Raising Cows for personnel consumption

[cat fever]

In Utah the butcher came to my house, killed & quartered the calves then took them back to his shop to hang. They cleaned everything up, leaving nothing at my place.

I already checked with the butcher I'm using here in Idaho, they have a guy (independent from them) who does the some thing. Kills & quarters and takes the beef to the meat cutter for aging.

Check around you may have the some type of thing where you live.

As far as water, I have a 100 gallon water trough with a gauged heating element. It will easily last 2-3 days even in hot weather for a couple calves.

As for shelter; deer, elk, moose do not have shelter so I'm not sure why some think a cow has to have it. I always did, but more because I stored they hay in there and built a feeding manger there.

Here was my Utah set up, I'll have something similar/bigger here in Idaho.

 

[Clint S]

In Utah the butcher came to my house, killed & quartered the calves then took them back to his shop to hang. They cleaned everything up, leaving nothing at my place.

I already checked with the butcher I'm using here in Idaho, they have a guy (independent from them) who does the some thing. Kills & quarters and takes the beef to the meat cutter for aging.

Check around you may have the some type of thing where you live.

As far as water, I have a 100 gallon water trough with a gauged heating element. It will easily last 2-3 days even in hot weather for a couple calves.

As for shelter; deer, elk, moose do not have shelter so I'm not sure why some think a cow has to have it. I always did, but more because I stored they hay in there and built a feeding manger there.

Here was my Utah set up, I'll have something similar/bigger here in Idaho.

It depends on the pasture. A wide open pasture without a tree in site there needs to be some sort of shelter. Deer, moose and elk can hunker down in brush under trees ect to get out of the wind a bit. Remember EVERY calorie they spend keeping warm is a calorie lost and not putting weight on the hoof. If there is snow they need and will trudge through it and that takes calories too

 

[EddieWalker]

Raising your own meat is EXPENSIVE.

I did it with turkeys...know more, so next time (if there is one) it will be more economical...but ignoring labor and 'overhead' (pen, building, waterer/feed equipment as i had it for chickens) it was $2.85 a pound. Good, but not 2.85 a lb good.

Locally a GOOD calf for beef can run $400. Cheap calves at auction are usually 'you get what you pay for' - just like some folks take care of their cars and others never wash them and run them into the ground, such is the same with farmers.

Our friends already did all the leg work and found the source of good animals for a good price. $30 each. Craigslist has them listed all the time for $100, but who knows how well they have been taken care of until you go there and see for yourself. To me, Craigslist is top dollar. It's free to list and people tend to ask the crazy price for things on there hoping for somebody to not know any better. Auctions are scary because that's where all the sick animals go.

We looked into raising chickens for meat, but it's so cheap at the store that we cant justify the time that it takes to raise them and then butcher them ourselves. Chickens for eggs has proven to be a good investment. We sell them for $3 a dozen and make enough to pay for feed and have all the eggs we need for ourselves.

 

[reb]

We debated the idea several years ago. We didn't have any pasture and didn't want to handle something as large as a cow, especially as we aged, so we raised goats for meat. Worked great for us.

 

[Jstpssng]

How easy was it to keep the goats fenced in? I've always heard that they're the ultimate "Houdini"

 

[Sysop]

As for beef - you need LOTS of water every day, it can't be let freeze in the winter. So trough, heater. Access to water and elec for that.

I'll let you in on a secret. Old timers didn't have heated troughs nor electric. They also didn't go bust ice off top of the troughs a dozen times a day either. Cattle and horses are pretty smart, all you gotta do is give them a tool to work with and they'll bust the ice off top themselves.

How to:
Cut a hefty chunk of hardwood limb that's about 6" in diameter. Cut it so it is long enough it can lay with one end down in the bottom of the trough, and the other end sticks up and out the side a couple feet.

If the water freezes over, they will push the log around to break the ice off top so they can get to the water. No instruction or training needed, they figure it out easy and quick. Has been that way for the many centuries of cattle and horse farming.

 

[aczlan]

How easy was it to keep the goats fenced in? I've always heard that they're the ultimate "Houdini"

It depends, if they are with a herd they will stay in with a single hot wire. If they decide they want to leave, the only thing that will hold them in is 6 to 8 feet of some kind of mesh fence with holes no larger than 4 inch square.

Aaron Z

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Thanks for your thoughts, but I'm thinking actually one cow. Only reason to think of maybe 2 is buddy has 40 acres. Don't need a cow to get full grown, just enough to get some good meat out of it. Most the meat I buy at the market, its full of fat. Get a rib eye and loose almost 1/3 in fat. We currently get chuck, brisket and round and grind our own ground beef because the GB in the markets do not look good, and the stuff that does they want almost what steak cost

After growing up on a beef farm (~60 head), we raised summer beef.. Bought Yearlings in the spring, and left them in the pasture until fall.. You need at least 2, they like company. You should also split the pasture in half, giving one side a chance to re grow to several inches.

They will need a fresh water source, and shade. Herefords are pretty immune to cold, and only need a dry place out of the wind for the coldest weather..

You also should go to the pasture daily, check the fence for shorts, and bring a bucket of grain/molasses for each.. build a chute for loading them onto the truck, and bang on the bucket, and feed them there.. on the day you take them to the butcher shop, simply close the rear gate to the chute... and put thegrain in the truck..

Get 2 even if you need only 1. Calves do better if they have company, LouNY has given you very good advice. Your aim with 2 animals is to sell the 2nd to break even on the 1st

My church old timer buddy recommends having a pair..Not just one. He says the one will tend to wander off or bust out of the fence. They will look out after each other too.

Interesting thread.

 

[Jstpssng]

My church old timer buddy recommends having a pair..Not just one. He says the one will tend to wander off or bust out of the fence. They will look out after each other too.

Interesting thread.

That's true about any animal. How would you like to be shut up in a pen all alone? The expression "get someone's goat" is an old horse racing term. Trainers used to have a companion goat for their horses; a rival would sometimes steal it so that the horse wouldn't sleep well and be stressed out on race day.

I raise a couple of pigs every year, and it's quite comical sometimes to watch them interact. Both will be laying in their pen sleeping, then one gets up to eat. No sooner does he do that than the other is up trying to push him away from the feed.

 

[Sysop]

Agreed, cattle are a prey animal in the wild and their natural behaviors show it. They get very scared and frantic when alone with nobody to watch their back and alert them of danger. Two together will sleep side by side facing opposite directions to watch/listen for predators. One alone will quickly join the nearest neighbor's herd.