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smoaky99

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I am new here and I have a few questions to ask the people that would know what they think would be a good choice. I just inherited about 500 acres from a family friend. I got with it 2 big tractors, two brush hogs, a square bailer, and round bailer, rakes, two truck, small cattle trailer and large one, three big barns on it, two places to heard cows to load em up. Pretty much everything because the friend did nothing but cows his whole life. I worked for him during summers helping him out. My questions are now that I have inherited everything is it possible to be able to live off of raising cows? I am a football coach and high school teacher right now but I would have to quite my job and move a good distance to be able to take over the land. I have always wanted to do it but my question is can it pay the bills? or would I need to go along the lines of move up there get a job and then slowly start adding cattle to it again? There were cows on it when I inherited it but I sold them because I at least have half a year teaching. Any comments will be appreciated. Thanks
 
stay in teaching until you qualify for retirement then retire to the farm and enjoy. The addition income will make life easy. I teach chemistry and coach baseball. My goal is to retire to that life style but when I am eligible to retire we will have two kids in college so I will likely have to seek another job for a few years and then head to the farm. I did not inherit a thing so it is a little harder for my wife and I but we will make it. We have had a wonderful life together because of the farm. Good luck.
 
where are you located?

how many acres are pasture and what condition?

Remember if you have to buy a bunch of cows you spend a butt load of money right now.

But, you did fall into a good setup. How much is the land worth if you sold everything?
 
If your wife has a job with benefits- you sure can. Farming is a great second job,a good retirement job and a real bad only job.

Are you attached to the farm and its location?
If not I would think about selling it all.Then buy back in; where I wanted the farm to be ;when the markets soften, and you are ready to jump in and farm full time.
Finding farm land to buy is going to stay hard. But buying grazing land is not as hard now, and could get real easy at some point in the future.
 
You would probably do well to lease it out, untill retirement. If that that several years away, you might also want to think about selling the equipment if it is going to sit idle for very long. I've been in cattle my entire life. In my opinion it would be very difficult to make a living on that acreage.
 
Another option might be to hire a part-time manager in the area. That way you can get it set up the way you want it before you move there but you still have your fingers in the pie... You'll never find someone that will treat it the way you would but you can get by for a while until you're ready to jump.
 
There's to many variables to really give you a good answer without more info. Example: where I live it takes around 3 acres to support a cow/calf unit. Depending on where your farm is you may be able to do better or worse than that.. with cattle, making money is all about maximizing your herd
 
How far from home is this place? If you worked summers for the guy why not feed steers on it during summers and sell them when school starts back up? You may have to give up coaching if it interferes with this but that's a choice your going to have to make. If its not too far from home I would try and run cows on it as-is. If you still. Have the money from selling his cows that would get you some steers for a start. If nothing else bale the whole thing and sell hay until you decide.
A lot depends on the lifestyle you want to live. You could make a living but it wouldn't be as much as you make now probably. Depends if you have cows paid for or not. If all cows are paid for that would help but if your borrowing against everything on a whim I wouldn't risk it. That's a choice you'll have to make on your own, live poor or be a teacher
 
If the land is open enough and you know enough about farming, you could very easy live off that, you would need to have enough money to buy enough cattle to make it work. Where are you located? I know if i had your job to go to everyday and i got all this for free i would NEVER think of going back to that job again, i would buy cows for the land and spend all my time working toward having the best cattle i could and make the land as nice as posible. You are a VERY lucky person and i hope you decide to pay the bills with cows, because it sounds like you can.
 
The 500 is mostly pasture some about 6 good size ponds on it. It's definitely getting cut for hay to sell. It's located in southwestern arkansas. I do not have a wife or kids. The land has attached to it about 487 acres of prime hunting land I've grown up hunting on it since I was 8. I also inherited it with the 500 acres of cow land. If I knew I could make a living off of it I'd quit coaching today and move there there's just to much I don't know about to just take a risk without finding out if its possible.
 
