How much revenue do you think could a herd of 25-30 cows generate in annually? Obviously I know there are a lot of factors like rainfall & cattle prices. Assume average rainfall and current cattle prices, and you are running your own bull(s).

Is it crazy to think one could generate $12-15k in ANNUAL REVENUE from a cow calf operation of 30 head?

Let's say 30 mama cows x 85% fertility rate = 25 calves per year

All steers, bull calves, and heifers are sold at market for $600/head = $15,000 in annual sales. Older mama cows are sold off for any replacement heifers that are kept.

What does everyone think? Am I way off here? too high or too low? Also, what are the major expenses you would incur? Hay, feed, cubes, paying someone to keep an eye on them/check water etc.. how much do you think expenses would be on average?

Asking because I really like cows and will hopefully someday buy some land and I would intend to use the cattle herd as not only enjoyment but to generate a small income.

Old rule of thumb would be that you would typically clear $100/cow if you actually factored in all real costs. Input costs have fluctuated wildly since then. While you may see a cash flow on the order of what you are talking about, figure in 15.3% self-employment tax, depreciation on vehicles and equipment/fences/pens, management costs, weed spray/brush control/fertilizer, animal health, feed and supplements, vet bills, death loss, theft or wandering animals lost, etc. Those all are magnified over the fewer animals you have, especially the last 2. 30 cows is a lot for one mature bull, do you pull the bull to have a consistent calf crop, where to put the bull(s) then, etc.

Plus fertilizer, hay , feed, shots for calves, vet bills , gas and time . Revenue might be about right. Definitely not profit. 85 % fertility rate, but how many are born. May or may not lose a few in birthing process.

Please educate me. I've always wondered, if you keep heifers from a crop are people breeding them back the their sire?

When you said "do you pull the bull to something rather the calf crop" were you referring to this?

Prices are dropping so I would lean on the lower side of your estimate around $12k a year in revenue. Of that you would be lucky to truly pocket 20% of that after land costs, medical, feed/hay if you account for true costs

will.mcg said:

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Please educate me. I've always wondered, if you keep heifers from a crop are people breeding them back the their sire?

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No we have a dedicated low birth weight heifer bull we use on heifers. We use him for 2 calf crops then either rotate him into the mature herd as a clean up bull or replace with a younger low birth weight bull for the next round of heifer calves

So a herd this size would be recreation at that point then?

You are right that 30 head for 1 bull is too many. Rule of thumb I have heard is generally 20-25 cows per bull. How to manage the bull situation is something that I'm still trying to grasp. Is it best to have your own bulls and try to rotate them, but at some point you have to worry about inbreeding. That's when i guess you would sell the bull and buy a replacement? Or is it just easier/cheaper to pay a stud fee and put someone else's bull on the herd?


I never thought about fertilizer. That can't be totally necessary... as long as you practice good pasture rotation and let them rest can't the cows just eat whatever native grass is growing? I'm a bit surprised you think a profit could not be made. Unless I'm missing something, vaccinations cannot be that expensive...maybe a few hundred bucks? And how often do I need to bring out a vet... Only in the event of injuries/sickness..right?

Really depends on the operation.

Guy from Houston decides to get 25 head, and starts from scratch. It will be more recreation in terms of money flow.

Established family operation with everything paid off and paid for land?

Moderately profitable side income.

But you gotta start somewhere.

The catch is you need to be producing hay at the same time to manage your herd so it's not as simple as "owning cows and a pasture". Fertilizer is required to run improves pastures. Planting $50/AC Bermuda and not fertilizing is a good way to go broke.

Profitability goes up the more self sufficient you become.

Good luck

It's all fun and games until a drought hits and cattle prices are plummeting while hay is going parabolic.

Corps_Ag12 said:

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So a herd this size would be recreation at that point then?

