Belties R Us
Active member
So I am a college student and am looking for a way to raise some additional money (through an ag venture) to help me get my American Degree. We are new to cattle so I was curious if anyone thought this was a good idea or maybe it's just crazy. Tell me what you think.
I want to raise up a couple of bottle heifer calves. I've seen them for sale but didn't know they were available. Is this rare/something wrong with them? Anyway once they were breeding age we would implant some high quality beef cattle embryos into them. Once they dropped calves we would consolidate calves of the same age onto one cow. Then the other cows could get bottle calves grafted onto them to raise up. From there we would have two options. The easier one is to get them to feeder size and haul to an auction.
Not sure this is really realistic but here goes. At some point if we got large enough, I have always found byproduct feeding very intriguing. I would attempt to feed them out as steers on a at least partial byproduct diet to help improve profit margin.
Questions I haven't figured out yet:
Why are they offering bottle heifers for sale? I thought producers retained all females.
How complicated is it to graft calves onto a cow?
How many calves could an average Holstein cow support?
Realistic timeline of raising up calves.
If this is cost effective after feeding the cows because if I understand Holsteins correctly they won't be able to be only hay fed?
Probably more but that's all I have for now. Thoughts appreciated!
I want to raise up a couple of bottle heifer calves. I've seen them for sale but didn't know they were available. Is this rare/something wrong with them? Anyway once they were breeding age we would implant some high quality beef cattle embryos into them. Once they dropped calves we would consolidate calves of the same age onto one cow. Then the other cows could get bottle calves grafted onto them to raise up. From there we would have two options. The easier one is to get them to feeder size and haul to an auction.
Not sure this is really realistic but here goes. At some point if we got large enough, I have always found byproduct feeding very intriguing. I would attempt to feed them out as steers on a at least partial byproduct diet to help improve profit margin.
Questions I haven't figured out yet:
Why are they offering bottle heifers for sale? I thought producers retained all females.
How complicated is it to graft calves onto a cow?
How many calves could an average Holstein cow support?
Realistic timeline of raising up calves.
If this is cost effective after feeding the cows because if I understand Holsteins correctly they won't be able to be only hay fed?
Probably more but that's all I have for now. Thoughts appreciated!