grazing and stockpile forage for the fall and even into the winter to limit the number of months you need to feed hay. A new shiny tractor to handle round bales might be fun, but that payment or the cash out of pocket eats up your income on a small scale. You shouldn't need to feed grain to any of your cows, at most feed it to the steers for three months or so prior to processing. Fat cows do not breed back more easily.

Consider your choice of breed very carefully and don't cut corners. Good animals produce good calves, and if you're going the AI route it makes all the more sense since you'll likely be breeding to nice bulls.
Think about how you'll market your calves. Sale barns are not always the way to go, especially if you have good genetics.

[Karin L]

Why do you feel you need to grain a cow like the ones you're wanting? Cows like them don't need grain, they can be raised on just grass and hay all year round and all their reproductive lives. Just providing good quality forage is enough to keep them in good condition. If you grain bred cows you're just asking for trouble. A cow in her first and second trimester, especially if she's dry, and into her third doesn't need to be grained, as a matter of fact it is better to keep her on moderate-to-low quality roughage if she's in good condition or over conditioned already. Feeding grain in the last trimester will make the fetus much bigger making calving much harder for her. It's far better to keep her on good-quality hay during her third trimester than even graining her at all.

You should consider graining cows if 1) they're lactating, 2) they need to gain weight because they're much too thin and 3) you're feeding them during a time when you have no grass and your hay is worth crap. If you are grazing lactating cows on pasture, forget the grain.

British cows, especially F1 Herf-Angus cows, should not be underestimated as far as their forage convertibility is concerned. I'd be more concerned if we're dealing with Simmental or Charolais cows, but not F1's. British beef cattle are often much more efficient and better at being raised in a grass/hay-only set up than continentals or dairy cattle are.

[stifflej]

Originally Posted by lakeportfarms

Think about how you'll market your calves. Sale barns are not always the way to go, especially if you have good genetics.

Don't have to worry about marketing, have a line for them. Biggest limiting factor to the number of head is my pasture space and pasture quality (my pigs are making spots of it better every year)

[stifflej]

Originally Posted by Karin L

Why do you feel you need to grain a cow like the ones you're wanting?

Read it somewhere. I am planning on Angus, they are big around here. If I don't need to feed much grain, then I won't, just wasn't sure. If I only feed a small amount when needed to improve condition, then i won't. I was under the impression to make sure your cow produced enough milk you should supplement with grain. I am all for spending less on feed.

[Hexe]

Originally Posted by lakeportfarms

You can make money if you are a low cost producer. First and foremost, do not overstock the property you have available for pasture. Use managed intensive grazing and stockpile forage for the fall and even into the winter to limit the number of months you need to feed hay. A new shiny tractor to handle round bales might be fun, but that payment or the cash out of pocket eats up your income on a small scale. You shouldn't need to feed grain to any of your cows, at most feed it to the steers for three months or so prior to processing. Fat cows do not breed back more easily.

Consider your choice of breed very carefully and don't cut corners. Good animals produce good calves, and if you're going the AI route it makes all the more sense since you'll likely be breeding to nice bulls.
Think about how you'll market your calves. Sale barns are not always the way to go, especially if you have good genetics.

This is VERY good advice. We are doing this with three, low-input cows, they get hay and pasture only. They produce three calfs a year. We keep the calfs through their first winter, when they are little and process them the next fall, at eighteen months old. By that time the next crop of calves has arrived. So April - October we have nine head of cattle (three cows, three new-borns, three yearlings) and each winter we go through with three cows and three small calves again.
My choice was to let the cows raise calves rather than me raising them since we work in town, also, good milk-replacer is not cheap. We sell quarter and half sides without going through the sale barn. Every once in a while I'll sell a heifer calf as a house cow, but that's about it.

We've had a very positive experience with this, BUT - we have plenty of pasture for them. It also took a few years to build up "clientele" for the beef. There are several other issues that can come up, like breeding (how readily is AI available?), weaning, etc.

Good Luck!

[stifflej]

Originally Posted by Hexe

This is VERY good advice. We are doing this with three, low-input cows, they get hay and pasture only. They produce three calfs a year. We keep the calfs through their first winter, when they are little and process them the next fall, at eighteen months old. By that time the next crop of calves has arrived. So April - October we have nine head of cattle (three cows, three new-borns, three yearlings) and each winter we go through with three cows and three small calves again.
Good Luck!

What you are saying is exactly what i want to do. Thanks.

