Raising Cattle for Beginners

Today is your basic introduction to cows this is more for your beginner or the person that's thinking about getting cows and which type of cow to get ?
Now when you're talking more about your dairy breed of cow you are looking at and wanting to get into milk ,cheese ,butter stuff like that 
now these cows if you're going to keep them on grass they have to have more acreage pour per cow because of the fact that their metabolism is so much higher so either out of have more land with more grass or you need to be able to supplement them more with more hay or supplemental feed 
now if the dairy cow is in milk that feed ratio goes up even higher but that we'll get into that in the other article 
so your basic cow to land ratio what do you need how much land do you need to raise a cow how much pasture land do you need to raise a cow ???

well that all depends on how you're going to do it if you're going to turn it loose and just let it gray is where it once the grace you're going to need a larger number of acreage per cow. your garden-variety right off the fisticuff you need about 3 acres per cow .
now if you do like how we do where we do intense grazing with beef cows you can lower that number to about 4 or 5 to 10 cows per acre depending on the level of salad bar that you have in your pasture .
Another thing that cows need is water :
They need lots and lots and lots of water 
your average full-grown cow will drink anywhere from 20 to 50 gallons of water a day that's a lot of water 
now you can combat that if you have a creek or a pond on your property the only problem with the pond aspect of it is in the same way with the creek is that on hot days they will go into the pond or go into your creek to cool off and they will defecate in there and that kind of makes the water a little bit unhealthy for them later on down the road 
so you're going to have to have a way to get them a tremendous amount of water now you can do the hose drag or you can find ways to pump water to your troughs.

Now in the summertime your cows also need access to shade they need somewhere to be able to get out of the heat somewhere where it can be five to ten degrees cooler during the heat of the day 
- Your cows also need a place to where as they graze like this 
they can go lay down to chew their cud because a cow has four stomachs he's an herbivore he has four stomachs and so when they first eating like they're doing now it's going into the first chamber then they will regurgitate that chew it again in the smaller portions and then it goes into the second chamber this is all developed through from when a lot of your herbivores like Buffalo, your deer ,your caribou they're out there on the range and they have to eat in a hurry because of natural predators so they'll mob mentality they'll do like they're doing right there and they will be side by side by side and eat and walk but they're doing it fast and so when they're doing this all that grass is going into their first chamber then later on you'll see them laying down and they have regurgitated it and then it goes into the second to the third and then finally in the last stomach and then out the pooper .
- So they need in areas preferably to be able to lay down in this in the shade to be able to relax and chew on their cud 
a lot of people ask us what's what type of grass is the best type of grass ???
well there's not one grass that's superior for cows over another grass you want to have a variety of grass now if you're gonna do intense grazing like we do you want to keep the paddocks small like the paddock that I'm standing in right now has to be cut in half this paddock is still too large for these guys they've been in this area for two days and I don't like it I want them one 24-hour period in the paddock the reason being you know as you can see in spots where they eat they ate it down real heavy and then there's spots where the grass is still relatively tall .
calves and cows are like children if you turn a child loose in a buffet restaurant and don't give them any direction and you don't make them do anything what are they gonna go to first they're gonna go to the sweets to the ice creams and to the cakes it's not until you force them to eat their vegetables that they lead them there the same way ...