Welcome and enjoy the Board. We can all keep learning.
South Mississippi, much closer to Louisiana than Alabama. But it's hard to beat a farm sunset, no matter where it's at.
Mississippi, a fantastic state that most people forget exists.
We're like any other state, with positives and negatives. I was born and raised down here, and just haven't found reason enough to leave.
I got started 5/6 years ago with bottle calves. Then got into miniature cattle, and in 2019 my paw in law had a tree fall on him and I started working his cattle while he was in the hospital. He preconditions cattle for a big local(ish) operator. After he got to where he could go back to doing his cattle without help, the operator asked if I would be interested in doing the same thing at my place. So I went for it. I went from running 50 head at a time to running between 250-350 head at a time. At one point last year I had 425 head on the ground. This year my dad and I decided to go together and start purchasing our own cattle, to hopefully supplement the income I'm getting from preconditioning. A lot more risk, but no risk, no reward I reckon.
Good for you. It seems that preconditioning is a going thing and the calves bring more at the stockyards. But you have to buy the calves right... and buying bull calves is what is mostly working for us right now. We are doing it on a very small scale compared to you.... making up groups of 15-20.... buying in small numbers of singles to a half a dozen most times and because of the cow calf operation, he can only keep around 50 or so at a time right now. Sorta getting his feet wet at that. Naturally we market our own calves also. No close by feed lots here so most all cattle from this area get shipped out.
Of the 210 head here right now, only 74 belong to us. The rest are being preconditioned for the operator. We've been buying small loads of 30 or less. Trying different things to see what works best for us. I pretty much do it alone, except in cases where my dad is able to help me when he's off from work.
45 days. Grass traps. I usually give little cattle hay with the feed for the first two weeks. The bigger cattle just feed and what grass is in the traps.
USDA stats says the Average Cattle herd in 8 in Alabama. 65% of the beef cattle in the USA are in herd of 100 or less. You're going to find out most of us are part-time in that we work 2 jobs.
I started that way. But cattle and hay are all I do now. My wife works full time, but we're both doing what we love. I'm giving this all I've got. I'd rather try it, than go through life wondering. I turn 33 this year, so nows my chance.
