Raising livestock

With the new property my wife and I purchased, we will be well positioned to raise small batchs of livestock. We are exploring options of pigs or raising feeder calfs for a nearby farm.

I'm a total novice, so some of my terminology is incorrect - bear with me.

It looks like my best options are:

1. Buy piglets and raise until they are finished (or nearly finished) - at which point a nearby farm would purchase and slaughter. I'm told this is a 6month process.

2. Buy young calfs, bottle feed, and bring up until they are approximately 500-600lb which Im told takes 5-6 months - at which point the nearby farm would purchase for their process of finishing (another 10-12months)

The local farm is highly interested in working with me on the baby calfs because they don't have the barn space to raise the young. They have their own store so they move a great deal of product. I could utilize their vet, their knowledge, and their trailer for transport.

Profits are there, but minimal. High $$ imput (I'm told the calfs are $500 each), low output but it would help me with my farm taxes.

Anyone else doing pigs or young calf?

I'm not in a position to totally finish cattle, so I like the idea of moving them out early.

 

morningwood

 

Young calf’s are not worth it in my opinion. We buy 500 or so pounders in April and slaughter around 1000 pounds near Christmas. They feed on pasture grass and spent brewery grains most of the time we have them. We only have to feed our hay the last 6-8 weeks.

 

Sister runs slaughter house but land here is expensive so costs may be high for your area.
Ok; first facts your farm has room it just uses room it has in most productive/profitable way for them to stay in business.

so young stock need shelter, feed and water at a minimum? Do you have that or need to acquire it?

 

Thanks for the replies!

I have a 34x48 well ventilated pole barn with year round water. The barn already has stalls built, but I figure I could easily add dividers to keep separations

I do not currently have any fencing setup so that's an expense.

Although I do not have a source of feed, the local feed mill is about 4min up the road.

I do have lots of good land for pasture. I have around 4 acres I could fence in for pasture, then probably another 8ac of woods I could fence in for more grazing land if needed.

I would also be interested in setting up through operation as an LLC so I can claim some of my expenses.

 

Agree 100%. There's a reason that they want you to buy them and bottle feed, all of the risk is now on you. $500 is not a ridiculous price these days but you could buy 1-day old dairy calves for $25 all day long years ago. A friend has raised a bunch that way and said about half make it, and half die. Jerseys are even worse than Holstein's from what I've heard. I'd run not walk away from that deal, not unless you can convince them to give you the calves and then they pay you to bottle feed them.

I've raised a bunch of pigs before. If it's not made out of rubber or steel, they will tear it up, and they like to eat.

 

Born2Burn in your described situation; how close is nearest independent slaughterhouse

Farming not easy
Here this is considered a micro farm; a lot depends on your location and niche market

 

Start with a couple pigs. You’ll get a feel for what you are thinking. Pigs are my favorite animal here, they’re actually a lot of fun. Your barn will hold a couple without any trouble. A small outside area, built with panels is fast, easy and cheap. They train to a hot wire fairly quick, but train the with a panel behind it. Pigs won’t naturally pull back from a hot fence they jump and plow right throw it, the panel will teach them to pull back. If you don’t have running water close a barrel with a nipple for water. Easy peasy. Go to the sale barn a few times and just watch, usually block hogs will be cheaper per pound than start to finish raising, finish/clean out for 30 days minimum and sell them off. Do not every buy a sickly pig, floppy ears(that shouldn’t be floppy), runny noses, cough, weird gate or body formation when they walk and especially stay the heck away from crusty eyes.

Absolutely avoid bottle suckers calves. We did that for some years, Holstein, Brown Swiss were the easiest but you’ll lose 30-50 percent. Jerseys eat better but take a lot longer to finish and you’ll lose easily 50-60+ percent of them. Jerseys have zero will to live once they get the least bit sickly. If you do this through cold weather, go to goodwill or a thrift store and buy every vest you can find. The vest will have to be tied on to stay in place but it will help keep them warm and keep them from freezing overnight. Crack a single raw egg in each bottle, it will help with scours and help as a filler too. Better yet, if you don’t have to bottle raise, just don’t.

Do they want you to pay $500 per calf? If they do, run. A $500 calf should be weened, vaxed, healthy and about 200-250 pounds or more. In my part of the world.

Don’t do small scale livestock for money. Save on your property taxes, and what you raise sell off to cover cost plus enough to get the next batch started and to cover your family meat for the year.

Start SLOW. Good luck.



Owl

 

Your whole post is spot on.

I saw one day old calf Angus calf for sale on Facebook for $800 a few days ago, and people were asking where they could pick it up at etc, so there is demand (which is crazy). My neighbor said she was at auction recently and day-old Holsteins were going for $500 all day long. I generally buy weaned calved and feed them out, but I've heard the prices have gone through the roof. $3lb for a weaned 300 - 400 calf seems to be about the going rate these days. It's nuts.....

Born2Burn if you need a place to buy feeder pigs from let me know. I have a friend that raises some really good ones outside of Marion.

 

Man I guess I'm behind the times down on the farm...I remember when if you got $100 for a weaned calf it was party time!

 

I would start small and cheap and make sure you like it then ramp up from there.

The worst part about raising livestock is feeding and watering. Somebody always has to be around to do it. If you want to go on vacation for a week you need someone to help out.

 

Unfortunately, those days are over. Drought in Texas caused a lot of folks to sell their herds a few years ago so cattle numbers are very low. I also believe that they still might be stopping (as they should) Mexican beef imports because of screwworm. On the Facebook cattle group I'm in, someone posted that they were selling out. 106 cows, and a bunch of calves for 265k.

 

Good Lord.

I got stupid again last year and did a dozen day old jerseys for $15 head. Weened out 5 and could only get, $350 for 6 month steers. I’ll probably get dumb again in another few years, they’re cute little boogers.



Owl

 

Baby bottle calves are surprisingly fragile. You have to recognize health issues immediately and get on it right away. A sick calf is a dead calf. And the price of milk replacer is just nuts. We don't even mess with bottle calves anymore, more economical to just buy started calves without the risk or expense. If you have never raised livestock before you better just ease into it. Get yourself some feeder lambs or goats, much more forgiving and less of a learning curve. And you might actually make enough money to break even.