When starting a new farm for raising cattle there are two main ways to begin assuming you have suitable pasture and a fenced in area for the cattle. One way is to go out and buy a starter herd and you are in business. This is the most expensive way and the way many people try to get into the cattle business. It involves spending a lot of money upfront and not the way I suggest to start a new farm. The second way is to buy a few cows to begin with and slowly build your herd from there. The second example is what we are doing here at our farm.
A person would be surprised how fast 2 cows could turn into 20 or more. Remember cattle eat a lot. On average a cow will eat about 2% of its body weight or around 24 lbs of dry forage per day. There are many farmers that run about 1 cow per acre of land but a person would be much wiser to only run 1 cow per 3 acres. When it comes to farming you never know what mother nature will bring and one long winter or a summer without much rain could be costly when it comes to providing enough feed for your cows. In the cattle business its all about how to raise that cow as cheap as possible to increase the profit for the farm. For many of you this information may seem trivial but for the non farming type I hope this read was informational.