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Yes unless you were crop farming and had some unusable land for tillage that could be used for cattle. My dad is basically a retired farmer. Owns all his land and equipment, get 4 hay cuttings off 25 acres of jiggs, averaging 2.5 bales per acre without irrigation (4 with fertilizer and irrigation). A profitable herd is 50 head (35 cows and 15 heifers on average running 3 bulls. Sells all bull calves at 400-450 lbs to reduce inputs ant stress on cows

We own the land and graze native grasses/wheat pasture. We supplement with hay/cake in the winter. We run about 30 momma cows. We keep all heifers sell all steers (except 1 as a feeder)and "flip" bulls every 2 years. We use them more as a "cash flow" to float us when we run out of wheat money as we get to bean/cotton harvest.

By the time we go through all of the numbers we "make" about 6-8 grand on cattle. It's honestly more of a hobby for my FIL to get through winter and the place needs cattle on it. I aspire to run 100 head at some point, but owning 100 head an hour away isn't feasible.

Remember, your time is worth something. Traveling to and from the pasture, feeding, checking water, busting ice in the winter are all daily chores. Then during calving season, you need to be out there more often. Working cattle is quite a bit of work, and if you don't have the help, you have to hire folks to help you and they aren't cheap.

Is it a better strategy to keep all of your heifers, in lieu of just keeping a selection of replacement heifers? If you keep all your heifers wouldn't you then be forced to sell of some of your proven mama cows? This assumes the land is at max capacity. I guess it depends how much supplemental feed you are doing.

Dude that runs 25-30 calves on our place got 2 fingers torn off this year when a rope got caught and the cow got away. So there's that...

WaltonLoads08 said:

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Dude that runs 25-30 calves on our place got 2 fingers torn off this year when a rope got caught and the cow got away. So there's that...

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Good payout if thumb and index finger on his primary hand on an AD&D policy.

Assuming your land is free, it's still hard to make money on a herd of 30 cows. If the market was like it was in 2015, maybe a different story, but still not a given.

Obviously the region you are in and how you're marketing your cows are huge factors. I run a 200 head operation in Virginia. The Cattle business is tough these days.

CPDAggie10 said:

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Is it a better strategy to keep all of your heifers, in lieu of just keeping a selection of replacement heifers? If you keep all your heifers wouldn't you then be forced to sell of some of your proven mama cows? This assumes the land is at max capacity. I guess it depends how much supplemental feed you are doing.

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In our experience no - as long as you have access to quality genetics on your replacement heifers. It's going to be almost 3 years by the time you get money out of a calf you keep and breed back on your own (assuming it's a grass fed operation like ours). And by that time, it's better to buy a quality replacement heifer that's already been preg checked.

CPDAggie10 said:

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You are right that 30 head for 1 bull is too many. Rule of thumb I have heard is generally 20-25 cows per bull. How to manage the bull situation is something that I'm still trying to grasp. Is it best to have your own bulls and try to rotate them, but at some point you have to worry about inbreeding. That's when i guess you would sell the bull and buy a replacement? Or is it just easier/cheaper to pay a stud fee and put someone else's bull on the herd?

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We have done both and have had success with both. Buying your own bull still means you will need a new one every few years due to genetics and size (we don't let ours get over 2k pounds).
We currently have a bull that is bad to the bone, so we are keeping him around. But since we breed via AI, we usually just rent clean up bulls for 60-75 days. It's nice to know your getting a good bull that has had a recent Breeding soundness exam and that you only have to mess with him for a certain time period. Let's not forget the risks associated with interacting with a bull on the daily. All our cattle are docile, but you cannot mistake a bull for a pet for one second.
In short, It is totally dependent on your preferences and how your operation is set up. It can work both ways.

CPDAggie10 said:

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Is it a better strategy to keep all of your heifers, in lieu of just keeping a selection of replacement heifers? If you keep all your heifers wouldn't you then be forced to sell of some of your proven mama cows? This assumes the land is at max capacity. I guess it depends how much supplemental feed you are doing.

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You can't depreciate cattle you have raised. Sell yours, buy bred replacements, and deduct the depreciation on your taxes.

On a small herd terminal crosses and buy your replacements will be best cheapest option.

