Any Advice?

[greenwillowherefords]

I lived at Tyronza for two years when I first got out of college and was teaching school. Nice people there, but I missed East Texas and the cattle business. You are right about the stockers taking more management, but given your acreage, you would not have enough cattle to warrant a bull for cow/calf. A.I. is good but it too is time and labor intense. You could run two sets of stockers a year. We kid ourselves about being cattlemen, in reality we are grass farmers selling our product through a beef or dairy animal.

Good luck with what ever you decide.

Don't mean to be argumentive, but the idea of not having enough cattle to be worth a bull assumes that the bull is worth nothing when it comes time to trade him in, and that is usually not so. For instance, I sold one last winter for nearly $1,200 on the market. Around here (Some will argue, but I dare them to compare weaning weights) you can buy a good bull for $1,200. So, IMO, the bull costs you nothing more than up-keep.

There is also the option of going in a partnership on a bull, or leasing a bull. I am amazed at how little it costs to lease a bull. I have leased mine and loaned mine several times over the years to friends.

AI is labor intensive, but only for a short period of time per year.

Just an alternative viewpoint.

 

[jerry27150]

agree with greenwillow, you can buy some young bulls & grow them for a couple of years while using them, & still make money on them when you sell

 

[BC]

I lived at Tyronza for two years when I first got out of college and was teaching school. Nice people there, but I missed East Texas and the cattle business. You are right about the stockers taking more management, but given your acreage, you would not have enough cattle to warrant a bull for cow/calf. A.I. is good but it too is time and labor intense. You could run two sets of stockers a year. We kid ourselves about being cattlemen, in reality we are grass farmers selling our product through a beef or dairy animal.

Good luck with what ever you decide.

Don't mean to be argumentive, but the idea of not having enough cattle to be worth a bull assumes that the bull is worth nothing when it comes time to trade him in, and that is usually not so. For instance, I sold one last winter for nearly $1,200 on the market. Around here (Some will argue, but I dare them to compare weaning weights) you can buy a good bull for $1,200. So, IMO, the bull costs you nothing more than up-keep.

There is also the option of going in a partnership on a bull, or leasing a bull. I am amazed at how little it costs to lease a bull. I have leased mine and loaned mine several times over the years to friends.

AI is labor intensive, but only for a short period of time per year.

Just an alternative viewpoint.

Since his acreage size is only 16 acres, I was estimating that Z&J would only have enough resources to run 6 maybe 7 cow/calf pairs, where as he could run stocker calves at the rate of 500 lbs of calf to the acre.

Bull leasing is something that is not done in my area so I am not familiar with it.

 

[Z&J Cattle]

I want to thank everyone for all the good advice. BC, I am hoping to be able to run about 10-12 cow/calf pairs. I am going to get a more definite answer from the county extension office, but most people that I have talked to have told me that with this soil type, I should be able to run nearly one pair/acre. I know that in the ozarks, the standard is around one cow/two acres, but the soil in my area is much more fertile (and not rocky at all) so hopefully I will be able to run 10-12. Do you guys recommend that before I get started I should go and take soil samples to find out if I need to add anything to the soil? Thanks again for all the good info.

Zach

P.S. I also need some advice on how to divide my 16 acres up into seperate pastures. The property is basically a rectangle that is about 775' down two sides and 950' down the other two. Should I divide it into four squares, or maybe three somewhat long and narrow rectangles? I have about 775' of road frontage, and I think that I want to put my catch pen, corral, etc.. toward the back of the property. How would it work to graze all the cows on one 4-5 acre pasture for a couple of weeks and then rotate around to the other pastures to give the pastures a month or so of rest between grazing periods.

 

[MikeC]

I would divide it into 4 equal shares and put the working facilities in the dead center so that you can move cows to it from any pasture. Put your waterers there and Voila'! you can catch them any time they come to water.

 

[Bama]

I would divide it into 4 equal shares and put the working facilities in the dead center so that you can move cows to it from any pasture. Put your waterers there and Voila'! you can catch them any time they come to water.

Good recommendation.

