Cost Per Day for a Cow

[snoopdog]

Cows die, calves die, or aren't thrifty , the market doesn't cooperate , or there's a drought . Looks great on paper though ! Damn the torpedoes , full ahead ! Seriously , you have to love farming and the interaction with animals , and the earth to even begin to think about profit . If money is your only motivation , best look somewhere else .

 

[WCBR1025]

Thanks everyone for the input, I'm not new to the cattle business and know that numbers work better on paper than in the pasture. I bought my first group of cows when I graduated high school in 2009 and have slowly been building a herd. It looks like I'm going to be able to rent some more pasture in the near future and I wanted to have a rough budget before I added to the herd. As far as age of cattle go I know in North Carolina we're different sometimes but around here not many cows get culled before 10 years of age unless there is an injury, for most of the cow people around me if the cow can be bred and wean a calf she's usually kept in the herd. I'm not saying that is the most profitable practice but it happens all the time here.

 

[farmerjan]

I think you have a pretty good handle on the costs etc. And since you have been doing this for nearly 10 years you know what can go wrong in most cases. Since you are not expecting to get rich over this, and have a fairly good grasp on what it takes, I say go for it and hope we see an uptick in the feeder markets in 2 years where it will show you some profits. Right now the cull cow price here has dropped to $.20 to $.35 and the very best are bringing $.40. It's bad. Feeders are in the 1.20 to 1.65 so that seems to be holding somewhat steady but we sure aren't getting rich.