Dream of owning a farm? Can you earn a living with cattle? Surprised?

this is a fatty mcfatty check this is from the farm operation this is the first year of profit on our farm and today we're going to teach you guys about what the cows brought from the cattle market and whether it's profitable or not on a small farm Stony [Music] Farm hey there folks this is Josh stonyridge farmer welcome to the farm if this is your first time here or 50 millionth time please hit that like button consider subscribing to the Channel all around us is 150 acre first generation Farm here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina first generation Farm means there was nothing here but dirt when we bought the property now this is a working farm and it's been super fun and super impressive to bring you guys along with me as I build this small farm this cattle operation which will soon expand to Pork which will soon expand to lamb which will soon expand to many other things eggs meat bird chickens all sorts of stuff guys there's a lot of work to get done here on the farm always today's video is all about cattle and profit so a couple weeks back I did a little bit of a video about running out of hay and we're here in March in 2024 and I was running low on Hay I have about 85 Acres fenced here I've got about 150 total acres here on the farm and 85 Acres fenced with not so good of grass we have very poor grass we have very poor soil but all of that is improving it's improving year after year after year this is a regenerative Farm meaning we think regeneratively we think holistically we think about soil versus green grass in other words we're not spraying chemicals out on our land that are not natural we aren't putting unnatural fertilizers out here on the land meaning petroleum based chemical regular fertilizers like 101010 or triple 17 or whatever it is that most Farmers or ranchers are putting out on their land so that their grass greens up and Pops what we're doing is thinking in a 100-year plan here on the Stony Ridge Farm and a 100-year plan and I'll be long gone trust me is to grow soil soil is the basis for everything in a country in other words soil is the basis for Success soil is the basis for life soil is the basis for every single thing that makes a country whole that makes a country a successful place to live look at places like the deserts in Ethiopia where people are starving to death quote unquote what's wrong the soil is bad what's wrong why is the soil bad has it been overfarmed is it desertification what is it that's what we're avoiding here on the Stony Ridge Farm low input when it comes to chemicals when it comes to fertilizers high input when it comes to carbon and microbes and growing our soil so I want to start this conversation by talking to you about that because I get picked on a lot why aren't you cutting your own hay I'm not cutting my own hay because I don't want to have $120,000 worth of infrastructure out here in order to buy $88,000 worth of hay every year it just doesn't seem to make any sense when I can bring carbon to the land instead of putting chemical fertilizer out here watching the grass turn green and March April and May and by July it's back to a desert again that's not what we're about we're about holistic land care and the basis for a health of our nation and your health my health and the health of these animals and land is in the soil it's in the microbes in the soil it's in the carbon in the soil it's in the plants in the Diversified salad bar that these cows eat now that being said all these are grass-fed beef I do not give grain to my animals this is grass cows and that's it they don't get Dormer they don't get because they move okay we'll talk about that in a second but they don't get Dormer okay they don't get antibiotics unless they're sick they don't get Dormer unless they're wormy okay they don't get antibiotics unless they're sick they don't get steroids we don't castrate our young Bulls which will make a steer which is what goes to market for beef we don't castrate them as babies and insert a hormone we let Nature's hormones grow these animals guys it's something that's super important to me and it should be super important to you we've got to stop this artificial mess that we're doing typically an animal like this would go to a feed lot in a confined area it would gain weight really really fast 12 16 18 months it's ready for butcher they take it to the Butcher and you're eating a bunch of fluff okay you've got a confined animal that's been overmedicated and it has to be medicated because if it wasn't medicated the living condition are so bad that they would be sick all the time doesn't make much sense to do that in my mind this is not good bad living conditions look at them they're all lounging they're all just chilling out it's awesome he first of all let's talk about profitability of an animal if I take one of these beef cows and make no mistake this is food okay these aren't pets this is food although some of them are rubbable and lovable and pettable this is food and the sooner we scratch all the ideas that life doesn't include death in this world then we'll be much better people much more well-educated people most people are sheltered from the seasons the only time they go outside is walking from the car to the door to the door to the car from work to the car door and from the car door back into the house or the car to the grocery store that's not understanding ecology and that's not understanding life cycles here life cycles depend upon a grazing herbivore just like this a ruminant animal a predator species and we are the king keystone predator species when it comes to raising cattle it's