Right now cattle prices are at an all-time high. I sold off a lot of the cows I didn't want early because of it, and got a fat paycheck.
People are complaining that you can't make money running cattle anymore. This is nonsense. Anyone can make money with cattle when the prices are high. You can even make money feeding them on a feedlot.
The way to really rake in the dough is to learn how to regenerate your soil through rotational grazing. I'm swimming in grass right now. If I never see another drop of rain I could graze my herd until September, at least, and they would never know what hunger is the entire time. Why? Because my soil is strong. The cattle eat the grass then they leave it alone until it fully recovers. This causes the soil to restore to what it was like back when we had the Great Plains and vast herds of buffalo running around.
This isn't something you learn in a seminar. It takes practice and experience. You have to learn how to "read" the grass and soil, how to tell whether you are giving them enough grass or not enough. You also need to learn how to manage the cattle throughout the year (if you want to do cow-calf). If you want an easy way to get into it all, start off the spring with a bunch of calves. Run them until you run out of grass, then sell them back. Easy money.
The people complaining about the cattle industry don't know what they are talking about. Yes, we are being cheated left and right, but right now, prices are high and everyone is making money.
That will not be true for very long. Eventually, the price of cattle will fall. Eventually, only the guys who know how to make money without buying feed will be able to run cattle. When that time comes, a lot of pasture land will become available for cheap. You should be able to buy worn-out pastures and cows for pennies on the dollar at that time. It's an opportunity that only people who know how to do rotational grazing can take advantage of.
Get ready for it. Learn how to manage a herd. If you can run 10 cows, you can run 100 cows on 10x the acreage, or 1,000 cows on 100x the acreage. The skills are roughly the same.
What sort of zoning laws do i have to worry about? Does it have to be zoned for agriculture? Any way to get zoning classifications changed?
What are the start-up costs? for example, what size herd do i need to start with? What are veterinary fees?
You're looking for land that is not good enough for row-cropping (corn, soy) but isn't so poor that it is only good for timber. I recommend avoiding areas that don't get a lot of rainfall. (IE -- the West.)
> zoning laws
In the rural areas, there are no zoning laws. County governments are two guys and a secretary. There are no inspections. If you're in a county that doesn't guarantee all but absolute freedom, you're in the wrong part of the country. Property prices are probably too high to make it work anyway.
> start up costs
Like any business, you have your fixed costs and your unit costs.
The fixed costs are the land, the fencing, infrastructure (water, electric fence) etc...
The unit costs are feed, minerals, etc.. for each cow.
The trick is that you'll probably never run enough cattle to make a mortgage payment on any land.
Ideally you'll lease the land from someone rather than buy it.
If you're tight on money, you'll run sheep rather than cattle. I calculated that they bring in about 8x as much profit over cattle. It's a lot more work, and it's not as hands-off as cattle, but you can make a lot of money in a short amount of time.
Back to cattle -- there are various operations you can run. Cow-calf is what most people think of, but in some ways that is the most expensive and really only available to people with cash coming out of their ears. Stocker operations are much more efficient. Look into the different kinds of operations and see what works for you.