I didn’t want to step on the thread about the cows so I started my own. I have always had an interest in raising some cows in a small pasture much as described in the other thread. I can’t help but wonder how much food on a 60 acre pasture would be trampled by 6 cows as opposed to how much they would actually eat? Would the labor saved by not mowing and feeding be worth the loss? They would have quite a bit of space but being in there every day seems like it would eventually wear the pasture out.
Apparently, the rule-of-thumb (warning - USDA PDF) is 1.5 acres per cow/calf pair. So, without a calf you can presumably drop that down to maybe one acre per animal?
I have no idea why I’m intrigued by raising cows, but here isanother page from a woman who apparently actually has a small herd of dairy cows.
Growing up there was a guy raising Black Angus cattle right down the street. There were maybe a dozen head grazing most days on at most 10 acres of land. I assume they had other feed because they weren’t out in the worst weather. My point here is that the land on that farm looked fantastic, not like it was trampled at all, and lush green grass growing there. That’s probably because the process that starts with grazing ends with fertilizing the ground. Cattle move slowly also, their hoof marks may be aerating the soil. So I don’t know how well you can do with them only grazing for food, but you shouldn’t worry about 60 acres being trampled by 6 cows.
60 acres is big. Never seen a pasture that big. Assuming you have a house, outbuildings a barn and pond for water (you could have deep wells). You’ll need a hay field which needs heavy equipment (tractor and accoutrement) you’ll need polebarns for that and the hay.
Tree lot, feed lot. A small corral for… well corraling the cattle for vet visits and treatment like polling and vaccinations. Oh, get a good Vet service on retainer.
So far your 60 acres is now shrunk to about 30. And you haven’t got fences for the pasture up yet. You’ll needs lots and lots of barbed wire and poles.
Free fertlizer is a plus.
This why beck doesn’t have livestock.
Just buy the hay, if it’s a hobby herd…
Pasture rotation can help minimize wear on the land, but with 60 acres you should be fine. In fact, I’d suggest reducing that or you’ll have trouble finding your beasts.
60 acres is a lot of land. Way more than six cows would use. It’s so much that if you turn cows out there alone they won’t keep up with vegetative growth and the land will eventually go to seed and brush without further management (ie, brush hogging or haying it). If it were me, I would take about 15 acres for pasture land with heavy barbed wire or high tensile electric around the perimeter and divide it into acre paddocks with temporary single strand electric, rotating the animals through the paddocks every other day. Probably at the end of the summer cut whatever useless weeds like burdocks or goldenrod showed up. I would use the remainder for hay. You could invest in equipment and cut/bale it yourself, and sell what the cows don’t eat, or you could rent it to a larger farmer and take your rent in terms of a cut of the product. I like driving big machines, so I would do the first option, but the second is definitely the easier one.
I suggest, if you are really interested in raising cattle on pasture, that you invest in a subscription to The Stockman Grass Farmer magazine. It is based on the premise that the land grows the grass, and the grass grows the cows. The farmer’s job is to help the land grow grass. This is a venerable, serious publication with a great deal of information in it (they also publish a lot of booklets and books).
Caldris bal Comar has concisely summed up many of the issues you will contend with, depending on your climate.
The USDA Animal Unit (a cow/calf pair) per acre is totally dependent on climate, soil, and management. It is a fluid, not a hard and fast, measurement. In Iowa an AU might be two acres, in Nevada, fifty acres.
Or better yet, divide the 60 acres into a small (15-20 acre plot for the cattle) and a larger, rented space. Find a local farmer willing to plant alfalfa and charge a quarter of the harvest as rent.
ETA: ninja’d by Caldris
Chiming in that 60 acres would be quite enough for 6 cows. My mom used to own a farm and I asked her how many acres it was and she said it was at least 40: we never kept cows on it but she did sell half of it and the owners had a couple horses on it that had plenty of space and the grass was always high.
So I just looked at it via Google Maps and there is no way it was 40 acres. The total pastureland was closer to 4 than 40. So 60 would be quite big enough for 6 cows.
I read of a guy who owned a hobby farm and decided to raise Charolais instead of Black Angus like all of his ‘real farm’ neighbors. When asked why, he replied his city job made him arrive home after dark, and he like to count 'em.
This.
And I don’t expect that a whole state will necessarily be in the same situation.
Go talk to your local Cooperative Extension (presuming you’re in the USA.) They can tell you, for your precise location, what area an animal unit is.
And seconding some others that (depending on the answer to that question) you’re probably going to want to divide the pasture and graze one section at a time, for best health of both the livestock and the pasture; and probably keep some of it for hay production.
Not something I have ever been really serious about just in passing daydreams I often think about farming type lifestyles. At my current age I don’t even entertain the idea anymore.
Head per acre is the key.
An example of overdoing it: My uncle stopped driving by his grandfather’s old ranch because the company that owned it would bring in truckloads of cattle from their summer ranges to over winter there. They’d bring in hay to feed them. Turned the placed into a large mud/manure mess without a blade of grass.
Well before you get to such a ridiculous disaster the main issue will be overgrazing rather than hoof damage.
Ah.
In that case you could try searching for “animal unit” for your state. In most of the Northeast it’s going to be in the range of a couple of acres; but can be much more in dryer areas.
– the average age of farmers in the USA is now close to 60. Quite a few are over 65.