I have been reading this board, it is wonderful. Now i have some questions of my own. A friend of my husband's is getting us into the cow biz and I had a few questions....
I read that heiffers have to be 800 or 14-15 months to breed, is this true?
They are pregnant for 4 months??
How often can you breed them?
How long can you breed them?
Thanks!!!! Trish
Trish, I'd like to welcome you to CountryByNet, but I'll have to admit to wondering if you're starting out by kidding us, for several reasons:
1. If your husband is getting into the cattle business, surely he has talked to people in the business to learn the answers to your questions from people he knows are reliable,
2. Heifers have to be 800 pounds? What breed of cattle are we talking about? That may be about right, but a hundred pounds or so lighter might also be OK, depending on the breed.
3. 14 to 15 months of age? Sounds about right, depending on nutrition and physical condition, might be a little more or a little less.
4. Pregnant for 4 months? I can't imagine anyone telling you that. How about 280 to 287 days or a little more than 9 months.
5. How often can you breed them? I think ideally, once a year.
6. How long can you breed them, or how long should you breed them? I'll let someone else address this.
Now it's been awhile since I was involved in such work, so you definitely want to talk to someone more knowledgeable and more up-to-date than I.
I am asking the questions because I do not know the answers. The things that I read were on the internet and could be mistaken about that is why I came here. We are not planning on a business, that was just a figure of speech, sorry.
Trish
Cattle can be a lot of work and sometimes quite time consuming, but of course there are rewards, too. Good luck with it.
Welcome to the forum. We aim to please.
But, I was also puzzled by your original 'question' as to what you are going to get into (or have gotten into), and I wonder if this is a 'one' cow (now a heifer) project or bigger (you can re-read your original question and decide if there are a few bits of information left out [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] ) .
There are a lot of sources of information on the internet which will tell you about the 'husbandry' of cattle.
You may be interested in milking the cow, and may be interested in raising beef. Not sure.
Here is a site that tells about heifers, among other things, from a long-time animal feed business, Purina.
http://www.cattlenutrition.com/index.html
Hopefully it will help you.
Bird has it all right. You can usually only get one breeding per year. Figure the 9 months for the pregnancy and then it's usually 45 days before they come into heat again to be bred. Typically you want to keep all of your calving as bundled as possible. It's not much fun stretching out calving season for months on end. With heifers they usually have to be under 24 hour watch until you learn what kind of calvers they are. If you are green you also need to make sure you have a good working relationship with a vet. With heifers it's not a question of if you're going to need a vet but how often you're going to need him.
As far as # of years that is all going to depend on the cow. We have some cows that go down the road at 2 years old and some that produce well into their teens. It just depends. Typically you can usually count on 8-10 good years if you start out with a good cow to begin with. Don't waste your time with poor calvers and poor mama's. In the long run you'll lose far less money. Can't sell what you can't get raised right or born.
I would discourage you from having a cow/calf operation with no experience. Go work part-time at a feedlot or a local operation for awhile. Cattle are alot of work. And a breeding operation is even more work. If you're doing this for profit there isn't alot of profit in it and one little mistake can ruin your profit for the year. At the very least start out with some feeders and get the feel for cattle and what it takes to raise them. Or start out with some bottle calves or bucket calves and go that route first. Once you get some experience with cattle, working them, knowing how to care for one, then you may be ready to jump into breeding.
Trish I agree with CowboyDoc. And think you could get some more words of wisdom if we new a few more things.
Where are you?
How much land you got?
If you are on the Gulf coast where grass grow 3 inches a day in the summer you can run more than one cow per acre if you are out west like me you need 40 ac per cow. You are going to have to feed in the winter and calves need feed also. The danger of 2 or 3 cows is they become pets. The calves get names It gets hard real fast to sell or butcher them. My Dad always had 20 or so cows as a hobby (never made any money) he made the mistake one time of buthering one of his own (his name was Bulley) I don't think he ever ate a bite of it gave it away and bought in the supermarket from then on.
In addition to the other comments and advice yopu received, the target female should have a body condition score in the 6 to 8 range for best breed back chances as well as mother's health and the calves health. If you don't know what the above means then you aren't ready to do this yet.
Another dose of reality... you better draw up a financial plan that shows how much, on average, you can spend (money from other sources than your "ranching") to subsidize this venture so you won't just sort of go broke without warning.
[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
if u want good temperment cows for your hobby use should sonsider milking of beef shorhorns really quiet and nice of herford
Not sure what that was that you said, or were trying to say. [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]
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