Hobby Farm Animals. Chris McLaughlin

be $500. Keeping track of prices gives you a good idea of what you should be paying when you buy, but keep in mind that it may be worthwhile to pay a little extra for cattle you know are healthy, have been vaccinated, and come from good parents.

      Auction-barn purchases are best left to experienced cattle people.

      Where to Buy Cattle

      Finding cattle for sale is a matter of checking ads in local newspapers or regional farm papers; looking at bulletin boards at the feed store, the farm supply store, and rural gas stations; and just asking around. If there’s a beef producers’ association in your area, join it. If you don’t know whether there is one near you, give your extension agent a call and ask. An association is a great place to network and get some background information on area beef cattle operations and auction barns. County and state fairs are other good places to find beef producers with cattle for sale. Go to the cattle shows, walk through the barns, and visit with the exhibitors. Two additional sources for leads on cattle for sale are your local artificial-insemination service and veterinarian.

Calves in a Van Our first beef cattle were dairy calves. To bring them home, we put a tarp down with some straw on top in the back of the van, and I had the kids sit with the calves and keep them lying down. They won’t make a mess if they’re lying down!

      Auction barns move a lot of cattle, but they’re no place for beginners to buy. If you go, take a friend who is a good judge of cattle and can help you avoid the ones that are sick, are wild, or have bad hooves and legs. You may want to make a few dry runs to the barn, going early to visit the pens and then watching the auction without buying, to give you a feel for how the bidding process works and how cattle are moved in and out of trailers, pens, and the auction ring.

      A better idea is to buy cattle directly from a seed stock producer or a commercial producer. Seed stock producers raise purebred cattle for sale as breeding stock and are good sources of quality animals. Commercial producers generally have mixed herds of several breeds or crossbred cattle being raised for beef production instead of breeding stock. These won’t be registered purebreds, but often they’re of good quality and reasonably priced; sometimes they aren’t. Most commercial cow-calf operators sell their calves after weaning in the fall, and this can be an excellent opportunity to purchase.

      Dairy bull calves are common at auction barns, but it’s better to buy directly from the farmer and save the calf the stress of being hauled twice to strange places and exposing him to who-knows-what at the auction barn. When you buy directly from the farmer, you can make sure the calf is at least three days old and has received colostrum, his mother’s immunity-boosting first milk. This is critical to a calf’s health.

      Bringing Cattle Home

      Once you’ve bought your cattle, you have to get them home. If you’re buying from a breeder, he or she may be willing to deliver the cattle for an extra fee. Otherwise, you’ll either have to hire a cattle hauler or do it yourself. There are usually haulers for hire in any area where there’s cattle, and you can track one down by asking neighbors or calling a local auction barn. If your only option, or the option you prefer, is to transport your new livestock yourself, you’ll have to buy, borrow, or rent a trailer (unless you’re buying small calves that you can fit into a pickup or small truck).

      When the cattle arrive at your farm, ideally you’ll turn them into a solidly fenced small pen or barnyard, with water available and some nice hay scattered around. Don’t rush them out of the trailer; give them time to look around and step down carefully. Of course, they may decide to all come out in a rush, but let that be their decision. Once they’ve had a few hours to get a drink, find the salt, and get a bellyful of hay, open the pasture gate. By then, they should be calm enough to walk, not run, out. They might start grazing immediately or go on a tour to figure out where the fences are.

      If you’re using electric fencing, and the cattle you’ve bought are familiar with it, you can turn them out with no worries. If they don’t know what an electric fence is, you’ll need to train them as discussed in the fence section of Chapter 2. Don’t try to train them as soon as they get off the truck, however. That’s a lot to ask of already-stressed animals and may send them over the fence and back toward their previous home. You can have the wire ready in the pen, but don’t turn it on until they’ve settled down.

      You can also turn new cattle directly into the pasture. If you do this, plan on spending some time watching them to make sure they don’t charge and break fences or decide to hop over and head back where they came from. Make sure they find the water, salt, and mineral within twenty-four hours.

      Watch your new cattle particularly closely for the first two or three weeks. Are they grazing contentedly, bunched tightly, or spending a lot of time walking instead of chewing? If they’re walking all the time, you’ve got pasture that’s too poor, and you should give them some supplemental hay. If they’re bunched, you probably have a fly problem and should provide a shady area for them to get away from the worst of the flies. You may also need to put up some sort of rub—a rope or padded post impregnated with fly repellent—that will put the repellent on the cattle when they scratch themselves. Are the cattle spending plenty of time lying down and chewing their cud, or are they always standing up and acting nervous? If they aren’t lying down, something is bothering them, and you’ll need to figure out what it is and fix it. Once, we had a bear stroll through the back pasture, and the whole herd went through the fence! We moved the cattle to a paddock close to the house, where the dogs could keep the bears at a distance and the cattle could chew their cuds in peace.

      Make sure, too, that your cattle are drinking enough water. In temperate, reasonably dry weather, they’ll come for a drink at least once, and usually twice, a day. If they’re not drinking and it’s not raining, then there’s something wrong with your water setup. I remember one cold winter day when our cattle wouldn’t drink, and I found out why when I touched the water. It was carrying an electric charge from a shorted-out heater!

ADVICE FROM THE FARM Buyer Beware I like them so they look straight all the way back on their backbone. There’s almost an edge to them. They look upright, they look strong; it’s almost an eager look. I always check the feet—some cattle, it seems like a hereditary thing, have really long hooves. Temperament is a big thing for me, too, with little kids around. I’ve got one cow with a little bit of attitude, but she’s never offered to come after you. I’ve got another one that’s so meek and mild she always gets pushed back. —Randy Janke There’s so much going on now with numbers—expected progeny differences, relative this and that—and it’s so far extended that the average young person needs to just focus on one or two things when choosing breeding stock. The ones I strongly recommend are calving ease and temperament. You need to stick with cattle that won’t explode every time you come around. —Rudy Erickson I’ve never bought from a sale barn. We bought private treaty or from a neighbor’s auction where we knew the herd. —Dave Nesja

      The Cattle Production Cycle

      The life of a beef cow or steer follows a pretty standard pattern in most of the United States. After a calf is born, usually in the spring, the infant stays with the mother until it is weaned (between four and ten months of age). By weaning time, a male calf has been castrated and is ready to go on pasture or hay as a stocker calf, or backgrounder, for several months. An older calf may skip this stage and go directly on feed (presumably this is why all weaned calves are called feeder calves). On feed means putting young cattle in a pen instead of a pasture and feeding them a high-protein diet to accelerate growth and fattening. If the steer is an early-maturing breed and has been well fed, he may go to slaughter as young as sixteen months of age. If he is a slower maturing breed or is on a less intensive feeding program, he may be kept until age two or three.

      Female, or heifer, calves intended for breeding are kept