Hello all. My name is Jon and I live in Northeast Nebraska. My wife and I are looking into starting a small operation on our land. We have previously been purchasing Holstein bottle calves from a dairy that my father-in-law works for. What we had been doing is buying 5-6 bottle calves at a time and raising them on his land with his facilities. He raises 250-300 steers/year, but has not been bottle feeding for about a decade. He just purchases weaned calves from local farmers and feeds them to 600-800lbs and sends them to the lot. He has been getting a good deal on feed from the dairy and uses their equipment (payloader, etc) when needed because he lives about a mile away.
This last summer we purchased a small farmstead (roughly 10 acres, 7 or so which are pasture that has been hayed for the last decade or so). We have a 45' long cement building with about a 14' overhang that is covered and fenced in for calves with a rough texture concrete floor. We are planning on buying 10 bottle calves at a time, and getting 10 more when they are weaned or nearly weaned. We don't want to bottle feed during the winter, so we are only planning on sending 40-50 to the salebarn each year. Utilizing some equipment from her old man to get started we will have about $200-225/head to get them weaned and on pasture. Hay won't be a problem for us right now, but we will be buying our grain, at least for the time being, commercially from the local farm store. We have the pasture fenced in (4 strands of red brand in July) but no divided yards at this time.
We have a pretty good idea what goes into raising Holstein bottle calves to 600ish pounds, but we are unsure what else would make us more efficient and where we need to move from here. One big difficulty for us is what to invest in the next 2 years or so. We would love to have an efficient yard set up that we see on many local farms with headgates, squeeze shoots, and divided yards, grain bins, but not sure where we should be putting our money when it comes in most efficiently. We have 1 heated cattle waterer at this time and 1 20' concrete bunk that I need to bring over from the FIL. We also have a 3/4ton and an old Ferguson TO-30 tractor (no loader). My uncle also runs an ethanol plant, and could probably get distillers grain significantly cheaper by the load than most folks.
Things that we would like to have/need to have that we don't currently posses. Stock trailer (have access to a 20 or 24' bumper pull trailer, but free use isn't going to last more than a year or 2), flatbed trailer to haul bales, gates and fencing to divide our meager pasture, grain storage, misc equipment (bottles/nipples, bander, vaccination equipment can be borrowed this season--but we are going to need our own stuff in a year or so), another waterer with underground water lines run, more feed bunks, tractor with a loader, etc, etc.
So what I am asking is how we should invest our money wisely on purchases that will make our jobs easier/more efficient/profitable right now. For example, I'd love to buy a 24' gooseneck stock trailer right now but I have access to a trailer for at least a year. I'd love to get the yards set up right now, but we will have so few cattle on pasture this year that it seems a waste to invest this spring. We do have some money to invest into the venture, but it is not limitless by any means. I'd rather have the farm income be totally separate and insulated from our regular income by making the farm venture self sufficient as quickly as possible. The farm needs to make money in order for us to justify the hassle, but we are not planning on it for income to survive on.
With the information I outlined above does anybody see anything that I should absolutely start with? I know we are eventually going to need everything/most of the things I mentioned. Anything that makes me money (or life easier) this year is better then something that makes me money 3 years from now.
Thanks for all the suggestions and I really enjoy poking around the board.
This last summer we purchased a small farmstead (roughly 10 acres, 7 or so which are pasture that has been hayed for the last decade or so). We have a 45' long cement building with about a 14' overhang that is covered and fenced in for calves with a rough texture concrete floor. We are planning on buying 10 bottle calves at a time, and getting 10 more when they are weaned or nearly weaned. We don't want to bottle feed during the winter, so we are only planning on sending 40-50 to the salebarn each year. Utilizing some equipment from her old man to get started we will have about $200-225/head to get them weaned and on pasture. Hay won't be a problem for us right now, but we will be buying our grain, at least for the time being, commercially from the local farm store. We have the pasture fenced in (4 strands of red brand in July) but no divided yards at this time.
We have a pretty good idea what goes into raising Holstein bottle calves to 600ish pounds, but we are unsure what else would make us more efficient and where we need to move from here. One big difficulty for us is what to invest in the next 2 years or so. We would love to have an efficient yard set up that we see on many local farms with headgates, squeeze shoots, and divided yards, grain bins, but not sure where we should be putting our money when it comes in most efficiently. We have 1 heated cattle waterer at this time and 1 20' concrete bunk that I need to bring over from the FIL. We also have a 3/4ton and an old Ferguson TO-30 tractor (no loader). My uncle also runs an ethanol plant, and could probably get distillers grain significantly cheaper by the load than most folks.
Things that we would like to have/need to have that we don't currently posses. Stock trailer (have access to a 20 or 24' bumper pull trailer, but free use isn't going to last more than a year or 2), flatbed trailer to haul bales, gates and fencing to divide our meager pasture, grain storage, misc equipment (bottles/nipples, bander, vaccination equipment can be borrowed this season--but we are going to need our own stuff in a year or so), another waterer with underground water lines run, more feed bunks, tractor with a loader, etc, etc.
So what I am asking is how we should invest our money wisely on purchases that will make our jobs easier/more efficient/profitable right now. For example, I'd love to buy a 24' gooseneck stock trailer right now but I have access to a trailer for at least a year. I'd love to get the yards set up right now, but we will have so few cattle on pasture this year that it seems a waste to invest this spring. We do have some money to invest into the venture, but it is not limitless by any means. I'd rather have the farm income be totally separate and insulated from our regular income by making the farm venture self sufficient as quickly as possible. The farm needs to make money in order for us to justify the hassle, but we are not planning on it for income to survive on.
With the information I outlined above does anybody see anything that I should absolutely start with? I know we are eventually going to need everything/most of the things I mentioned. Anything that makes me money (or life easier) this year is better then something that makes me money 3 years from now.
Thanks for all the suggestions and I really enjoy poking around the board.