something that's a fact of life life is about Seasons life is about growth and life is about death if not for death we wouldn't have anything if not for microbes and if not for mushrooms and fungi we need it we need it in our soil we need it in our bodies so that being said let's talk a little bit about the profitability if I process a beef Calon let's say I process a400 lb beef Calon I take home 1,000 pounds of beef the minimum cost for any beef that comes off the farm is going to be about $10 per pound so you do the math there that's $10,000 right a lot of leg work it takes 24 to 28 months to finish out a grass-fed animal like this that's a lot of leg work I was significantly impressed here with the prices that I got for my beef so what we had we took 15 animals and this is just the sheet with 15 animals that we took actually get you a picture of that and we'll pop it up on the screen so I sold one adult cow one adult cow was a female she wasn't thriving she wasn't doing very good she wasn't very parasite resistant meaning I could tell she was losing weight she was wormy she was always wormy and I always had troubles with her so she had to go that one cow weighed 1135 lb and the price and this is the cheapest one was $119 so $1,350 65 for that cow when I bought that cow it was pregnant and I paid $1,200 for it okay okay so it set out here in the pasture for 2 years and it gained $150 I don't know anywhere that you can invest $1,200 and make it bring back $150 worth of profit in two years of doing nothing okay that's significant that's significant that's 10% interest so yeah interest rates are up a little bit uh so the next thing that we did we had some Bulls we'll talk a little bit about this so our weight in our in our animals really matters so at 510 lbs they brought $260 per pound so a 510 lb cow bull young bull brought $1,300 okay 1326 a755 lb bull brought $1,457 at $1.93 per pound a 380b young heer brought $760 okay so that's $2 per pound the most I got for any young animal was a 315lb bull which was the smallest bull out here and I ended up getting $330 per pound for that small bull $139.50 for that 35lb bull so the magic number is between 300 and 500 pound is what I'm finding out that's where the money is a little bit better I have no idea why that bull brought that much money we look back through here I've got some at 620 lbs the minimum cost that I got was that cow and it was $119 a pound the maximum I got was $3.30 a pound and the average price was $24 per pound the average weight was 387 lbs so it's interesting the average per head cost was about $791 41 flipping this over again I'll post this right here for you guys so that you understand it just a little bit more my total take-home from taking 15 animals to the cattle sale barn is right here in this pocket and that covered all of my hay cost from 2023 and will cover every bit of my hay cost for 20 24 we'll also sell off more animals and we'll butcher four animals for local Farm Fresh beef so what this is going to do is probably net a profit this year of about $8 to $10,000 I took home $1,281 63 with this check right here from taking 15 cows to the sale barn if I had the customer base here that could have been as much as $160,000 think about it so guys I didn't want to take any cows to the market our numbers were too big we were overgrazing our land this section of pasture is overgrazed and it's what I'm calling a sacrifice Paddock what we're going to do here is we're going to roll out two bales of hay to the cows they're going to put down that good butt fertilizer we're going to continue to breed with our breeding program we sold off 15 animals we had 50 four and now we're back up we just had our ninth calf for the year so you think about this each calf is going to bring somewhere between $750 and $1,000 we've got around 32 mama cows right now 32 times about 700 to 1,000 bucks is as much as $32,000 of money that will come out of this land every single year what people need to understand is it takes Seasons to start earning a profit on a farm this Farm is brand new and we're learning as we go and I hope you guys learned a little bit today that's how much money I took home our average price 800 bucks per head if we had 10 babies that's 8,000 we had 20 babies that's 16,000 guys farming can be profitable but it takes a couple years to do it that's what we got at the cattle market prices fluctuate they go up they go down so we'll see what happens in the fall thank you guys so much please hit that like button subscribe to the channel Channel I just thought I would share this with you another huge part of the operation here is the social media end of our farm operation so not only do I show you how to farm but we're wrenching on stuff we're working on trucks we're working on tractors we're trying out new tools and that's a huge part of the profitability on the farm however the cattle have to be able to earn a profit and stand on their own two feet the other week I did a video about selling off cows and everybody just hammered me you need to get rid of a equipment you need to get rid of trucks you need to get rid of tractors you need to get rid of this we're talking about cows cattle and Profit the farm is virtually built and now it's time that they earn if they don't earn then I need to come up with ideas in my head to make this more successful thank you guys so much I hope this helps you in your decision-making process if you decide you want to start farming or ranching just like this take care have a great day we'll see you next time on the Stony Ridge woo come on down to the Stony Ridge bring your wife bring your kids living life pure and sweet that's the way it's supposed to be Stony r