Research the kind of breeds that do well in your area. Look at yourself (using the internal SWOT analysis you completed) to determine what kind of breed you like and/or the kind you can handle. [2] X Research source Look up and read everything else that is involved in the cow-calf business: that means everything from feedlot to pasture management, calving, weaning, breeding, conformation, body condition scoring to even forage physiology. The Internet is a good place to base your research from, but remember that you can’t trust everything you read in the Internet. Make sure the sites you read are government-based, scientific research papers, or extension articles from colleges and universities. Reliable cattle sites such as BEEF magazine, TheBeefSite. com, CattleToday. com, and even those good articles found here on wikiHow, are also great to look through to find what you need. Books are the greatest things to have. Storey’s Guide to Raising Beef Cattle, Beef Cattle Science, Salad Bar Beef, Getting Started with Beef or Dairy Cattle, The Cattle Health Handbook, Essential Guide to Calving, and/or any other cattle-related books are highly recommended to buy and to read as thoroughly as possible.
Research the laws and taxation that comes with buying/renting/inheriting land, both municipal, state (or provincial), and federal. Also know the pros and cons of the land and climate you are buying/renting/inheriting into, so you know how to manage your cattle accordingly.
Steel panels or sturdy wood fencing is best for keeping new-comers in for a few days, making sure they also have access to water and feed at all times. Pasture fencing can be caught up on when they are in after you bought them, or if you have to build fence, should be done before they come home. Most buildings can be built and/or repaired after they come home, especially if you have bought weaned heifers that won’t be calving until they’re 2 years of age. All animals should have some form of shelter, though no matter what. Water sources are a must. Automatic waterers that refresh themselves after the cattle drink and connect through piping that runs to a well or a ground cistern that collects ground water deep below the frost line (if you have a frost line where you live) are highly recommended to have and install. Automatic waterers are a little more reliable when it comes to watering cattle, because a) you don’t have to break ice every couple hours when it’s 30 below 0, b) it often comes with a heating element on the other side of the flow tank, and c) you don’t have to be out in a winter storm using a garden hose to fill up the tank. Stock tanks may work for areas where there are a small number of cattle to care for and the seasons are quite mild, but when you come up north to the Great White North or Northern USA, watering cattle in the dead of winter is not a fun chore.
Some grass-fed operations have hay machinery that the owners use to cut, dry, rake and gather hay for the winter. Other operations prefer to have it custom-done. A tractor may be necessary if you have heavy temporary panels that need horse-power to be moved and not man-power, and especially if you are unable to move them yourself! Make sure you get the right size of tractor that can manage big bales of hay (average large round bale weighs around 1 ton or ~2000 lbs) easily without breaking down or causing a hydraulic hose to burst. But don’t get a tractor that is too big, like those big beasts you see on display in front of machinery dealerships like Agri-Trac (Case IH for Americans), John Deere, CAT, or New Holland’s Ford tractors. Some low-cost producers don’t need a tractor, but really, a farm–and that means literally any farm or ranch–is nothing without a good tractor. You can never know when you need one!
Most of the time when you are out with the cow in her pasture you get to see how she acts around you (as a stranger to her), her general temperament, how she walks, her conformation, etc. Visiting a producer also gives you a chance to talk with him or her about how [s]he raises her animals, what health problems they’ve gone through, how they manage their pastures and their cattle, and to also see the other cattle that they raise in addition to the one (or more) of interest. You also get to see where they live, what kind of land they raise their cattle on, their facilities and other things that may concern you. And ask questions; chances are that the producers you are visiting couldn’t care less whether you are full of questions or not. Even they’ll most likely be asking you questions about you and what you want to do with the cattle of theirs you’re offering to buy. It also wouldn’t hurt if you asked if you could take pictures of their cattle so you can study them further back home. When you’re at a sale barn or auction mart, it’s a bit different. The cattle are shunted through pretty quickly, giving you only a few seconds to study them before they are sold to a buyer and shunted out of the ring again. Chances are you will not be able to meet the producer that is selling the cattle–except if it’s a dispersal sale–so you are pretty much on your own as to deciding what cattle you can buy. It may help to go in the corrals behind the ring to have a look at the animals yourself before the sale to see if there are any worth bidding on. Don’t choose something just because it looks cute or pretty, be more pickier about disposition, looks of overall health, conformation and body condition. And follow your gut instinct. Don’t be disappointed if you’ve lost a bid on some heifers or a 3-in-1 that you were looking to buy, nor if you haven’t found any worthwhile animals to buy at the sale you went to. There’s always a next time, always a next sale to attend to if you couldn’t find what you were looking for in a previous one. If you are really inexperienced and don’t know what or how to think in a cattle auction, get a friend who has more experience with cattle to come along with you to help you pick and decide which is best and which isn’t.
You needed to have planned out, from Step 1, about what kind of cows you should buy, whether you wanted to buy weaned heifers that are around 6 months of age and will take 2 years until you get any income from selling calves, or spend money on a few bred cows with calves so you can sell the calves within a month or two and wait for another few months until the cow gives birth to another calf, etc. Remember you have five (5) choices of the types of cows you can buy: Bred Heifers, Weaned Heifers, 3-in-1’s, Bred Cows, or Open Cows. Make sure you do your research before-hand and think seriously about which you should go about to purchase.