Having to have separate herds will be tough on pastures and having a bull just to breed couple heifers a year isn't worth the grass he'll eat

One issue with your calculations is you won't have an 85% birth rate annually. Cows gestation is about 9 months then they will have a calf for another however many months before you sell the calves. Then you gotta wait for them to come in and get bred again. Every cow won't have a calf every year. Figure every other year just to be safe.

I gotta agree with a lot of the other posters, lot of good advice already posted. If it was easy and straightforward to make money on cattle, everybody would be doing it. One thing I've learned of the years of helping Dad with his small herd which is about the size you are considering, is stuff barely works out like you hope it will, always be conservative when estimating.

Cows eat a lot, feed will be the biggest cost for you and learning to manage it will be very important. Whether it's fertilizing to get better grass, buying hay or cubes to feed in the winter, or getting additional supplements like a mineral block, it all starts to add up. And you'll need lots of it to make sure they look good so you can get a decent price at the sale barn.

Look at attending the Beef Cattle Short course A&M puts on every year in the summer. Tons of great information for new ranchers and old.

Also go with smaller cows, stocking rates are generally a 1000 lbs cow and her calf, but,then if you get 1500 lbs cows that reduces your stocking rate. Also smaller cows eat less.

giddings_ag_06 said:

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One issue with your calculations is you won't have an 85% birth rate annually. Cows gestation is about 9 months then they will have a calf for another however many months before you sell the calves. Then you gotta wait for them to come in and get bred again. Every cow won't have a calf every year. Figure every other year just to be safe.

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Them's some lousy cows...and/or a lousy bull(s)

Not sure where to begin here. Or if it is even worth the time to try......

First of all, successful cattlemen and women are students and stewards of the land, Do you know what grows on your land? Good grass from bad grass? How much a cow eats? Her nutritional needs based upon her physiology? Your forage inventory? (Hint: there is a difference in kind/quality/palatibility of forage). Grazable acres? Stocking rate? (Hint: not a regional or county thing. Unique to your land). Water supply? Do you have any idea how much water a cow drinks a day?

People who are successful at this are educated at what they are doing and spend some time annually getting more educated (Hint: things like Beef Cattle Short Course, TSCRA School for Successful Ranching, etc). You sound like you think it's easy and any fool could do it. Reminds me of a very successful welder who owns his own business in the Panhandle. Bought a ranch. Then proceeded to buy a set of skinny bred heifers from east Texas in Dec 2016. When they started calving in Feb, he was losing many calves to a poisonous plant that was the only green thing in the Panhandle. He was fool enough to bring cattle that had never not seen Green grass clear up here in Dec. I can only imagine the "helluva good deal" he thought he got and the cattle trader chuckling all the way to the bank. And was downright embarrassed that some gal from the neighboring ranch had to explain to him what the hell was going on. Someone with zero experience thinking it's easy would be like me walking in to do some surgeon's job because it can't be that hard, right?

You have not even scratched the surface of the expenses involved. And, yeah, I have some experience. Manage 3 ranches, 75,000 ac for 23 years. Two degrees in range science.

I am sure there's a cattle trader who can hook you up.

And to the poster who figures on a calf every other year. I spit my beverage out reading that one. Holy buckets, you guys are fools. Cull those open cows buddy! You cannot afford to keep them.

Try following some Facebook pages including Texas Grazing Land Coalition, Ranching for Profut, TSCRA , Texas Range......just to get a tiny taste of the kind of knowledge you must have.

Another thought. Equipment. You will need working pens, pickup and a trailer, doctoring kit, branding equipment (if you intend to brand).

While some of this sounds inexpensive, it is stuff that costs real money that we have acquired over the years. Also expect to have to repair fences/pens so you'll need a welder (gas/diesel).

I'm not trying to talk you out of it, but running cattle is not an easy task. Take your time and be prepared before jumping in. Cattle are not an absentee investment. My FIL lives on the farm and when he's traveling either my or my BIL are the ones out there checking on them.

