If you are planning to raise cattle for farming or business purposes, you must determine first your purpose and what breed of cattle would you like to grow. Because each breed of cattle has different needs to attend to. If you don’t know the kind of cattle you have then it will be a big head ache for you.
When you tend to raise cattle for beef industry your first problem is the adequacy of the area you are going to keep your cattle. The fact that human population is making land area congested thus giving a little space for farmers and livestock growers to raise their livestock it would then be a great trouble for you. Cattle need to graze and should be put in an open field. When I say open field it doesn’t mean that you can have just a few square meters of land area. It denotes hectares and hectares of land area. However when raising a cattle for farming land area is not an issue, farmers can just put their cattle at their backyard for fattening purposes.
Another mind boggling issue is the capital to sustain the cattle business. When you raise cattle for business you must see to it that you have an ample amount of money to sustain your business especially when you don’t have a hundred hectares for pasture. You need to buy feeds for them. Not just food but other supplementary needs of your cattle depending to the breed you got. Contrary to cattle business, cattle for farming do not need that much capital. Farmers will just look for hays and fresh grass to feed them.
Weather is another factor a cattle raiser should take into account. Granting that the farmer has a vast land area for his cattle, the primary concern of the cattle grower is drought. Too much heat from the sun would destroy the grass which is the cattle’s basic food supply. Instead of minimizing operating expenses, cattle raiser would be forced to spend extra amount for feeds due to the scarcity of grass for the cattle to graze.
Disease and Parasites are also an issue that cattle growers burdened themselves. Disease like FMD (Foot and Mouth Disease), Mad Cow disease and other animal illness continue to be bothersome to livestock growers. Although there have been vaccines it still is a threat especially to small time cattle growers with limited capital.
Hence a few of the contributing problems in cattle raising has been laid down, would be farmers and cattle growers should attend seminars and lectures governing this in order to be aware of the arising problems. Awareness is the key for a successful cattle raising business.