Well we have a few head on feed. LOL I would Never try to finish cattle on hay alone. It just does not work. The calves get too gutty and do not finish correctly. Plus it will take too long. Any cattle over 30 months old can not be graded Prime or select anymore.
Here is some things to think long and hard about.
1) Cattle feeders, with years of experience, average $100 profit per head when finishing cattle. So your feeding fifty head will not CLEAR that much money. It will gross a lot but not clear that much.
2) Even starting with 20 head right now will take $17-20K to purchase right now. So your going to need to have capitol ready to get started.
3) We are in a down turned market across the AG sector. The future prices right now are not good for next year. So the odds of you having a loss on a pen of calves is greater than it has been.
You can feed on self feeders/stuffers. The rate of gain will be good but the cost of that gain will not be as good as the guys that feed regularly/bunk. For smaller groups self feeders actually is a better choice as you can limit the need for extra equipment. As for the calve over eating. You will have to limit feed the calves over a few week period get the calves used to eating your ration and on full feed. After that they will be OK on a self feeder. You can not let it go empty for very long or you run the chance for them to founder when you fill the feeders again. A few hours and your OK but over night MAY give you troubles.
Truthfully you maybe better off buying smaller calves and just back grounding them with your hay. Buy 3-4 weight cattle and grow them with your hay and some grain to 7-8 weight and sell them. The top end is where it takes time and full feed with little hay in that ration once they get over 800-900 Lbs. So work on the lower end and let some one else finish them. You will have less risk this way too.
Upload one or more videos to your post. Photo filesizes should be less than 300K and Videos, less than 2MB. Formats allowed are gif, jpg, png, ogg, mp4, mov, and avi. Be sure to use filenames without spaces or special characters, and filetypes of 3 digits lower case.
We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today. [ About Us ]
Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
... [Read Article]
Latest Ad:
2022 John Deere 5045E, 4wd, front end loader and 3rd function with grapple. 120 hrs, 55k new, must sell
[More Ads]
All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this website, including design and content, without written permission is strictly prohibited. Trade Marks and Trade Names contained and used in this Website are those of others, and are used in this Website in a descriptive sense to refer to the products of others. Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy
TRADEMARK DISCLAIMER: Tradenames and Trademarks referred to within Yesterday's Tractor Co. products and within the Yesterday's Tractor Co. websites are the property of their respective trademark holders. None of these trademark holders are affiliated with Yesterday's Tractor Co., our products, or our website nor are we sponsored by them. John Deere and its logos are the registered trademarks of the John Deere Corporation. Agco, Agco Allis, White, Massey Ferguson and their logos are the registered trademarks of AGCO Corporation. Case, Case-IH, Farmall, International Harvester, New Holland and their logos are registered trademarks of CNH Global N.V.
