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Custom Grazing Prices?

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bverellen

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What are folks paying or charging for custom grazing rates in your area?

Either by the AUM or per acre or by month, but please include the stocking rate and the class of livestock.

I'm particularly interested in upper Midwest, but this should be good discussion no matter where you're from.

Thanks.
 
I broke it all down in a post a month or so ago, but here goes.
156 acres (one quarter section with 4 acres removed for roads on two sides of the property.
30 pairs and 1 bull for a six month grazing season (approximately May 1 to November 1)
Adequate water, grass, & fence in good repair. Tenant repairs any fence, supplies furnished by landlord. Cedars just emerging/visible removed by tenant. Good access to property. Thistles sprayed by tenant, chemical provided by landlord.

A property as described above, IF the landowner is to just break even on taxes, interest, and investment, in my area...south central Nebraska, is worth $70/acre for the season.

If you can rent something comparable for less, the landowner is actually losing money and you are ahead of the game.

Not one acre of grass that has sold in this area in the last 5 years or more has been kept in grass. The tractor jockeys have torn everything up to raise one more bushel of corn.
 
It's gotten crazy around here for a six month grazing season like Loomixguy explained a lot of people are charging 540 a cow calf pair. Landlord fixes fence and pay's for chemical to spray weed's. Finding pasture around here is like panning for gold. We've got all of these farmers from eastern Ne. that seem to have deeper pocket's than most local rancher's.
 
I've always thought that the landowner has to count increase in the value of the land as profit.The last few years that has been pretty substantial. $70 an acre on top of that would be a lot of money. Anyway that's how I look at it.
 
Thanks for the responses.

Perhaps I worded the question wrong. I'm trying to find out what is a fair price to contract graze different classes of livestock.

Not wanting to create a debate about land values. Sorry for the confusion.

bart.
 
With the prices mentioned a good cattle market doesn't matter. Cattle production isn't sustainable at them price levels. Yay it might work for year or two but not forever. Somebody always has to take the profit out of it.
 
I pay 45 a cow calf pair.. The owner goes around the fence in the spring and I take care of it through the summer he provides the supplies and also takes care of any thistle.. But loomixguy said, finding grass in the area is getting harder.. Even where they cant drill a well they are still breaking it.
 
I haven never heard of grass rent prices that high. We are in a pretty good native grass area being in and near the Flint Hills grazing area. For that quarter section mentioned above we'd be looking at 25 pairs and a bull for a 6 month grazing period and probably a price between $25 and $30 per acre rental. The tenant would pretty much do any fencing or spraying that was done. I know I have never rented grass from a landlord where he has done anything but collect the rent. Just depends on the tenant whether spraying or fencing gets done but if it doesn't get done he probably won't be renting the pasture for long. I don't mean the tenant has to build new fence but he does have to patch and repair the existing fence. A lot of the Flint Hills is properly named as there is a lot of rock in it and cannot be plowed fortunately. With corn prices at $4 and planting costs what they are I would think a person could make more from grazing cattle. You can never replant native grass and have anything close to the quality of grass that was originally there. Seems to me it is just dumb to plow up native grass. Just my opinion of course.
 
Last year we were at $1.50/pair/day. I take care of the fence and water. Put out whatever supplements the tennant provides, move the cattle and doctor up to 10 times/season. I would imagine that this year we will be a bit higher. Haven't heard any prices yet. We figure, on the average, 11.5 acres per pair per 5 1/2 month grazing season. Last year we cut our numbers in half. 2 years ago we should have.
Calves have to be out by mid September, if the tennant wants to leave the cows, any extra days.

It must work, we have had the same guys here on the river for 10 years, and the other place for 4.

Bulls count as a pair, and are limited to 60 days.
 
As to different classes of cattle, I use as a starting point ten cents per hundred pounds per day. That would make a 600 lb. steer 60 cents a day and a 1400 lb. cow $1.40. I don't know if this helps.
 
LazyWP and WHR, those are the kind of answers I was looking for, thank you.

CornstalkCowboy, where are you located?


The premise of my questions are that we are penciling a custom graze operation on rented land. We could very well be relocating next year to the South Iowa/Northern Missouri area.

bart.
 
In Alberta we used to charge 70-80 cents per head per day for yearlings depending on size and circumstance - steers, heifers, spayed heifers, crazy, somewhat quiet, good health background, etc. The client provided the mineral he wanted, I put it out in front of them. I treated and billed him for meds. On good pasture and moving daily we rarely treated anything though.

I've come to find that here in BC people are charging alot less. One new neighbor charges 55-60 cents per day for yearlings, even though he gets the same average gains as Alberta grazers. He consistently gets 1.6-1.8lbs/day.

My opinion is that 70-80 cents per day is a good price for both parties as long as the cattle perform. We had poor gains at times when hauling water to yearlings in hot water and not being able to keep up. Other times we had fantastic gains that were definitely cheap gains for our clients. Lots of factors play into it that have to be considered in your pricing. Hope that helps.
 

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