What breed...

[Jelps]

Our family is looking into starting a commercial cattle operation, I have done research into what breed would best fit our situation and have an idea of what I think would fit, but would like other opinions. As of right now our family owns about 300 acres of land, most going towards crop land. We have aprox. 20 acres that we could use for our operation at this time and this is ground we have used for crop so we would still have to fence and plant grass. We live in northern IN, I don't know if the ground here is good for pasture land. For hay forages we would be able to afford decent hay but by no means high quality. Basically we have little resources to deal with until we can buy up more land (hopefully prices go down). If there is any information you'd like to know let me know. On a side note we are just diving into cattle head first with out prior experience, we have shown and, just recently, started raised show cattle. We already have five head that we put on a 7 acre pasture with hay feeders. Thanks for any input.

[IluvABbeef]

You diverged mostly into the forage end of things and not the cattle end, leaving us a bit open-ended and not sure what to say. So here are some questions for you: Is this for a cow-calf herd, or for feeders only? If cow-calf, what are you looking for in the cattle you want to have? Are you aiming to sell cattle through the sale barn or something else?

[UG]

Jelps,

I assume that you want to run a cow/calf operation. If you have 20 acres of pasture in that part of the country, you likely will be able to run a cow/calf pair per 2 acres, if you do some rotational grazing. So, that allows you to run approximately 10 cows.

As Ilovabeef pointed out, it would be good to know what your ultimate goal is (i.e. freezer beef, sell feeder calves, club calves, breeding stock). Since the number of commercial cow/calf operations is relatively small in the northern half of the state, where corn and beans are king, I think it would be a struggle to sell much seedstock. However, the show calf deal in IN is huge, so if you enjoy that segment, you may want to concentrate on producing club calves. If you raise the good ones you can get a whole lot more of a premium for them as 6 month old calves than you can raising just about any other type of beef that I am aware of.

[Jelps]

IluvaBbeef - We would like it to be a cow-calf herd, I would like for my cattle to
- Handle both the hot and cold climate as it can go to each extreme occasionally
- Be very efficient at converting forages of medium quality
- Docility, being as a come from raising show cattle I would like to still be able to be close with my animals
- Have good mothering and milking ability, I will be going to college so taking care of calves after birth would be up to family and I would like to have that to as unstressful as possible
- Carcass qualities do not have to be at the highest standard
I hope that got my points across clearly. Right now we would aiming to sell (our steers) to local kids for 4H show projects, but the breed doesn't need to be show oriented, and keeping any heifers back to build up our herd.
UG - I hope some of that answered some of your questions. I agree with your corn and beans statement, but as I said above right now we'd be retaining heifers and selling steers for 4H, so selling our stock would not come in to play for many years. I would not like to get real big into the show cattle deal, the top guys in the business that make so much money also put in so much time and effort that I don't think I or my family would like to put in on top of our other seed business.
Excuse any lack of knowledge I might have, as I said we are just getting started and I know we have much learning to do. I appreciate the comments thus far.

[UG]

Hi Jelps,

Knowing that there are already many, many black Angus breeders in Indiana, I would probably shy away from that breed and look at breeds that compliment Angus, assuming that you may sell bulls at some point in the future. Based also on your comments about docility, mothering ability, milking ability, etc., two breeds that I would consider are Simmental and Gelbvieh. These two breeds do many things well, and are very similar in what they offer the beef industry:
Fertile, good milking females
Good disposition (though there are some bad actors in every breed)
Good growth
Greater carcass yields than most Angus

There are also several less popular breeds that also have many of the traits that you are looking for including Murray Grey, Pinzguaer, and Braunvieh.

[piedmontese]

Saler would be my suggestion.i have them and have nothing but praise.i have never had to pull a calf and they get up and nurse right away.hardy and will do well in your cold and they take the heat well too.fast growing and easy fleshing.

[Rahe Family Belties]

Belted Galloway cattle are heat and cold resistant, have little or no calving worries and are long-lived.
Carcass traits are exceptional and there is a ready market for every steer and heifer you can produce.

I get calls just about every week from someone looking for heifers or steers. I sent two to California last week from my farm in Illinois.

Downside is finding females. I knew of several in the winter but very few right now. Also, the cattle don't grow quite as fast on grain as some other breeds. That is Ok if you are feeding mostly forages . Grass-fed Beltie cattle are very sought after.

[SSGenetics]

Belted Galloway cattle are heat and cold resistant, have little or no calving worries and are long-lived.
Carcass traits are exceptional and there is a ready market for every steer and heifer you can produce.

I get calls just about every week from someone looking for heifers or steers. I sent two to California last week from my farm in Illinois.

Downside is finding females. I knew of several in the winter but very few right now. Also, the cattle don't grow quite as fast on grain as some other breeds. That is Ok if you are feeding mostly forages . Grass-fed Beltie cattle are very sought after.

[ALACOWMAN]

Belted Galloway cattle are heat and cold resistant, have little or no calving worries and are long-lived.
Carcass traits are exceptional and there is a ready market for every steer and heifer you can produce.

I get calls just about every week from someone looking for heifers or steers. I sent two to California last week from my farm in Illinois.

