How to Run a Cattle Ranch

Last Updated: January 31, 2023 References Approved

Running a cattle ranch can be a full-time business, especially during the busy seasons. It takes a lot of hard work to run a ranch, along with the assumption of many responsibilities that you can't overlook. Because no ranch is the same as any other ranch, this article will only cover the general aspects of how a cattle ranch is run––as such, it is only meant as a guide because of the generalities involved. However, this article should provide you with a flavour of what it takes to successfully run a cattle ranch of your own.

Note: The steps below should not be taken in any particular order as any and all of these steps are just as important as the other.

Steps

1
Keep and maintain records. This means health, breeding, calving, culling, weaning, purchase and sale records by the use of forms, spreadsheets, or computer data programs such as CattleMax or CowProfit$ on every animal on your ranch, as well as records on purchases made for equipment, machinery, feed, hay, repairs, fencing supplies, etc.^{[1]
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Research source} Everything that needs to be recorded on your ranch should be recorded, and generally recorded the same day as the event, issue or purchase occurs to avoid lapses of memory.^{[2]
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- Your finances are the most important records to keep for your ranch. They are what determine how successful you are in your operations, whether you are actually making money through net income (which is your profitability in the business) or whether you're losing your hat. Using cash flow can help you prepare what to expect for the next fiscal year.
  - Remember that just because you can cash flow something doesn't always make it profitable.
2
Fix and maintain fences and buildings. Buildings typically require much less attention than fences do, but when there's something broken that needs to be fixed, then it should be fixed as soon as possible. Perimeter and pasture fencing needs to be checked regularly, particularly before cattle are to be moved into a pasture and after they have been moved out.^{[3]
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- Fix any broken or loose wires or posts that you may find, and trees that may have fallen on the fence line. It is also highly recommended that you fix any fence that has been damaged by cattle that have attempted to get out (or in), especially if a bull decides to make an exit to see some cows that are in heat at a neighbour's ranch.^{[4]
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- Be aware of local laws relating to escaped animals. You can be held liable for damage done by straying stock belonging to you in many jurisdictions––this is another reason why it's important to mend fences quickly.
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3
Fix and maintain machinery. Machinery that involves every part of the ranch operation, be it for haying, silage and/or grain production, needs to be maintained so that they are working properly when they are needed for the ranch's operations. It's recommended that machinery is checked regularly, even during the seasons where it is not being used.^{[5]
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- No matter how many pieces of machinery you have, from just an ATV and a bale truck to tractors, tillage machinery, combine harvesters, forage harvesters, swathers, mowers/haybines, balers, grain trucks, augers, etc., each piece needs to be inspected, oiled, greased, have broken parts replaced, and be in complete working order before being used in the fields.
4
Manage your grazing operation. Soil, vegetation and topography on your land dictate how you need to (and would like to) manage your land in the form of grazing cattle on pasture or rangeland. Pay attention to your stocking rates, carrying capacity, rest/recovery periods and animal impact when stocking pastures.^{[6]
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Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
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- Take notice of any wildlife habitat or signs of wildlife that are on your ranch. Some species of wildlife may be rare or endangered and only have limited or specific areas for breeding, nesting/birthing, or feeding in. To maintain these species of wildlife, you will need to manage your land and cattle so that you are not disrupting the natural patterns of these wild animals while at the same time encouraging them to return to these areas through such your responsible management practices.
  - Join a local wildlife conservation organization such as Ducks Unlimited so that you have a means to continue to manage your land for both the wildlife and your cattle.^{[7]
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    Research source} In some jurisdictions, government grants or philanthropic organization funding may be available to assist you.
- Be aware of the various types of grazing practices available at your disposal and manage such practices according to your goals and objectives, vegetation, soil and topography. It doesn't hurt to look for online or local courses to attend from time to time, so that you can benefit from the most up-to-date information available.
- Stay on top of government grants that go toward land maintenance and improvement.^{[8]
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  US Department of Agriculture
  U.S. agency responsible for promoting good agricultural practices and protecting consumers
  Go to source} Also look for programs that seek to help you recycle nutrients from waste products rather than discharging them downstream or off your land––you can save a lot of money recycling soil and vegetation nutrients rather than buying in artificial fertilizers and the like.
5
Manage how you are feeding your cattle. Feed only during times of need, such as drought or during the wintertime. Cows usually just need hay, but you may choose to feed them silage or supplement with grain as well.^{[9]
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- Be aware that for most North American (especially those in Canada and northern USA) and European ranches winter feeding is the biggest source of financial loss in a ranch operation. It is often what makes or breaks the ranch as a business, so requires very careful management with an eye to absolutely no waste.^{[10]
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  - Try to take advantage of winter grazing to lower such costs if you are in an area where you get cold winters and snow for four to six months of the year. Options such as swath grazing, bale grazing, stockpile grazing, crop-residue grazing or standing-corn grazing, are available for all cattle producers to try to help lower feed costs and general overhead costs during the winter.^{[11]
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    Iowa State University Extension and Outreach
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6
Manage your forage/grain enterprises. You need to know when the right times are for seeding, spraying (if necessary), cutting and harvesting. With hay, you only need to worry about when to cut, rake and bale.
- As mentioned previously each ranch is different, which means the times that are allotted to you to cut hay or begin seeding will be different for one part of the country (or world) than the other.
- Note that some ranches may only have one forage/grain enterprise operations, while others may have all three enterprises. Others may have be able to get around with none of the forage/grain enterprises and are able to graze their cattle year-round, especially in temperate and warm climate zones.
7
Keep up to date with vaccinations and dewormers. The vaccinations that are required for your area will be different for those in other areas, so it is best to check with your local large animal veterinarian for the best vaccines to use for your animals.^{[12]
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8
Prepare for and manage calving season. Depending on what time of the year you have your calving season, you should always have things prepared for when calving season is projected to start. Keep an eye out for cows that may be ready to calve, and have the tools necessary to assist with any calving difficulties.^{[13]
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Penn State Extension
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- Many ranches prefer to calve out heifers before the cows, since the heifers typically need more attention during calving than the cows do.
9
Manage the cows and calves post-calving. You will need to keep an eye on the young calves for signs if illness like scours and pneumonia, injuries like broken legs or feet from being stepped on, cows that may decide to either not accept their calves or steal another cow's calf, predators going after young calves, etc.
10
Process your calves. Post-calving you need to tag, vaccinate calves and castrate any bull calves that you are not planning on raising as potential sires. Branding should be done when calves are, on average, around two to three months of age.^{[14]
