Raising cattle isn’t just for full-scale farmers.
Cows don’t need to be kept in a large herd or on a huge expanse of land.
So, how many cows can you raise if you have a five-acre property?
Five acres could support anywhere from 2-15 cows, though 2-4 is more realistic. Farming is never simple, so we can’t give you an exact number of cows per acre. The number of animals you raise on five acres depends on the cattle themselves, the quality of the land and feed, and how you decide to organize your pastures.
There are many variables at work here, and you need to understand them before buying any cattle.
Read on to learn what cows need in a pasture and whether your five acres will adequately sustain only a couple of head of cattle or more.
How Many Cows Will Your Land Support?
Preparing to start cattle farming is a more delicate process than you might think.
It’s hard to tell just how many cows to keep on how many acres.
Not only do you need to care for your cattle and consider milk or beef production, but you also need to care for the pastures where your livestock graze.
Related: Do sheep ruin grazing for cattle?
Here’s our list of the most important considerations to make when deciding how many heads of cattle to raise:
- What kind of cows are you raising?
- How much feed will your land yield, and will you buy feed?
- What are the soil type and quality of your pastures?
- Where is your land, and is it well-irrigated?
Cattle Breeds
A lot fluctuates from one breed of cattle to the next.
The first major distinction to make is whether you’re raising dairy breeds or if you want a beef cow.
The primary product of your farm (dairy, beef, or other byproducts) changes a lot!
Beef cows turn their feed into body fat, whereas dairy cows convert the same energy into milk.
For this reason, dairy breeds eat more than those raised for meat.
A dairy cow eats up to 4% of its body weight in dry matter each day.
Every individual breed of cow will be different, though.
Breed characteristics like size, milk production, and genetic factors influence an animal’s food intake.
Say you have a Holstein cow that weighs 1350 pounds.
They will eat up to 42 pounds of dry matter in one day.
But if you raise a smaller breed of cow, such as a Jersey, they won’t eat as much.
So, depending on the breeds you raise, you will fit more or fewer cattle on five acres.
If you have a calf on your farm, they eat less than a mature animal would.
But you still need to account for their feed intake.
Yield
The number of cows per acre of grass can depend on how much feed your pasture will yield in a year, too.
Land with yields of three tons per acre, for example, will feed the 1350-pound Holstein cow we talked about earlier for about five months.
If you want to put up hay for the winter, you need to calculate how much feed your cows can forage during the growing season and how much you’ll have to save and bale for winter.
Continuing with our current example, you could raise 2-3 cows on five acres of land without needing to buy feed.
If you’d prefer to skip all the math and raise more cattle on your small acreage, buying your feed is always an option!
You’ll need to take some time to estimate those costs if you go this route.
Soil Type and Quality
Whether your land’s starting yield is high or low, how you care for the fields will determine how many heads of cattle will fit on your five-acre plot.
Remember, any time you take grass away from the land, you take nutrients from the soil.
To properly care for your fields, you must put those nutrients back some other way.
Cow manure is an excellent fertilizer.
Further reading: Can cow dung cake be used as fertilizer?
But you’ll need to test your soil and ensure you’re giving it everything it needs, not all of which will come from manure.
To care for your acreage, you must also ensure your herd doesn’t grub the land by overgrazing.
This is a risk with sheep and dairy goats as well.
It’s one reason not to overpopulate your pastures with sheep, goats, or cows.
If you don’t rotate your pastures and take good care of them, you will have to keep fewer cattle, and you’ll also worsen the condition of the land and decrease future crop production.
Carefully tending to your land is beneficial all around!
Related: Can you spread fertilizer on pasture with cattle?
Location and Irrigation
Finally, it’s important to consider your local climate.
Take some time to research your area’s annual rainfall and the length of the growing season.
These factors will impact the quality and quantity of feed produced in a given year.
Extremely dry conditions are bad for grass growth. But so is excessive moisture.
If your feed isn’t well irrigated, you risk problems with flooding.
Excellent pasture conditions can decline rapidly during a drought or flood.
While none of us is about to snap our fingers and cancel a rainstorm, we can all prepare to our best ability and take our area’s average rainfall into account.
Why Does Land Quality Matter So Much?
First and foremost, if your land can’t support your herd, it will be an animal welfare problem.
Having too little feed is bad for your cows’ health, whatever products you raise them for, and you need to ensure your animals will be well taken care of before they move onto your farm.
Furthermore, poorly irrigated land or pastures with low-quality feed harm your animals and your overall production and earnings.
These qualifications only increase in importance if you decide to pursue organic farming or if you care even the littlest bit about sustainable farming.
We recommend you care for your animals and the environment first!
Large-scale conventional farming is often harmful to both.
You have a prime opportunity to be conscious and considerate when deciding how many heads of cattle to raise on your five-acre pasture.
It’s a complex process.
But do it for the animals and know it’s helping you too.
