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Indiana | I would really like to winter graze covers, but it wouldn't work in too many of our fields. It's not really "farm country" where I live and there are quite a few houses, and smaller 50ish acres fields for the most part. I would imagine it would be too big a logistical headache to graze stalks or covers on too big a scale around here. I would like to take advantage on a few of our farms where it would make sense.
I understand what you are saying about finishing the cattle out, but i just assumed that doing that wouldn't be too feasible on the scale that I could operate at. I just didn't think that a packer would want to mess with a few hundred head feeder. Now selling half or whole beef to local customers could work, but I couldn't sell enough that way to make a living.
The business model I have in mind that makes sense to me, is buy small groups either at the barn or from individuals and put together loads of cattle that bigger feeders out west want to buy. I would think you could make money on the "spread"(idk if that's the right term) between the price I would pay per pound for the lighter calves from individuals and the amount that a large feeder is willing to pay for a load of 100 or whatever size that have been fed for a while and taken care of. There are tons of small producers around my area that have between 25 and 75 cows that could be good candidates for this. Now, having said that, if a packer would be willing to talk to a smaller feeder then maybe there would be a place to cut out the middle man and just feed them out yourself, but I just don't see that happening around here. Mostly backgrounding.
Edited by Slick85 11/29/2012 10:28
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Cattle Or Chickens