Find someone to lease it from you, there are guys out there with cows that are looking for pasture land like this
 
It is possible but your gonna need $$$$ for a start up and some big brass ones to get you threw the tough times. KEEP IT SIMPLE don't hire out anything you can do yourself .You did good askin here these are good honest people (sometimes too honest) but listen to them . :welcome: and good luck
 
smoaky99":2b1sk0cs said:
I am new here and I have a few questions to ask the people that would know what they think would be a good choice. I just inherited about 500 acres from a family friend. I got with it 2 big tractors, two brush hogs, a square bailer, and round bailer, rakes, two truck, small cattle trailer and large one, three big barns on it, two places to heard cows to load em up. Pretty much everything because the friend did nothing but cows his whole life. I worked for him during summers helping him out. My questions are now that I have inherited everything is it possible to be able to live off of raising cows? I am a football coach and high school teacher right now but I would have to quite my job and move a good distance to be able to take over the land. I have always wanted to do it but my question is can it pay the bills? or would I need to go along the lines of move up there get a job and then slowly start adding cattle to it again? There were cows on it when I inherited it but I sold them because I at least have half a year teaching. Any comments will be appreciated. Thanks

Sorry for your loss of a good friend - and congrats on the gift you are now responsible for - you have been entrusted for a reason and therefore must look after it.

First - go slow!

As previously stated - can you - well, yes you can - however - are you truly ready, able and willing to do the work? It is not easy. Otherwise everyone would be doing it - and it is very easy to pizz it all away.

The costs are still sunstantial to get up and running - you are not going to do this on 50 cows!

You have to put stock out there to get a return and in all honesty it is something that you probably do not know enough about yet - even if you did "help" - it is a business and you probably did not get involved to the extent you think you did.

So again - go slow or it can disappear in a puff of smoke.

Lease the land out. There are naysayers here, but there are good people who will look after your land. I have leased a portion of our place and it is working out fine - so it can be done.

That revenue stream pays taxes and bills - which is a good thing.

Get that teachers pension. You have no wife and no kids. Therefore no needless expenses! LOL

That pension plus the lease might just make you a gentleman farmer who can do as he sees fit while someone else does the hard lifting.

In the end you do not say what you would REALLY like to do only that you THINK you might like to do this.

Go for it - but go slow and have a separate income to shield you from all the expenses that will come up - expenses that you had no idea even existed!

So - lease first - get the pension - grow slow and have fun.

Otherwise - and I mean this - there is a good chance it will turn you inside out and it will all blow away.

Just my two cents

Bez
 
I have been thinking about this and it might vary a little from here to where you are, but this is what i would do to make more than enough money to pay the bills and live on if i was in you situation. And this is assuming you have or have a decent part of enough money to but the cattle for the place, and live for about a year. I would buy 120 black, hereford, or char cross cows probably some of all, buy them in the 2nd and 3rd stage, and then breed back to brangus and horned hereford bulls, and i would have them in 4 or 6 herds, and wean the calves at 7 months. this sould take about 360 of you 500 acres maybe more or less, you could have 60 acres in 5 acre pieces, then after weaning the calves at about 7 months you could run them on the grass and feed 3 to 5 pounds a day for about 5 months and then they will be around 850lbs that's when i would sell. This way i would want half calving in the spring and half in the fall so you could run 1 calf per acre when feeding, depends on you setup and your grass some people can run 2000lbs per acre in situations like this but 1 calf per acre is a safe guess. Then you would have 80 acres left to bale hay on. around here even if it is not the best ground that would be plenty to make enough hay for 120 cows and the 60 yearlings that you would be feeding thru winter, and in most years give you some hay for the summer if there was a drought. I don't know if any of this is anything you can do but if you could or could get close to it, you would be in good shape, i know i could live off this kind of operation, i get along with less just fine.
 
smoaky99":h00wjz23 said:
The 500 is mostly pasture some about 6 good size ponds on it. It's definitely getting cut for hay to sell. It's located in southwestern arkansas. I do not have a wife or kids. The land has attached to it about 487 acres of prime hunting land I've grown up hunting on it since I was 8. I also inherited it with the 500 acres of cow land. If I knew I could make a living off of it I'd quit coaching today and move there there's just to much I don't know about to just take a risk without finding out if its possible.

If you're under 30, I've got a sweet niece who'd like to be introduced!

Look for jobs in the area, then move. Work your way into the cows without getting into debt. Sell excess hay until the cows need all of it. You'll be hard-pressed to make a living from cattle like you can from teaching. But, I know a lot of teachers that have some cattle as a side interest.
 
I have been a this for about 10 years, and still have a day job. I would lease it out for a while and have the person pay part of the rent in heifers. You could build your herd this way and pay the taxes on the place. If you have the summers off you could go up during the summer and work around the place and cut some hay for extra money and to feed your livestock. I wouldn't jump into full bore right now, because of the high buy in prices for cattle. A few years ago I would have said get a loan through Farm Credit and give it a go and you could have turned a profit. Also you could look at hunting leases on the property too. Some of these guys can help out immensely if you need them to. Good luck and this is just my opinion.
 
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