You don't need barns for cattle, especially in Louisiana. Read a post recently on here from somebody in Canada running cows in 40 below weather with only a windbreak. Cattle are tougher than you think.
What you DO need is shade. If you don't have any trees on your place you might want to plant some. We have some old pecan trees and it's a mighty popular place to be in the early afternoon! We let a few Chinaberry and Chinese tallow trees grow on the back pastures where they're out of the way for shade too, may plant a few more since we dozed most of em a few years back. They grow fast and are good shade, just mow around them from time to time when any little saplings get started where you don't want them. Another alternative is the little $495 carports, or building a couple little lean-to loafing sheds for shade. You don't really need a windbreak unless you're in far north LA. and could probably get by without it even there. If you do think you need a windbreak, just put tin on the north side of the aforementioned carport or loafing shed. They don't need a windbreak on the south side.
You don't need a big tractor to handle round bales. I have a hay customer with a little Ferguson tractor, like an 8N Ford. That little tractor with a homemade weight box with concrete blocks in it and a $125 TSC hay fork works just fine for 5x5 bales. Square bales have to be stored indoors and are a lot of work. Rounds are as easy as it gets. If you get 6x5 bales or really dense bales that are too heavy, a Tumblebug is the cat's meow. It's a little single axle folding trailer that can pick up and drop off round bales wherever you want them. You can use it with a pickup truck or if you wire on a toggle switch and trailer connector you can use your tractor to get into muddy areas with bales too heavy for the 3 point hitch and too muddy for the pickup. It's a handy tool to have, and they're pretty cheap. You can move your own hay from whoever you buy it from too.
Most important thing first off is the perimeter fence. I'd recommend 5 or 6 strand barbwire with an electric wire on insulators about knee high or so to keep pressure off the fence. This will cost some money. We just fenced 87 acres, be glad you only have 15! If you use steel posts don't go less than 6.5 footers and no more than about 10 feet apart or you'll regret it. TSC sells steel corner posts and H braces quite reasonably that are pretty good if set in concrete. We bought 2 point Gaucho from them too but we got a palletload and a good discount because we needed so much. Wood posts can take a lot more pressure from animals but they rot faster. Modern posts don't seem to last. The old cedar posts we used to get had a lot of heartwood. Most now don't have much of any and rot fast. Treated posts don't do much better and all wood posts have gotten REALLY high nowdays. We could buy RR ties cheaper than wood line posts!!! IMHO RR ties are the way to go if you're going to use wood posts. They'll hold up better and longer than anything else for the money. You'd do well to divide your place up into 3-4 seperate pastures if you can with crossfence. That way you can rotate pastures and the grass will do a LOT better. Crossfences can be a lot lighter than perimeter fence. Ours is 4 strand Gaucho on steel posts 15 feet apart. We laid flexible plastic waterline with a subsoiler to each patch with a trough and float valve for water.
You'll need a good set of pens. We made ours out of RR ties and cattle panels. RR ties set on 8' centers and overlapping the ends of the 16 foot cattle panels makes pretty heavy fence. You have to have a good stout pen or they'll break out when loading/working them. We use an outer pen, with a smaller crowding pen inside it so we can run calves in and seperate out the cows, then when we've sifted out what we want to sell from what we want to keep we run them from the crowding pen straight into the loading tub. It's cheaper to built your own pens than buy panels or kits in most cases. BUT build it right the first time so you don't have to do it again!
Access to good clean water is essential. If you're out in the sticks you'll need a good reliable water well, closer to town you might get city water. I'd prefer the well any day of the week because city water will cost you a fortune over the long haul. Cattle can drink 25 gallons a head per day or more so it adds up quick. Another thing to think of is providing water in case of power outages. Do you have a generator to run your electric pump in case of a hurricane or something? I've been thinking about a windmill myself as a backup.
I take it the place is in pretty good grass already. If it's poor grass totally overgrown with weeds you might have to do something with that. That's where a small tractor comes in handy. With a small 5-6 foot shredder and a small disk (TSC sells both) and maybe a whirlybird seeder you can do quite a bit. You can spend a fortune on sprigging or seeding grass if your not careful, but you can do a lot yourself with a small tractor just by mowing and spot spraying or having a neighbor do some spraying if necessary to clean up any bad stuff. You can do a little at the time too. Amazing sometimes what a little mowing and a little fertilizer will do for a place. You can go broke on fertilizer too, so be careful. Don't let anybody tell you HAVE to have Tifton 85 or whatever miracle grass of the moment happens to be. Cows will eat a LOT of different stuff and some that will surprise you! Cows don't know really know the difference or much care between $150/acre Tifton and native prairie hay when they're hungry. WE know the difference and just think the cows do. Improved grass is good, don't get me wrong, you can increase stocking capacity a lot, but it gets awfully expensive if your not careful it can eat you up.
When you have all that thought through or squared away, you're ready for some cows. I'd start with a couple or three cows and a young bull myself. I wouldn't want to bother with the work or expense of artificial insemination. I'd try to buy a few head from a local guy. You sure want gentle cows that aren't crazy, fence jumpers, stuff like that. We love our Herefords for that reason. Every Hereford bull we ever had was very gentle and never offered us any trouble, to speak of. Don't bother with registered cattle, that's a rich man's game that if you're raising a couple calves for the freezer and selling the rest as beef or at the sale barn won't matter 2 bits. I wouldn't buy more than 2-3 to start with along with a young bull and then hold heifers back to build the herd. With cattle prices as high as they are right now it's a seller's market not a buyer's market. Besides it will give you a learning curve and let you see how many cattle you can run on your place and how many you want to mess with, and if you want to make a change it's just easier. Don't let anybody tell you you gotta have the 'miracle breed' (whatever you take that to be) or whatever, because as long as it's good gentle cattle that are well adapted to your situation it'll be fine. I have a lot of guys talk about Cadillac cattle and they inevitably are a Cadillac price and need Cadillac babying and Cadillac inputs too. Being a smaller guy costs are going to be your biggest obstacle so spend your money wisely. A good steak is a good steak no matter what color the hide was over it.
Other than that, with good pasture, good water, good cows, good fences, good shade, and a good pen you should be on your way. You can spend yourself into the poorhouse really easily so be careful on what and when you spend your money on. Set your priorities logically and double check everything, especially prices. Most folks are honest but some will try to skin you, sadly. Have some fallback plans in case of drought or bad winter or high hay prices or hay shortages. You can get by without the tractor and disk and mower and seeder but it sure opens up more options for you and doesn't HAVE to cost a fortune, or be done right away. That's what I'd do... Good luck! OL JR