Downside is finding females. I knew of several in the winter but very few right now. Also, the cattle don't grow quite as fast on grain as some other breeds. That is Ok if you are feeding mostly forages . Grass-fed Beltie cattle are very sought after.

you not ever go past Austin Hines in Arab?? he's got a pretty good herd of em

[SSGenetics]

Belted Galloway cattle are heat and cold resistant, have little or no calving worries and are long-lived.
Carcass traits are exceptional and there is a ready market for every steer and heifer you can produce.

I get calls just about every week from someone looking for heifers or steers. I sent two to California last week from my farm in Illinois.

Downside is finding females. I knew of several in the winter but very few right now. Also, the cattle don't grow quite as fast on grain as some other breeds. That is Ok if you are feeding mostly forages . Grass-fed Beltie cattle are very sought after.

you not ever go past Austin Hines in Arab?? he's got a pretty good herd of em

Dont get to make it down that way too often these days. I know there was a guys pretty close to us right across the state line that had some. I felt sorry for them as they didnt seem to slick of enough during the summer. Looked like little hairballs 12 months out of the year...

Are you down close to Arab, ALA?

[ALACOWMAN]

I get calls just about every week from someone looking for heifers or steers. I sent two to California last week from my farm in Illinois.

Downside is finding females. I knew of several in the winter but very few right now. Also, the cattle don't grow quite as fast on grain as some other breeds. That is Ok if you are feeding mostly forages . Grass-fed Beltie cattle are very sought after.[/quote]


[/quote] you not ever go past Austin Hines in Arab?? he's got a pretty good herd of em[/quote]

Dont get to make it down that way too often these days. I know there was a guys pretty close to us right across the state line that had some. I felt sorry for them as they didnt seem to slick of enough during the summer. Looked like little hairballs 12 months out of the year...

Are you down close to Arab, ALA?[/quote]..... im about 3 miles from Marshall/ Madison co. line, and about 18 miles from Huntsville... in Jackson co..

[Taurus]

Hold your horses, did you said you will going to college? How far is your college from your home? I would focus on the breed that has great disposition and goes easy on your family. Running cattle business while you are at college at same time isn't easy as I learned the hard way. My father is struggling with the calving season alone already. Thankfully the calving season doing so well so far and the heifers has easy birth with bull calves. Plus nearly all of our cows are docile and friendly beside that psycho cow (she is on the cull list next fall).

I suggest you to foucs on cattle (regardless of breeds) with great disposition and easy calving. I would steer away from large cows, they eat too much!

[Jelps]

Thanks for everyone's inputs, what do you all think about herefords?
Taurus - Yes, will go to college, and far enough away I'll only be home on weekends and not every weekend. This is not something that is my effort alone, it is a family thing. I would be doing a good amount of stuff if I was home, I do have two younger brothers, but they are not always willing to do a lot and have sports and other stuff they are involved in. Thank you for your input!

[IluvABbeef]

I agree with Taurus, stick with something you know will have good disposition and a smaller frame size (not over 1400 lbs, but between 1000 to 1400 at the most), not to mention those with good fertility. You did say you wanted something for a commercial operation, not purebred, and are more interested in building up a herd for your own benefit and not something to sell to other producers.

I know I'll get flack for this, but don't go Salers. Sure there's some good calm herds, but a lot of those have undergone strict culling for disposition. If you're not careful, you're going to end up in a trainwreck with this breed.

If you want show cattle, I suggest go Shorthorn. They're, at least up here, good moderate-framed, good maternal and terminal traits and quite docile, not to mention good on grass, like any British breed should be. If that's not the option, then Hereford or even Red Angus. If you're looking to hit the markets with some steers to sell, you may have to consider Angus.

[Brandonm22]

Hi Jelps,

Knowing that there are already many, many black Angus breeders in Indiana, I would probably shy away from that breed and look at breeds that compliment Angus, assuming that you may sell bulls at some point in the future. Based also on your comments about docility, mothering ability, milking ability, etc., two breeds that I would consider are Simmental and Gelbvieh. These two breeds do many things well, and are very similar in what they offer the beef industry:
Fertile, good milking females
Good disposition (though there are some bad actors in every breed)
Good growth
Greater carcass yields than most Angus

There are also several less popular breeds that also have many of the traits that you are looking for including Murray Grey, Pinzguaer, and Braunvieh.

I am missing something here, because I thought he said that he wanted to start a "commercial" cattle herd. If you want to be selling commercial cattle, and black Angus is the dominant breed in northern illinois and we don't have a lot of money, time, or numbers.......then I would buy black Angus for at least half of my genetics. Don't rock the boat and sell something that is uncommon in your local sale barn unless you are just stubborn and like boat rocking just because. Now I don't like straightbred comercial cattle of any breed so I am recommending crossing something to the Angus. Hereford would be my stock answer for breed 2 though Gelbvieh, Simmental, Limousin, Charolais, Braunvieh, etc would work well too. If you are new to commercial cattle....don't plan on jumping into the bull selling market. The cattle industry as a whole would be better off if everybody had 10 or 20 years of commercial cow experience before they started breeding seedstock.