Per acre land price in your area?

Help Support CattleToday:

u4411clb said:
Bought 36 acres 7 years ago for approximately 5,000 an acre. Have had several people stop buy while I am out in the field offering up to 35,000 an acre now. Dad bought 42 acres approximately 15 years ago farther from the city about 3,000 an acre and he sold last year for 25,000 an acre. Land in Madison County is nearly impossible to buy now adays. Definitely not for farming. Still have home place that will kill me to see it go eventually.
Click to expand...
Sold mine in Harvest 12K per acre in 2006
 
Most recent land that sold here for farming went for $17,000/a. CRAZY! Large multi-generational farmer bought it, was already renting it, wanted to keep it bad, and the next door large farmer wanted it too. All other bidders got scared out at $12,000. 80 acres, good CER completely flat and tiled corn and bean ground, no near-term (normal lifetime) potential for development or houses. SE Minnesota.

How will any new blood ever be able to dip their toe in the water?
 
RDFF said:
Most recent land that sold here for farming went for $17,000/a. CRAZY! Large multi-generational farmer bought it, was already renting it, wanted to keep it bad, and the next door large farmer wanted it too. All other bidders got scared out at $12,000. 80 acres, good CER completely flat and tiled corn and bean ground, no near-term (normal lifetime) potential for development or houses. SE Minnesota.

How will any new blood ever be able to dip their toe in the water?
Click to expand...
Well, my kids will pay the bill and their kids will pay the bill when they buy the end product throughout the future.
 
Isn't it crazy how big and different this country/area is? I'm standing in a place where 3 acres to the cow will work, I come from a place where 2 acres will work, last week I was in a place last week where 6-10 will work, and Dave I reckon y'all are in a place where, what... maybe like 30 or 50 will work?
 
50/50Farms said:
Isn't it crazy how big and different this country/area is? I'm standing in a place where 3 acres to the cow will work, I come from a place where 2 acres will work, last week I was in a place last week where 6-10 will work, and Dave I reckon y'all are in a place where, what... maybe like 30 or 50 will work?
Click to expand...
Places in the west that are mostly federally owned vary greatly. Some ranges may be 5-10 acres per animal unit month (AUM) to 30+ acres per AUM. An AUM is the amount t of forage to pasture a 1,000 cow and her calf for a month (1200-1300# cows may eat a little more). Most places run on federal land (usually mixed in with private land and state land commingled and fenced in common) in the summer and on private land in the winter. I have some relatives who own most of their summer pastures on a low mountain range and run on federal land on the desert in the winter. Every area is a little different depending on conditions, climate, land ownership patterns, etc.
 
RDFF said:
Most recent land that sold here for farming went for $17,000/a. CRAZY! Large multi-generational farmer bought it, was already renting it, wanted to keep it bad, and the next door large farmer wanted it too. All other bidders got scared out at $12,000. 80 acres, good CER completely flat and tiled corn and bean ground, no near-term (normal lifetime) potential for development or houses. SE Minnesota.

How will any new blood ever be able to dip their toe in the water?
Click to expand...
Exactly. IS folks need to check out how Asia went with property prices and what that did to their communities. It doesn't make for positive, forward looking young people to do things this way. Front loading returns is not the way to go IMO, but probably not going to change.
 
GoWyo said:
An AUM is the amount t of forage to pasture a 1,000 cow and her calf for a month (1200-1300# cows may eat a little more).
Click to expand...
Tracking on that one, just didn't feel like using the technical nomenclature since everyone here just says "Oh we run about *insert number* to the cow/cow-calf pair"

But definitely interested in hearing more about how that determines it for you. I have only ever heard big numbers for out there with 12/15 acres being the smallest I've heard. Do y'all pretty much only manage it on 5-10 acres in the spring or summer?
 
If an acre of rangeland can produce 200# of forage and the permittee can utilize 50% of the forage under the permit terms and conditions, that means 100# of forage is available. If a cow needs 900# of forage per month (30# x 30 days), then it would require 9 acres to provide 1 AUM. Some ranges produce better and some a lot less. Then there are little meadows, rock piles, steep slopes, etc. that factor in for determining the productivity of a pasture. BLM will establish "key areas" for monitoring utilization of "key species" of forage. Usually if one or more key areas hit the limit of use, have to move to the next pasture or off the allotment of there are no more pastures to move to. The game is to discourage livestock use on key areas in order to get full use of the pasture. Key areas are often set in places livestock tend to want to be, so management can be tricky and then sometimes disagreements result between the ranchers and the federales. Add in extra stipulations for threatened or endangered species, riparian area use restrictions, recreationists, environmental groups who want to ban livestock, plus predator reintroductions and it gets real fun.
 
