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Expert
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Location: Southwest Louisiana | My husband has been wanting to get into raising cattle. He mainly wants a few to butcher each year for us and a few family members. Eventually, he wants to get a few good breeding stock cows and sell off "extra" calves. This may be years from now, lol. But I've been looking around at miniature herefords and have seen a lot of good things about them, especially for someone just getting into raising cattle. Any thoughts?
Edited by Rocket'sMagicGirl 2017-09-17 12:12 PM
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
 
| !Rocket'sMagicGirl - 2017-09-17 12:10 PM
My husband has been wanting to get into raising cattle. He mainly wants a few to butcher each year for us and a few family members. Eventually, he wants to get a few good breeding stock cows and sell off "extra" calves. This may be years from now, lol. But I've been looking around at miniature herefords and have seen a lot of good things about them, especially for someone just getting into raising cattle. Any thoughts?
We have no experience with miniatures except at our county show a family shows them. They seem to be a calm, kind breed. These kids are really busy and don't spend loads of time with them but they act really well. There is NOTHING cuter than a little miniature Hereford calf! I just want to take one home and put him in the house and love him!  |
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 Shelter Dog Lover
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| We looked into it, we want cows to help cut down on how often we have to shred our property. I talked to a friend who raises them and we would have to get about 40 which is more than we wanted. They are adorable and if you handle them they become like pets and my husband knows I would not butcher anything I became attached too. We decided to go with big cows. The minis are good eating, they sell for around $2500. |
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  Fact Checker
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Location: Displaced Iowegian | Scott & Carol have some ..... PM "Bear" |
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 BHW Resident Surgeon
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Location: Bastrop, Texas | We got started less than a year ago, so I'm not the one to ask, but I will say they are very easy to handle, and they are good especially if you have limited acreage. You can easily feed one per acre, and some say two, in fact. They are supposedly very good eating. Where you can make some money is selling them for show. We have a polled mini bull who is supposedly well bred. Little fart could be worth a fair amount, I'm told. |
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Veteran
Posts: 217
| I grew up on a dairy farm but we got our first "mini beef/beef nuggets" two years ago in trade for some equipment since they owned her sire. Well it turned out he was going to be on the road a lot so we acquired his whole herd. We raise American Aberdeens/Lowlines. They are the older style angus, small framed. Had a heifer that was longhorn/am.aberdeen cross. She had the speckled hide but was polled. She was wild, and a poor mom so we bottle raised her calf and butchered her. Didn't really intend of doing this so she wasn't really fed out like a butcher cow but she gave us no choice. I would say she graded on the high side of choice and best burger/steak I've had.
Mini Herefords are cute, can get polled or horned. I got confused with them because they are still registered with the hereford registry while our guys are on a complete different registry. Also, anything with a black hide sells better in our region, something you have to consider as well.
Our four year old bull is out with our holstein (freebie) steer all the time. The holstein appears to eat almost constant while I might see the bull eat significantly less. They are much more docile than their full size counterparts. I honestly can't get enough of these guys. Pricey to get into but we're up to 10 in a matter of two years. Next year we'll be selling all of our calves.
Edited to add: Short bull does beat the Holstein up pretty good.
Picture of most of our girls. Two are fullbloods, one purebred, two percentage, and the barrel on legs we have no idea what she is but the furry ears are her daughters to the bull
Boyfriend is 6' tall if it helps with visuals. He's pretty short, they come in taller sizes too
Edited by mgander 2017-09-18 10:55 AM
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Expert
Posts: 1549
Location: Southwest Louisiana | Thanks for the info and the pics. We'll definitely be getting some minis. I think for our purposes, we'd go for mini Hereford and maybe a mini Jersey for milking. I'd like to get started within the year.
What combo would you go with to get started? A good bull and a couple of good cows? Or start small and get some calves? I've thought about just getting quality cows and doing AI from a good bull (we have a good vet who can do it) and hope for our own quality bull? For qualty, I mean to be able to sell as show stock for 4H.
Edited by Rocket'sMagicGirl 2017-09-20 3:25 PM
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Veteran
Posts: 217
| Rocket'sMagicGirl - 2017-09-20 4:24 PM
Thanks for the info and the pics. We'll definitely be getting some minis. I think for our purposes, we'd go for mini Hereford and maybe a mini Jersey for milking. I'd like to get started within the year.
What combo would you go with to get started? A good bull and a couple of good cows? Or start small and get some calves? I've thought about just getting quality cows and doing AI from a good bull (we have a good vet who can do it) and hope for our own quality bull? For qualty, I mean to be able to sell as show stock for 4H.
If you plan on keeping the first round of calves, I'd AI. If you have room for two pastures a bull just makes life easier with semen shipping costs. If you can, splurge a little bit and start with good stock. It makes it easier than trying to breed up |
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