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south central IOWA | I understand the hobby thing. With 20 acres I don't see it working with much more than 6 or 7 cows if you want to keep them in decent shape all year. Unless you plan on supplementing them with something and then that cuts into your bottom line. You'll already have to buy 30 to 35 bales for the winter at what $60 apiece? That adds up.
Stick with one color. You're already at a disadvantage if you take a few head of calves to the salebarn to sell let alone having them be all mixed and matched on colors. With these high feeder calf prices right now I am seeing a lot of the old tricks being more prone to happening. Just sold my heifer calves, all black except for the 2 biggest ones which were red. Sorted and discounted them by about $.40/lb. That's just not right but what can a guy do about it?
The freezer beef thing might not be a bad option for you if you want to pursue that route with just a few head. A little more work but with the right customers it might work out well. A local steakhouse told me once that they buy from 3 local feedlots. Sounds kind of impressive on their side of the story but what they didn't say was that maybe those 3 feedlots only added up to 30 head total for the 3.
Is there ever a good time to get into the cattle business? Just the other day Dad and I were talking about seeding down all of our crop ground to pasture and filling the place up with cattle. You never know, with how volatile the grain market is now and the price of cattle along with the country's cattle numbers, it might be the thing to do. The neighbors would think we were nuts!!!............until we were cutting the fat hog............ :-)
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Introduction and seeking input
