Raising a few cows for beef questions

one steer would give you meat forever.. you might only need one if its just for your family.

And that could be done on just the five acres. If he becomes a pet though, you might not want to kill him.

As to getting a couple and combining the 12 acres to have 17, it's doable. Start small, maybe 2-3 cows and a bull.

You obviously need water 24/7, hay and feed in the winter, and vaccinate/worm at least once a year. To at least worm them, you need a catch pen as a way to crowd them so you can pour on wormer. To vaccinate you need a squeeze chute to hold them. You need a trailer to haul them, and a truck to pull it if you can't barter/charter rides to the sale or sell them off the farm.

In the end, it's rewarding if it truly interests you, but it has some upstart costs if your family or someone who trusts you with their equipment isn't already in the business.

You would come out a lot cheaper if you just bought a butchered calf from a slaughter house.

We still mow our place. It allows the grass(in our case, burmuda) to grow better and the cows seem to like it more.

Yall are going to get Clyde Tiptons keyboard locked up with all these cattle threads today

We bought a whole grass fed beef cow. It was $2,800. It came wrapped, labeled and ready for the freezer. Somewhere in the 400 pound range.

My wife kept a few cows for a short time, it's simply not worth the hassle if you're just going to pay someone to slaughter the animal. We slaughtered one ourselves and gave the other two away to some friends. Never again.

Edit- I lied. I double checked and it closer to 370 pounds. A little over $7.50/lb.

When you buy whole from someone who finishes cattle as a business, you're getting it at full retail.

The actual cost is much lower. From my calculations you could do it in the 2.50/lb range right now.

That's taking a 600lb steer to 900lbs with a 60% yield.

quote:

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USDA approved butcher to slaughter and package the animal

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You only need USDA inspection if you cross state lines for retail purposes.

It should cost around .45lb hanging weight plus a kill fee.

I think the idea is to get a bull and a few cows and use the calfs for slaughter. On the 12 acres you would put the bull and 3 cows, when the calfs are old enough you put them on the 5 acres and feed them out till slaughter time.

Is that how it works Clyde?

The last cow we ordered from somewhere and my wife drove and picked up. The animal had been killed, hung to age, and wrapped up into labeled packages. It was about 370 pounds in total and cost $2,800. As far as I know it was all done on sight. I'll try and get the name of the farm.

The live cows my wife bought from one of her clients. I don't know how much she paid. I know I got a bill every month to feed the stupid things but I had very little to do with them until it was time to kill one. For whatever reason we opted to do the work our selves. I've handled a lot of big game and she's a veterinarian so we thought we had it under control. We did not.