THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO BEEF CATTLE FARMING: LOOK INSIDE TO DISCOVER HOW TO BECOME A BEEF CATTLE FARMER PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Morris Halliburton | 278 pages | 30 Jul 2010 | Createspace | 9781453711828 | English | United States How to Raise Beef Cattle for Profit on a Small Farm | Gone Outdoors | Your Adventure Awaits A single strand of electric wire works better at containing the cattle than barbed wire. Place a hay ring in the pasture. The hay ring reduces loss from round bales as the cattle consume them. Make sure the ring is near the gate so the tractor doesn't have to drive far to place the bale in it. Also make sure there is a water source for the cattle. Livestock water fountains work the best because they supply continual water to the animals. A stream or creek can be sufficient, as long as they don't go dry during hot weather. Purchase starter stock. Young animals are the best because they are cheaper. The first year you can choose to use all of the stock for breeding, or slaughter a portion as well. A large amount of information is available on beef production through books and magazines. With the electronic age, you can also access information over the internet from many universities and in particular, their Extension systems. For copies of printed information, you can also visit your local Extension Office. Other suggestions for developing a working knowledge of beef production are to join a local beef producers organization and visit with other local producers. Most producers are more than happy to share their knowledge. Be sure to visit their operations also for ideas on handling, management, and breeds. Another important person to gain knowledge from is your veterinarian. Discuss health concerns and management suggestions with your vet. Normally, the sole source of your income from a beef operation will come from the calves produced each year. So, it is important that your cows produce a calf at least every 12 months. Be conscious of selecting as well as keeping good productive cows who will produce a calf every year without assistance, maintain their body condition without becoming overly thin or fat, and raise a calf with an average weaning weight that meets your goals. Other considerations to make when choosing cows are the breed and what type of operation purebred vs. Beef cattle are generally divided into two different groups: maternal breeds vs. Generally, maternal breeds are known for their milk production and mothering ability while terminal breeds are known for their growth and meat producing ability. As with anything in life, there are some exceptions to this rule. Some breeds are also known as dual purpose breeds because they combine muscling for meat production with excellent maternal characteristics. Crossbreeding can help you to combine the best attributes of individual breeds into one package. Choose traits that are important to you and then seek a breed or a crossbred that exhibits those traits. Before you get started in the beef business, you will need to ask yourself what type of operation you would like to run. The backgrounder buys weaned calves and turns them out on pastures until they reach to pounds. The feedlot operator purchases weaned calves or backgrounded calves and feeds them to market weight. A purebred operation typically raises cattle of one breed. Often a purebred operation will have all registered cattle that can also be sold through purebred sales. A commercial operation may have unregistered purebred cattle or they may have crossbred cattle. Commercial producers can have the benefit of hybrid vigor which is simply the ability of crossbred offspring to increase in productivity over the average of the breeds that were part of the cross. This means that a crossbred calf could grow faster and thus weigh more at a certain age than either of its parents. Many purebred sales are held across the country throughout the year. Sales may offer only one breed or they may offer a large variety of breeds for sale. Also, you may want to become familiar with trends in the beef industry when choosing breeding stock. Choose bulls that will compliment the outstanding traits in your cows and improve their weaknesses. Cows for a commercial operation can be bought at a purebred sale and then used in a crossbreeding program or you can contact individual producers to buy larger numbers of heifers that could be purebreds or crossbreds. Another option is to buy animals through an auction barn. Be aware however, that you are more likely to buy problem cattle through an auction barn. Unless a producer sells all his calves through the auction, he may be selling only cull calves. They may also purchase calves through feeder calf sales. Most buyers will pay more for calves that have been weaned, dewormed and vaccinated because the likelihood of calves getting sick is greatly reduced. Management of a beef operation depends largely on the interests of the producer as well as the resources available such as land, feed, facilities, and others. Management systems will vary depending on the climate. Operations that have hard winters will want to provide access to shelter for the cows during extremely cold weather and during periods of cold rain. Facilities for beef operations will vary from fencing to barns, sheds or shelters. Again, facility requirements will depend on whether your operation runs cattle only through the summer months or all year. Any operation should have some type of handling system that allows a producer to easily catch and restrain an animal for routine health care procedures. The handling system should include a corral system with a chute that leads to a head-gate. A beef facility may also need feeding facilities. This could be as simple as a mineral feeder for a backgrounding operation. In addition, a feedlot operation will need to account for adequate bunk or feeder space for the number of animals that are being fed. A general rule of thumb for feeder space is to provide 18 to 22 inches for calves up to pounds, 22 to 26 inches per head for calves pounds to market weight, 26 to 30 inches per head for mature cows, and 14 to 18 inches per head for calves. If you have feed available at all times, these sizes can be decreased. Regardless of what type of operation you run, you will need to keep a certain amount of equipment on hand. Some of the smaller equipment that you would need might include syringes and needles along with medications for treating sick animals and halters for restraining those animals. Large equipment needs will depend on your type of operation. Raising beef cattle on a small scale is a popular and growing enterprise. The Complete Guide to Beef Cattle Farming delivers up to date, thorough introduction to all aspects of raising and caring for beef cattle, including choosing and purchasing, facilities and equipment, and proper nutrition. The Complete Guide to Beef Cattle Farming provides authoritative, detailed information to make your start into a new venture of raising beef cattle much easier This book will become your hands on guide to modern beef cattle farming. Have you been thinking about raising hormone free beef for your family? Livestock farming - Beef cattle feed | Britannica Most beef cows tend to be overnourished and may become excessively fat and slow to conceive unless they happen to be exceptionally heavy milkers. Most pregnant cows go into the winter in satisfactory condition and need to gain only enough to offset the weight of the fetus and related membranes. They can therefore utilize coarser roughages, having a total daily crude protein requirement of from 1. Daily vitamin A supplement at the rate of 18, to 22, International Units per cow is advisable unless the roughages are of a green, leafy kind and the fall pasture has been of excellent quality. Feed requirements for bulls vary with age, condition, and activity, from 2. All cattle require salt sodium chloride and a palatable source of both calcium and phosphorus, such as limestone and steamed bone meal. Most commercial salts carry trace minerals as relatively cheap insurance against deficiencies that occasionally exist in scattered locations. Beef production has become highly scientific and efficient because of the high cost of labour, land, feed, and money. Most brood-cow herds, which require a minimum of housing and equipment, are managed so as to reduce costs through pasture improvement and are typically found in relatively large areas and herds. Other aspects of management include performance testing for regular production of offspring that will gain rapidly and produce acceptable carcasses and the use of preventive medicine , feed additives, pregnancy checks, fertility testing of sires, artificial insemination of some purebred and commercial herds, protection against insects and parasites, both internal and external, adequate but not excessive feed intakes, and a minimum of handling. Calving of beef cows is arranged to occur in the spring months to take advantage of the large supplies of cheap and high-quality pasture forages. Fall calving is less common and occurs generally in regions where winters are moderate and supplies of pasture forage are available throughout the year. These strategies will help you join that elite group of ranchers that remain profitable regardless of what the markets and weather are doing! This article explains just why calving on pasture during the growing season is so much better than calving at any other time of year. That changes everything! This article explains how to manage your calving program on pasture in the midst of a daily pasture rotation.