As far as bermuda taking over the fescue if planted together. In the sandy soil you said that you have I'd be concerned with the bermuda crowding out fescue. Bermuda spreads like crazy in sandy soils.

 

[Medic24]

Welcome to the boards Zach, just take your time in what every you chose to work the cattle and the grass.

You will have to allow the grass to delelop its deep root sytem before you even begin to put cattle on it, other wise they will work it over till there is little left. Been there done that. :cboy:

 

[jerry27150]

medic, i have been known to disc up a small piece in a pasture & throw some seed on it & it comes alright, but i do rotational graze

 

[jcissell]

Zach,

I'm in Northeast Arkansas. Wilson to be exact. My mother works in Trumann and my brother lives in Jonesboro. We have about 40 pairs right now. You may could run a cow to an acre but you would have to keep your pasture in tip top condition. We have our cows on the levee that borders the mississippi river here and I have been told by people from all over that this is the best ground you can get to raise cows on and we don't quite get a cow/acre. But we also don't spray for weeds or fertilize either. We were running about 80 cows and 20 calves on around 100 acres or less and the grass couldn't really keep up with the cows in this dry weather we are having. If we would get plenty of rain it probably could have kept close. But also that is without killing the weeds or fertilizing. The first thing you don't want to do is get too many cows per acre. Start out with 8 at first. Then if the grass can keep up add another cow or two.

Josh

 

[stocky]

i am a firm believer in not stocking the farm with over 75 percent of what i believe it will carry in a normal rain fall year. that way, if there is extra grass you can buy a few more cows for the fall, if it is a short year on rain, you dont have to sell a whole lot of the cows at drought prices. i got caught in that a couple of times is how that lesson was hard learned. i have a question for any who care to respond: when the question is asked "how pairs to the acre or acres to the pairs, what is the time frame that each of you consider in your area. for me, it is april 1 until dec 1, so we are talking full grass for 8 months. that also must be taken into account when figuring for hay and pasture, that might be useful in this thread

 

[Farminlund]

i am a firm believer in not stocking the farm with over 75 percent of what i believe it will carry in a normal rain fall year. that way, if there is extra grass you can buy a few more cows for the fall, if it is a short year on rain, you dont have to sell a whole lot of the cows at drought prices. i got caught in that a couple of times is how that lesson was hard learned. i have a question for any who care to respond: when the question is asked "how pairs to the acre or acres to the pairs, what is the time frame that each of you consider in your area. for me, it is april 1 until dec 1, so we are talking full grass for 8 months. that also must be taken into account when figuring for hay and pasture, that might be useful in this thread

I would think it should be calculated against an entire year. I see that what you are saying, grazing starts on 4/1 & ends on 12/1. I started this yr on 4/1 but stopped the previous yr in mid Jan, so why limit it to months of the year? Your ability to carry cattle is a year long process (as is the business of raising cows/calves). If you purchase feed you can carry more but you pay the price with money (effects the bottom line). If you graze late into the winter or take all your hay off your land, then that is land that cattle can not graze in the spring (or whenever you do haying) & land that must be held off while it grows in the early fall (stockpile fesue).

 

[stocky]

Farminlund, all that makes alot of sense. there are some years that we can stockpile the fescue to be eaten until feb. most years it hasnt got much feed value after jan 1 because of the snow and ice. 2 years ago we had 26 inches fell about dec 20 and stayed on over 60 days. if we get ice covering on the fescue in nov or dec, it will mat it down and usually spoil and the cows wont eat it. it is a sick feeling to have fields of thigh high fescue blades in dec and a cow wont eat any of it the rest of the winter. this past winter, i had fields that the cows were still eating stock piled fescue the last of march---but that was the first time i remember it like that. those are the reasons that i arbitrarily mentioned dec 1, because many years you might as well eat it off by then or lose it with the weather, here

 

[dun]

i have a question for any who care to respond: when the question is asked "how pairs to the acre or acres to the pairs, what is the time frame that each of you consider in your area. for me, it is april 1 until dec 1, so we are talking full grass for 8 months. that also must be taken into account when figuring for hay and pasture, that might be useful in this thread

