BrokeFarmerJohn
Member
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2016
- Messages
- 6
- Reaction score
- 0
Hey everyone,
First off I'm new to cattle and I'm new to this site, I have been looking for basic answers and I can't really seem to find what I'm looking for so I figured I would ask on a forum all about cattle lol.
So before I ask questions I will tell you my situation. Im bought a house with a small fenced in pasture (fraction of an acre) along with 3 stalls on a barn, story goes is dude before me used temp electric fence for more pasture beyond the sturdy steel poll fence. He had two horses. I was scrolling craigslist when I saw an add for a jersey steer for $300, he was 10 months old, so I figured why not. I didn't have a livestock trailer, ended up using my dads 4x6 trailer that had 4ft lumber all around, I bought a horse stall rubber mat on my way to this guys house to put in the trailer for traction. Surprisingly it worked very well to transport him, I unloaded him in my fenced in area and set up a 40 gal waterer I already had in the barn.
I was excited, I had a steer! Lol. A few weeks later saw another posting on CL for two more cattle at a good price, this time a bull calf and steer, long story short I bought those two lol. There 50% jersey and 50% beef (angus and brama). So now I have 3 bovine in a lot that's less then half an acre lol but 3ft tall grass for them to eat while I came up with a plan lol. A very long story in a two week period I ran over 400ft of chainlink (outside a full time job) I bought off craigslist and T-Post I got from rural King, hand pounded each 8ft Tpost down 2ft, then stretched my chainlink with a lawn mower and spoiler alert, the cows now have 1-1.5 acre of pasture. I was gonna do electric with the chainlink (4ft) but decided not to being the cows didn't test the fence and it saves me like $600.
Fast forward to today and save more time, my cattle are mostly fly free now (fly traps, back rub), have more pasture with salt and mineral blocks, get a scoop of corn every few days and hay more recently cause no rain for 3 weeks at 90+ temps and a shiny new 100g waterer under the gutter on the barn, I have no water for them back there and hual it from the house every two days via 5gal buckets. I can tell you 3 cattle drink 20-45 gals of water on a hot day lmao.
Alright so I had a vet look at my cattle and she said there all healthy looking animals and are very healthy weights for there age. 13 month old jersey steer(650-700lb), 13ish month old jersey steer cross (750ish lb)and a 8 month old cross bull calf (375-400lb). That's all a guess from me and the vet, she actually guessed higher then I thought they would weigh. I read about the weight tape earlier which I will look into. So now to the questions.
1. How much hay will I need to survive an Ohio winter of let's say 3-4 months or however long they eat hay for.
2. Am I better off keeping them threw the winter or selling the bigger two before snow, they will be around 16-17 months old by then, I have $300 in each so I could make money on them tomorrow if I wanted but I want to get the biggest return for my fence and supplies as I can, if that's investing in a grain and hay diet to get a larger gain with the end product I will do that but would rather not do the trial and error when we're talking about losing my ass and doubling my money ext.
3. The bull calf, keep him as a breeder or chop chop and use only for meat, side note my neighbor has a Hereford bull I can breed any heifers I get with but he's in his 80s and I don't want to rely on him.
4. I plan to finish my cows, I heard barley is a good thing to use with jerseys and I heard a guy getting barly from a brewery after they boil it, ever heard of something like that? Good idea or not?
5. I need someone to point me in more of a my case scenario direction to what I need to get these cattle to gain at the best rate and end with a quality product without the trial and error, I'm not wanting to throw money at a cow blindly hoping for a quality and efficient product.
I started out just wanting a calf to raise for meat, now it's more of a hobby that I want to pay for itself and I fill my freezer full of meat that I have little to no money in with a fence paid for by cattle profits ext. being I max out at 2-3 cows I have to get efficient real quick, I'm happy with progress so far but I'm lacking the end game for these bovine.
After I get rid of current cattle I plan to invest in quality beef heifers, was talking to a guy with belted Galloway cattle, heritage breed, anyway, having two breeding heifers, let them raise the calf till its on grain and raise the calves to eat or sell. I feel that would suit me best, I'm not a fan of buying random cows to raise like I did this time, I like my cattle a lot and there healthy but I feel I got lucky they weren't carriers of anything or got sick off each other or the neighbors cows that share a fence.
I apologize for the length of the post but my cattle are something I put a lot of thought into and with so many diff ways I can go from here, picking the brains of a few experienced cattle ranchers would be my best and next move so here I am lol.
