How to raise cows and calves for slaughter

Video: RAISING BEEF CATTLE FOR BEGINNERS – Butchering a Calf for Meat on the Homestead

Content

Steps
Tips
Warnings

Beef cow / calf rearing technology is working on a farm where you have cows and bulls kept together to produce offspring. Calves are often sold in the market as beef. Please note that there are two rearing technologies: commercial and young rearing. Commercial usually involves cross-breeding cows to produce calves, which will go primarily to beef production. Commercial technology may use cows of the same breed, but most are not purebred cows. Breeding calves, on the other hand, is about raising the best breed (sometimes more than one) and raising cows to produce offspring, which are then sold to other producers to support the herd.

Typically, most newcomers start out as commercial pastoralists to gain experience in cow hotel, calf weaning, selling, selecting cows, bulls and replacement heifers, culling the rest of the livestock, etc., before deciding to raise young or run a purebred business.

Steps

1 Plan ahead. Planning is the best way to determine how, what and where you are going to do, and what you want to do. Write a business plan for agriculture and livestock, which specifies what kind of growing technology you intend to use. Also calculate the budget according to what you need to do and how you do it. You should also plan for the financial and marketing costs of marketing your calves and waste products.
- Explore the most popular breeds in your area. Evaluate your capabilities (using the internal business plan you wrote) to determine what breeds you like and / or breeds you can handle.
- Explore and read everything you need to raise cows: it means everything from paddocks and pasture management, calving, weaning, breeding, conformation, body condition, to feed physiology.
  - The Internet is a good way to start your research, but remember that you cannot trust everything that is written on the Internet. Make sure the sites you use are backed by government, research papers, or additional articles from colleges and universities. Good articles can also be found on WikiHow.
2 Buy land. Without land, you cannot raise livestock.You could buy land, acquire land based on an inheritance agreement with parents / grandparents (if you have relatives who are actively engaged in farming and want to retire), rent a piece of land on your own or with a partner to start raising cows, as soon as you get the land.
- Explore the laws and taxation that should be considered when buying / renting / inheriting land, whether municipal, state or federal. You must know the pros and cons of the land, climate, in order to know exactly how to manage the farm, taking into account all the features.
3 Build / upgrade fences, discharge facilities, buildings and water sources. This is always important. Fences are more important than buildings, and water sources are more important than fences. You should always have a pen where you can keep the animals for a few days so that they calm down and get used to their new home. A secure pen is important at all times for everyone, and whenever you bring in new animals. This spot is also useful as a processing facility, where you can easily deal with them when they are to be displayed as a showcase at a sale, or before being sent to the slaughterhouse.
- Steel panels or sturdy timber fences are best for keeping newbies up for a few days. It is also necessary that they have constant access to water and feed. Pasture fences come in handy for keeping the animals you just bought, or if you need to repair the fence before the animals get home.
- Most buildings can be built and / or renovated while the animals are already in it, especially if you bought weaned heifers that will not breed until 2 years of age. All animals must have a certain stall shape.
- Water sources are a must. Automatic drinkers should be connected through a pipeline that runs in a borehole or cistern that collects groundwater well below the freezing line (if possible in your area). It is highly recommended to install them.
  - Automatic drinkers are a little more reliable when it comes to watering livestock because a) you don't have to break the ice every couple of hours when the temperature drops below freezing, b) they often come with a heating element on the other side of the tank, and c) you don't have to use a hose to fill the tank during winter.
- Storage tanks are only suitable for areas where there are few livestock and the weather is mild enough.
4 Buy feeding equipment for cattle. This is optional because you might want to become a low-cost producer and raise livestock with just a fence and an ATV. However, if you have the money to keep cows in the winter (or all year round) to feed grain and hay, and to harvest silage and hay in the summer, equipment may be necessary.
- Some technologies require a hay machine to feed livestock. It is also used to cut, dry, loosen and collect hay for the winter. Other technologies provide special means for this.
- You may need a tractor if you have heavy temporary panels that require a lot of force to move them, and the person is unable to move them himself! Make sure you have the right size tractor that can handle large bales of hay easily (on average, a large bale weighs about 1 ton), without breaking or breaking the hydraulic hose. Do not take a tractor that is too big. Some producers don't really need it, but, in fact, a farm without a good tractor is like no hands. You can never know in advance when you will need it!
5 Buy cattle feed. This is only needed if there is little grass in the areas where you keep livestock for several days, or if you bought livestock during a time of year when the pastures are empty or there is no feed. A feed tape is also necessary if you have purchased livestock and haven’t stocked hay or silage until next winter. Roughage is also a good source of nutrition if your winter grazing methods have failed. Some of you may invest in a small amount of grain to make the interaction with the cows easy to handle; There is nothing wrong.
6 Take a closer look at the prices, ask questions about the animals you want to buy. This is necessary if you want to have a good foundation from the very beginning. It's always good to research, compare prices, as if you were going to buy clothes or shoes at a mall. Some manufacturers may ask for a little more money for their product because their product is of a higher quality (that is, more purebred). There are no identical cows, no matter how many units of similar cows you look at. Do not be guided by photographs on the Internet, as most of the time the images you see online are not what you will see when you are in the pasture. But this does not mean that it is wrong if the manufacturer has sent you images or if you are looking at pictures of heifers and cows on the manufacturer's website. It's actually good for both of you.
