How to Start up a Beef Cow Calf Operation

A beef cow-calf operation is an operation on a farm or ranch where you have cows and bulls that are bred together to produce calves.  Calves are often sold to the market to be grown into beefers.  Note that there are two types of cow-calf operations: commercial and seedstock.  Commercial generally involves cross-bred cows that are bred to produce calves that are mainly for beef production.  Commercial can also have cows of the same breed, but most are not purebred cows.  Seedstock operations, on the other hand, are where producers raise a favorite breed (sometimes more than one) and breeds cows to get calves that are grown and sold to other producers as replacement stock.  Generally, most rookie cattlemen should start off as commercial cattlemen to gain the experience of calving cows, weaning calves, marketing calves, selecting cows and bulls and replacement heifers and culling the rest, etc. before they decide to go into the seedstock or purebred business.