First off I'm new to cattle and I'm new to this site, I have been looking for basic answers and I can't really seem to find what I'm looking for so I figured I would ask on a forum all about cattle lol.
So before I ask questions I will tell you my situation. Im bought a house with a small fenced in pasture (fraction of an acre) along with 3 stalls on a barn, story goes is dude before me used temp electric fence for more pasture beyond the sturdy steel poll fence. He had two horses. I was scrolling craigslist when I saw an add for a jersey steer for $300, he was 10 months old, so I figured why not. I didn't have a livestock trailer, ended up using my dads 4x6 trailer that had 4ft lumber all around, I bought a horse stall rubber mat on my way to this guys house to put in the trailer for traction. Surprisingly it worked very well to transport him, I unloaded him in my fenced in area and set up a 40 gal waterer I already had in the barn.
I was excited, I had a steer! Lol. A few weeks later saw another posting on CL for two more cattle at a good price, this time a bull calf and steer, long story short I bought those two lol. There 50% jersey and 50% beef (angus and brama). So now I have 3 bovine in a lot that's less then half an acre lol but 3ft tall grass for them to eat while I came up with a plan lol. A very long story in a two week period I ran over 400ft of chainlink (outside a full time job) I bought off craigslist and T-Post I got from rural King, hand pounded each 8ft Tpost down 2ft, then stretched my chainlink with a lawn mower and spoiler alert, the cows now have 1-1.5 acre of pasture. I was gonna do electric with the chainlink (4ft) but decided not to being the cows didn't test the fence and it saves me like $600.
Fast forward to today and save more time, my cattle are mostly fly free now (fly traps, back rub), have more pasture with salt and mineral blocks, get a scoop of corn every few days and hay more recently cause no rain for 3 weeks at 90+ temps and a shiny new 100g waterer under the gutter on the barn, I have no water for them back there and hual it from the house every two days via 5gal buckets. I can tell you 3 cattle drink 20-45 gals of water on a hot day lmao.
Alright so I had a vet look at my cattle and she said there all healthy looking animals and are very healthy weights for there age. 13 month old jersey steer(650-700lb), 13ish month old jersey steer cross (750ish lb)and a 8 month old cross bull calf (375-400lb). That's all a guess from me and the vet, she actually guessed higher then I thought they would weigh. I read about the weight tape earlier which I will look into. So now to the questions.
1. How much hay will I need to survive an Ohio winter of let's say 3-4 months or however long they eat hay for.
2. Am I better off keeping them threw the winter or selling the bigger two before snow, they will be around 16-17 months old by then, I have $300 in each so I could make money on them tomorrow if I wanted but I want to get the biggest return for my fence and supplies as I can, if that's investing in a grain and hay diet to get a larger gain with the end product I will do that but would rather not do the trial and error when we're talking about losing my ass and doubling my money ext.
3. The bull calf, keep him as a breeder or chop chop and use only for meat, side note my neighbor has a Hereford bull I can breed any heifers I get with but he's in his 80s and I don't want to rely on him.
4. I plan to finish my cows, I heard barley is a good thing to use with jerseys and I heard a guy getting barly from a brewery after they boil it, ever heard of something like that? Good idea or not?
5. I need someone to point me in more of a my case scenario direction to what I need to get these cattle to gain at the best rate and end with a quality product without the trial and error, I'm not wanting to throw money at a cow blindly hoping for a quality and efficient product.
I started out just wanting a calf to raise for meat, now it's more of a hobby that I want to pay for itself and I fill my freezer full of meat that I have little to no money in with a fence paid for by cattle profits ext. being I max out at 2-3 cows I have to get efficient real quick, I'm happy with progress so far but I'm lacking the end game for these bovine.
After I get rid of current cattle I plan to invest in quality beef heifers, was talking to a guy with belted Galloway cattle, heritage breed, anyway, having two breeding heifers, let them raise the calf till its on grain and raise the calves to eat or sell. I feel that would suit me best, I'm not a fan of buying random cows to raise like I did this time, I like my cattle a lot and there healthy but I feel I got lucky they weren't carriers of anything or got sick off each other or the neighbors cows that share a fence.
I apologize for the length of the post but my cattle are something I put a lot of thought into and with so many diff ways I can go from here, picking the brains of a few experienced cattle ranchers would be my best and next move so here I am lol.
not the bull lol. You people are so formal on this site lol