GoWyo said:
If an acre of rangeland can produce 200# of forage and the permittee can utilize 50% of the forage under the permit terms and conditions, that means 100# of forage is available. If a cow needs 900# of forage per month (30# x 30 days), then it would require 9 acres to provide 1 AUM. Some ranges produce better and some a lot less. Then there are little meadows, rock piles, steep slopes, etc. that factor in for determining the productivity of a pasture. BLM will establish "key areas" for monitoring utilization of "key species" of forage. Usually if one or more key areas hit the limit of use, have to move to the next pasture or off the allotment of there are no more pastures to move to. The game is to discourage livestock use on key areas in order to get full use of the pasture. Key areas are often set in places livestock tend to want to be, so management can be tricky and then sometimes disagreements result between the ranchers and the federales. Add in extra stipulations for threatened or endangered species, riparian area use restrictions, recreationists, environmental groups who want to ban livestock, plus predator reintroductions and it gets real fun.
Click to expand...
So, if they tell you that your usage of that land is up, you have to move them "time now" or is it just when you can or what? Sounds like it would kind of be a pain to have to just up and move them. Do you guys keep a home range that can support your whole herd just in case and primarily use BLM land to keep pressure off of your range? If I'm asking too many questions then just let me know. I only know, outside of here, a few ranchers up your way and cows are not what they want to talk about when they have time to talk.
 
Every ranch is different. But on federal permits, you may own 20% of the land acres within an allotment that produces 50% of the feed. The reason those acres are private is because someone homesteaded them. However, there are several parcels of private land and they generally are on the creeks, springs and meadows that at some point in history (late 1800s to early 1900s) supported a homestead. That is why the private land may contribute more forage on a per acre basis than the federal land. It isn't cost effective to fence the private parcels and if a lot of the water sources are on private, it just needs to be managed in common with the federal land. If whatever use limits the feds set are met, then have to move off the pasture even though you might to use the private land more. If the allotment allowable utilization is met cows have to be moved off federal ground. They then go home, to a different allotment, to a private lease or whatever the ranch has available. In the western valleys, the home ranch land usually irrigates and puts up hay. When cows come home they go out on meadows that were hayed or maybe federal allotments close to home, or whatever is available to sustain the herd through calving and do it all again. Some outfits have to truck to their summer ranges, which may be 30 or 100 miles away from the home place. Other ranches are lucky enough to open a gate and be on their summer ranges. Some of the big sheep outfits are based out of Northwest Colorado or southwest Wyoming and will winter sheep on the desert and lamb there, then trail 100+ miles across several BLM allotments to Forest Service allotments in the mountains to summer, then wean in the fall and trail back to the desert. Many of the old sheep outfits have converted to cattle, so they hold AUM rights across all the allotments they used to trail across, but managing cattle doesn't work the same way, so there will be exchanges of use with other permitted to try and balance it out. The history of the ranches that are heavily dependent on federal land is pretty interesting in some cases.
 
GoWyo said:
Every ranch is different. But on federal permits, you may own 20% of the land acres within an allotment that produces 50% of the feed. The reason those acres are private is because someone homesteaded them. However, there are several parcels of private land and they generally are on the creeks, springs and meadows that at some point in history (late 1800s to early 1900s) supported a homestead. That is why the private land may contribute more forage on a per acre basis than the federal land. It isn't cost effective to fence the private parcels and if a lot of the water sources are on private, it just needs to be managed in common with the federal land. If whatever use limits the feds set are met, then have to move off the pasture even though you might to use the private land more. If the allotment allowable utilization is met cows have to be moved off federal ground. They then go home, to a different allotment, to a private lease or whatever the ranch has available. In the western valleys, the home ranch land usually irrigates and puts up hay. When cows come home they go out on meadows that were hayed or maybe federal allotments close to home, or whatever is available to sustain the herd through calving and do it all again. Some outfits have to truck to their summer ranges, which may be 30 or 100 miles away from the home place. Other ranches are lucky enough to open a gate and be on their summer ranges. Some of the big sheep outfits are based out of Northwest Colorado or southwest Wyoming and will winter sheep on the desert and lamb there, then trail 100+ miles across several BLM allotments to Forest Service allotments in the mountains to summer, then wean in the fall and trail back to the desert. Many of the old sheep outfits have converted to cattle, so they hold AUM rights across all the allotments they used to trail across, but managing cattle doesn't work the same way, so there will be exchanges of use with other permitted to try and balance it out. The history of the ranches that are heavily dependent on federal land is pretty interesting in some cases.
Click to expand...
Huh. Thanks for the rundown on it. Yeah, I read about a sheep outfit that trails 'em so far that they have an RV and kitchen setup in tow. Crazy to think about for a guy who's mainly been in the south and on the southern part of the western range. I guess that's the price to be paid though. I personally think more NF and gov land east of the MS river should be opened up to grazing contracts, I've been in places where the forage was too thick for 1,000 deer to ever eat it down and where homesteads used to be.
 

Similar threads

S
2.5 cows per acre
2
Replies
27
Views
2K
crossbreed
crossbreed
B
New land
Replies
11
Views
895
cowman82
C
C
Ideas for making a drainage area useful???
Replies
10
Views
484
bird dog
B
K
The last half acre
2
Replies
27
Views
2K
dave_shelby
D
O
Pivot Irrigation. How much water per pass?
Replies
3
Views
573
Otha
O

Latest posts

Top