If I could go back a decade I would make it a priority to get a cow. I only had six acres then, all of which was inside the city limits and unfenced. At that time I planned to get a cow someday, but I should have pushed forward right then.

For some reason cattle are often overlooked by homesteaders and people with only a few acres of land. I think that is a mistake as cattle are one of the easiest and most profitable critters to have on your homestead. If you get a smaller breed like Dexter cattle the land requirements are not that great. Even if I only had a couple acres of pasture, it would still be graced with a cow or two.

Instead of getting a cow people will often turn to goats, or pigs, but a cow is often a better fit. Many people are intimidated by the size of cattle, but not all cattle are as large as an Angus or Holstein. Yet again this is where Dexter’s come in, but Dexter’s are not the only small breed of cattle. Depending on what you are seeking a Jersey or a Lowline Angus may be just the breed for your situation. I will also fault nobody for getting a good large breed such as an Angus.

So how much land do you really need? That question is tough to answer as there are so many variables involved. The smaller your pasture, the more supplemental feed will be needed. The larger your cow, the more pasture you will need. We have not even brought up the biggest variable of all, climate and pasture quality. One acre of my ground may support a Dexter easily, but that same cow may need 20 acres or more of Arizona range. Even inside my state the amount of land needed will be variable. There are many neglected or rocky properties in Missouri that would require three or more times the acreage than a good piece of ground to support a cow.

So why go cow? More milk, easier to fence, more robust, needs only good pasture/mineral, more meat, more valuable. Why not? Harder to transport, more expensive, larger, harder to acquire, harder to manhandle.

Fencing:

This is where cows really shine. There are many people who use a single strand of electric wire to contain their cattle. Nothing I am aware of is as easy to keep fenced in as a good cow. Notice I said good cow, there are always exceptions. The closest competition I can think of is pigs, which can also be easily contained with electric fence, but probably test it more.

With a little planning you can easily setup a very inexpressive cow containment system. I bought my first fence charger for $5, my second for $20. My wire cost $20 for a 1/4 mile roll, my posts run about $2 each and I place them about every 20-25 feet. I have since purchased a brand new Parmak Magnum 12v fence charger for $100. I like to have several working chargers on hand. My original fence charger is still going and it was old when I bought it.

So for a couple hundred dollars you could be setup for rotational grazing. Next biggest thing is water. For the first couple years I used an automatic waterer made with a float valve and half of a 55 gallon barrel. I still use this when close to a water spigot. During winter for the first couple years I used several mineral tubs and hauled water on a trailer in 5 gallon buckets. There are easier ways to start, but it would be hard to start on a lower budget than I started with. With an increasing herd I have since purchased a 3×8′ oval stock tank as well as several other tanks. The 3×8 tank was chosen because it is the largest tank that can fit in the back of my small truck. While grazing this fall and winter I used an IBC tote in the back of my truck to haul water to the cattle. My new property is also graced with a couple ponds and frost free water troughs.

Feed:

We started very self sufficient with cattle. Before buying the first calf we baled our property for two seasons. Once we were sure we could make our own feed we started looking for stock. Our first motley herd consisted of Keakwa the Jersey bottle calf, Holstein the Holstein calf and Angus the Angus bottle calf. I know, pretty inventive on the naming. These three calves rotated on about an acre of land all summer getting pie shaped slices of pasture on our front yard.

Here is where cattle excel, needing only good pasture and a little mineral. Besides minerals and water I give my cattle nothing during the growing season. I rotate them to a fresh paddock every week or so, and if they are away from a pond or water trough I have to haul water to them. I spend more time taking care of my chickens than my cattle, and if you figure a $1,000 dollars a head for cattle it would take 100’s of chickens or a herd of goats to equal the same amount of profit potential.

You can get spoiled during the growing season, winter is where the real work in cattle lies. During winter you will often have to feed your cattle, and if no pasture is available it can become a daily chore to provide water and feed. This winter I fed very little hay relying on stockpiled forage instead, the tradeoff was having to haul water to the big field as the cattle were too far away from the frost free water troughs at the ponds.

Those on smaller acreage will likely buy most of their winter feed and may need to supplement the feed during dry periods of the growing season. You would be surprised how quickly you can pay off used baling equipment, and with the right attitude and ability you could be baling your neighbors fields for your hay needs.

When all we had was 25 acres I started picking up small fields around the area. I knew I would soon outgrow the acreage I had, so I planned for it. By getting my hay from property I couldn’t graze my cattle on it gave me the potential to run more cattle without having the expense of buying hay. With the purchase of 50 more acres we kicked the can down the road awhile, but I am sure the time will come again when I can use more feed than my property can provide.

Fast forward several years and we have built our herd to 20 head. We now have paddocks of a couple to several acres. So far besides celebrating beef independence day (last day we will ever have to buy beef) last year on December 20th we have not profited from our cattle yet. That will change soon, reaching capacity in 2020 or sooner we should be raking in a very good profit. We bale all our own hay, sell the extra and spend very little on maintaining our herd. Our biggest expense getting into cattle was purchasing the cattle in the first place, they then multiply themselves.

If you have  some acreage you may consider getting into cattle. I am planning on going into more detail in future posts on our operation.

Farm Updates:

It has been an incredibly rainy spring. Our garden has suffered from standing water which wiped out all the melon and squash plants. We planned for the largest garden we have ever had, but the weather had another idea. We mulched a 20×175′ area with compost only to have that working against us in this wet weather.

We planted 6 175′ rows of sunflowers, six 175′ rows of green beans and 1 each of okra and peas. Due to the garden remaining a mud puddle the entire spring I was unable to cultivate the rows and the weeds won taking out everything except the sunflowers. The sunflowers were cultivated using four chicken tractor cultivators. It takes one tractor to keep one 175′ row clean, but they can work through muddy conditions unlike my tractor.

We have cereal rye and wheat to harvest, the oats and Austrian winter peas planted this spring did poorly and nothing else was planted due to weather. I am planning on recouping the rest of the growing season with Proso millet, red ripper cowpeas and buckwheat.

Our Muscovy’s hatched out 20 ducklings and we have had three chickens go broody successfully so far this year. Milk jug had the first calf this year, a bull calf born in April that we named Paulie.