- Most of the time, when you are not in the pasture, you cannot see how the cow behaves in a foreign environment, her temperament, gait, structure, etc. Visiting a producer also gives you the opportunity to talk to him about how he raises the animals, what health problems were and how quickly they went away, how he manages his pastures and livestock, and also see other animals he raises as an added interest. You can also see where he lives, what land he grows and what he spends, as well as many other things that may be of interest to you. And ask questions. The chances are that the manufacturers you visit will be as interested in you as you are in them. They will most likely ask you questions about you and what you want to do with the livestock after you buy it. It would not be bad if you were allowed to take pictures of animals so that you can later make a decision at home, looking at the pictures.
- Things are a little different when you're in a sale or auction. The livestock is only visible for a few seconds so you can examine them before they are sold to a buyer. Chances are you won't be able to meet the owner of the animals, except for the final sale. That is why the decision to buy livestock will be entirely up to you. This can help, because in this case, before the sale, you can go to the pens behind the ring, look at the animals for yourself to determine what they are worth. Don't pick something just because it looks cute or good, be more picky about dispositions, general health, conformation, and body condition. And follow your intuition. Don't be discouraged if you couldn't buy what you wanted, or 3-in-1 because no decent animals were found. There will always be the next time you can try your luck again and find what you were looking for the previous time. If you are really inexperienced in this business and do not know what and how to do in a cattle auction, bring along a friend who has more experience with working with cattle. Let him come with you to help you choose and decide which is best.
7 Buy livestock. Breeders can price based on any current market price for a good cow or heifer in terms of weight or according to their breed and register standards.Registered livestock of any sex and age are more expensive than commercial, unregistered or slurred livestock. Heifers are cheaper than cows; open (non-pregnant) cows are cheaper than breeding cows, and breeding cows are cheaper than raising cows with a calf on the side (3-in-1). This applies to individual sales, general sales and purchases can be made at a negotiated price.
- You should plan, starting with step # 1, which cows you should buy. These may be weaned heifers 6 months old who will not be profitable for the first two years until you start selling their calves. Or you can spend money on a few breeding cows with calves to sell calves within a month or two after birth and wait a few more months until the cow gives birth to another calf, etc.
- Remember, there are five types of cows you can buy: breeder heifers, weaned heifers, 3-in-1, breeder cows, or open cows. Make sure to do your research before seriously considering which animals you need to purchase.
8 Get the cattle home. Make sure your pen is in top shape before bringing animals there. If you bought a truck with a trailer (no need for a new, fancy or expensive one), you can load the animals there and take them home yourself. But if you don't have a trailer (yet), you can either rent a trailer with a trailer, rent a seller's trailer (if you have a truck that's powerful enough for a particular type of trailer), or ask or accept the seller's offer to bring the animals to your home. ... However, it is very important to prepare your trailer if you have bought livestock for sale.
9 Keep livestock in a fenced-in pen before releasing them to pasture. The cattle in the new environment will be a little tense and focused on how to get out of the pens to return home. Weaned calves will not tolerate the new environment particularly well. Weaned heifers are likely to be separated in the pen at least one week before being put out to pasture. Older cows are more likely to calm down much earlier, especially if they are docile. If you bought weaned calves, be prepared to put up with constant roaring for several days. Calves will yell because they want to find their mothers and be close to them; this is a kind of challenge. Eventually they will give up and calm down, and you can start working with them to get them used to their new routine.
10 Follow the livestock breeding plan you bought. But if you have a need to make changes, make a note in your business plan and do what you need to do. Be flexible and strategic and always be prepared for the unexpected. You may find over the years that raising cattle is not the right solution for you. So be it. You may decide that the livestock you started with is not the type of animal you like and want to switch to something else that better suits your needs, preferences, opinions and lifestyle. So be it. We all learn as we move forward, be it our own mistakes or the mistakes of others. And you will never stop learning how to raise livestock, no matter how long you do it.

Tips

Remember Murphy's Law: Anything that can happen is bound to happen. It can be either bad or good; most of the time, this law refers to the negative things that happen when you try to get things done. So be careful, monitor your level of fatigue, and listen to your body if you are feeling tired or not doing well. If you're tired and feeling smug, stop, take a coffee break, or get some sleep before throwing yourself into action.Most agricultural accidents occur when someone is too confident or tired to concentrate on what they are doing, resulting in reckless actions that could possibly have been avoided.
Start small. This is necessary as starting with 100 cows can be a little difficult for a person, especially if they do not know what to do and how to handle so many livestock.
Finally, expect the unexpected and never stop learning!
Think before you jump. Planning ahead is very important in order to keep ahead of what you have to do before, during, and in the future.
Do not hurry. Don't let yourself be overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done before you bring the animals home. Make a list, create priorities, and if you think you should hire someone to help you, then do it.
Ask questions, do your research, and if you've been thinking about something for too long, you may need to listen to yourself.
Buy good heifers / cows, not average or bad ones. If you do the latter, it will hit your wallet hard.