New opportunity

[braiot]

Hi all, great site, lots of very useful info here. I'm been spending the last few weeks reading, reading and more reading. Also getting a handle on all you characters out there. ;-)

I'm in the process of buying a quarter section of land. Approx 15 acres treed, 25 acres pasture and 120 acres currently seeded with canola.

Money is tight and the first order of business will be building my house in the treed area. I'll be moving a trailer on right away and building the house in my 'spare' :lol: time.

I had planned on getting some livestock come spring time, that should give me some time to get some facilities up.
I was initially leaning toward getting cattle and still am. But I've been throwing ideas of bison, elk or deer around too.
The problem with those are the high start up costs and I'm stretching myself thin as is.

I guess the question I'm asking is what would you folks do in my situation? I know this is a cattle forum and I expect a heavy bias in favor of cattle but it doesn't hurt to ask I guess.

No matter which way I go I've got a steep learning curve ahead of me. I'm no stranger to work or challenges though and not afraid to admit that this is all over my head at the moment.

I'm very excited (and scared sh*tless) about the whole prospect. This is a life changing event for me and my family. I grew up on a small acreage and spent lots of time on both of my grandparents and uncles cattle farms. The last 9 years I've spent in Calgary and area, going to college, starting my family and career. Have a girl, a boy and another girl due in 2 weeks.
But I've never felt truely comfortable here in all the hustle and bustle. It's got to the point that I can't stand it anymore. I'll still be doing the same work I am now and farming on the side. But as time goes on I hope to do less and less work off the farm. Time will tell.

Well that's me in a nutshell, thanks for your time.

 

[3MR]

No opinion on what to do, but something to consider as far as elk is the required high fence on the perimeter. Elk and Bison are also a niche market.

 

[Lammie]

Yea, you would have to build one of those fences that hold exotics and they are really expensive. That alone would prohibit us from doing something like that.

 

[braiot]

Yea, cost for the fences would be a killer. That's the main reason I'm leaning towards cattle.
I'd need to do some more research on bison and crunch some numbers to see if it would worthwhile.

 

[Saltydawg]

There is a Bison farm near me and the fences they have make you think they are guarding nuclear missiles or something :lol: .

A lot of Bison folks went belly up quite a few years ago after the novelty wore off and demand for the product fell out.

I havent seriously looked into it but from what I know it is much riskier than cattle and the returns really arent that much greater to accept the risk IMO.

 

[Cowboy15]

Well my uncle's father in law has elk and other weird deer but anyways we would so time go riding out there and the elk would just tear up everthing. Good luck go with cattle.
Sam

 

[lukem86]

just a couple of thoughts... i too have just gotten started in the past couple of years.... a couple of things I would do, still may do differently.....

I bought a couple of young heifers (just weaned) right away, and i wish i had bought what I think they refer to as 3 in 1s... A cow with calf at her side, and re-bred. Would have speeded up the process a little bit.

It boils down to getting the fixed costs spread over as much as possible (or thats the way I think about it)

I have money invested in a fenced area for a lot more animals than I currently own, (im out of money to buy cattle because its all tied up in fixed things) would like to find someone in the area to work with on custom grazing. I like this idea because it takes away some of the risk of owning the cattle, and you have the flexibility of stocking and de-stocking when the forage growth is there or when it starts to taper off.

just some thoughts

 

[showkid1200]

I would have to go with cattle. elk and bison would be a hassle with the fencing and all. You would need to go buy 2 to three heifers rainging from 2 to 3 years old and then you can either buy a herd bull or choose to AI(artificially inseminate) the heifers. The semen averages at about 20 bucks a straw and then you'd have to pay the ai technician. The reason i say you might want to ai first is because you may not want to pay that much for a herd bull that will give you quality calves. After you AI them you would end up with some nice bull calfs or heifers which you could sell or keep. And who know if you end up getting a nice bull calf you could have saved yourself a ton of money. To look more at some bulls in the AI program go to topsires.com and check it out

 

[backhoeboogie]

Cattle. Fencing for cattle is common, and easily attained. Specialty items are expensive.

Cattle. Medications and information is readily available at all feed stores.

Cattle. There will always be a market for it since folks like to eat a good steak and are commonly familiar with it.

Four years ago I saw some young bison go through a sale barn. Surprisingly they brought next to nothing. No one there was interested in buying. I half expected someone there to PO them. They were not PO'd. If they would have been worth something, someone would have bought them and sold them elsewhere.

 

[warpaint]

All good advice, and welcome to the boards! ;-)

 

[braiot]

Thanks for the replies, I just thought I would toss this idea around here to see what you folks thought.

I'm 99% sure that I'll stick with cattle, but that's a long way off so who knows. I hit a speedbump in the negotiations for the quarter I wanted. It's unfortunate, but this dream will happen in the near future.

 

[IluvABbeef]

Go with the type (cattle, elk, bison...) that you are most familiar with.

I don;t really know much about elk, other than their raised for their velvet and less often meat.

I'm a little more familiar with bison, since I went to visit a bison farm this spring and learned quite a bit.

Yes, bison doesn't fetch much of a market price, and getting and setting up the facilities you would need does cost more money than what you would with cattle.

I'm not saying go with bison, but I'm just saying that bison is a VERY different animal than cattle, and you'd have to adopt a totally new technique of handling them, among other things.

And I heard somewheres that one rancher that did raise bison got pretty bored because there wasn't much to do.

So if I were you, I'd go with cattle. You'd get more money off of them and it won't cost much to get started.

My $0.02.

 

[IluvABbeef]

Oh yeah, and welcome to the boards! And good luck to ya!

 

[mnmtranching]

Welcome, There are poeple around here that just about can't give away Bison or Elk. So much better going with cattle. But do what you have to do.

mnmt