Well Garvo, thanks for the kind words. I do need to say this is not quite as easy as it looks. You can NOT just turn a bunch of steers out on 40 acres of corn. It needs to be opened to them very gradually for a lot of reason some I've covered in my reply to Ben here. With your numbers there would be a lot of moving them in my type of finishing system.

But in a small to moderate scale, my system so far is a low labor and equipment system once I start to get the infrastructure (fences/lanes/corn strips/waterers/etc) figured out.

In the end you and Adam may have a more efficient system in terms of space and acres used. 

One benefit of a grazing system is they are outside. As long as they have some shelter from the wind when it gets cold my Herefords do fine outwintering. I just don't see the sickness.  They do have 2 vet visits a year although steers to be harvested in April do not get the fall shots or pour so they only get one set in May. Cows, retained heifers and bulls get 2 sets.

Mine are also all born on my place. I don't buy calves. About the only thing I am buying from now on is a good registered yearling Hereford bull every few years. My neighbor and I are also using a homegrown bull from my best cow. the combination of being homegrown, on a PM prgram and outwintering so far seems to keep them pretty healthy. (now that I've said that I will probably have a bunch of coughers tomorrow!)

I imagine things are still tough with your calves in this very cold weather. I believe it is forecast to be warmer in a few days.  Hang in there.

Jim at Dawn