This is what I had alluded to in an earlier post, possibly even in this thread. We consider the hay ground as part of the "how many head per acre" equation. When the grass gets ahead of us we hay off some of the pastures and put it in the barn. That way if we get a bad winter we have the hay to feed and if we don;t need it we sell it in the late winter. It doesn;t alwasy cover the cost of time and deisel, but it comes closer that way then having to brush hog the pasture because it's gone past it's best grazing period. But we use the dairys hay equipment and help them with their haying during the year. But we help with the haying for them even if we aren;t going to hay our stuff. It's just kind of a neighbor helping neighbor kind of thing. To stockpile the fescue, in normal years, we want the pastures either grazed, clipped, or hayed in August/Spetember to get the new growth.
If we grazed heavier we could probably completely forego the haying process but we'ld have to buy in all of the hay we need. That's a double edged sword since you're bringing in someone elses fertilizer but you're also bringing in their weed crop.

dun

 

[jerry27150]

they once claimed there is always thousands of weed seeds per square foot just waiting for the right moment to grow

 

[dun]

they once claimed there is always thousands of weed seeds per square foot just waiting for the right moment to grow

I'ld multiply that by a million at least

dun

 

[Thurliss]

Zach,

Thanks so much for asking this question. I recently moved to Missouri from taking an 18 year sabbatical from the farm, and living in Florida. Everything I have been shown here is in fescue. My last cattle 18 years ago were feedlot cattle, except the time made the mistake of buying a bunch of heifers on sale, that turned out to be bred, and to make matters worse, were first calf heifers! Feedlot cattle are very different, we used to keep up to 600 head in Michigan, - burnt out bad on cattle after several years of that. The house I am buying is on 15 acres of fescue, it was origianally with 75 acres, but decided I was too old to take care of that much. Fortunatley it has good fencing, barns and water all set up. I need something to put in the pasture, as since sheep are more trouble than they are worth, decided to go the heifer route again.
The realtors and folks farms I looked at all said fescue is what everyone here has, very different from where I was before, and from reading the posts here, have decided to keep the fescue. Now if I could just get over the "sticker shock" , since it has been near 20 years since I have bought a heifer. Also have to decide which kind of cattle to get. This site has been very helpful

Good luck with your pasture.

 

[stocky]

Thurliss, welcome to a SW Missouri neighbor. Hope your heifer search goes well

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Thurless, welcome. Too bad you are tying to get in the market at the highest it's been. But, I would advise, no matter what breed or breeds you get into, buy good ones. It takes just as much labor & money to take care of good ones as it does bad ones. Make sure they are structurally correct, got lots of spring of rib (volume) and carry adequate muscling, and are normal size range for their age.
Also, you need to learn about the 'old' fescue vs the new kind. Others here can explain the problems associated with the old fescue. You can search it on this board or post a question.

 

[Thurliss]

Thanks for the info on fescue, it seems its not like it used to be. Back in the old days we liked black baldies, and charlias/simmethal cross for finishing off, however, from what I am reading here what may have good on the feedlot is not what is good in pasture. I'm not so much interested in profit as just having something pretty to mow the pasture that won't work me to death and lose too much money. Which is what burnt me out on finish cattle.

Found a new probem with the Missouri area today - am supposed to close on my place the 20th and just had a well test that showed it was not putting out the volume it should, not sure if it is the pump or well itself, but am insisting the buyer fix it before closing. Apparently lack of water is a problem in this area.Just the opposite of where I came from where there was too much water. I recollect that cattle drank a lot.

 

[stocky]

Thurliss, what has happened in this area with the wells is that there has been so many new houses and businesses over the last 10 years that all the wells over 10 years old and some even as new as 5 years old have run low on water, people are having to add a couple of hundred more feet to the pipe to go lower where possible, others simply have to drill new wells. The old well on my creek bottom farm was 55 feet. when we drilled the new one, it was 385 feet. on the ridges the old wells were in the 400-450 feet area, now they are being replaced with 600-700 feet wells. This may explain the problem. you may need a new well or the pipe on the bottom extended a couple of hundred feet