I've done exactly what you're proposing OP. Seems easy enough. Now, you said REVENUE, not profit. Most of the posts herein are addressing profit. Here's the catch. Everything you've gotta do to take care of a herd of cattle will eat away at your profit. It does it all year long until you finally get calves to the sale barn. You need some capital or you need a good banker.

The smartest cattle rancher out there is a grass farmer. That's your goal. The more and better grass you have, the healthier your herd.

Dad and I had a healthy herd for a long time. We even made money. Not enough to pay for the land, but enough to pay for the cattle. I started out with 13 momma cows on a quarter section. Rented a bull (it's cheaper than buying and feeding one, which I learned the hard way). In wet years, I had plenty of grass. In "dry" years, I made do with supplements.

Then the drought hit in late 2010. I had some hay to tide me over, but not enough. I scrambled for extra pastures to lease and ended up moving the herd east in search of grass. The hauling stress took a toll on them and I lost my favorite momma cow within a few days.

When I finally sold out, I was buying hay out of Ohio in August 2011 - $30 a bale to the farmer and $65 a bale to the truck driver. I was feeding a bale a day to 29 head. Doesn't take much math to see that I was selling a calf a week to feed the rest. You'll go broke trying to feed a small cow/calf herd out of pocket.

I think a big part of this is how much do you want it? It's a full time job. I learned the hard way that you don't just buy cows, throw 'em out on some property, and now you're a cattle rancher.

You need land. You need good fences. You need good water. You need good grass. You need catch pens. You need a headgate (at a minimum). You need a trailer. You (might) need a tractor. (I did it without one, but have one now and it's amazing what I can easily do now that I couldn't do at all then.) You need a good banker. You need lots of time.

I agree with the poster above about educating yourself, though I think her message was lost in the delivery. Learn about cattle. Learn how to care for them. Keeping them healthy is much easier than nursing them back to health.

An old rancher told me one time that a guy used to be able to sell 10 head of calves and buy a new pickup. He also told me you still can, but it's the same old pickup.

My honest opinion: According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Census of Agriculture, 2012, the average size of a cattle herd is 40 head. That means that there's a whole lot of us little guys that make up the market. We wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't possible to make a little money. A lot of us do it as a "hobby"*. My favorite quote is "Behind every successful rancher is a wife who works in town."

(*I use "hobby" carefully here. There are tax implications for hobby farms. Just forget about filing a Schedule F unless you run your cattle business AS a business. Learn the rules.)

If you plan to just jump in and buy what you need as you go along, you'll go broke and crazy. If I were doing it all over again, I would learn as much as I could and prepare as much as possible before I ever opened a trailer gate at my place. You start spending money on 'em once they're yours.

I'm long winded and have a whole lot more I could say, but this is long enough.

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...if you keep heifers from a crop are people breeding them back the their sire?

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It's called "line breeding", and practiced regularly in livestock. It does concentrate the genes (which can be good AND bad), but not necessarily bad!

Listen carefully to this song before you decide on getting cows

Truth!

And my dad used to say the same thing about "ten calves would buy a pickup", back in the 50's, when calves brought $100 and pickups were $1,000!

JP76 said:

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It's all fun and games until a drought hits and cattle prices are plummeting while hay is going parabolic.

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We're already setting up for this scenario in the Panhandle...

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The smartest cattle rancher out there is a grass farmer. That's your goal. The more and better grass you have, the healthier your herd.

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I feel like this is some of the best advice somebody could give. Good advice all around.

It seems like the general consensus is that with a little hard work and smart ranching you can make a few bucks, but you are certainly not going to get rich. Learn as much as you can before you jump in, have a plan in place before you cut em loose.

Man I could talk about this all day. What kind of cows is everyone running? What breed would you recommend for central Texas to South Texas? I like Brangus and Santa Gertrudis.

My experience is that a 25-30 cow operation is never going to make any money. I ran anywhere from 30-60 cows on 800 acres in hill country. If you feed them right, vaccinate them correctly , etc, you make very little $'s at end of day. Enjoyable experience but not profitable.