Anyone Making Money on a Small Acreage Parcel?

[stefan73]

How do smaller cattle farms work over there?
Can you just ring up a stock agent and say I have 10 cows ready to go to the works, or is it more difficult than that?
I imagine if you live a million miles away from the works transport cost will be horrendous, so not feasible.

How does the beef price get worked out? Is it all based on a nation wide/global price or is it locally set?
Over here there pretty much all the beef will go to a few large companies whi will either export or sell locally, so you get the market export price that everyone in NZ is getting.

There is a whole industry (called home kill) of people who get their own cattles killed/butchered for their own use but this meat isn't allowed to be sold publicily.
There has recently been a few of the homekill guys getting set up so the meat they butcher is allowed to be sold to the public, so some farmers have started selling meat direct to the public or resturaunts, of have started going for things like Wagu beef and making some good money from people who like going to farmers markets and all that bollocks.

We haul our own stuff to the sale barns. I have a 28' stock horse combo trailer and my neighbor has a trailer.

You are pretty much at the mercy of the local sale barn or whatever sale barn you go to and the people bidding there. If someone bids high on your stock it is a good day, if not then
Sometimes guys go back home with their own cattle, just couldn't get the prices they needed. Yes, national prices effect the market but the sale barn get their cut, the lots pulling the cattle from the sale barns get their cuts and on and on.

I would like to get into having Red Devons down here. They are a wonderful grass-fed beef cow and maybe a couple Sementals but that is down the road. I still have some more pasture work to do (I need about 14 tons of lime), I would like a pond to cool the cattle in the summers down here. Lots to do

 

[stefan73]

This is what I was breeding in Kansas. I miss this guy, a total brute that broke the tail lights off my trailer and dented the sides.

 

[Dead Eye Dick]

Around here if you here if you have some acreage, go with pines. A young man with a hundred acres or more can plant the fast growing pines and can easily get two or maybe three cuttings by a late retirement age. Better still, if he has a good stand ready to be cut when he starts. Pines planted in 2005 are already being thinned not far from our home.

Careful planting might even yield saw logs.

 

[hlee]

This is what I was breeding in Kansas. I miss this guy, a total brute that broke the tail lights off my trailer and dented the sides. View attachment 8024984

I'd rather eat a barbado sheep than a deer 10/10 days a week.

 

[steve123]

Watch Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime. Jeremy Clarkson, of Top Gear, thought he could do it during a Covid lockdowns and did a show on it. Quickly found out he didn’t have a clue. Well done show; humorous and very respectful of rural life.

It was hilarious when the sheep knocked over the old stone wall when they jumped over it and even more funny was when the old guy with no teeth that fixed the wall talked to Jeremy because you could only understand a few words here and there.

Every time Jeremy tried to do something there was 3 downsides for 1 upside, lol. But the money maker was the show so I'm reasonably sure it created millions in revinue.

 

[stefan73]

I'd rather eat a barbado sheep than a deer 10/10 days a week.

I never ate one. I bred them and sold them. My ewes would throw twins twice a year, usually one ram and one ewe. I would sell them around $150 a head back then and the price is up now. I need to go buy some more and start breeding them again. I have heard of some game ranches offering them up. They produce really nice curls! He did fold my dog up once, my dog avoided him after that.

 

[hlee]

I never ate one. I bred them and sold them. My ewes would throw twins twice a year, usually one ram and one ewe. I would sell them around $150 a head back then and the price is up now. I need to go buy some more and start breeding them again. I have heard of some game ranches offering them up. They produce really nice curls! He did fold my dog up once, my dog avoided him after that. View attachment 8025170

We hunted a ranch (low fence, cattle ranch) when I was a kid that had Barbados and Spanish goats on it- as well as cattle. The cattle and goats were “feed bucket tame” but the Barbados were WILD. The ranch owner asked my dad to shoot one (an ewe) for ‘camp meat’ one weekend. We grilled the back straps. FUUUUUUUCK. If it weren’t for the impression that they’re someone’s livestock, I’d rather put one of those in the freezer than a deer. Of course, I can’t come around to paying to shoot a high fence deer either. But, if you haven’t eaten one, you’re missing out.

 

[stefan73]

We hunted a ranch (low fence, cattle ranch) when I was a kid that had Barbados and Spanish goats on it- as well as cattle. The cattle and goats were “feed bucket tame” but the Barbados were WILD. The ranch owner asked my dad to shoot one (an ewe) for ‘camp meat’ one weekend. We grilled the back straps. FUUUUUUUCK. If it weren’t for the impression that they’re someone’s livestock, I’d rather put one of those in the freezer than a deer. Of course, I can’t come around to paying to shoot a high fence deer either. But, if you haven’t eaten one, you’re missing out.

I have one ewe that I kept (bottle baby) but we aren't eating her. I might just have to haul my trailer up to MO and buy some again. I've been looking at enlarging my sheep/goat area.

 

[Dead Eye Dick]

Of course, I can’t come around to paying to shoot a high fence deer either.

Please forgive my ignorance, but is a ‘High Fence’ deer, a deer that is pen raised or part of a deer farm where they sell you the exact deer you want to shoot?

 

[hlee]

Please forgive my ignorance, but is a ‘High Fence’ deer, a deer that is pen raised or part of a deer farm where they sell you the exact deer you want to shoot?

Texas is full of “game ranches.” They typically have 8’ game fencing around the perimeter. While TPWD says those fences are just a suggestion for a determined wt deer, they do generally keep the deer within them, within them. Not necessarily a game “farm” per se, but heavily managed for genetics and antler production. Picking out a deer from a pen to be released for “harvest” would be an illegal ‘canned hunt’ so I’m not saying that. But, sitting in a box with a guide waiting on the feeder to go off, then having the guide tell you which one you can take isn’t that far off.

I may be sitting in a box by myself waiting on the feeder to go off, but there’s no fence keeping the deer in, and you really never know what might show up.

TL DR A high fence deer is any deer on the inside side of a game fence.

 

[stefan73]

Makes management easier.