The cost of a Zebu...

[RoseFell Farms]

What do they eat? How much estimated cost per month for 2 or 3 Mini Zubus? What should I expect? Should I start with bottle babies?(I have experience with bottle baby goats) If so where should I get them? I am kinda on a budget, so although I am looking for quality I want the best price! How much room would they need? A lot of questions I know, so thanks for sparing the time to answer them!

Thanks very much!

 

[WildRoseBeef]

Zebu's are cattle, and are quite a bit different than goats, both in how you handle them and how you raise them. They don't climb things, try to find any way possible to get out of a fence, old or new (except if the find better grass on the other side), nor need such a "complex" fence system to keep them in like you'd need with goats. A good solid barbed wire fence, steel panels, or wood board fence that they can't jump over or crawl under is sufficient. You will need to keep them in a sturdy corral for the first week for them to settle down. A shed may be sufficient for them, depending on where you live. (Where are you located anyway?)

Zebus can be fed hay and a little grain, but they eat mostly grass if they have a choice.

I don't think you'll come across any bottle baby zebu calves like you would with dairy calves, so you may have to settle with getting some weaned heifers or steers to start. There are more of those than bottle-dependent orphaned calves.

What kind of cattle are you looking for? Are you wanting cattle for a breeding herd or for your freezer or both? All of this will depend on the price you are looking at for a few good animals.

Zebu are a little smaller than your average normal-sized cattle and probably a little bigger than your bigger goats. Though I personally am not familiar with zebu's, I do know that they will need a few acres for grazing on, and only maybe 1/4 of an acre to keep them when the grass isn't growing or needs to catch up.

I'm not too keen on the cost of raising these critters nor how much they go for, so I will let other zebu-breeders and raisers let you in on that.

 

[chickenzoo]

Cost all depends on height and quality of the animal. Around here you can get decent bull calfs to bulls for about $350, sometimes a lot cheaper. Heifers go anywhere from $800 on up, the smaller they are the more they are worth. You can get bottle babies from breeders who specialize in raising them as pets. We have one farm here that bottle feeds all of them, dehorns them etc... because they are geared more for the pet market.They are suppose to be very disease and heat tolerant. They don't need a lot of space, as they eat very little and are easy to get fat. Mine get along well with all my other critters - horses, emu, goats, chickens, geese, turkey, mini horses, llama, donkey, GP dogs etc. You can go to the breeds official website for more information. My bull, at over 2 years old is slightly taller than my Great Pyrenees dog.

 

[RoseFell Farms]

I would be going for high quality pet, I am not interested in show, just nice healthy, milk providing pets.

 

[lyric]

Literally JUST stumbled upon these critters. We are very interested with only 4 acres and newbies.

 

[secuono]

Literally JUST stumbled upon these critters. We are very interested with only 4 acres and newbies.

Make your own thread w/your questions.
This thread is 12 years old. You'll get more people reading a new thread.