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- With branding time, you can't be expected to do this by yourself or just your immediate family. Branding in the traditional ranching community is a social event and should be treated as such. Get your neighbors, family and friends out by letting them know that you're getting ready for branding and need some extra help. They'll likely be more than pleased to give you a hand. Be sure to reciprocate the help for fellow ranchers.
11
Prepare for and manage breeding season. Your bulls, whether they have been recently purchased or are already a part of your herd, are worth half of your herd. They need to be semen tested a week or two before breeding season starts. Semen testing will tell you how well he's producing and whether he has healthy sperm as far as motility, morphology and good counts are concerned. You may also need to split your cowherd up into different breeding groups, especially if you have more than one bull of the same size and age. This will reduce competition between these bulls and potential injuries to these bulls as well.^{[15]
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University of Georgia Cooperative Extension
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- However, this should be up to your discretion. Having separate breeding pastures may be more work than simply letting the bulls do their job in a bigger pasture with all the cows in it.
- Heifers should be bred a week or so before the main cow herd, so that the calving season of these heifers start before the rest of the cow herd does.
- Typically one mature bull can easily handle breeding 30 to 40 cows, especially if they're more spread out. A bull will be able to service over 50 cows if they're in a smaller pasture. Younger bulls may only be able to breed 30 cows or heifers at the most.
- Not all ranches use bull power to breed their heifers and cows. AI (Artificial Insemination) is gaining ground in beef operations as well, and can be made a part of your breeding decisions for your herd.
12
Manage your backgrounding/finishing operations. Some ranches have one or the other, others have both, or even none. Whether you choose to have a backgrounding and finishing operation along with your cow-calf enterprise, that is up to you and what you can handle. For each you will need to make or purchase extra feed, set aside land, have more machinery and manage your background or finisher herds in a different manner than you would for your cow-calf herd.^{[16]
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Penn State Extension
Educational organization dedicated to delivering science-based information to people, businesses, and communities
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- In order to manage a backgrounding/finishing operation, you need to remember you are managing for growth and average daily gain, not for pounds per calf weaned.
13
Select for and manage replacement heifers. Your cows cannot live forever and need to be culled or may suddenly die on you for whatever reason. Replacement heifers are there for you to use as new breeding females for your cow-calf herd, and need to be selected for various traits including but not limited to maternal ability, growth, calving ease, and pounds per calf weaned.^{[17]
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- You should try to manage your replacement heifers like you do with your cow herd, not like you do with stocker or backgrounder cattle, since, after all, they are growing into cows, not feeder steers.
- If you are a purebred operation, you will need to also manage those heifers that you are planning to sell the way you would manage your replacements. It's not uncommon for ranches to raise purebred heifers to sell the same way they'd raise their heifers for their own cowherd.
14
Make culling decisions in your cowherd. Your heifers, cows and bulls may have to be culled from herd and sold. Culling is simply taking out undesirable animals from your herd with the intention of improving your base herd. Cattle may be culled for: bad temperament, poor conformation, maternal issues (heifer or cow refuses to accept calf, undesirable milking ability), lack of forage efficiency, health issues (Johne's disease, chronic bloat), lack of teeth, breed ability (cows/heifers come up open [not bred], bull fails semen test, cows and heifers had prolapsed vagina), injuries (bull has broken penis, cow has lameness issues that can't be fixed with antibiotics), etc.^{[18]
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15
Wean calves from the cows. There are several options you can use to wean calves off of cows and heifers, from pre-conditioned weaning to on-the-truck weaning, the latter being more stressful for both cows and calves than the other.^{[19]
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Penn State Extension
Educational organization dedicated to delivering science-based information to people, businesses, and communities
Go to source}
16
Sell excess livestock. This includes those animals that need to be culled, excess stock including the weaned calves, heifers and steers that have finished the backgrounding or stocker phase, or cattle that have been finished and are being sold to be slaughtered. You will need to decide to sell your cattle through private-treaty or the auction. Either way you will be selling your cattle under a $/lb or $/cwt basis.
- Exceptions are if you are a purebred seedstock operation and you are selling purebred bulls and heifers to other producers.
17
Manage your cow herd. There is more to your cows than having them able to be bred and raise a calf, they have to be cared for and managed in such a way that they are in good health, good body condition and are getting sufficient minerals and nutrients in the forage they have access to.^{[20]
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- Perform body condition scoring of cows after calves have been weaned as well as preg-checking to verify if they have been bred or not.
18
Manage your bulls. Like with the cows in the step above, your bulls also need to be in good condition and good health in order to be ready to breed for the next season. They need a sufficient diet to recover from breeding season and to help maintain their fertility.^{[21]
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19
With livestock you'll get dead stock. As mentioned previously, your cows (and cattle) will not live forever. There will be instances on your operation that cows, calves, bulls, steers and heifers will die, and it's your responsibility to properly dispose them according to local laws.^{[22]
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20
Take care of your horses and stock dogs. You may be the type of ranch that likes to stick with the old ways of doing things, including using horses and dogs to herd and work cattle. You need to look after your horses so that they're in good health and sound condition to work cattle when needed, and the same with your stock dogs. Though they are work animals, they don't have to be not treated as part of the family either.
- Even if you do choose to go the way of the traditional way of ranching and "punching" cows, note that many ranchers have not gone without having some form of handling facilities to work their herd with, including those that choose to keep to tradition.
  - Handling facilities are such that can take cattle from the pasture or range and put them through the sorting pens, working alley, crowding pen or tub, the working chute, then to the squeeze chute. If they're being loaded up to be taken some place off the ranch or being shipped to the auction, they are moved down a different or adjoining chute to the loading ramp/chute to go onto the trailer.
21
Do it all over again the next year. However, nothing is the same from year to year. Like with farmers, ranchers are always working according to changes in the environment and weather and are heavily influenced by these changes. Weather, climate, and land are just a few factors that cannot be changed in your ranch operation but must simply be worked with and managed around. Calving season, breeding season, the breed or breeds of your cows and bulls, when to sell and when to wean are liable to change and are of your choice to change. Markets, weather and consumer preferences are not. Your management decisions are never set in stone in a ranching operation either––you always have to be flexible and ready to learn how to turn lemons thrown at you into lemonade.
- A business plan is not set in stone either, and is one that's prone to change. If you haven't created one already, it would be a great idea to do so, so that you can clearly see what your goals are and where you are in your business.^{[23]
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22
Take some time off for yourself and your family if and when you can. Ranching is a way of life, no doubt, as well as a business, but it shouldn't be the very thing that completely rules your life. Don't forget to take some time for yourself and your family when you can, even if it's for a few hours or a couple of days. A change of scenery always helps clear your mind of all the work that needs to be done on the ranch and gives you a chance to even take a little break.
- Do a deal with a neighbouring rancher that lets each of you take care of the ranch in the absence of the other for short periods of time. This will let both of you find the opportunity to take a well-deserved break now and then.