[kycrawler]

it certainly is doable if you have a market for your calves other than a sale barn .

I buy junk cows longhorns, corinettes , smaller 2-3 quartered holstiens put them on pasture with a decent angus bull most of the calves come out black with the occasional red or black and white and they sell very well as feeders . I have very lttle money in any of the cows I have close to 30 head right now and only have a couple hundred each in most of the cows

[myersfarm]

I raise 270 calfs on 20 cows in 6 months.....

I have a few questions...

.if you can run 3 cows year round to sell 3 calfs how much will you make on those 3 calfs


if you keep raising calfs and if you can raise 3 cows year round I know you can raise 12 calfs on the same pasture. with MR being the only extra cost...how much money would you make on 12 calfs


one other thing if you butcher one of those 3 for you family you have 2 to sell...if you butcher one of the 12 you still have 11 to sell

This is one of the reasons I sold 120 head of angus. and sold 105 calfs a year ...bought a few milk cows now have 20 but I can now sell 270 live calfs
btw I have 440 acres land is not a problem
making hay was 600 bales a year for the 120 head angus now 60 bales does it for my 20 head of milk cows

[Karin L]

Originally Posted by stifflej

Read it somewhere. I am planning on Angus, they are big around here. If I don't need to feed much grain, then I won't, just wasn't sure. If I only feed a small amount when needed to improve condition, then i won't. I was under the impression to make sure your cow produced enough milk you should supplement with grain. I am all for spending less on feed.

Grain's only necessary if, like I said, you have lactating cows over the winter, which is if you have calving in the fall, and, of course, if your hay is really poor that the thin cows you have that need to gain some weight over winter can't gain on the hay. If you calve in the spring, and have lactating cows on good pasture, then no, it's not necessary to supplement with grain because the grass (provided it has the sufficient nutrients in the soil to grow in...like what agmantoo has to make sure with his herd that's on grass only) provides the needed nutrition for a cow to produce milk.

A word of caution about Angus: be careful about going in to this breed simply because "they are big around [there]." You have a higher chance getting cows that are not docile, not suitable for your operation (like they do better with grain supplementation than with no supplementation at all) or get ripped off on because someone's looking to sell a couple culls to a gullible, easy-to-fool newbie. IMHO, you have to do MUCH more research with this breed to get what you're looking for than with other not-so-big or -popular breeds like Red Poll, Highland, Galloway, Highland, Hereford, Shorthorn, or Murray Grey. Angus aren't also that well-known for docility. F1 Angus-Hereford crosses tend to be more docile than Angus, as well as other qualities that can make them probably more suitable for your operation.

(I too plan on starting the same operation as you some day, starting with only a few cows, but growing to a bigger herd. Cows would get no supplementation, just grass and hay, calve in the spring, breed in the late summer and wean in the winter, have winter grazing, and rotational graze in the summer).

[Valmai]

Looking at it a bit differently.... Perhaps buy 2 dairy cows, milk them to raise 3 lots of 4-10 calves over one year.

[lakeportfarms]

I think stifflej is looking for a more passive way to enjoy raising a calf or two. (i.e., he has a day job) Milking some cows and then bottle or bucket feeding calves requires a much greater time commitment than it sounds like he's ready to give. A cow/calf operation can range anywhere from once a week (or two) if you just let them on pasture and they have an auto water source, all the way to 30 minutes a day if you do heavy daily rotational grazing, to everything in between. While we do the frequent rotation, a walk out into the pasture with the cows to move temporary hot wires is actually a bit therapeutic after a hard day at work. If we want to take a week or two vacation, we enlarge the available pasture to to have sufficient grazing for the time we're gone, including the auto-waterer, make arrangements for somebody to just check up on them once in a while, and off we go. Why make it harder than it has to be, unless it's your primary source of income?

[stifflej]

Originally Posted by Valmai

Looking at it a bit differently.... Perhaps buy 2 dairy cows, milk them to raise 3 lots of 4-10 calves over one year.

Like Lakepostfarm said, this would require way to much of my time, although I have thought about it. half hour a day checking on things is what I want to spend. There is also not a big market for Holstein feeder steers here, so raising more won't make me much if any more money. If I can sell one and a half and keep a half beef, with only feeding grain on a as needed basis, I think I can at least get a half of beef for free, at least from that I figured out. Also, I am not against a different breed, i have raised Angus and Herefords before, other then that, hard to find other breeds.

Thanks all for your input.