Community Q&A

Question

How can I find a short course on cattle ranching?

Community Answer

Talk to your local agricultural extension office to see if they know of any organizations or people that hold short courses on ranching. A local agricultural college may also have courses.
Question

What's the minimum useful acreage for a working ranch? Also, what areas of the U.S. and Canada provide the best ranch conditions?

Karin

Top Answerer

The minimum acreage for a working ranch will depend on the carrying capacity for that land, and how many animals that a person is willing to run. So a ranch can really be a minimum of 10 acres, particularly in an area where you can have a high carrying capacity throughout the year. Western USA from Oregon/Washington south to California, and east to Texas are usually the best areas for ranch land. In Canada, the western southern half of the four provinces - B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba--are also ideal. But really, you can have a ranch pretty well anywhere you wish in North America.
Question

I need to know, how much is the income for a cattle ranch per year? I mean generally.

Karin

Top Answerer

Depending on the number of cattle sold and the cattle markets, income can range from $20,000 to $80,000 (plus or minus a couple thousand dollars) a year. This may seem like a lot, but remember that this income only comes once a year, and not in monthly or biweekly payments. And 99% of that income goes right back into the ranching operation to pay for machinery repairs, fencing costs, building repairs, and other small improvements, as well as paying for utility bills and land rent.

Warnings

Always be careful when working around livestock and machinery. Accidents can happen, and Murphy's Law of "anything that can happen will" will always be at play in your ranching operations.

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Note that ranching is not for everyone, not for the faint of heart, the indoor person, or one who doesn't like to have to change or be flexible or a jack- or jenny-of-all-trades.

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